Nina Stories - Early Signs of Super Smarts

In the first few weeks with Nina, she was so cute and so young that it was hard to determine what kind of dog she would eventually be, but we were inclined to believe that she would be attentive at the very least. Border collies are known to be slightly high-maintenance dogs, requiring constant exercise to stave off the obsessive, destructive behavior. Terriers are mostly psycho. Those were her two most prominent breeds.

Since we would be gone during the day, we initially thought we should train her to stay in a crate. This experiment was an abject failure; every time we left her alone in the crate and left the house (for any length of time), she'd relieve herself in the crate, but then had no place to go to escape it. There were lots of baths. In retrospect, we just hadn't learned about how sensitive she was to isolation.

When it finally became clear to us (me, really) that she was not going to be swayed, we decided to try to block her into the kitchen and dining room area where the floors were all vinyl. There were two entrances to that space. On one side, we backed a chair the width of the doorway into it with a card table on top of it (more of a visual deterrent). For the other entrance, we put a baby gate between the walls, then a second one above the first. So, stacked baby gates, because even as a pup, she had an impressive vertical leap.

We used a dinner date as an opportunity to test this setup. We got her to play outside and tire herself out a little before we left, then we put her in the newly penned-in area. At this point, it's probably worth it to mention that she had been spayed earlier in the week, and due to excessive licking, was wearing a cone around her neck.

I think the anticipation was that we would come home to find some kind of mess in the kitchen, but when we opened the door, there was Nina! She seemed very happy to see us (or very proud of her conquest). The strange thing was that the gates were still up and the furniture stack in the other doorway was undisturbed. It took some investigation, but I eventually figured out that she had pulled on the lower corner of the lower baby gate and found that it wasn't a tight fit. So, she shimmied out, cone and all. That one still amazes me, but it's not her most amazing feat. That comes in a future installment.

So, at this point it was getting pretty obvious that she wasn't going to rest while we were gone, and she didn't have an accident, so we tried leaving her home alone without any barriers. We prepped it by letting her out just before we left, and sure enough, she was good. House broken/potty trained without much work at all.

The next hurdle was a longer day. We were going to visit my folks at their new house and didn't think it would be fair to leave Nina home alone for that long, so we decided to take her, but leave her outside (they had white carpet and we were not 100% convinced of her ability to hold it). She was quite used to the tie-out off of our deck and they have a similar deck, so it seemed like she would be fine. When we got there, dinner was ready, so we sat at the table in the kitchen, which happens to be right next to the sliding glass door. We figured that if she could see us, she wouldn't be agitated, but we were exactly wrong. She jumped up and down at the door (solid 2-3 foot vertical leaps) for what seemed like 10 or 15 minutes, without taking a break.

I started to worry about her little her body, plus, she was crying the whole time. It was quite sad. So, I let her in to give her a little food or something and she just plopped down under the table where she stayed for the rest of the meal. I think that was the last time we had her cordoned off anywhere, actually. She was a great listener and really needed to be with everyone. Even a pane of glass was too much separation. She always preferred being part of the group.

An addendum:

When we got her, we decided to take her to some sort of obedience training. We has spent lots of time (and money!) at PetSmart already, so that seemed like the path of least resistance for the training. We had already been working on "sit" and "wait" and a few other things, and she was naturally a good walker, so we went in figuring she'd be good at it. She was.

Aside from her attention drifting away from us when another pet owner brought actual turkey chunks as a reward, she was aces. The stuff we hadn't already taught her she picked up very quickly. She seemed to be proud of the job she was doing. In fact, when the lady with the turkey would give her dog commands, Nina would do those, too.

On the last day of obedience training, we had an obstacle course to navigate, and she graduated with flying colors. There were tons of treats there, more treats when we got home, and so much excitement! That night, a smell woke me. Then I heard whimpering. Our obedience school graduate had gotten sick, hid in the closet, and then pooped on our shoes. It was an emergency, I'm certain, and an anomaly. I could count her accidents on one hand over the 13 years she was with us. Just amazing. 

Pissed Jeans - Ugly Twin (I've Got)

Do you remember the 90s? I do, I suppose. There were long stretches of musical drought after a strong start in 1991. So much seminal music released in 1991: Nevermind, the Black Album, Loveless, I Wish My Brother George Was Here, and so much more. Genres were being defined and experimentation was becoming the norm instead of the "alternative".

Punk rock, in my mind, had already come and gone. In its wake, bands that described themselves as "punk" went down one of two paths; they either followed the "rules" or followed the ethos of punk. The bands that followed the rules ended up being, essentially, fast-playing pop bands with a smart-ass message. These bands became very popular, and eventually quite mainstream.

The bands that maintained the ethos were mostly referred to as "post punk" bands, and there were entire labels that fed the genre - most notably Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go. In the new millennium, there are heavy bands, and bands that follow the ethos as well, but very few really capture the mood of the early 90s like Pissed Jeans.



It's interesting that a video by The Birthday Party was the genesis for Pissed Jeans. Makes sense, as they were probably what influenced so many other bands in the late 80s and early 90s. Here's an interview talking about the ethos of Pissed Jeans - tell me if it sounds familiar.



And here's the Birthday Party video he references: