For an Old Lady, She Sure Moves Fast

We have long known that the Bean is set in her ways, and a peaceful coexistence requires that we simply do whatever she wants, when she wants. As far as she is concerned, every “command” we give is merely a chance to exercise our vocal cords. “Sit,” for example, which the other dogs know very well and will often automatically perform if we just look at them, amounts to a slight squat on the Bean’s part with her bum held a decorous half-inch above the ground.

Even our latest dog trainer, who has been helping us with Stanley, figured out pretty quickly who the boss was in our household. On her second visit, the dog trainer was advising us on how to keep Stanley from hiding in the garage when he suspects we are leaving the house.

“Call him to the kitchen after you take him out,” she said, “and give him a treat. Make him sit first.”

She eyed Paco, who was jumping hysterically at her ankles and clearly intent on wrestling her pant leg to the death. “It wouldn’t hurt to have this one sit, also,” she said.

She turned to Mina, who was squeaking happily and doing her best to encourage the trainer to pet her.

“Just give her a treat,” she said, “for, well, showing up.”

We were glad to have the dog trainer’s approval on this, because our pre-trainer technique had already been to tell the boys to sit or do a down, and then look at Mina and say, “You…um, you be cute,” and toss treats to everyone.

As you can tell, Mina has trained us well. The newest trick we have learned for her amusement involves her favorite activity: going outside. Theoretically she goes outside to pee and/or poop, but in actuality she goes outside to look for errant squirrels and to eat rabbit poop. As these are both incredibly exciting activities, she will often alert us to the necessity of a trip outside by barking incessantly until one of us gets up and lets them outside.

The yard where the dogs do their business is accessed via two different doors. During the day when we’re often in the kitchen on the upper level, we let the dogs out through the French doors which lead out to a deck. The dogs can run down the deck stairs and do whatever they like in the yard while we watch them through a kitchen window or from the deck.

At night, though, we’re usually watching TV when the Bean demands to go out, so we use the garage door to get to the yard. The garage door is on the opposite side of the house from the deck, so we just watch the dogs from the garage door until they are ready to come back inside.

For whatever reason of her own, Mina has recently decided that she prefers to enter the house through the French doors on the deck. Upon taking all the dogs out through the garage door, we would inevitably find Mina waiting, immobile, by the French doors when it was time to come back inside.

After numerous and futile attempts to get her to come back inside through the garage door, we soon learned that the only way to get Mina back in the house was to bring the boys in through the garage door, go up the stairs to the kitchen, and open the French doors for her.

On a few occasions when we’ve had to put something away or fetch something on our way from the garage to the kitchen, we have forgotten to open the French doors for Mina. This means that after a while, she will walk right up to the French doors, stare unblinkingly at us through the doors and bark once, peremptorily. One bark is all it usually takes, because she has trained us well.

Tonight after dinner I let the dogs out through the garage door. They wandered back and forth in the yard, bestowing liquid gifts upon certain rocks and bushes, and then the boys were ready to come back inside. I called for Mina, but naturally, she didn’t respond. I peered up at the deck and could just barely make out a tiny dark shape waiting by the French doors.

“Dumb Bean,” I muttered.

I ran inside the house. Because there are coyotes in our neighborhood who would just love a little chihuahua appetizer, I don’t like to leave the dogs outside by themselves for long, if at all. So I raced up the stairs to the kitchen as quickly as I could, accompanied by Stanley and Paco who were barking ferociously and were clearly under the impression that something exciting and perhaps even scary was happening. Was the mailman at the door?

I turned on the deck light and slid open the door. “Mina?” I called. Usually she waits right by the doors, but I couldn’t see her at all. Oh my god, were the coyotes that fast? And why couldn’t they go after the rabbits who kept pooping in our yard and leaving the tidbits for the Bean to snack on?

I walked out onto the deck and examined the back yard. Very faintly, I could see Bean’s tiny body standing in front of the garage door.

I didn’t have outdoor shoes on, and I wasn’t about to brave our poo-filled (rabbit or otherwise) yard in the dark to fetch the Bean.

“She is such a weirdo,” I told the boys, who joyously chased me as I ran back down the stairs.

I opened the garage door.

No Bean. This was ridiculous.

I looked toward the deck again and…yes, that looked like a Bean-shaped splotch standing patiently by the French doors. Did she have a Star Trek transporter, or how was she moving so quickly and silently?

“For god’s sake, STAY THERE!” I ordered her, and slammed the garage door shut again. The dogs and I ran up the stairs and by now I was getting pretty tired. The boys had no idea what all the fuss was about, but apparently barking wildly was suitable for all situations, because they wouldn’t shut up.

I flung open the French doors, and the Bean trotted casually in.

“What took you so long?” she seemed to be saying. “I thought you’d never decide what door you wanted to use.”

Posted by: Supersonic Jane | March 17, 2008 | 9:52 pm
Posted in: Dogs