More on Siru
Siru is enjoys meeting people. Strangers have to be inspected from up close and people who like dogs are often immediately taken in by her polite interest. She is generally not afraid of the neighborhood children, who for the most part like her. The older kids are excited about her high-speed dashes in the common yard and like her kind, friendly demeanor. Some of the younger children sometimes fear her because she is black in color, moves very quickly and quietly and is larger than them. The dirtiest kids have been known to receive kisses which are not always met with enthusiasm.
Siru is also keenly intelligent and has an excellent memory. It would be nice to have a dog who could be fooled twice in the same manner but with Siru this is not possible. If something is unpleasant she will remember it for months, and suspect us of trying the same unpleasantness again.
Siru is strongly opinionated and sees things very uncompromisingly as either great or terrible. Here is a sampling of her opinions:
Object / Event Opinion Notes
------------------------------------------------------------
Food Great Let's have some immediately !
Walks Great What are we waiting for, let's go !
Running Great Catch me if you can !
Car Terrible Unngh... I need a barf bag...
Medicine Terrible Are you trying to poison me ?
Medicine hidden Great Yum !
in cheese/ham/
liver pate
Brushing teeth Terrible Unpleasant
Toothpaste Great It's almost like... food
Clipping toe nails Terrible Requirements: 1 set of sharp toe
nail cutters, 1 squad of riot police
in full gear
She will bend over backwards in order to get at desirable things. But she will attempt to avoid terrible things by slinking away and slipping into a convenient hideout (under the kitchen table, or into the sauna) until the heat dies down.
When Siru moved in with us she was already over a year old so we had no influence on her training as a puppy. But we are happy to report that despite spending her first year at Kristull Kennel where she could not possibly have received the kind of individual attention a puppy receives at a home, Siru came to us fully prepared for life as a member of a family. She knew all the basics and has learned more since then.
Siru is a bit headstrong and feels no compulsion to obey us just because we are pack leaders. Therefore our training of her has been focused on a Motivational Training System, i.e. outright bribery. We've tried to plant in her an impression of impending culinary rewards if she complies with our requests. She learns fast when she wants to and the results have been encouraging.
Though Siru was no longer at the peak of her destructiveness when she moved in with us, we nevertheless expected more damage to our property than what has actually occurred. She has numerous toys and bones and such and literally tears through some of them. But only our armchairs' wooden arms and the cats' climbing tree have been slightly gnawed upon and Salla's sunglass case suffered somewhat but is still usable. Occasionally Siru will carry our things - shoes, kitchen cutlery, video and TV remote controllers, cellular phones and such - to her bedside but thus far she has not caused any damage to any of them. She just seems pleased when we take them away from her, it must be a fun game.
Siru is not above stealing food if the occasion presents itself but will resist the temptation when we are around. One day Salla forgot a dirty plate on the kitchen table... the table is a bit too high for Siru to reach comfortably. Being a practical dog she leapt onto the table and stood on it licking at the plate when Salla returned downstairs... again, nothing was broken. At another time she noticed a small plastic bag of yoghurt-coated fruit bits in Salla's purse. Finding she was alone downstairs, Siru promptly stole the bag and carried it to her bed. There she carefully munched at the bag to get an idea of the taste. But she did not chew through the plastic in order to actually get at the goodies.
In many homes sighthounds simply lie around the house asleep, waiting for the next walk and/or meal. But in our house no such freeloaders can be tolerated - we only provide a home for pets who earn their keep. Therefore we have assigned to Siru the demanding duty of keeping our house free of hares. In the picture above, she can be seen performing this important mission. In the picture below, Rose the cat and Hippu are vigilantly guarding the house against marauding brown mice and rabbits, respectively. As visitors will testify no brown mice, rabbits or hares are in evidence in our home so the pets seem to be doing at least a decent job.
Siru's favorite sleeping places include the two armchairs, our livingroom sofa, her own mattress, and Hippu's mattress upstairs. On hot days she will nap on the porch or on the cool floor of the kitchen or the sauna. The absolutely best sleeping place is of course our bed but animals are not usually allowed there.
The internal dynamics of our cat/dog pride/pack are interesting. In the pecking order we humans come first, then comes Wilbur the cat, then the other cats, and lastly the two dogs. Until now Hippu has been the elder and therefore leading dog but now Siru is trying to usurp this position, using her greater size and audacity to good advantage. Since both dogs are good-natured there will be no violence in this contest but frankly we like the present order of things and it would be nice to have it continue.
But no matter who ends up top dog, she will still be below even this tiny, three-kilogram (6.6 lbs) female cat, Nöpö. We have seen how if Nöpö sleeps in Siru's favorite armchair, as in this picture, Siru will look unhappy and whimper, but will be unable to do anything about the little cat. Our cats are very fond of the dogs and never cease to confuse them by rubbing their faces on the dogs' muzzles. Sometimes Siru returns the favor by licking the cat's face.
When we watch TV Siru will typically curl up against us on the sofa. Being physically in touch with us while sleeping seems very important to her. She will sometimes put her head on our lap or knee, a very Whippet-like thing to do.
Sleeping is not only one of Siru's favorite pastimes but also a way of escaping from difficult situations. For instance when we visit friends' houses their dogs will typically pay a lot of attention to Siru, sniffing at her and staring at her. Siru's standard response to this uneasy situation is to doze off within a quarter of an hour of arrival at the place of visit, secure in the knowledge that when we leave we will take her along. She has been known to sleep through visits to Whippet and Deerhound kennels and even through entire dog shows ! At one recent dog show she slept for at least seven hours, completely oblivious to everything that was going on around her.
Our sofa does not usually look this tasteless - when these pictures were taken the cover was in the wash after one too many encounters with filthy sighthounds.
Siru enjoys being petted. On the sofa she will offer her chest and belly for petting and look really pleased and smack her lips when someone pays attention to her. If we are in another room she will eventually come to us to check that we are still there.
When Siru becomes excited, for instance when mealtime or time to go out for a walk approaches, she prances around the house, clacking her teeth and smiling at us. What are we waiting for, she seems to be asking, it is time to let me loose !
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