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Mar. 14th, 2004 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
misfoksBeing ever curious about the workings of my dog's mind, one of the things I tend to do is watch her as she's dreaming and try to figure out what her dreams are about. Most of the time they're not too hard to figure out, at least in generalities; paws and nose twitching (probably running through grass with her head low to take in the smells), eating, howling at being left alone. Generally recent memories of waking events, since they often correspond to things she's done that day. (I'll often whisper her name or touch her gently if she's howling or whining, since it sounds like she's having a bad dream. It seems to relax her.)
She barks in her sleep sometimes too, something she rarely does when awake (amusingly, she barks with her mouth shut when asleep); other times she has snarly dreams, and again she's very rarely snarly when awake. I wonder more about these dreams. Are they memories from a more distant past? Suppressed urges she doesn't express outside of sleep? Utter fiction, as our own dreams often are?
Today she did something I'd not seen before. At first I thought she must just be dreaming about drinking, since her tongue was out quite a ways and she was making some gutteral sounds I initially took for gulping. But her front paws--only her front paws--were moving, and she was making her snarly face. Then I remembered how she's still jumpy after all this time about being touched on her shoulder or chest while she's lying down, her wariness of raised arms and other indications of past abuse, her fright of children...
Sometimes I really wonder what this girl's been through.
She barks in her sleep sometimes too, something she rarely does when awake (amusingly, she barks with her mouth shut when asleep); other times she has snarly dreams, and again she's very rarely snarly when awake. I wonder more about these dreams. Are they memories from a more distant past? Suppressed urges she doesn't express outside of sleep? Utter fiction, as our own dreams often are?
Today she did something I'd not seen before. At first I thought she must just be dreaming about drinking, since her tongue was out quite a ways and she was making some gutteral sounds I initially took for gulping. But her front paws--only her front paws--were moving, and she was making her snarly face. Then I remembered how she's still jumpy after all this time about being touched on her shoulder or chest while she's lying down, her wariness of raised arms and other indications of past abuse, her fright of children...
Sometimes I really wonder what this girl's been through.
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Date: 2004-03-14 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-14 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-14 09:36 pm (UTC)I try to be a good alpha, and I expose her to good people whenever I can. She's a far cry from how she was when I brought her home, but I think she'll always be timid. What's the story on Amy anyhow? Do you know her background?
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Date: 2004-03-15 09:27 am (UTC)Amy was a stray in Arkansas when she was picked up by the local humane society there. She stayed in their facility for 7 months and then was sold up the river to the Madison Area Technical College in Madison Wisconsin for their vet tech program. They take in really hopeless dogs and try to fix them. She had heartworm and serious mange. They fixed that and gave her to us when she was about one and a half years old.
proud mom
http://www.apocalyptictangerine.com/1ljpics/1amyside.jpg
http://www.apocalyptictangerine.com/1ljpics/1amyblueflowers.jpg
http://www.apocalyptictangerine.com/1ljpics/1amyback.jpg
/proud mom
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Date: 2004-03-15 11:17 am (UTC)Pup liked you too--she has a nose for dog people. :) She's still particular though, and can be shy around some new people. Other times she'll see someone way down the street she's never met before, but be completely beside herself wanting to go up to them. Strange beast.
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Date: 2004-03-15 08:06 pm (UTC)I think dogs can tell the people who like and make the effort to try and understand them.
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Date: 2004-03-15 08:34 pm (UTC)Dogs can at the very least smell other dogs on people. ;) But body language tells a lot to them as well. I've pondered whether she's just averse to children because they just have a habit of lunging at the DOGGGIEEEE! rather than because of any particular bad experiences with kids. I try to tell them that running up to a dog would be like having Godzilla running up to them, so they need to show the dog that they're not big scary monsters. Usually they're too focussed on trying to pet the PRITTY FUZZY PLAYTHING to listen to me.
So I kick the little bastards in the teeth.