What Grace Likes to Do
Grace is now a very happy, healthy and very, very loving IG.
Agility is one of her favorite things!! Coming right in there after raw chicken back dinner and homemade breakfast food. Riding in the car ranks after agility.
Grace is an explorer and loves to go for walks in the woods or in the parks around us. She loves to ride in the car or van, and comes skiing with us at least 20 times per year. She likes snow, but not rain, so she will explore in the snow if she has a bathroom break in the forest if we stop the car on the way to the ski hill.
Grace has a several jobs. Protector of the house and protector of Al. Grace has learned to clean up dishes before they go into the dishwasher and also does the pots and pans. The dishes come to her scraped off. Grace then applies many carefully placed licks that avoid any remaining salad dressing. The result is an entertaining experience for her, and a real sense of accomplishment in making a plate shine before it goes in the dishwasher. Grace and Al are both on the BARF Diet. Bones And Raw Food. She seems to know if there are things that need to be “cleaned” in the kitchen, and it often takes some convincing to show her that all her work is done. She takes her work very seriously, and can be demanding if she thinks you are keeping her from her job.
Grace has become a hunter, and has actually killed a mouse!! She hunted it down on a walk about 18 months ago and came back proudly with the mouse in her mouth and blood on her face. She also has been wounded in battle. Once, she came back to us bloody after a battle with a mouse in the grass. It bit her on the snout removing a small chunk of skin. She also chases all the squirrels and birds out of the yard, and has done in numerous insects that have flown in her vicinity.
Grace will cry and pester and bark if there is a grilled cheese and turkey sandwich in the house, and will do anything for one. We always play a game before she gets any though. Like stay in a sit, or down and stay, or jump through the tire or a run through the weave poles.
Grace loves to ride in the car. When we drive and the vehicle stops, Grace will rise from her car bed and sit up and look out the window at whomever is beside us, and if there is no one, she will just gaze around taking in the sites. Once we start moving again, she lies down and goes to sleep in her car harness and in her bed.
Grace is a very good navigator, and knows exactly when we are 2 blocks from the house, because that is when she rises from her bed, and tries to drive the vehicle the rest of the way home. If she is loose in the vehicle, which is a rarity now, she will get on the drivers lap and try to drive herself home. Grace is always the first out of the car and always beats a path to the front door and waits for you to let her in; and you shouldn’t make her wait too long.
Grace also knows how to fly, having taken two flights with Heather in the cabin (4 hr.flights, non-stop). She was ready to enjoy herself as soon as she was in the parking lot on arrival!!
Grace expects a treat any time she thinks she has done something good, and will do a treat dance when she has pooped outside, to let us know that “it is alright now, I’ve done my business. Now give me my Charcoal Biscuit!!”
Grace has three coats, (one dress coat and two play coats), and 4 or 5 beds not counting the human bed.
It took about 18 months for Grace to learn how to play with another dog, and was pestered by Al for the whole time until she decided it was worth learning dog games and learning how to play chase. The first two dogs she choose to play with other than Al (my IG), were a Rottweiler (first) and then a German Shepard (second). She did well! She still doesn't play with toys much but occassionally will get frisky and grab a stuffed toy and throw it around and chew it. Sometimes she takes toys to bed.
Besides doing Agility, Grace has also given Lure Coursing a few attempts. She will chase the lure, but once she gets about 150-200 yards away, she starts to wonder where mom is and will stop and come back. That is a good thing, because Grace has been trained so that she has a good recall, and will play happily off leash; often getting a long distance away from you. She will always come on the run if you call her. She will even stop a pursuit of bird, another dog or whatever, if you call her. We hardly ever do this though. She always is listening for you, which is a pleasant and safe thing to know.
Grace has not gotten over her total fear of men in dark coats walking toward her in the night on the sidewalk, and we wonder what that is about.
Grace has learned how to tell time. She knows when it is 5PM and will come and remind me that it is 5 o’clock if preparations for her dinner haven’t begun by that time. She will stand up against you, and look soulfully, and if that doesn’t work she will then yelp and pound on your arm or leg at the same time to tell you “It’s Time??!!”.
Grace has had cancer which was diagnosed about 18 months ago. It was a very rare and aggressive form of sarcoma for a dog but common in cats. It was a pea sized tumor on her chest between her front legs. She had two surgeries to remove it, and with good nutrition, a holistic and naturopathic program, she seems to have beaten it. The second surgery involved removing all the skin and tissue and muscle down to her ribcage in an area the size and shape of a large egg. The surgeon did a great job on her as he stretched muscle back over the area he had removed, and then was able to close the wound by stretching the skin over the area and sutchering it together. She healed up very nicely, but she wasn’t very mobile for about 4 days. There have been no recurrences of tumors on the site, and everything seems fine. We are very watchful though and she has had a couple of small cysts taken off which have been tested and none have been cancerous. She has done such an awful lot of hard work to become a dog in the last three years. It broke our hearts to think that she could be lost to a disease like cancer when she had worked so hard to come out of her shell!! It just didn’t seem fair, but what is?
What Grace is the very best at, is being a loving, sweet, attentive companion to Heather and to me as well!! She loves her life now. She is very secure, and very, very happy!! She lets you know how happy she is every time you come in the door and she greets you like she hasn’t seen you for a year when it probably has only been a couple of minutes. She’ll jump up and stand against you, pawing at you and pushing Al away so she can have your undivided attention, so she can lavish you with Kisses and rub her head all over your face, chest, arms, legs, and any part she missed in the process! And after she settles down she will go to a comfy spot and wait until she can lay on your lap, and keep you warm until its time to go to bed; where she will go to warm a few minutes before she thinks it will be the time that you’ll be going to bed. I told you she could tell time!!
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