On Zigganese, Burglars and Hair-eating.

My dog goes by several aliases. Her legal name is Ziggy Doodlebean, but she's also known as Ziggy, Zig Zigular, Doodle, Dood, Doodler, Stinky, Stinkerbean and Dogfart. I realize that we're probably not doing her any favors by calling her 9,705,704,275 different things, but they also say dogs shouldn't drive cars or take jello shots and I mean pffffffft who listens to that shit.

Ziggy is really, really cute and incredibly sweet. She is funny and adorable and adoring. She loves nothing more than to be my little spoon and I would not trade her for anything.

But she is absolutely as dumb as a rock. She is so, so adorably and frustratingly stupid.

And because of this, certain unusual phrases have become commonplace in our house.

Zigganese: A Glossary

"Doodle Launcher"

About 2 years ago, Ziggy suddenly started refusing to jump into our bed from any position other than from in her bed. She stands in her bed and whimpers at the top of her little lungs until you pull her bed close enough that she can leap from one to the other, like Indiana Jones jumping from a disintegrating wooden bridge onto some other goddamn thing.

"Can you throw her food at her?"

She will not eat a bite of kibble until you have thrown the food at her and she has pretended to kill several pieces. No, we cannot simply wait her out and hope she gets hungry enough to eat like a normal dog. Because frantic barking.

"Go watch the dog eat."

If a Doodle is left alone in the kitchen with no one to watch her eat, will she eat her food? The answer is no. But she will raise hell (see: frantic barking) until she has an adequate audience. It's like performance art, guys.

"STRANDED!"

About once a year, Ziggy goes through a period of several weeks where she decides that the floor is lava and she forgets how to climb stairs. The first time this happened, I freaked out and took her to the vet thinking something was wrong with her (Nope). Now I know that it's just part of her lifecycle. So it's like, hey Ziggy, wanna go outside? Oh, the floor is lava again? Already? Awesome.

"She's eating cat treats."

I think this one is pretty self-explanatory, but just in case you can't read between the lines: CAT POOP. However, we recently got one of these bad boys for our cats and that has eliminated the problem. Until she learns how to climb, of course.

"Hat burglar."

When we wear hats, sometimes she doesn't recognize us. Sometimes I'll put on a hat and take it off over and over again just for the fun of being immediately regarded as OMG STRANGER KILL IT. I've had her eyes checked. They're fine.

"Can't talk, eating hair."

Mmmm. Sweet, delicious hair. In case you were wondering (of course you were) the most delicious hair is apparently located on the bathroom floor. THANKS ZIGGY. Most of it is hers, anyway.