I Love Lucy

You know those people that think that owning a dog is somehow a personality trait? Those people that think the mundane things that their dogs do are super unique? That's me. I'm those people. So, allow me to indulge myself and talk about the one thing in my life that brings me joy. My dog's name is Lucy. When we got her, we were told that she is a border collie, schnauzer mix, which ended up being very much not true. In reality, she ended up being 3/8 beagle, 1/4 labrador, 1/8 golden retriever, and 1/8 lhasa apso, and 1/8 unknown. When we got her, she was about 2 months old and 12 lbs . Her face was black, and the rest of her body was white with black spots. She had a tiny head with big floppy ears and long gangly legs. She's changed a lot since then. In the 3 years since we got her, she's grown considerably, now weighing just under 50 pounds. Her head is still a little small for her body size, but it's much closer to being in proportion than it used to be. She's grown into her legs, so she looks much more normal now. Her head is no longer black. It's now dark silver, with small patches of brown and white throughout.

Lucy on her 3rd birthday

Lucy's biggest motivation for doing anything is food. Unless I offer her something to eat, she straight up refuses to listen to anything I have to say. She's managed to eat a full cup of dog food in under 30 seconds. On occasion, I've had to clean up her puke, and from this I've learned that she often doesn't even chew her food, she just puts it in her mouth and swallows it. Her other biggest love is balls, particularly tennis balls. She will often take a tennis ball in her mouth and start running around the house with it. She doesn't like to play fetch. Whenever I throw her a ball, she'll run after it and make me chase after her to get it back. 

 Number one on the short list of things Lucy dislikes is water. She's absolutely terrified of it. If she's outside and someone turns on a hose, she will sprint to the door at top speed. If it's raining and she has to use the bathroom, she usually runs to the edge of the deck, pees, and tries to get back inside as quickly as possible. Trying to give her a bath is a long process that usually involves having to carry her up the stairs and into the tub. Once she's in the tub, one person has to hold her in place while another scrubs and shampoos her. Her other major dislike is having things put on her head. If you try to put a hat on her, she stands as still as a statue and refuses to move. One time she had a rash, so she had to have one of those satellite-dish cones put over her head. She didn't move for hours. She just stood there, looking extremely sad. 

Admittedly, Lucy isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Training her is difficult because she's very easily distracted and won't do anything unless there's food as an incentive. I've taught her some basic commands that most dogs should know like "come", "sit", "stay", and "down" but I've kind of given up on teaching her tricks. The only non-practical trick that I've managed to teach her is to give me her paw. This may be the only trick she knows, but she's very good at her. Sometimes she'll even give me both of her front paws at the same time. I think I might have taught her too well, because sometimes she'll come up to me when I'm trying to do work and shove her paw into my hand. Other times she'll start pawing at my leg when she wants something, which she never did before I taught her to give me her paw. I feel like training her to stop doing these things isn't worth the time and effort, so I'm probably just going to put up with it for as long as I'm living with her.