I’ve decided (medical professional that I’m not) that my psycho dog more than fits in this family. He clearly has anxiety as well as ADHD. Combine this with being beyond smart and it’s quite an addition to the family. He needs a cape…and a super suit. Hell, he could put Under Dog to shame (yes, I’m giving my age away if you know who this guy is).
After our other 2 older dogs passed away, we decided our house was too quiet and we needed a fuzzy face in the house ASAP. So he’s been with us for a little over a year. We rescued him as a 4 month old fluffy puppy. He’s half Australian Shepherd and half German Shepherd and looks like this, but with a big ‘ol fluffy tail and pointy-er nose:
HOL-EY shit he has a ton of energy and our house is clearly not quiet anymore. Yes, I know, Aussies are working dogs. He gets at least 1 walk a day, sometimes 2. We had a border collie mix before, but whatever he was mixed with balanced out his energy level. This guy is fiercely protective of me during the day. EVERY.FREAKING.LITTLE.NOISE and he is barking at it. Ain’t NO ONE gonna sneak in this house. He does not do this when the whole family is home.
So that smart thing? He wakes us up before the alarms by scratching his collar jingling his tags loudly ( and does NOT know the meaning of a weekend). He STEALS everything. His favorite things to steal are dryer sheets and socks that the washer and dryer decides not to eat/hide.
Dryer sheets are like crack to him. He will follow me into the laundry room and everywhere I’m folding clothes. We have to throw them away in a secure trash can or he will get them and shred them. We watch movies on our Xbox. He has on two occasions decided we are not paying enough attention to him and will take his nose and turn the damn Xbox off. He will also get between me and the TV in our bedroom when he wants attention. I know he’s doing this on purpose.
He is like having a toddler in the house again. He chews the shit out of everything on the floor, especially anything he has stolen. Yesterday, I pulled a flash light out of his mouth that he stole off my night stand. Our intent to have him have free reign of the house while we are gone at work (assuming I get another job) is not going to happen. For his safety and the safety of the house, he has to be crated when we are not home. Don’t jump all over me for crating him. He loves his crate and I will often turn around and find him sleeping in that crate with the door open. Yep, he does actually sleep sometimes.
He is a jumper and a talker. I’ve never had a dog that talks like this. You can seriously talk to him and he answers with quite a long dissertation about whatever it is that you are talking to him about. Oh and he’s a smiler. He looks a lot like this when he smiles:
We did get him a friend. She’s about 10 months old and has gotten bigger than him. We were hoping she would calm his ass down a little bit. We were wrong. The chewing has subsided, but they are the best of friends and have throw downs that would put Wild World of Wrestling to shame. He has taught her the art of wrestling for sure. Now we have 2 energetic dogs.
So when you hear me talk about “Psycho Dog”, this is him. He’s as adorable and loving as much as he’s a pain in the ass. If you see a video of a dog playing pinball on AFV, this is him. They have yet to play it, so I guess it’s not as cute as we thought it was. I need to get him an agent.
