I had a Black Lab who had a pillow fetish. When we were gone he would take all the pillows ( small type throw pillows ) - take them through the doggie door into the back yard. Never shredded them - just took em outside. We had 3 dogs at the time and no way to tell which one was the culprit. I would retrieve all the pillows - cussing like a Sailor and generally raising hell. They knew I was pissed and steered clear of me till dinner time.

One day I came home from work a little early and caught him in the act. He was coming out the doggie door - pillow in his mouth when I turned in the driveway. He was desperately trying to go backwards through the doggie door when he saw me. I promptly went and collected all the pillows from the back yard - raising hell as usual but this time calling his name while raising hell. He never took another pillow outside.

His name was Nero. Huge blockhead Lab. Lived to be 12 yrs old before cancer got him and we had to put him down. Nero was my buddy - I miss him to this day.

My lab literally just got done eating a chunk of coal he found down by the stove.....

I have a coonhound that once broke an upstairs window and dove out of it just to follow me to work.

I have stories.

Sorry, man.  We will all be there one day

7 years ago when the coonhound was just a pup I live trapped a coon that was so huge it was bulging through the wires on the trap, it was a monster.

I let it out and let the hound loose after it for training. He treed it quick enough and my dad climbed up to shake it out while I held the dog. That big bastard hit the ground and instead of running the other way looked right at my dog and ran at him full speed. I had to dive out of the way and the coon latched right him. So I was kicking a coon that was chewing on my dog's face while looking for something to break it's back with.

The old coonhound at this point had just caught up with us, casually strolled over and grabbed it by the neck, gave it two shake and killed it dead. I had to tear up my shirt just to bandage my hound, the artery in his nose was gushing. So we walked back covered in blood, huge coon slung over my shoulder and no shirt on with one dog wrapped up in bandages.....and passed the neighbor on the way. The look on his face was worth 1000 words.

We just had to put ours down two Friday's ago. I miss him tremendously. He was 15.

He had a little spin move that he'd do after coming in from doing his business so that he'd get a snack, he would spin around really fast and look up at you and if you didn't react he'd do it again. He also had a toy frog that he'd bring to up on the bed and put between the pillows and give it a kiss before laying down next to it.

Lab mix that eats pacifiers - the one under my right arm in my avatar.  The all rubber ones that newborns use.  Aventi Soothie or some such.  Probbaly ate at least 30 of them.  We kept having them disappear and finally realized he was eating them - swallowing them whole most of the time.  So, we started being sure to pick them up immediately if the baby dropped them.  Sometimes he still got them though.  I would find pieces in his shit when picking up for lawn mowing and he would occasionally puke up one or a piece.  On two occasions we had him at my dads house and he ate all of my dad's dogs' food.  Got sick and puked up 10 pacifers each time.  Then one day, he stops eating and is just generally lethargic.  Take him to the vet and all of the pacifiers caught up with him.  Had an intestinal blockage - three pacifiers in his stomach.intestines.  $2200 surgery later he's good to go.  

Now, as soon as he goes outside he eats as much of my other dog's shit as he can as quickly as possible as soon as I am not looking.  

I love that fat fuck.

Posted on my facebook an hour ago

Ever walked by your back door looking outside and wished you'd never looked out. Was walking by this evening and see my female 45lb shepherd mix mounting my 80lb male pit. Both just stop and stare at me like I'm interupting something special…

So weird

Not my story, but it's one of my favorite arfcom threads and dog related.

In my much younger days, I had a hound that believed my Jeep was his mobile Dog house. Never left it.

I got a job at a local Gas Station, some two miles away from the folks house. The owner was concerned about having the Dog on the property, and asked me to him at home when I came to work.

Dog didn't like it.

He soon figured out where I was spending 8 hours a day without him, and set out each morning on foot to meet me, and reclaim his dog house.

Over time, he figured out that he could leave early, check out stuff along the way, and meet me there.

And he grew on the Boss.

At the time, Partying and chasing Poontang  all night was the primary focus of my young testosterone fueled life, making it to work in the morning was sometimes difficult.

One morning I straggled in a half hour late, bleary eyed and hung over, for the third day in a row, the Boss looked at me and growled:

" WELL, AT  LEAST YOUR DOG WAS ON TIME!"

We love Shelties, enough said.

Our second sheltie was a one yr old female that had been sold to a pet home and didn't fit in, so we think that she was abused.  They weren't mean I don't think, I think the abuse came from frustration because she was shy and didn't act like a loving Lab right out of the box.  Eating, going out to do business I think was a problem.

The pet home gave her back to the breeder and we adopted her later.  Her name we changed to FOX.

On the first night with us she found the guest room and after dinner crawled under the bed.  She lived under that bed for three months.  I had to feed her under the bed and tease her with food to get close enough to grab her to go out to pee and poop.

She had a great life with us, although it took literally years for her to trust us and become comfortable with us.

Fox lived 17 years and 11 months.  She passed away one month shy of her 18th birthday.

I miss my fox  

Here's some vignettes I wrote when Chances was a pup.  

--The Refrigerator Fiasco--
Like most people, I hang a towel on the door handle of my refrigerator.  It's
handy for drying one's hands or mopping up those small spills.  Chances also
seemed to develop a certain fascination with it.  Now, it was late spring and
seeing as how most folks around here have a garden (myself included) I had a
refrigerator crammed to the gills with squash, zuccini, carrots, an odd
canteloupe, and half a watermelon.  I had gone to work, leaving her in the
kitchen.  Upon my return, I found that Chances had indeed been busy, as my
refrigerator door was hanging wide open.  Scattered all over the floor were
it's contents, each with a maximum of one bite out of it.  Chances was
cowering in the corner, head down, tail between her legs, and I hadn't even
spoken yet.  I have this image of her tugging on the towel, the door
mysteriously coming open.  In her astonishment, she releases the towel and
the door swings shut.  Curious and somewhat emboldened, she gives it another
tug.  This time it stays open.  And there's all this delicious FOOD inside there!  
Take a bite of this!  Try that over there!  Drag that bag over to the corner!

It was a dirty job, but no one was going to do it but me.  After scolding and
cleaning up, I left the trash in the can inside over night.  Next morning, about
5:30 a.m., I hear this CRASH! and a rooting around sound.  Through my sleep-daze,
I realized that Chances was in the trash!  Rooting through the mess I cleaned up
last night!  Not a pretty way to start the day

And another

I learned that the desire to do the right thing is often derailed by the
temptation of the moment.  Just because you know you're not supposed to do it
doesn't mean you won't.

--The Great Floor Chewing Debacle--
In my kitchen, there is a place where the linoleum had come unglued;  just enough
to pique an inquisitive pup's curiosity.  Chances would grab a bit, tug, pull off
a piece, and slowly an area about 3 feet by 4 feet was devoid of covering.  Of
course, I tried various deterrents:  some kind of spray with a gawdawful stench
(not organic, more "repellant" is as close as I can come) that made my eyes water
and didn't work, my own concoction of water and cayenne pepper (clogged up my water
sprayer), regular and sometimes severe punishment.  

I finally bought the bullet and promoted myself to Floor Repairman.  Bought the
linoleum (nice shade of white), glue, glue spreader, trim, and armed with what
little knowledge on the subject I had, proceeded to rip up the old linoleum, glue
down the new linoleum, and nail down the trim.  All the while, mind you, Chances was
watching closely (not her choice) and being admonished to not try any tricks with my
handiwork.  Took about 4 hours, but at last I had my new floor, and Chances was
surely aware of the consequences of any transgression.

The next day, I went off to work as usual, after reminding Chances about the floor.
Normal day, nothing out of the ordinary.  I return home and, to my astonishment,
Chances had chewed up the new floor!  I was OUTRAGED!  All my hard work!  Chances
got a taste of my worst temper that afternoon.  Eventually I calmed down.  Luckily
(as it were) I had overbought materials for yesterday's project, so I proceeded to
re-do the floor.  Chances again observing this perplexing behaviour.  I like to
think the message got through, I never had another floor eating problem.  I also
decided it was time for Chances to learn how to live outside while I was gone.  
There was this old dog pen out back, and a little 4-foot wire and a homemade gate
turned it into Jail, commonly known as The Pen.

And another

I learned quite a bit about the needs of others.  We require love, understanding,
and a little help distinguishing right from wrong.  Many times we do the wrong
things for the right reasons.  We need the freedom to be given enough rope and
the restriction to not hang ourselves.

--Reflections On A Backwards World--
Mirrors have always held a certain fascination for many kinds of critters, be
they dogs, cats, monkeys, magpies, or even Siamese fighting fish.  I have a full
length mirror on my bedroom wall.  One day, Chances seemed to "discover" this
fascinating object, only she wasn't too keen on that other little doggie in that
other room over there.  She'd growl, it would growl back.  She'd take a step
closer, it would come closer.  This proceeded for a while, with me in the
background egging her on ("Who's that little doggie?  Go get that little
doggie!").  She began making short lunges towards the mirror, yapping, growling,
and coming a bit closer every time.  Finally, the lunge to end all lunges
resluted in her bumping the mirror with her nose.  What an effect!
That other doggie BIT her!  She ran howling to the other end of the house, tail
between her legs, to hide in the corner of the kitchen.  She didn't go in the
bedroom for 2 days after that.

This particular mirror's story is not over yet (not will it likely ever be).
Chances can see me laying on the bed in the mirror from her spot on the floor.
I like to read a bit before falling asleep, it seems that my toes often twitch
when I do.  So I'm laying there, reading my book, twitching my toes, and I begin
to hear this low growling sound.  Chances, seeing that other reader in the
mirror, obviously thinks something's up and she better warn me about the
impending doom.  I sit up, she growls louder (obviously thinking an attack is
about to occur).  I get up, admonishing her to tone it down a bit, and while
staring at me in the mirror, gets her hair up and goes into defensive-aggressive
mode.  The stopper is when I walk up behind her and tap her on the back.  All of
a sudden, she's attacked!  She just can't seem to grasp the concept of mirror
images, and is resolutely convinced that there's this whole other room over
there, complete with a dog and person.

Maybe one day she'll tire of the tirade, until then I grin and bear it.

What the hell, why not.

I learned that things aren't neccesarily what they seem to be.  Just because
something is unfamiliar doesn't mean it's bad, only that it's unfamiliar.  Matter
of fact, oftentimes becoming familiar with something new can be an enjoyable
process.  Don't be afraid of the dark, just shed a little light on it.

--The Mighty Hunter--
For Chances (and all dogs, I would assume) the mere thought of chasing a small,
herbivorous mammal brings a prick to the ear, a wag to the tail, and a gleam to
the eye.  Since puppyhood Chances had been fascinated with the critters living
in the woods in and about our house, and she spent many an afternoon wandering
in search of prey.  Like many dog owners, I always assumed the hunted would be
swifter of foot than the hunter, if for no other reason than wild animals live
in a vastly different (and more dangerous) world than domestics.  This story
begins one warm spring evening.  I got a phone call, and (as usual) Chances went
into her "you're talking to that silly plastic thing, so *I'm* going to be a pest"
routine.  Now, a hyper dog is fun for only so long when you're on the phone,
so soon enough she was banished to the back yard.  30 minutes later, when I got
off the line, I went to call her in.  For some reason, she didn't want to come,
but eventually I coaxed her inside with visions of Milk Bones and leftover ice
cream bowls (her favorite is Rocky Road, but anything with chocolate will do).  
Shortly thereafter, I got another call.  Chances went hyper, I threw her out.  
Again, I got off the phone and called her in.  This time she was at the edge of
the patio, nosing at something I assumed was a stick or ball.  I moved closer,
and to my surprise she had caught a rabbit!  Now, I don't know about you, but if
I was a dog the crowning acheivement of my life would be catching one of these
critters, and Chances shared my sentiments.  I didn't know whether to praise her
(after all catching a rabbit is quite a feat) or chastise her (because I too
like rabbits, particularly living ones).  In the end I was non-committal, neither
praising nor punishing.

Chances has since caught one other rabbit as well as a squirrel.  The squirrel
was caught in the Pen;  I like to think a couple of squirrels were playing in
the trees over the Pen, one lost it's footing and fell.  Chances had all the
while been watching wistfully, hoping for just this event, and siezed the moment.
At any rate, it's now Chances 3, critters 0.

And the last...

--Ecstasy in Dog Training!!!--
Dateline: Tuesday, September 12, 1995, 11:13 p.m.  
I've always been suplementing my verbal commands with hand gestures;  sit
is a downward pointing motion as if to point to the floor behind her, lay
down is the same motion but as if to point to the floor in front of her,
stay is an open hand held vertically, and "got get it" (usually from
the stay position) is kind of an underhanded finger snap ending with
a forward pointing motion towards the object.

Just now, in the kitchen, I was getting a drink of water before bed and
Chances wandered in.  I decided (in an offhand way) to get her to sit with
words.  I did the sit motion, she looked at me as if to say, "not *this*
again;  we've *done* this" and sat down.  I thought, "Hmm, maybe we're on
something here!" and tried the lay down.  Success!  Now to try the more
advanced ones:  stay.  Open hand, move out of room.  She stays!  Come back
in for the REAL stay test:  Milk Bone placed enticingly on the floor about
15 feet away.  Chances watches my every move, intent on the treat.  Again
I give the stay signal and move towards her.  Now I'm standing beside her
with the treat across the room.  This is awful tough for her, she wants it
SO bad, wants to get up.  She shifts position but doesn't budge.  I give it
a good 30-count then release her with the "go get it" signal, she's off
and running.

This is a milestone in training history (for me at least) and signifies that
her "intellectual" abilities have progressed far beyond the physical urges.

Good Girl!

-- --

I learned that perseverance pays off.  [come on, do better than THAT!]

I've told this one before, but my avatar Bullet was a frisbee catching fool when he was younger - would fetch 'em until his mouth bled. His other love was sticks...chewing them, fetching them, carrying them around, the boy loves sticks. So, it is not a super surprise what happened but still fascinating.



One day it's really muddy at the bottom of our yard. Bullet's fetching the frisbee and a bad throw goes a little long and the frisbee hits a sloppy section of the yard and kind of suctions itself into the muck. The dog gets to it, but can't get it in his mouth. He stomps on it, digs at it, but this just makes it worse.



Now, the other thing about him (and labs in general if they're good labs) is that they will NEVER give up on a thing they're retrieving...sometimes annoyingly so if it's something they have no hope of finding (like a snowball). But, that's what he does...if it's to be fetched, he'll bring it back.



My wife and I are sitting on the porch watching him dig at this frisbee, and she says "You should get it for him", but I say no, let's see what he does. So, after a few frustrating minutes of stomping, he runs off to a little apple tree we have along the border of the property, and I see him biting at a branch, pulling on it. Pretty soon, he breaks it off and carries the stick back to the frisbee, and to our astonishment, uses the stick to pry the frisbee up out of the muck, and returns it to us quite proudly. This took him about 15 minutes, from start to finish.



It may seem like a little thing, but he used tools and critical thinking to solve a problem after his instincts failed him. That's pretty damned cool, for a big doofus dog.

I took care of my cousin's dog over night.  He scratched and barked and howled until I got pissed and put him in the garage.  I cracked the garage door about two inches for light and circulation.  The door had a rubber gasket like a bicycle inner tune running along the bottom.

That fucking dog ate 12 feet of that gasket.  He was shitting rubber for a week.

Had a Great Pyreness as a kid. Dog ate through the power cable to the air conditioner. Didn't die. Also, my mom has a great picture of me as a very small kid driving my blue power wheels truck around the yard. In the passenger seat is a Giant white dog stuffed in sitting with me.

Had a golden retriever named Charles, got him from a family that couldn't keep up with him anymore. He enjoyed ripping down the 6 ft tall privacy fence boards. He would use these as snacks, when it was time to come inside he would stack 2 or 3, as many as he could fit, in his mouth. He never figured out what was keeping him from getting through the door way. Loved that dog, miss him every day.

The dog in my avatar, Gunnar, I got from the pound. He is too smart for his own good. He enjoyed going under, over, and through the fence to get to the front yard and roam the neighborhood. We put up an electric fence, which didn't phase him. He would just go over or under it. We then did the buried fence with the proximity shock collar. The bastard would dig up sections of it, break it, and re bury it so we could never figure out why it wasn't working.

We ended up putting in a high fence to keep him in, as he enjoyed going over, under, and through the fence to grab all the neighbors papers in the morning, bring them to the front yard, shred them, and sleep in the pile. After the new fence went in he broke his leg climbing it. We took him to the vet, confirmed broken in multiple places with X-ray, had a cast put on, brought him home. The next day, asshole is in the front yard again. He climbed the fence with a broken back leg and continued with his antics.

He has calmed down nowadays, but he is still too smart for his own good. He enjoys knocking over the trash can, popping the lid lock, and chowing down to pass the time when I'm gone.

Oh a dag thread

we had one named shadow, the poor thing was derpy as hell because someone abused him but we loved him. he would lick your toes as he crawled under the cover. this dog could bark down a lab and not care. he would chew on other dogs ears for boredom and fun. i still miss him every day as i held him until he passed when we had to put him down. i hope my neighbors get payment for what they did to him..


my other dag is a fat cocker dotson mix. he has a thing for eating anything and farting in your face to wake you up.

The Jack Russell terrier I adopted loves dragging all my shoes down the hall and removing the insoles.

I spend a lot of time trying to match them back up .

When I first bought my 1911, me and my ex wifes cousin's husband decided to take our shotguns and 45s and go walk around in the woods for a little while killing birds and just making noise really. My weener dog, Killer loves to go exploring. He decided to follow us, which was no big deal.

Fast forward 45 minutes. We had walked a long ways into the wilds. Then we hear a noise in the trees ahead and Killer goes nuts! He runs off into the trees. Then, we hear a big cat scream. 45s are out and me and the cousin are sprinting through the woods toward a sound and thinking my dog is going to get eaten by a mountain lion.

We get lost bad. No idea where we are after finally giving up on killer. I was certain he was a gonner. We make it to a road, walk for 3 hours. Finally get cell reception. Call for a ride. Ex wife was super pissed i was gone for 4+ hours. Get home. Killer is sooooo excited to see me...

Another time, I had a uhaul trailer loaded. It was not just loaded, it was packed floor to ceiling with everything you could think of. Probably weighed close to 3.5k. I was in granny first in my dodge going about 2.5 mph when I hear a wimper and feel the trailer bump. I immediately gun it to get off of him and hop out of the truck thinking I would see him bleeding out of the mouth and dieing. He had a perfect tire track diagonally across his ribs on his left side. No broken bones, no bleeding and no effects. WTF?

I watched him tear a vermint in half once. That was something I wish I could have video taped and youtubed.  

My black lab mix Buffy was too smart sometimes.

I had roasted a chicken on the smoker, brought it in to rest on the upper level of the kitchen counter.  Specifically there since I knew she couldn't reach it.

Had one of those Rubbermaid step stool things in the kitchen. It was on the other side of the room. I took a bag of trash outside to the garbage can and spent maybe five minutes talking to a neighbor. Came in and the chicken was gone, all if it. Bones and all. That step stool had been moved over to the other side of the kitchen.

Buffy was extremely guilty, gut distended with an entire chicken. But I could only laugh once I figured out that she'd dragged that stool over to where she could get at the chicken. She ate about half the foil too. I only wish I had video of her doing it. She surely must have been planning such a caper.

During a bad fire season I could be gone 3 weeks at a time, then home for a day, then back out 3 more, for 5 months straight. One of my GSDs, Kira, would start to get mighty pissed after a month or two of this. They would stay out at my mom's 5 acre property while I was gone, and my mom babied the hell out of them, but Kira is a one owner pup and hated me leaving.

I get home after a long roll to Montana, and go straight to Moms to get the dogs. I was very excited to see them, it had been a very long summer and my fiancé had dumped me via text on my way home. I get there to find chaos.

Kira has never been the destructive type, but she finally got tired of my BS. MY mom had just bought a pear tree from the nursery and planted it that morning. Kira rebelled, went up to the tree, and ripped that thing straight out of the ground, rootball and all. As I was driving up to the gate, my mom and stepdad are chasing Kira around the yard, who was having a blast playing keep away with an entire tree.

When she saw my truck, she pinned one end of the tree to the ground, gave it a few shakes, destroying the tree once and for all. She then Proceeded to jump the gate, tackle me to the ground and lay on me, crying and shaking.

Mom was PISSED, and I felt terrible, for Kira and for my mom. Ended up taking some time off to take a camping trip with the pups (which was the last thing I wanted after sleeping on the ground the entire summer, but their favorite thing.) Kira hasn't destroyed anything since.

Scarlett, my lab/border collie mix lives with Mom and Dad since I can't keep her where I'm living right now. My parents spoil the shit out of her, especially my dad, but I go down there as much as I can to see them all.

Their house has a big open kitchen and living room, with white carpet in the living room and hardwood in the kitchen and hallway. Scarlett sheds black hair like crazy, and Mom hates it when Scarlett gets hair all over the carpet, so Mom's "trained" Scarlett to stay off the carpet.

Except Dad and I don't really enforce that rule and Scarlett knows it, so she waits until Mom goes to bed and then will go lay on the carpet in front of the couch with Dad and I.

One night after Mom had gone upstairs to bed and Scarlett was on the carpet with us, Mom came back down for some reason or another. Scarlett knew she couldn't make it back to the hardwood before Mom came down and scolded her (and us ) so that dog low crawled around the big armchair, keeping it between her and Mom, clockwise, and then counterclockwise when Mom went back upstairs. She never did see Scarlett, and Dad and I were too shocked to say anything. That's how I found out my dog was a ninja.




When I'm on my way home (I live about 3 hours away) Dad will tell Scarlett "thezentree's coming home!" and she'll go run to the front door and sit there until I get there. I love my dag, and she loves me.

Babe, our black lab "rip" knew how to count.
I watched her come out of a corn field with an ear of corn for each of the other dogs.

Gosh, she was a smart dog.

Our yellow lab Ziggy woulld bring home tree limbs and animal bones and organize them into a north/south pattern.
Kind of wierd

When Remi splashes around in his stock tank he always goes counter clockwise.