Mickey, the Demon Dog

Mickey, the Demon Dog, is the stupidest smart dog you'll ever meet. He is smart. He figures out things in minutes my pug, Scout, would never have figured out. We bought Mickey a water bottle especially for dogs. It has a ball in the top like the ball in a hamster water bottle only bigger. We turn it upside down, he licks the ball and voila! water. I worried when we bought it that he wouldn't get it. Scout would never have gotten it. Mickey figured it out in about thirty seconds. It makes carrying water for him much easier since we don't have to carry a bowl too.

There is agility equipment at the off-leash dog park we take him to. He had most of the pieces down in about ten minutes without any training. He'll jump between platforms, run across the bridge and run up and down the A-frame with little coaxing from us. On a good day, he might even run through the tunnel, but that usually takes some effort on our part.

The point is, he's a smart dog. So why is he so stupid? Why hasn't he figured out that Gypsy doesn't want to play with him? Why does he bark at everything?  And why is he incapable of going on a walk without constantly tangling himself up in his leash?

I take him for a walk every day. He is pretty good about walking on the leash, he doesn't twist me up in it...much. He doesn't pull, unless we're back on our own street, then it's "Follow me, I know the way!" (Points if you recognize the quote.)  But, he tangles himself up in the leash. Sometimes so badly he can't walk. If I look down at him and the leash isn't wrapped around at least one leg, I feel a thrill of surprise. Now you're probably wondering why I use such a long leash. I don't. The leash is six feet long and I hold the end in one hand and the middle in the other. That leaves him about four feet to maneuver with, including the distance from my hand down to him. That's a ways, he's kind of a short dog. I don't know how he does it. He's a Houdini. No wait, Houdini untangled himself, Mickey's a Houdummy.

My little dog is a bit of a coward too. The other day a giant (about four pound) chihuahua came running out of a house barking at Mickey. My fifteen pound dog hid behind me until the owner took the other dog back inside.

While we're on the subject of walks, the oddest thing happened to me on our walk a few days ago. We passed a woman who gushed about how beautiful Mickey was and asked if he was a Papillon. I gave my standard answer of, "we have no idea what he is." She went on a bit about how beautiful he was, I thanked her and we went on with our walk. On the way back we passed her again. She looked at Mickey and said shortly, "Is that the same dog?" Puzzled, I said yes and she muttered, "Doesn't look like the same dog." Apparently, he was no longer beautiful.

So smart, but stupid. Beautiful, then not. My little dog is a study in contradictions. He's a lot of fun though, when he's not barking his fool head off.