I’ve noticed he has hardly been mentioned in the blog recently and thought I should put this right. Note that the picture is NOT Rufus. This is how he SHOULD look if we were to treat him like a show dog and not have his hair cut. He actually looks much cuter.
In case you were wondering, he’s fine. Over 10 now and, sometimes it shows, but overall, healthy, bright, etc.
He settled down here in Milan really quickly and has no problem being in the flat apart from the slippery floors. But, he’s got used to it and it’s not too bad for him.
He has, however, developed some rather strange or funny habits.
First there are brown or black dogs that are bigger than him. He has to bark at them aggressively. This is particularly true of boxers. But if they then show the slightest interest in him, he comes running back, all scared. Sometimes I just think that he’s stupid. I mean, surely one would learn that by barking at them they will, almost invariably, come and see what the hell this smallish, grey and white dog is barking at?
Then there is the eating. I trained him well. He does not snatch food if offered and he doesn’t gobble all his food down, but eats as much as he wants and leaves the rest until he is hungry again. He goes to his bowl, sits down and starts eating. When he gets a little full, he picks up a small mouthful of food, carries it onto ‘his’ rug, drops the food and then eats it, one piece at a time. He may do this up to 10 times at one ‘sitting’. He’s always done this since he was a pup. That isn’t down to any training (I’m not sure you could train a dog to do that, could you?). When we lived in rural Herefordshire, in the summer, when the back door was open, he would go and have his ‘picnics’ on the grass. In winter, on the doormat by the back door. And now we’re in Milan, on the rug, HIS rug, in the hallway.
It’s quite cute, the way he does this, going back and forth from his bowl to his chosen place for eating. Luckily, of course, he always has dried food otherwise it would be one habit we would have had to break.
I’ll never forget, when he was a pup and we sill had Ben, AH came to look after them (I think it was our 10th anniversary and we were in Milan or doing our Grand Tour of Italy). He got really worried as he put food down and neither dog would go rushing for it. He started to feed them by hand because he thought that he was doing something wrong. Of course, for us, all our dogs have been the same about food – with the exception of the ‘picnics’, which only Rufus has ever done – so we had never explained about this ‘trait’.
Then there’s going for a walk. There are ‘routines’ that we (us humans) go through in preparation for a walk. First only one of us goes to put on shoes. Secondly, if he’s been for a walk in the last couple of hours, then he doesn’t expect it again. Then, in case he does suspect a walk and gets slightly (or sometimes, very) excited, and he gets told he’s not coming, then he just calms down. If, however, you don’t tell him he’s not coming, he assumes that you are saying, with your silence, it IS a walk, so gets more and more excited.
Then there’s the jumping. As you get his lead (which is by the front door), open the door and then wait for the lift, he has this habit of jumping. He jumps quite high (up to chest height, sometimes). I do wonder how, at his age, he manages to do this. This jumping habit is a new trick he learnt since we moved to Milan. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Not that we actually taught him this, you understand.
And then, when we go down to the lobby of the block of flats and open the front door, he goes first. We always go left out of the door and he always pokes his head out and looks right before going left. Just like he’s following the ‘Green Cross Code’ or something.
And he’s not a dog for water. Never has been really. If there is a pond or anything, well it’s for paddling in and for drinking out of. Not for swimming at all. And if it’s raining, then, if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, I’m sure he wouldn’t move from the door.’ And, although it’s necessary to go out, he tries to stay as close to the buildings as possible to avoid the rain.
Of course, he’s getting older now and I dread the time when he starts to actually be old although the signs are already there. A slight weakness in his back legs. The new lumps he seems to get daily. The occasional stiffness as he gets up from sleeping.
But he has to be the very best dog I’ve ever had (sorry, that should be ‘we’ve had’, of course) and it’s a shame that we can’t have a puppy to learn all those little things from him and ‘keep the quirks going’.