In case anyone was worried, Jolie started thriving on her chicken-and-rice diet. I added in some of her regular food this morning, and so far so good. Seeing her cheerful and affectionate and playful again made me realize just how dull and listless she had been when she wasn’t feeling well, and has inspired me to add some more Things About Jolie.
Obedience training has been…challenging. She knows a whole range of commands for when we’re out walking, and follows them most of the time, but “tricks” are much tougher to convey. She clearly knows what the words mean, because she always ends up doing the thing eventually, but I honestly believe that she has trouble with the idea that we would want her to, for example, lie down for no reason whatsoever. So she skips mentally ahead to the part where she gets the reward (praise and vigorous belly rubs) and starts jumping all over the place in her excitement.
Adding to the confusion is the fact that she distinguishes between people. When I tell her to wait, she stops and stands still until I tell her it’s okay to go again. When Nick gives her the same command, she pretends not to hear him. And, of course, the exact opposite is true with her cue to stop tugging on her leash; she learned it immediately with Nick, but seems to have no idea what I’m talking about.
That comes in handy, though: the other afternoon we were running past a giant outdoor photo exhibit that’s been along the Seine for the last couple of weeks (your timing, Mary!). There are a number of “regulars” (artists and security guards, mainly) who say hello now, and the crazy accordion guy happened to be on his break. “Come here!” he shouted melodramatically to the puppy, who was a bit ahead of me at a turn. “Come here!”
“She speaks English,” I told him.
“Ah,” he said sagely. “Cooom herrre!”
“Come here” happens to be Jolie’s command to stop and wait for us to reattach her leash (the actual “coming here” part never panned out), but in this case, it simply never occurred to her that the guy might be talking to her. “Also, she doesn’t listen,” I shrugged, running on with one less distraction.
One thing that I would really like to teach her is that “yoga” means “jump up on the coach and sigh obnoxiously until I’m done with the %#$!#$%&# yoga.” Some days she seems close to getting it, but mostly she just doggedly shoves her toys at me, licks my toes, and/or sits on my hair. You know what’s not relaxing during relaxation pose? A nine-kilo dog trying to clamber up onto your chest via your neck.
Jump. Couch. Sigh. We’ll get there.
Teaching her anything that involves not being near us is going to be a tough sell, though. She may never really get the hang of “stay.” She’s…a bit needy. Like during our recent cold snap, when she discovered the joys of crawling under the covers. I didn’t even really think about it until the first time that Nick saw the routine: she dipped her head, I raised a corner of the comforter, and she burrowed in. He calls this bizarre; I say that if he wants to shut the radiator off in the bedroom, he can just turn a blind eye while the rest of us cope.
Jolie, stretched out against my side in her little cocoon, felt compelled to say nothing at all.