So today Meitou got to have a food adventure. He got to try some takoyaki!
He was a little hesitant the first time, but he became a takoyaki fiend. What a good boy.
After takoyaki time, I remembered I forgot to give him the peas that went with his dinner. So I recorded that for posterity.
And then, for the heck of it...some video and pictures of his trick in progress. We are very slow at this one. I'm not sure how to get him to go completely around the bowl.
Monday night was interesting. Well, humorously interesting. It all started when my sister pointed out that Amy had rice stuck up her nose.
Amy says "No I don't."
Hmmm. Let me see the other side.
Amy says "What other side? Nothing's there."
Oh yeah?
*sigh* Oh, Amy.
And of course Meitou had to join in, so random photography happened with the aid of chicken.
I still don't get why Meitou always seems so much bigger than Amy in pictures when they are side by side. He is a little taller than her at the shoulder, and I mean a little. But she weighs more than he does and is more tank-like than him. So mostly they are roughly the same size. And yet, he seems so huge.
Meitou started frantically offering his Kung Fu trick and apparently Amy thought it was super annoying. You can see her making ugly faces in the background. Blurry ugly faces.
That's a special face, Meitou.
Straight on face shot? I feel like this rarely happens. He moves his head too much.
Since Meitou was offering tricks I thought I should get Amy to do the one trick she is still willing to do in her old age. Alas, Old Age also has made her kind of clueless so I had to help.
Old Age has also made her more likely to put her ears up. This is not normal. They're normally squashed up against her head...almost like she doesn't have ears at all.
And that rice is still there...
Wait a minute... That's just rude!
I tried to get a few pictures of Meitou standing since I feel like he's been filling out a little and I wanted to show what he looks like standing at profile. But...ohmygosh, it is impossible to get that in a photo. He stands for two seconds, then sits. Because he knows sitting can mean treats.
And a couple from tonight: Meitou sleeping while I upload pictures
@Saya I found it at Uwajimaya, an Asian grocery store about half an hour away from me. I had it for the first time in Japan last November when I went. I choked on it and burned my tongue, but it was still delicious.
@mdokic Aw, thanks! I can get a lot of pictures of him like that. It is becoming his default trick. hahaha
@WrylyBrindle He randomly will sleep like that, but I rarely can get a picture of it. A few nights ago he was sleeping like that at the base of the stairs and I grabbed my camera to get a picture and as soon as I turned the camera on he woke up and flipped over. He is stinky like that. And thank you for the compliment on the captions.
I wish I could have gotten another picture of him last night. I was reading a book while lying on the floor and he was curled up next to me, and then got up and wandered away only to come back with his squeaky snake (with a chewed off face, naturally) and he came and put it on my back and was gently mouthing it, lol.
Had an "I wish I'd had my camera" moment on Saturday during Meitou's reactivity class.. Actually, it was right at the beginning of class. As soon as Meitou saw the trainer approaching he started to yodel and try to pull me half way across a park to get to where Scott was. And then he started to play-bow and jump around like a maniac. And then when we finally got over to say hi, Scott was on the other side of a fence and Meitou tried climbing it to get to the other side until he realized he could get under it. It was pretty hilarious.
@Crispy I think his tail is fabulous, too! I like to grab it and shake it around, which makes him bite his tail and chase it. The only sad part about his tail is that the part that lies across his back is flattened and shorter than the rest, so it looks a little silly when he drops his tail.
So Meitou hunted down an opossum in the backyard tonight.
I heard soft sounds that sounded similar to when Meitou tries to fence fight with the neighbor dogs, but so much quieter and less intense. I had enough time to think "he must be fence fighting again" and then things got quiet and Meitou came trotting inside (I had the door open to keep cool while I exercised). He spent a few minutes inside and went trotting back outside. My father came by and asked if Meitou was outside and I said I thought so and we went to check. And Meitou was pouncing, bowing and picking up something in the yard.
I called him in for cookies and he happily came inside, then jetted back outside, and came back for more cookies. I kept Meitou in the house and my father went out to check on whatever Meitou had...found. Turned out to be an opossum. A decent sized one, too. Not a small one like earlier in the year. We were kind of impressed he had been picking it up.
It looked like the opossum was playing dead, so we left it alone for a while to give it time to go away (if it wasn't dead for real). We checked on it later and it was in a different position and was maybe eating? So right now the dogs (and cat) are on lock-down and can't go outside. Meitou keeps running up and down the stairs going to either sliding door hoping someone will let him out.
When opossums play dead, they aren't consciously pretending- they switch into a sort of Out-Of-It state and can take a little while to come back to themselves. Sometimes they defecate or give off a stench, too. Meitou is a good boy to come when called with something that exciting outside! I hope he smells ok!
Here are a few pictures from Meitou's reactivity class back on November 8th. These pictures were taken by the trainers, not by me, and came from their Facebook page.
I have more updates, I just haven't bothered uploading anything yet. Plus Meitou had a bit of a traumatizing incident on Wednesday (mostly for me, apparently not as much for him), so I haven't felt motivated yet.
I tried to get some decent pictures of Meitou's tail for @Crispy lol. I don't know that it really worked, but I tried. My camera and I had fights.
His Kung Fu trick has many useful applications. Like making him do this:
Some pictures from right before our most recent Open Air reactivity class. Before the other dogs showed up.
Tried to get some video of Meitou's reaction to our trainer, but he was feeling more tame-excited instead of psycho-excited this time. I'm going to keep trying until I get better video. Because it is hilarious.
Last night I was playing Just Dance and Meitou kept trying to hold his squeaky snake against my leg so he could chew it. He does a lot of things that make dancing games really difficult. But naturally, as soon as I whipped out the camera he stopped doing things. Except lying down in the way of everything, lol.
I got someone to come dance around a bit, but Meitou still knew exactly when I turned on the camera and acted like he wasn't doing anything video-worthy.
And afterward we hung out on the floor.
You'll notice in some of these pictures he has a smudge under his left eye. It's one of a few puncture wounds he has around his head from last Wednesday when he got in a fight with a loose dog wandering the neighborhood while we were out walking at night. I tried distracting the other dog/discouraging it from approaching but it ignored me. And during the fight Meitou's leash came off somehow and the two dogs went running down the street and nearly got hit by vehicles twice. Meitou would half-listen to me then run back to the other dog and started body slamming it, which confused me a bit because that is normally a playing move (at least, with the cat). Meitou did leave the other dog once I called his name and starting jogging away. After I got him leashed up again he went into convulsions and couldn't walk until we were on the way to the vet and he stood up on his own and at the vet office he was walking normally; the vet thinks it was a reaction to stress. But now my sister refers to him as the fainting goat.
With the kindness of some strangers driving by who offered me a ride home I was able to get Meitou to the vet before they closed for the evening and after a look-over they determined that Meitou was mostly fine aside from a few puncture wounds on his head that didn't look too bad. He was a bit sensitive about the one on his ear.
I did discuss it with Meitou's reactivity trainer to talk about some concerns. Meitou seems pretty usual, though. He still did well in his class the Saturday afterward and seemed happy to see his "friends" (aka, the other dogs in class).
I want to say Meitou was feeling the music, but....
...probably not?
The fact Meitou's trainer can scratch Meitou's hips impresses me. Very few people are actually privileged to scratch Meitou in that spot.
A couple pictures from class during our free roaming period. We try to do a lot of fake dog parkour, lol. Meitou likes to jump up on stuff. I wish I had some of the pictures the class assistant took on her phone. We did two dogs at a time in "library lion" parody.
On the way back from class we got stuck in traffic due to a bridge lift. So I took pictures of my dog. Because that totally didn't freak out the people behind me.
Sleepy Potato
Also probably carsick
So Meitou and Amy got to try more weird food.
In the above picture, the group on the left... front (two small meatballs) are ground camel, the middle light colored meat is alligator, and the top meatball is ground kangaroo. I found them in a store that specializes in a lot of organic things and I thought to myself "Why not? Now I can tell people I have eaten unexpected things. And maybe freak them out as a bonus. And if I let Meitou and Amy eat some...Hey! Who else can say their dogs have eaten those things? I don't know, but I can be one of them!"
Special meat on top of rice on top of raw chicken (hard to see it buried under all that rice).
The end results
So the day before Thanksgiving I decided to do a mass purge of the stuff in my room. As I was cleaning things out I set them on the floor in the basement and Meitou decided this was a thing he needed to be a part of.
Meitou says napping with books is the win.
Sadly, this is not even all the books I had stashed away. There are a ton behind me that don't show up in these pictures.
Amy was much less involved
That same night my brothers got into town, and Meitou loves one of my brothers a ridiculous amount. So I took video of it.
First Meitou was outside to give everyone time to bring in their travel things. Meitou spotted the favored brother and did this:
And once he was let into the house...
And from today. He got a new toy on the last day of November.
I mentioned a while ago that I had found a black hair on one of Meitou's sides. I haven't noticed it recently, but a month or so ago I found a different one in the middle of his back. And a night or two ago I found two more on one shoulder blade. The black hairs are increasing! Has anyone ever heard of this happening on other white dogs of other breeds? Or is Meitou just weird? (Well, that's a given, I suppose...)
Tuesday night Meitou caught another opossum. At first he was behind some arborvitae and I couldn't tell what he was doing. But he eventually brought the opossum out into the yard and was prancing around and shaking it and throwing it around. It was a 'possum flingin' party going on in my backyard that night. It took forever to get him to leave it alone, he wanted it so badly. If I told him to leave it he would leave it, but he would not come inside and he kept going back to that poor opossum. When he finally did come in I had to clean mud and blood off of him (ew). He had a few blood splatters on his face (shows up nice and easy on a white dog). After cleaning it off I determined it must have come from the opossum because Meitou wasn't wounded at all. That poor creature. Later when I checked the opossum was gone, so it did manage to get away. Hopefully it is okay. And stays out of my yard. I don't want to clean up opossum carcass.
Saturday, passed out after his last class of the year (to resume in January):
But then I started to pester him.
We had put up Christmas decorations earlier in the morning so I had this spare Santa hat lying around and thought "I should make Meitou wear it!"
Fail.
He was having none of that business. He flings hats from his head faster than he flings 'possums.
To make myself feel better this happened:
She kind of looks traumatized?
Okay, Meitou. Let's try this again.
"Hat, thou art my Nemesis."
"I will totally eat the hand that feeds me. Om nom nom."
Even after getting a whole baggie of treats I was no closer to success so I decided to cut my losses and try something else. You can tell I have treats because he suddenly is starting to look a little crazed. It's all in the eyes and the open drool flinging mouth.
Santa Hat Saddle. The new Hokkaido color pattern.
This shows an interesting comparison between how Meitou and Amy think. As you'll notice Meitou is intently watching what happens to be my out-of-shot hand holding a tiny treat. Amy is staring straight down at the full baggie of treats that Meitou is ignoring, lol.
"Treat me! Or I'mma punch you in the glasses again, Woman!"
"Treat?"
Still watching those treats.
Tell me how you really feel, Meitou.
Meitou does not model the hat. The hat models Meitou.
"Get lost, Human, before I call the wrath of the mothership down upon you."
"The evil singing mouse toy! Must drag it away!"
Alas for Meitou, it isn't a toy. Decoration. Not toy.
Sometimes they can all hang out calmly.
"Hey! Someone's chucking things off the roof!"
"Play with me?" "No."
"You again?"
"Yeah, we aren't helping you with this one."
"Seriously. Get lost."
Sniffing the carpet.
Hmn. Maybe since the tree went up that night and got decorated I should take pictures of them next to it...
Sunday I took Meitou to Vancouver Lake. He loved it there. He was so excited to play in the water, even with the high wind waves. Just from the snippets in the videos you can tell what he was like pretty much the entire time. LOONY.
And I know I said in a different thread that Meitou doesn't play with sticks @Krisz but here he is playing with sticks. Okay, twigs. That is how happy he was to be at the lake. He would find twigs and chomp them to bits and toss them in the air. Naturally as soon as I started videoing him he stopped.
And look! A magical side picture of him just standing! I've been trying so hard to get this! Granted, it would look better without his harness on him, but hey. I'll take what I can get.
@Saya Thanks! He was practically dragging me to the water. As soon as he could hear the waves he started flailing around in excitement. So I ran with him to the lake and he plowed right in. He still won't swim but he loves to wade in. So, progress!
Comments
He was a little hesitant the first time, but he became a takoyaki fiend. What a good boy.
After takoyaki time, I remembered I forgot to give him the peas that went with his dinner. So I recorded that for posterity.
And then, for the heck of it...some video and pictures of his trick in progress. We are very slow at this one. I'm not sure how to get him to go completely around the bowl.
Amy says "No I don't."
Hmmm. Let me see the other side.
Amy says "What other side? Nothing's there."
Oh yeah?
*sigh* Oh, Amy.
And of course Meitou had to join in, so random photography happened with the aid of chicken.
I still don't get why Meitou always seems so much bigger than Amy in pictures when they are side by side. He is a little taller than her at the shoulder, and I mean a little. But she weighs more than he does and is more tank-like than him. So mostly they are roughly the same size. And yet, he seems so huge.
Meitou started frantically offering his Kung Fu trick and apparently Amy thought it was super annoying. You can see her making ugly faces in the background. Blurry ugly faces.
That's a special face, Meitou.
Straight on face shot? I feel like this rarely happens. He moves his head too much.
Since Meitou was offering tricks I thought I should get Amy to do the one trick she is still willing to do in her old age. Alas, Old Age also has made her kind of clueless so I had to help.
Old Age has also made her more likely to put her ears up. This is not normal. They're normally squashed up against her head...almost like she doesn't have ears at all.
And that rice is still there...
Wait a minute... That's just rude!
I tried to get a few pictures of Meitou standing since I feel like he's been filling out a little and I wanted to show what he looks like standing at profile. But...ohmygosh, it is impossible to get that in a photo. He stands for two seconds, then sits. Because he knows sitting can mean treats.
And a couple from tonight: Meitou sleeping while I upload pictures
Glad he liked them.
Food adventures are some of the best adventures haha
@mdokic Aw, thanks! I can get a lot of pictures of him like that. It is becoming his default trick. hahaha
@WrylyBrindle He randomly will sleep like that, but I rarely can get a picture of it. A few nights ago he was sleeping like that at the base of the stairs and I grabbed my camera to get a picture and as soon as I turned the camera on he woke up and flipped over. He is stinky like that.
I wish I could have gotten another picture of him last night. I was reading a book while lying on the floor and he was curled up next to me, and then got up and wandered away only to come back with his squeaky snake (with a chewed off face, naturally) and he came and put it on my back and was gently mouthing it, lol.
@sukiandluna Their happy faces are totally adorable, I agree!
@cezieg No, I'm pretty sure Katana and Meitou are not related. Unless they share the same ancestors further back in their pedigree.
Here is Meitou's pedigree (speaking of, I've always been curious who added him, because I didn't, lol): http://www.hokkaido-pedigree.com/details.php?id=63553
Here is Katana's pedigree: http://www.hokkaido-pedigree.com/details.php?id=63497
Meitou only had one littermate and that is Maruto, who is owned by @Krisz of Itadaki Kennel.
I heard soft sounds that sounded similar to when Meitou tries to fence fight with the neighbor dogs, but so much quieter and less intense. I had enough time to think "he must be fence fighting again" and then things got quiet and Meitou came trotting inside (I had the door open to keep cool while I exercised). He spent a few minutes inside and went trotting back outside. My father came by and asked if Meitou was outside and I said I thought so and we went to check. And Meitou was pouncing, bowing and picking up something in the yard.
I called him in for cookies and he happily came inside, then jetted back outside, and came back for more cookies. I kept Meitou in the house and my father went out to check on whatever Meitou had...found. Turned out to be an opossum. A decent sized one, too. Not a small one like earlier in the year. We were kind of impressed he had been picking it up.
It looked like the opossum was playing dead, so we left it alone for a while to give it time to go away (if it wasn't dead for real). We checked on it later and it was in a different position and was maybe eating? So right now the dogs (and cat) are on lock-down and can't go outside. Meitou keeps running up and down the stairs going to either sliding door hoping someone will let him out.
I have more updates, I just haven't bothered uploading anything yet.
Plus Meitou had a bit of a traumatizing incident on Wednesday (mostly for me, apparently not as much for him), so I haven't felt motivated yet.
His Kung Fu trick has many useful applications. Like making him do this:
Some pictures from right before our most recent Open Air reactivity class. Before the other dogs showed up.
Tried to get some video of Meitou's reaction to our trainer, but he was feeling more tame-excited instead of psycho-excited this time. I'm going to keep trying until I get better video. Because it is hilarious.
Last night I was playing Just Dance and Meitou kept trying to hold his squeaky snake against my leg so he could chew it. He does a lot of things that make dancing games really difficult. But naturally, as soon as I whipped out the camera he stopped doing things. Except lying down in the way of everything, lol.
I got someone to come dance around a bit, but Meitou still knew exactly when I turned on the camera and acted like he wasn't doing anything video-worthy.
And afterward we hung out on the floor.
You'll notice in some of these pictures he has a smudge under his left eye. It's one of a few puncture wounds he has around his head from last Wednesday when he got in a fight with a loose dog wandering the neighborhood while we were out walking at night. I tried distracting the other dog/discouraging it from approaching but it ignored me. And during the fight Meitou's leash came off somehow and the two dogs went running down the street and nearly got hit by vehicles twice. Meitou would half-listen to me then run back to the other dog and started body slamming it, which confused me a bit because that is normally a playing move (at least, with the cat). Meitou did leave the other dog once I called his name and starting jogging away. After I got him leashed up again he went into convulsions and couldn't walk until we were on the way to the vet and he stood up on his own and at the vet office he was walking normally; the vet thinks it was a reaction to stress. But now my sister refers to him as the fainting goat.
With the kindness of some strangers driving by who offered me a ride home I was able to get Meitou to the vet before they closed for the evening and after a look-over they determined that Meitou was mostly fine aside from a few puncture wounds on his head that didn't look too bad. He was a bit sensitive about the one on his ear.
I did discuss it with Meitou's reactivity trainer to talk about some concerns. Meitou seems pretty usual, though. He still did well in his class the Saturday afterward and seemed happy to see his "friends" (aka, the other dogs in class).
Meitou still looks fabulous. His tail is amazing! I want to... I want to touch it.
Stress can cause a lot of very strange reactions, including seizures. Hopefully that was the cause and the end of seizures for him.
@sunyata Yeah, I hope he doesn't have anything like that happen again. It freaked me out.
On a happier note...more Meitou (and Amy!) fanart. They're swimming in hot chocolate. Don't think too hard about it, lol. It's what I requested.
...probably not?
The fact Meitou's trainer can scratch Meitou's hips impresses me. Very few people are actually privileged to scratch Meitou in that spot.
A couple pictures from class during our free roaming period. We try to do a lot of fake dog parkour, lol. Meitou likes to jump up on stuff. I wish I had some of the pictures the class assistant took on her phone. We did two dogs at a time in "library lion" parody.
On the way back from class we got stuck in traffic due to a bridge lift. So I took pictures of my dog. Because that totally didn't freak out the people behind me.
Sleepy Potato
Also probably carsick
So Meitou and Amy got to try more weird food.
In the above picture, the group on the left... front (two small meatballs) are ground camel, the middle light colored meat is alligator, and the top meatball is ground kangaroo. I found them in a store that specializes in a lot of organic things and I thought to myself "Why not? Now I can tell people I have eaten unexpected things. And maybe freak them out as a bonus. And if I let Meitou and Amy eat some...Hey! Who else can say their dogs have eaten those things? I don't know, but I can be one of them!"
Special meat on top of rice on top of raw chicken (hard to see it buried under all that rice).
The end results
So the day before Thanksgiving I decided to do a mass purge of the stuff in my room. As I was cleaning things out I set them on the floor in the basement and Meitou decided this was a thing he needed to be a part of.
Meitou says napping with books is the win.
Sadly, this is not even all the books I had stashed away. There are a ton behind me that don't show up in these pictures.
Amy was much less involved
That same night my brothers got into town, and Meitou loves one of my brothers a ridiculous amount. So I took video of it.
First Meitou was outside to give everyone time to bring in their travel things. Meitou spotted the favored brother and did this:
And once he was let into the house...
And from today. He got a new toy on the last day of November.
I mentioned a while ago that I had found a black hair on one of Meitou's sides. I haven't noticed it recently, but a month or so ago I found a different one in the middle of his back. And a night or two ago I found two more on one shoulder blade. The black hairs are increasing! Has anyone ever heard of this happening on other white dogs of other breeds? Or is Meitou just weird? (Well, that's a given, I suppose...)
Tuesday night Meitou caught another opossum. At first he was behind some arborvitae and I couldn't tell what he was doing. But he eventually brought the opossum out into the yard and was prancing around and shaking it and throwing it around. It was a 'possum flingin' party going on in my backyard that night. It took forever to get him to leave it alone, he wanted it so badly. If I told him to leave it he would leave it, but he would not come inside and he kept going back to that poor opossum. When he finally did come in I had to clean mud and blood off of him (ew). He had a few blood splatters on his face (shows up nice and easy on a white dog). After cleaning it off I determined it must have come from the opossum because Meitou wasn't wounded at all. That poor creature. Later when I checked the opossum was gone, so it did manage to get away. Hopefully it is okay. And stays out of my yard. I don't want to clean up opossum carcass.
But then I started to pester him.
We had put up Christmas decorations earlier in the morning so I had this spare Santa hat lying around and thought "I should make Meitou wear it!"
Fail.
He was having none of that business. He flings hats from his head faster than he flings 'possums.
To make myself feel better this happened:
She kind of looks traumatized?
Okay, Meitou. Let's try this again.
"Hat, thou art my Nemesis."
"I will totally eat the hand that feeds me. Om nom nom."
Even after getting a whole baggie of treats I was no closer to success so I decided to cut my losses and try something else. You can tell I have treats because he suddenly is starting to look a little crazed. It's all in the eyes and the open drool flinging mouth.
Santa Hat Saddle. The new Hokkaido color pattern.
This shows an interesting comparison between how Meitou and Amy think. As you'll notice Meitou is intently watching what happens to be my out-of-shot hand holding a tiny treat. Amy is staring straight down at the full baggie of treats that Meitou is ignoring, lol.
"Treat me! Or I'mma punch you in the glasses again, Woman!"
"Treat?"
Still watching those treats.
Tell me how you really feel, Meitou.
Meitou does not model the hat. The hat models Meitou.
"Get lost, Human, before I call the wrath of the mothership down upon you."
"The evil singing mouse toy! Must drag it away!"
Alas for Meitou, it isn't a toy. Decoration. Not toy.
Sometimes they can all hang out calmly.
"Hey! Someone's chucking things off the roof!"
"Play with me?"
"No."
"You again?"
"Yeah, we aren't helping you with this one."
"Seriously. Get lost."
Sniffing the carpet.
Hmn. Maybe since the tree went up that night and got decorated I should take pictures of them next to it...
And I know I said in a different thread that Meitou doesn't play with sticks @Krisz but here he is playing with sticks. Okay, twigs. That is how happy he was to be at the lake. He would find twigs and chomp them to bits and toss them in the air. Naturally as soon as I started videoing him he stopped.
And look! A magical side picture of him just standing! I've been trying so hard to get this! Granted, it would look better without his harness on him, but hey. I'll take what I can get.
Meitou even got to tree a squirrel.
Pretty good day for him.
"Hat, thou art my Nemesis"
My favorite is the one of him on his hind legs - it looks like he's about to give you a huge bear hug!