Mouse's Diary Entry: "Being Smart Ain´t Easy"

Alrighty, before some other dog jumps at the opportunity to bark out their thoughts, I am going to call this blog space mine! :)

I am called Mouse since I was a tiny 2,5 months old puppy. In the pedigree, it clearly stands ANUMATI, which is a very suitable and poetic name, because it means moon in some Indian dialect or something, and I think it´s much more noble than Mouse. So, here is the beginning of me - the noble special dog, being called just like an ordinary husky.

on my cloud, erhm, I mean dog bed

Anyhow, I am not going to tell the entire long story of my life, how I was supposed to be racing long distance sled dog and how I, being the super smart (and that one is not out of my head, but my human mom says so) dog, was of course doing so well as a young lead dog talent, until the day the team I led got attacked by a moose and I defended my team mates and my mom by jumping at the moose, but the moose threw me in the air and I simply decided that it was a bit too much and too dangerous. Eventually the humans understood how I felt about this and I became what they call a full time house dog, although I took the time to train and help harness break all my puppies and other young dogs. 

as a young race team lead dog, together with my friend Magpie

Yes, I am also a mother (of seven) and this year I became a (young and beautiful) grandmother of two litters, sired by my two handsome sons, who are talented sled dogs. And my daughter is the new lead dog talent around here and I say she´s got all the brains (and looks) from me, so here you go - I made sure the humans have all their sled dog talents and all in my kids so they don´t have to feel sad that I retired from the sport early.

Leading the puppy team, teaching my daughters Snorka and Modra
how to be a sled dog (they are the same color as me)

as a mother

Anyway, I wanted to say that I am very smart and that I drive my humans crazy (and I like to drive them crazy) very often with all sorts of things! :)

Oh no, I do not destroy things, chew furniture or other silly things that other dogs do. That is below my style. I choose to pretend to be deaf and I love to play games, helping to strengthen the humans´ patience and nerves and help to stimulate their brain function. 

I heard mom the other day saying how she needs to think out of the box when she works with me!

And this is something I want to talk about. As much as I love being spoiled rotten and lay around all day long on the sofa, and as much as I am called lazy (which is truth into a certain extend), I do love to be active. Or activated. I do love to have that smart brain of mine challenged. Yeah, I know, if I wasn´t a dog, I could´ve entered myself into some TV show for smart people, quizes and such stuff. But because I am a dog, it had to really take me a while to get my hu-mom figure out what really makes me tick. Aaah, us dogs, we have it sometimes hard with those humans!

So yesterday hu-mom took me for a walk to the island. And she forgot to take treats with her. And was lazy to go back get them. Ha - so I am not the only lazy one around here! 

Anyway, so she thought for herself, that I will have to go on a leash the whole way.

But once we got behind the gate by the road, she changed her mind and let me off the leash. I darted over the meadow, full speed, right to the lake shore. There were some ducks there in the water and I  had to check them out. 

Mom called me but I didn´t really wanna go back on the trail, I mean, common it´s so boring to walk on the trail and let all the fun stuff around unchecked. 

But mom did something different this time. She didn´t insist on me coming to her and did not keep repeating my name. She just started to walk over the meadow on the other side of the trail!

Now, that was interesting, because the other side of the trail also called for some exploring, so I decided it could be fun to join mom over there.

And what more, she told me what a great dog I was, when I came to her, and told me to go play and explore some more!

And every time I wandered somewhere, nearly out of sight, she just found a more cool place for me to visit and check out. She even led me to spots that she knew I would like, like the little lagoon with the ship wreck where I could walk in the shallow, calm water. You know, I really like water.

yup, I like water

Well, let me tell you, soon enough I was more interested to keep an eye on where hu-mom is and stay closer to her, because she had all these awesome ideas where to go and what fun things to do, that it was more interesting for me than finding my own independent things to do.

How cool was that - nearly an hour of exploring and chasing, and running wild over the mud - field that formed in the bay, crawling over the rocks on the beach, sniffing in the water grass for mice, searching for moose antlers, racing with the flying ducks and playing in the water.

At about the halfway of our adventure, mom stopped and investigated the mud for quite a while so I came to check it out and boy - there were quite fresh bear tracks there! Mom said that I should not run over them, that we´ll come back the next day to take pictures of them, because she didn´t take her camera. But she also said that we should get going and I could feel from her that she wasn´t as relaxed as before we came across these tracks.

She said we won´t go through the thick brush on the way back and she also said to herself "let your dog´s behavior be your indication". I have no idea what that means, but she watched me more closely and when I hesitated before entering a certain spot, she chose to go another way. Hmm, what a different behavior on her side. But in her mind, I sensed her thinking different thoughts. She said that we are living in the wilderness and that we can´t ignore the fact we have wildlife as our closest neighbors. And that we have to know how to co-exist with them, which means not only tolerating and not distracting them, but also being cautious and learn from the nature and listen to it.

Well, I think we huskies do that all the time and I am really glad that our very own humans try to learn from us what we have to say about all that, instead of trying to make us become someone else.

Anyhow, as you can see, I did not chose to fill my blogging space with things purely about my boring life, which was actually my first idea. I could write about how spoiled and mischievous and lazy I am and what a prima-dona I am and how I get so jealous when there are puppies and other dogs coming in the house all the time and all. I chose to be the smart dog I am and to tell you how my wonderful day went yesterday, but also how I totally loved mom´s approach to the walk we made, how she rewarded me with things that were far more interesting for me than treats, and how I helped her to be the guide when bear was likely nearby. 

And because I chose to write about this instead of being selfish, I got a chance to write another Diary Entry some time again!

Have a great day and take your dog for a nice walk full of fun and games and surprises, I KNOW they´ll love it!

Your Mouse. (the smart dog - just so you know ;-))