Spastic

I thought I’d break from the usual deep, philosophical posts for something fun and funny this week.

It’s been a year since we welcomed our new family member, Tre (Trey), into our home.

A year!

It seems like an eternity trying to get this guy into shape. I don’t mean physical shape, because he is athletic, agile, and lean. No. I mean behaviorally. I’ve posted about this tough task before, so I won’t rehash it.

Imagine our surprise when we saw our spastic dog who can’t focus enough to train his behaviors, could somehow focus on the television screen! We’ve never had a family dog who could even recognize the moving pictures on the screen before, let alone a hyper one who can’t sit still. Although, with Tre’s high energy, his average watching time is 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Once I actually timed him at a full 7 minutes!

One of his behavioral issues has been FUR-REEE-KING OUT when he simply hears a dog barking outside. Mind you, our across-the-street neighbors have two Great Danes who can see our house through their chain link fence. They bark at everyone who walks by. Our backyard neighbor has a large mixed breed who barks when out.

For some reason, other dogs trigger Tre into yipping, whining, and running around the house. He can’t calm down.

When we noticed him watching the television, we put on dog videos to see his reaction. Odd thing was, he just cocked his head sideways. No barking. No running around the house like a maniac screeching. He just watched in total confusion with his head cocking from side to side.

Until we put up a video of dogs howling.

Now, I apologize for not having a blog where I can put up the video. These screen shots will have to do. Take a look at how he reacted to the dogs-howling video (Tre lower right corner).

Yep. He howled. And it was no brief little yip. It was loooong, and he added a musical riff at the end.

This dog never ceases to surprise us. Our first two Aussies we loved and lost were more alike and drastically different than this guy. I could easily take them outdoors without a leash, and they wouldn’t run off, even if a squirrel shuffled by. It was much easier with them. They only barked if someone came to the door (or a delivery truck drove by). So, having Tre has been a huge adjustment for all three of us.

At least his antics have not been boring. And we laugh more often.