Dogs

Myshka

Myshka is a Shetland Sheepdog. She was born on July 24, 1988. We got her when she was 4 months old in November 1988 a couple of weeks before we got married. She really hated us when we first brought her home. She hadn't been socialized at all, but we didn't know enough about dogs to realize this. She would hide under the table in our little apartment as far as she could possible get from us. It was pretty sad. It took a while, but finally she decided that we weren't such bad people after all maybe just because we were feeding her.

When Myshka was younger she was lots of fun to play with. She would chase around with us and nip at our ankles and do 360s (plant her front feet and whip her butt around). She doesn't do that as much since she has gotten older. That is probably because we don't play enough with her anymore. We did make one terrible mistake with Myshka. We taught her to bark. When we first got her she didn't bark at all. I remember being in bed on Saturday mornings trying to get her to bark. One day she figured out what we were doing. Now we can't get her to stop. I like to think that she would have figured it out sooner or later on her own, but that is only to make me feel better. We created a monster; we have to live with it now.

In March of 2000, we found out that Myshka had a growth in her abdomen. She was bleeding internally, but wasn't in any pain. She died November 16, 2000. She lived several months longer than the vet thought that she would. She was a real fighter. We miss her.

Strazha

Strazha is a German Shepherd. Her full name is Strazha Sobaka, which was our attempt at guard dog in Russian (strazha for guard, sobaka for dog with me spelling things the way they sounded to me). Something tells me that we probably missed the boat, though. Strazha was born on December 18, 1989. We took her home with us in February 1990. She was so little then. It is hard to believe when I look at her now that she was once that little puppy. She is so big now. She weights about 95 pounds. She has weighted as much as 110. She looks better with the extra weight off. Scott picked her out of the litter because she curled up by me and fell asleep. She threw up on everything on the way home. She smelled so bad once we got home that we had to give her a bath. It wasn't much of a welcome for a new puppy.

Strazha is a strange dog. She doesn't want much attention unless you are going to throw something for her to chase. She will pester you continually until you throw something for her to chase. Even though she isn't interested in being petted for long, she certainly doesn't want Myshka to get any attention and will come over and push her out of the way if she is getting petted. There are times, though when she is everything that you would expect a dog to be. It is nice when she will come sit by me and put her head in my lap. Sometimes she will even let me use her for a pillow if I am on the floor. I wish that she would do these things more often.

On September 2, 1999, Strazha died. We'll never know for sure what caused it, but the vet suspects that some type of cancer played a part. She was almost 10 years old. She was a great dog and we miss her.

Dogs at rest and play

Strazha loves to play Frisbee. Myshka doesn't want to have anything to do with the Frisbee. She chases Strazha and barks.

When we lived in Texas we had an old couch that we called the dog couch. You can see why...

We had to get rid of that couch because Strazha broke the springs in it. They aren't allowed on the couch anymore. They seem to deal with that just fine. Probably because we didn't have a couch for so long after we got rid of that one that they forgot that they ever were allowed on the couch.