The things he thinks up

I've been looking through old emails, and invariably there are emails to my cousin, regaling her on Dieter exploits. Good thing I write them down. Sometimes they go into the dusty memory section of my brain and I forget them. But rereading the emails, they all come back.

Let's see what our boy has done:

I told my cousin that Dieter was in a time out because the human male had again forgotten to latch the gate and I found Dieter in the living room communicating with a cat perched on the chair. Dieter was barking at the cat and the cat was hissing and arching its back. "Do you eat with that same dirty mouth, kitty?" Dieter followed me to the kitchen. That didn't result in a time out, but what did was when he kept pulling the couch cushion off. After the second time I told him to leave it and he barked at me. Boom. He's sitting in his house/kennel, thinking about his transgressions.

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Another time Lloyd was cutting off an overhanging tree branch and had to use his heavy-duty rope to pull the branch down. He rolled up the rope, but left it in the grass while he finished off the tree limb. Of course Dieter stole the rope. But it would sort of move funny as he grabbed it and he'd yipe and jump back like "it's alive." And then he'd grab it and shake it. And act all jumpy. So much fun. He probably thought he'd caught a King Cobra or a Python or something equally fierce.

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I was telling my cousin that when I had let Dieter out before I went to bed, he was standing on the deck, then assumed the play stance, and then sort of skirted around something. He came running back. We'd been told that they had trapped the skunk a few blocks away, so I thought maybe it was some other critter. The next day I saw what it was--a dead branch. You can't be too careful about those branches.

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I also asked my cousin for some ideas to make taking Dieter for car rides quieter. I don't think he's afraid of the ride--he readily hops up and into the car--but it's like driving with a monkey in the car: oooh oooh oooh ah ah ah...and repeat x 10000. I thought a mat would help--that maybe why he carries on so is that he slips on the plastic of the cage and doesn't like the slippy slidey sensation. Evidently that wasn't the problem, as we now have a mat in the cage and he still is doing his chimpanzee impersonations.

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Then there's the email where I'm telling my friend about a Lloyd and Dieter adventure. Lloyd called me at work and asked if I'd noticed the dead raccoon in the back yard this morning. Sure I saw it--you see those every day. Big woop. Really? Did I notice it and decide it was no big deal? He was talking to me as he was in the yard and says: "I wonder if it is dead."

Me: "Stop that. Call the animal control: 420-6666."

Lloyd: "OMG, it's alive!!!"

Me: "Lloyd? LLOYD?"

Lloyd, after a moment of ominous silence: "I'm here. I was sprinting and couldn't talk."

Meanwhile, Dieter was in the yard, happily taking a poo and not paying any attention to the thing. The animal control people did come and take the raccoon away. They thought it either had been poisoned or injured somewhere. A few years before, an injured possum had crawled into our yard. Didn't know we were running an infirmary. 

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Back when we were trying to trap Stinky the Skunk, we ended up catching several raccoons and a cat. For one of the raccoon traps, a Naperville Animal Control woman came and released the raccoon; she came back in the house and commented on Dieter and how she likes sables. We asked if she wanted to meet him and she said yes--she has a 7 year old male GSD.

Oh boy, boing boing boing. He loved her. Well, he loves pretty much everyone, but this person smelled divine--like cats and dogs and raccoons and who knows what. She commented that even though he was all bouncy, he was very light in touching her and didn't try to knock her over. She said her dog still jumps (oy!) and while he loves people, his bark tends to scare a lot of folks off. 

Then as we were talking about how to critter-proof the backyard, Dieter decided it would be a perfect moment to steal and snarf down a piece of ham on my dinner plate. I thought I'd put it up high enough (we'd just dished up dinner when she showed up and I was thinking more about preventing cats from stealing). Dieter got sent to his house for that infraction.