As I sit and read my email Zanna brings me yet another sock….

Let me let you into a secret….

I’m not the worlds best house person, in fact I’m really bad at it. I guess living alone has made me a bit lazy, if I don’t mind then who is to mind that my cloths lay on top of the washing basket… so that I “have to” throw my used socks next to it on the ground? Once every few days I gather them all up and put them in their proper place.

But….. I have a lovely Lagotto girl that finds my socks the best thing since sliced breed!! Zanna… she is crazy about my socks, I must have the best foot smell ever!!!

I never tell my dogs off when they carry something in their mouths. What I do is use these spontaneous situations and tell them how cleaver they are and encourage them to bring the object to me and “give”. This is a good thing to do with Lagotti as they are so well behaved that if you tell them off for carrying something in their mouths you have a heck of a job teaching them to retrieve when you want them too. I learnt that the hard way!!

So Zanna has always been “a cleaver girl” if she has something in her muzzle. She truly enjoys carrying things. She is really good at it, she even picks up metal things with no problem!

Tieka hates anything that isn’t wooden or plastic, that makes things harder when you want to learn further in obedience classes as they later have to retrieve really dog unfriendly things, often metal. Don’t get me wrong, Tieka is the worlds best retriever, and carries things much more fanatically than Zanna, just as long as it’s not metal and doesn’t make to much noise. But it’s not a problem as we had stopped with the obedience classes long ago and concentrated on the agility.

But with Zanna I think I will carry on with obedience. She seems to really enjoy it so why not.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to tell you… sorry got side tracked, any one that knows me knows this is a problem I have LOL…

It was Zanna and socks… Yes she loves bringing me my used socks!! One by one they are brought to me, and she looks so proud of her self, with each sock she prances even more proudly. I think she thinks she is doing me a great service. Well why not, you never know when such actions can come in handy… She is at least in the habit of bringing me things.

And this practice saves a lot of other things being ripped to pieces. You see Zanna will almost always give me the opportunity to take what every she has found from her, she walks past me with a look of “look what I’ve got” and this gives me the chance to say “give” which she then dose. And if I don’t… well then the piece of paper, or even worse the post, is hers and she will start to tear it up in her basket. I then yell at her and she stops and comes and brings it to me, admittedly perhaps with one or two corners less (she is quick!) but that’s better than a hundred pieces…..

Oh this story reminds me…. Even more embarrassing. When Ziegor (Zanna’s brother) still lived with us I had 2 nice puppies retrieving my dumped socks, but even worse things….. yes I’m sure you have guessed, I need say no more, and they enjoyed this even more if I had visitors. In those days I learnt to tidy up!!! Or at least close all doors LOL.

Hmmm I guess a man around the house really dose help to keep things tidy.