Alfie Gets Crafty

I've mentioned in several of my blog posts about Alfie, our Yorkshire Terrier. He's a very bright and intelligent little dog. I've explained about the Comic Relief ball which he loves. If it's dropped or hit, it makes a laughing sound, which sets off Alfie howling. He's quite capable of setting it off himself. He can even throw it, which seems unlikely, but he is able to set it off. I have to take it away and put it in one of the drawers in the bookshelf nearby. He knows very well where it is and stands and looks at the shelf. There is a footstool near the shelving and he'd grown wise to the fact that if he jumps onto this stool he can then stand up with his back legs on this stool and his front legs on the shelves and very nearly climbs up to the drawer with the Comic Relief ball in it.

He had a Baker's treat tin for Christmas. He knows exactly what's in this tin. He will go and look at the tin, in expectation of getting a treat from it. We set up a game with him, hiding several treats around the room for him to find, which he does without any problems. His new game is to tap the tin with his paw. The lid of the tin has got somewhat bent, so it won't now close properly, so I've had to put the tin out of his reach, otherwise he will be able to help himself to treats. It can be quite easy for him to  help himself, so it's a good idea to have it up out of reach on the shelf.

His new trick is to bark whenever Carol needs help with something. She just needs to move about upstairs when I'm in the lounge, and he starts barking, as if to tell me I should be doing something upstairs to help. Just moving about without it being something important, and it sets him off barking. Alfie would make a very good assistance dog, perhaps for someone who has a hearing problem or perhaps has a vision problem. He could go and find them and bark if the telephone or doorbell rang or an alarm went off. He's good at letting you know what he wants, staring at whatever it is until you deal with it.

Alfie sleeps on our bed. He always has done, from when he was a puppy. Whether it's right to let him do so, I don't know. He can jump up on the bed, he's perfectly capable, but we usually pick him up. Carol sleeps on one side, and me, obviously, on the other. Alfie finds his place under the duvet, where he knows he'll be safe and warm and pushes up against my back. But when I get out of the bed, he often manages to shift his position to the exact spot which I've vacated, often with his head on the pillow. He won't move unless I make a comment. This is definitely one of his vary crafty little things he does. But for a small dog he takes up quite a lot of room, stretching himself out on the bed, but usually he curls up in a ball.

Alfie's Little Ways

Alfie, our little Yorkshire Terrier,  is flat out asleep on the sofa as I write this. He's become a bit of an attention-seeker at the moment. I think he's concerned about Carol being ill. He doesn't seem to understand why she's at home all the time as she's off work, sick. Its strange how he knows there's something not quite right.  He becomes very attached to us both, particularly me. Apparently, when I went off to church this morning, he sat and waited for me until I got home. He barks at me when I come in, as if he's telling me off for going out of the house and leaving him. If Carol is in pain and in another room in the house, for example, the bedroom, he often comes to find me and barks as if telling me to do something about it. I have no choice to go and find out what I can do, to get pain-relief medication or whatever. He also goes outside into the garden and barks for no apparent reason, possibly if there is a noise beyond the garden, someone going past on the Redway or in the road outside. 

Alfie, modelling the blanket that Carol made for him

There are some things that Alfie doesn't particularly like, particularly when he's on the sofa. He seems to dislike cushions, and if they're in the way, he will push them off with his nose. He has a couple of blankets which he likes to arrange into a bed. Carol has croched him one of his own (see the above photograph.) and if it's folded across the back of the sofa, he will attempt to pull if off by clawing at it until it falls off.

I usually check emails just before I go to bed, or watch something on television. He has his dinner at virtually the same time every evening. If Carol has gone upstairs, he will stay with me in the lounge. If I'm on the laptop, I end what I'm doing and he knows that I'm about to go upstairs and immediately barks. Sharp little dog, has worked out that as soon as I shut down the laptop I'll go upstairs. So he barks to remind me, or so I assume.

He'll ask to be let out into the garden and usually goes outside, but there are other times when he gets you to open the sliding patio door and then just pokes his head outside, as if to see whether it's raining, but doesn't go out. Other times, and this seems to be a terrier trait, he will just sit in the opened space in the door and just stare out at the garden. Our dog, Poppy, who died last February, did the same. Another typical terrier trait is sitting on the back of the sofa. My parent's little Jack Russel terrier used to sit in a similar manner on the armchairs or even the back of the seats in the cars we had when I was growing up. Also, Alfie likes to lay on the floor, flat on his stomach, with his back legs stretched out. Seems that this is also a terrier trait.

Alfie is quite good at asking whenever he wants something. He gives you eye-contact . He loves the Comic Relief ball (which I've mentioned in earlier blog posts.) If he wants to play with it, he will usually sit directly in front of you, usually whenever we're watching television, and stare at the ball where it's placed up on the bookshelf. Then, if I pick it up and throw it on the floor, (it has to be hard enough to set the thing 'laughing.') he goes into his backing routine, throwing back his head and yowling (not sure that's the right word.) and also barking until the thing stops it sound. The thing has been running down for the past year or two, so Carol had to do an operation on an older one and transferred to the newer one. I just wish they'd bring out a new version as these things are difficult to replace.

Generally, Alfie is quiet and makes very little noise, apart from the occasional bark. We don't have a door-bell, but what makes us laugh is when we're watching television and during the action a doorbell rings and he barks. How does he associate that with our front door, someone being there or that it requires him to bark for whatever reason? I have described on many occasions on here how, if he realises that we're going out, for a walk, or he's going to go with us in the car, he becomes a completely different little dog, going into what we call 'Tasmanian Devil-Mode,' growling, barking and even getting hold of his lead  with his teeth and not letting go and also becoming quite aggressive and even attempting to bite if you get your hand in his way or scratching with his claws, which can be quite painful.

Alfie is very playful. He has this little game he has with things like dog biscuit or any treats he is given. Usually if you give him a treat, one of those chunky treats for example, he will eat it immediately, but he also does this thing where he will sit and watch whatever it is, then barks, then gets up and does a sort of spin around, pokes it with his nose and spins around again. When Poppy was alive, he used to shoot off upstairs when he was given a treat because Poppy would often pinch them off him. He is somewhat schizophrenic as I've described in his 'Tasmanian Devil mode. Considering that, when we lived at the house in Crownhill and the house was invaded by rats (read the earlier blog post for full details of all this.) Alfie caught and eventually managed to kill a huge rat, it just goes to show how a little dog of his size could manage to kill something so large. It goes to show how plucky a Yorkie can be when confronted by such a thing as a rat.

Alfie has become very concerned if he's done something wrong, for example, that he's done a wee on the floor. These little accidents do happen, particularly if he can't get outside if it's raining or we don't get to open the door for him on time. He knows perfectly well when he's done something wrong. You can generally tell when he's upset because his ears are laid back against his head. They're a good sign of how he's feeling. If you say 'bad' he knows he's done something wrong, but of late he puts on this act of being pathetic, as if he thinks he's done something wrong, when it's clear to us that he hasn't. He's a very sensitive little dog, one of the charms of Alfie. He picks up any emotions we have, particularly at present with Carol ill and at home.

Alfie can be very picky about what he eats. It's no use changing what he's given to eat as he's not likely to eat it. He's usually fed at around 7-7.30 each evening. He gets mixer and canned dog food, usually meat in jelly or gravy. If we're eating he will often come and sit in front of us and try and get something from us, scraps of food, but we don't encourage this too much. But if he's offered anything he can sometimes sniff at it or lick it and then not eat it. I know dogs should never eat of our plates, but he does finish off whatever we leave on our plates. He is somewhat addicted to tea, and if we're having a cup of tea he gets to finish the dregs at the bottom of our cups or mugs. Poppy used to be very tea-orientated and I think the habit of letting her have the dregs passed on to Alfie when we first got him as a puppy.

Getting Much Colder

It's certainly beginning to feel a good deal colder. There's a keen wind which is quite chilly on the skin. I'm putting the central heating on, but it's not exactly the most efficient system. Our beloved landlord put in a new boiler last year, which is good at heating the water for what ever purpose, such as washing-up, having a bath or even to have a shave, but as regards heating the house, it seems to not be up to much. I think perhaps the radiators need bleeding or something as there might be an air pocket somewhere in the system. It just doesn't seem  very warm. Outside there's a definite nip in the air. Oh well, we are into November now and the nights close in around 4-4.30p.m. so it's not surprising. 

The shops are beginning to stock up with Christmas stuff. I expect we'll have the John Lewis Christmas television commercial out any day now. It will be given stiff competition from the likes of Debenhams, Next, Sainsbury's, and all the rest, but theirs will no doubt top them all. It apparently has a budget of £7 million, amazing when you think about it. Although that isn't just for the commercial. It will be all the associated material that they put with it, such as window dressing and general store design and merchandising and no doubt there will be toys as there was last year with the 'Buster' commercial. We got Alfie one of the noisy ball toys, which he loves. It has a 'Buster' face and when you either bounce it or hit it, the thing makes a doggy sort of noise. Carol did some desperate surgery on one of the 'Comic Relief' laughing toys which he loves. She undid one of them and did a sort of heart transplant on another one so it still works, but as you can't replace them, as they're no longer sold, it was the only alternative. The original one must be 4-5 years old now, and they haven't bought out new ones, apart from the 'Dinosaur' toy which growls or roars, supposedly like a dinosaur, but that was several years ago. We bought two of the 'Buster' toys and keep one in reserve so Alfie has always got one to play with, but when we let him have any of these toys he isn't allowed to have it to play with for too long, basically because of the howling noise he makes, and also, because it's got small parts inside, we don't want him chewing it to the point where it comes apart and the electrical components become exposed and are a risk to him swallowing them.

Funny Alfie!

Our Yorkshire terrier, Alfie, is a real character. He has lots of toys which not only keep us amused, but he gets a great deal of amusement himself from them. He has a typical Yorkie habit, no doubt how he would kill a rat (which is what they were originally bred for) by picking it up and shaking it vigorously and growling noisily. We witnessed his ability to kill a rat when we had them running around our former home in Cownhill. One morning he managed to corner a huge rat in the kitchen and he dispatched it by shaking it. This is mentioned in more detail in an earlier post on here. He has a basket of his toys (shared, I hasten to add, with our other dog, Poppy.) He can be most protective of these toys which we have managed to purchase over a number of years from supermarkets and pet shops in and around Milton Keynes. This evening he was playing with one such toy, which is a sort of monkey creature. He shook it so hard it flew across the room and behind the television set. I could only reach it by using a broom handle. He then shook the toy and it again flew across the room. He darted round behind the sofa, came out the other side and bounced- or appeared to bounce- from one side of the sofa to the other. Really amusing. He has a Comic Relief ball, which is bright red and with a silly face embroidered on it. When you drop it on the floor, an electronic chip inside is activated, and it has the sound of a rather over-acted giggle and laugh, which sets off Alfie barking. It is quite amusing when he throws his head back and howls at it. He even knows that if he prods it or drops it it will start making it's giggling sound. This ball is kept on the bookshelf in the lounge and he knows exactly where it is kept, and when he wants to play with it he will go to the shelf and stand with his front paws on the top of the first shelf and stare at it until you take the ball down from it's place and drop it on the floor.We don't allow this much more than once a day as his bowing can begin to get a bit annoying and may upset our neighbours.