another lackey handling tip

There will be mornings when your lackey doesn’t have to bolt out of the house after delivering your breakfast, these are the days where they will not be away from home all day and can give you more tickles. To get yourself in the good books (a happy lackey is an obedient lackey), here’s a little something I’ve used to good effect. When the lackey is asleep and the noise that makes them get moving each morning hasn’t happened, you can have naps on THEIR bed. Most lackeys complain about not liking being jumped on while asleep so the trick is to not spook them. Using your front paws only, stand up and check out where the lumpy bits are under the covers. Jump up on a flat bit of their bed and you should miss jumping onto any bits of your lackey. Carefully walk up the bed and lay down gently very close to your lackey. Snuggle and wriggle until you are tight against them – this technique works best if the lackey is on their side and facing you. One or either lackey foreleg will probably be available nearby – use it as a pillow. When the sleepy lackey cracks an eye open long enough to check which bit of you is on their arm, give them the big “gotta love me” look and blink like you’re tired. Now your lackey may be too asleep to respond verbally and may only shift a little to place the other arm across you. Victory! If they are too tired to grumble, they are too tired to make you move off! You may now take a nap on the most comfortable sleeping surface in the whole house, sure in the knowledge that your lackey-pillow is not going anywhere any time soon.

reward your lackey - maybe

Some weeks, they will miraculously know which treat you are bouncy for, they will feed you on time and the right amount, they will walk you and let you steer and just generally not cause any problems. When you get a few days like this, you may wish to reward your lackey - maybe. Now, not being tall enough or having opposable thumbs limits our options, canines, but humans are stupid and emotional upright monkeys – treat them as such. When your lackey sits down to watch the noisy thing in the corner or listen to rhythmic noise or run their eyes over those bunches of paper, you’ve got them right where you want them. Hopefully, they have decided to sit on the covered lounge that you are allowed on. (note: this tip also helps to get permission to sit on more comfy things) Hop up beside them, give them the same big “gotta love me” looks that get your more food, then gently lay down very close to them and get as much of yourself as you can onto one of their legs. Chest up should work beautifully. When they look down or shift their foreleg out of the way, keep eye contact, wiggle to a comfy spot and (here’s the hook) slowly lower your jaw down to rest on their leg between your paws. You’ll know you’ve struck just the right pose if you hear your lackey go awwwwwwwww. Got them! You may now sleep or clean your paws with a comfy pillow kept nice and warm by warm blood in constant movement and the lackey will think you have given them a wonderful gift. Be careful though, if you rip their leg coverings or scratch your arse a bit vigorously, they may pick you up and shift you against your will.

Steering your lackey tips and tricks

When you take your lackey for a tow around the suburb, there can be the moment when a conflict of expectations makes things a little difficult. You’ve all been there – you get to the corner at the bottom of the street and the lackey thinks it’s time to head home and you want to go check your pee-mail at the park. The lackey may attempt to steer you back or in any direction other than the one in which you wish to go. But what can you do to change their mind? They have a higher centre of gravity, are taller and out-mass you. Ha! Easy. You have one end of a lead and they have the other, right? Your closeness to the ground and number of legs comes in very handy as you can pull the “wrap around” manoeuvre – stand still right in front of your lackey to make them stop, quickly bound around them to wrap the lead around their legs (below the knee preferred). The lackey can now not move without falling (if they do, lick them to death). When the lackey bends down to untangle their legs, take this division of attention to carefully walk the lead out to its measure in precisely the direction you wish to go. As the lackey stands back up, pull suddenly on the harness to momentarily unbalance them and then charge off to anywhere you want to go. They will have no choice but to follow or dislocate a shoulder. Stopping suddenly right in the middle of their next step can also unbalance them and re-orientate them. But be warned, miss-time this and they’ll step on you before they notice you are underneath their feet.

water

I was deceived. I don’t like water or the green thing the lackey waves over the garden to spread it around when it doesn’t fall out of the sky often enough. The lackey knows this as I have chewed off all the bright, hard things that join the green soft rope to the wall and we have been working on a de-sensitising program to get me comfortable enough with the water spray that I can walk up to the lackey for a scratch when she is waving it at the garden. All was going well until tonight. I had used the marrow bone previously mentioned to exercise my jaw a bit during the afternoon and the rotten coating on the now very green bone rubbed all over my neck and face. I smelled divine and any canine would have been proud to call me friend but the lackey did not agree. So during our session of sneaking in for a scratch during the water the garden time, the lackey completed the required scratching and congratulating for bravery and then grabbed my collar and gave me a light spray. The absolute, two-legged walking, talking idiot monkey! I had a good mind to eat one of her shoes just for kicks. She even told me not to be such a baby about it. It was WATER! Seriously, what the hell was she thinking? That’d I dance a bit and let her keep going?! I pelted inside straight away and then changed my mind and went and found the bone and smellied myself up again. The lackey must have got the message that I was not best pleased as I got more cuddles and a treat after. I’d call her a bitch but that maligns half my species.

Dylan's first visit

Dylan and his lackey came to my house today. It was his first visit here so I let a few things slide – getting pats from my lackey, sitting in my lounge room, sitting on the blue end of the spare lounge. I started to get annoyed when he sat on the black end of the spare lounge as that’s my sleepy nap-time spot. I lost it when he tried to get his lackey to play tog-of-wars with him using MY rope. The lackey was preparing our evening meal at the time and didn’t see and it was all over by the time she got there but Dylan and his lackey got a time out in the backyard and I got a big “it’s alright” pat from both lackeys. How disrespectful to my things was that? Really! Okay, so it was a week old rope and was frayed from where I had tried to chew through the middle but I think it was fair that in the reprimand I didn’t make either of them bleed. If they’d picked up the new one…

tired lackey

A tired lackey is a useless thing that just sits around the lounge room asking me to be still. I took pity on the poor thing last night and let her sleep for more than half the small dark hours and didn’t jump on her legs until after she was awake this morning. I know, I know, far too generous but sometimes you have to give with one paw so you can take with the other. She will be playing tug-of-war with me for HOURS tonight. I guess if I want my exercise, the lackey has to be conscious. Trade-off, everything’s a trade-off. Bark less as the sun goes down, get more private time in the yard. Keep quiet at the darkest part of the night and get more play time the next day. I’ll try this for a few days and see if my lackey’s behaviour improves. If not, it’ll be back to nap, go mental, wake the lackey, pretend to need to go outside, make her open the door, look at the deck, come back in and go back to my bed while the lackey swears and bumps into things and mutters about not getting enough sleep. Yes, that sounds like a nice plan.

still the same bone

The marrowbone I was given ages ago has finally aged well and I have started eating it. The marrow only needed a few days to ripen but the bone took the required full week. It was on that lovely balance point of just about to turn from greeny-red to green and that’s the perfect moment to begin. I ate one end off entirely and decided to leave the rest – no use hurrying perfection. The lackey noticed it coming back in from our tow around the houses. She waved at it and asked me something but she should have known better than to expect me to answer her. Still they keep trying, bless ‘em. They keep talking toward you as though you give half a dead rat about whatever it is they feel the need to whine about. One of these days, she’ll catch me in the wrong mood and I’ll whine back.

Dylan is a dog

We went back to see Dylan today. The lackey is an idiot. She buckled me into the car for the drive over and then made the mistake of stopping off to buy lunch for herself and her litter-mate. I could see her the whole time as she picked a car park right in front of a glass fronted shop, so I decided to toy with her. I timed it beautifully. I swapped from my seat to hers a few times while she watched as the harness clip has enough movement for that, then right as she turned to pick up the food, I bounced on the seatbelt clip, unlocked the harness and dived into the back seat. The look on her face when she got to the car door was priceless. I was grinning fit to burst as she shooed me back into my seat, clipped the harness back in and hid the food behind her seat. She could have at least let me get a nose in the bag. We then spent a nice afternoon with Dylan and the noisy box. Whatever it is they stare at for hours must be almost as interesting as a pigeon at the window because they just watch they don’t bounce about – well, not much and when they do, it’s usually as they announce “god, he’s gorgeous”. Humans.

give a dog a bone

The marrowbone isn’t going to get eaten by me today either. I’m being generous to the smaller beings in my domain and permitting the ants to have fun for a couple of days.

The lackey is an idiot # 4

She gave me half a cow leg today to keep me busy while she disappeared for the day. What was I meant to do? It was far too fresh and she hadn’t diced it up and put in my dinner bowl or anything! So I didn’t touch it, not one bite. This confused the lackey no end. She kept looking at the untouched marrowbone and at me with the look that said she just didn’t get it. I tried to explain this to her by bouncing around the bone and her and then tearing off inside to do laps around my bowl and then sat at the door that hides the treats from me. This confused the lackey no end. In the end, she just left it there, more because she didn’t want to pick up anything that smelly than because it belonged where it was. She gave me other treats and I ate them to humour her.