Annie Queen of Scots and Scots - a love story

The toddler-dog has managed to survive his first three months at Casa McTracy. Here are some tidbits of news:

Scotty has developed an obsession with bird poop that requires him to pee on every sidewalk splat. This is not all bad, in that it slows him down somewhat.

He has also developed a technique of running with all four feet ahead of his nose, in order to keep them from being nipped by Annie while playing keep-away. I will attempt to catch it with my still camera one of these days, because it is f*cking funny.

I must also capture the look on Annie's face while she is humping Scotty. I know the books say it is all about domination, but if you could see the look on her face, you know it must feel gooooood.

Scotty has been forgiven for breaking almost all of my prized Japanese glass fishing floats the first time we left them in the house alone. They must have been having some kind of wild party in the dining room to be able to knock them out of a big-ass basket on a table with such force that they shattered on deep shag carpet. However, the dogs are now banned to the sunroom whenever we leave the house.

They have developed a system of chewing rawhide wherein they chew their own piece for awhile, then Scotty stands up, barks once, and they switch pieces. This goes on every ten minutes or so until one of the rawhide pieces is gone, and then all hell breaks loose over the last one. It seems to work for them.

Scotty likes to play catch. Annie does too, but can't keep up with Scotty, so she just ends up assaulting him mercilessly. Scotty will continue playing with Annie attached by her teeth to some part of his body, until she finally tackles him and grabs him by the throat (okay, large mass of hair in the vicinity of his throat), at which time he rolls over on his back and appears to revel in the beating. Oddly enough, if we invite Scotty to play catch when Annie is not around, he will go looking for her and make her join him. If she won't, he loses interest. Go figure.

In the evenings, when we are curled up in the living room, I am a little less likely now to pad into the kitchen for a little something-something, because every time I get up Scotty jumps up, like, "yay, where are we going to now, boss?" and I have to explain to him that I am getting something for myself, and uh...not for him. Sorry. Get back! And so on. And then it takes him another 20 minutes to relax and curl back up. Geez. All that for a fun-size York peppermint patty.

Collies generally are not aware that their noses continue a good half-foot beyond their eyes. A nice long nose is good planning if you need to keep the old grey matter intact whilst nipping kicky cows and sheep in the pasture, but tends to make them appear much less graceful in an indoor environment. They are always whacking their noses on kitchen corners and walls. It makes for some free entertainment (not counting food, fencing and vet bills, I guess), but I sometimes wonder if they get little bruises on their shnouts under all that hair...