Tuffy in Action!

 Your Monday Photo Shoot: Action! Catch something or someone in the middle of movement. If needed, explain what we're seeing. It can be anything: People, pets, animals, machines -- just catch them on the move.
These bear repeating:

Tuffy runs!


Tuffy chases her tail!




I'll try to improve on these tonight.



Okay, Tuffy didn't really understand the game of "Tuffy, run toward my camera!"  And the camera didn't understand the game, either.  I got a lot of shots of empty back yard as the camera waited until that orange-tan shape that it couldn't focus on was out of the way.  But here's the best of the ones I got:


Bonus!  I discovered Windows Movie Maker tonight.  I was able to add titles to my little Tuffy film, and still end up with a smaller file size than the original AVI.  Here's the link:
Tuffy in Action!
Karen

Tuffy Toro, Superstar

 People seem to like Tuffy Toro (or, at least, her pictures), so here's my little tribute to our current dog.



Tuffy was, as my husband puts it, "a pass-around puppy," or, as he also put it, a "puppy in peril." As best we can determine, Tuffy went from wherever she was born to the Animal Control shelter, was picked up by A, given to A's relative, returned to A, passed on to my co-worker D until a proper home could be found, and then taken in by me while John was out of town and my mom was getting ready to move into her own place after a year with us.  That's a lot of homes in a short time for a puppy who was, by veterinary estimate, only about 6 weeks old when we got her.  No wonder she's so insecure!

And she was definitely insecure.  At D's apartment she barked and ran away and hid under furniture.  At our place the first week, she chewed up the loveseat and the leather couch and tore a strip off the wallpaper.  John almost insisted on getting rid of her.  Instead he agreed to spend about $500 on obedience training with Karyn Garvin. (Yes, I recommend her.)

Tuffy Toro (named after the mascot of the Tucson Toros baseball team, since renamed and in some ways ruined) turned out to be a smart little dog, albeit not as smart as Jenny Dog (1979-1989), a.k.a. Princess Guinevere of Westcott Street.  Tuffy did well in the training, and never chewed furniture again.  She's also the first dog I've had who's not a trash hound. Unfortunately, she's never gotten over her fear of strangers, or even of people she's seen with some frequency.  During our 2003 and 2004 trips out of town, Tuffy never stopped barking and running away from Kevin when he came over to feed her.  She does a little better than that on occasional trips to the off-leash dog area at Reid Park, where at least she doesn't bark at anyone.  She's a little afraid of the other dogs, though.

We don't really know what Tuffy is, breed-wise.  She has a chow's purple tongue, but she's got short fur and she's not very big. Any ideas, people? 

The best things about her are that she's very gentle and sweet with John and me, she's very smart about interspecies communication, and she doesn't chew things or play Houdini.  The worst things about her are her year-round shedding and her insecurity.  She often comes to us for reassurance, and runs away at sudden movements and loud noises, anything from John using his angry voice to the rustle of paper.  Kitchen noises that bring most pets running for a handout usually send Tuffy in the other direction. The very best thing about Tuffy is that she's our dog.

Karen

Five Things That Dogs Are Telling You
Had Dog, Did Travel

Tags: Dogs, Tuffy

Five Things That Dogs Are Telling You

Weekend Assignment #17: Through some unexplained miracle, your pet or pets gain the mental capacity for speech for exactly the length of a single sentence. What do you think that sentence would be and why?

"Give me what I want!"

What Tuffy wants is obvious - a scratching, gobs of meat, air conditioning and freedom at the same time (we only have single-room a/c) , to go to the "other" outside where it's not raining, or reassurance after a sudden noise. She doesn't need to talk, really, because she gets her message across just fine.

Extra Credit  You get one question to ask your pet that (presumably) it would answer. What's the question?

"What can I do to convince you to eat your dog food?"

reprinted from Karen's Credos & Curios:

Five Things That Dogs Are Telling You
1.  Don't forget the dog.
2.  More, please.
3.  Don't hurt me; I'm only a puppy.
4.  I'd really rather not do that.
5.  Hey! Intruder alert!

Noodle (the trouble dog)

1985-2001

Photo by J Blocher

Tuffy Toro (born 1996)

Photo by J Blocher

Karen.

P.S. Two more Tuffy pictures added by popular demand!

Tags: Dogs, Tuffy, Weekend Assignment

Had Dog, Did Travel

Jenny, bed and van, 1986. Photo by John Blocher.

This is Princess Guinevere of Westcott Street, better known as Jenny Dog, Jen-Jen, Trouble Dog or even Dognose. She was the first and smartest dog I ever had. When I heard about the dog with the large vocabulary on NPR today, I thought of Jenny immediately.

She arrived under my slumlord ex-boyfriend's jacket in 1978, the progeny of Bob's hideous curly-haired gray dog whose name I've since forgotten. Bob called my puppy Princess. I lived on Westcott Street and was a T.H. White fan, so now you know where the long version of her name came from.

When she was a puppy, Jenny used to come with me on the 15 minute walk to Liz's house. Syracuse University paid me $10 a week to read textbooks to Liz, a blind grad student at the School of Social Work. Once when I tried letting Jenny go outside on the honor system, she immediately took off for Liz's place. I had to get dressed and follow her there.

Jenny was the mascot of my used record store, Rockarama (1979-82). One day, a meter reader threatened to kill her because she barked at him. I called and reported him to the gas company. Jenny's favorite Christmas present, aside from food, was balloons, which she used to chase until they popped in her mouth or under her paw. Then she would look at us expectantly, and wait for us to blow up another one.

In 1986, my husband John and I put a mattress in the back of our 1984 Dodge van, put most of our other possessions into storage, and drove around the country looking for someplace it wasn't winter. It was cold and windy even in Florida that February, and the Florida Keys gave me severe allergy problems. We eventually made our way as far north as Montreal, where it was really winter. Jenny spent the trip on the bed in theback of the van, coming out to frolic in the snow at Niagara Falls or check out the ocean. (We really got around that year.) At one point we were following what was left of Route 66 through Oklahoma when the road dead ended at a cemetery. Cows were hanging out there. "Look, Jenny! Cows!" we said, and Jenny barked. She liked to bark at cows.

Jenny knew the commands Jenny up! Get down! Jenny come! Get the stick! and I forget what else. The particular way we had of calling her ("Jenny dog!") got translated into notes (think of the first three notes of Ring Around the Rosy, or Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah Nyah Nyah!), which after a while we whistled to call her instead of using words. If you ever hear a woman whistling those particular notes in a grocery store, that's me calling John away from the magazine rack. Several other voice commands also became whistles, which Jenny responded to just as readily as the spoken words.

I loved Noodle, who came along as Jenny was wasting away from Cushing's Disease, and I love Tuffy, our present dog. But Jenny was special.

Karen

Five Things that Dogs Are Telling You, and Four Things That Dogs Want

Don't Forget the Dog! (journal entry about Tuffy Toro)

Tags: Dogs, Travel

Don't forget the dog!

This is Tuffy Toro, sometimes called simply Toro or Tuf. She was named after Tuffy the Toro, the mascot of the AAA Tucson Toros, now known as the Sidewinders. Someone on the AOL sf writers' boards wanted to see a picture of her, so we took some today. I'll try to get a picture of the mascot uploaded here soon.

Like her namesake, Tuffy can look fierce--cute, but fierce--but she wouldn't hurt anyone. In fact, our Tuffy is a scaredy-dog. Bark and run away; that's her M.O.

We're told that Tuffy is part chow, having a chow's blue tongue. We've never really figured out the rest of her ancestry. She's about beagle-sized. Any ideas, anyone?

Please see http://mavarin.com/karen.htmfor "Four Things that Dogs Want" and "Five Things Your Dog is Trying to Tell You." And if you see my dog, be vewy vewy quiet. She hates loud noises, except for her own barking!

Karen

Hi there!

See what you started, Shelly? This is just a quick hello and placeholder. Tonight I have to look over some team homework, do individual homework and start on a take-home final, all in Intermediate Accounting. I'd much rather be reading a Buffy/Angel novel, watching Season 3 of Dick Van Dyke and eating the turkey roll that's got another hour to cook. Chances are I'll do all of those things before the night is over.

Karen