My Dog Misha

In July 2009, my dear sweet Sierra passed away. Sierra was a 14 year old Lab/Golden Mix who stole hearts. She was a cancer survivor and an amputee.

A week after she died, my two young nieces (and their parents) showed up at my house in the middle of the day. An unusual event in and of itself. I realized the older of the two had something very small and very wiggly inside her sweat jacket. It was my new puppy. She was eight weeks old and all of 2 pounds!

There's really nothing special about the name Misha. I've always loved the name. Sometimes I would call my previous dog Misha or little Meesh. I really liked this name and I knew if I got another dog I would name her Misha.

I spend quite a bit of time with Misha. One of our favorite things to do is go for our daily walks. She has an abundance of energy so I take her for a long walk in the morning and a brief one in the afternoon.

Misha loves to play with toys especially her hedgehogs. We play fetch during the day, though most of the time I end up doing the fetching.

In the afternoon, I like to sit on the floor with Misha. I get one of her wishbone chewies. She sits on my lap and chews her bone while we watch TV or read.

Misha just loves her AKC Squirrel. Here she is at 10 weeks old having a nap with her best bud.

One of the great things about a smart dog is they are easy to teach tricks. Misha knows the basics like sit, down, shake, stay, wait, and beg. Boy, does she know beg!!! She sits for her meals. It's comical to watch her. A Jack Russell has a heck of a time being patient. She sits, then jumps backwards while still sitting, she looks up to me, then to the bowl, then to me, her body quivers...it's so exciting! When I release her, she devours her food in about 10 seconds.

She also knows tip toes (walking upright on her back paws), stand tall (standing in place on her back paws), give me five, roll over, tummy, and high five. She also know the names of most of her toys and will bring the correct one when asked to bring it by name.

Her latest trick is "ask for dinner". Misha is quite talkative. I decided to turn her urge to chatter into a trick. Each night at dinner time, she must sit in front of me, then give the yawn sound on purpose. This may have been the most difficult trick she had to learn. It took four months before she would yawn on command. Now she sometimes sits in front of me and yawns to see if she can trick me into feeding her. It hasn't worked yet.

I've never had a dog who so eagerly learns tricks. It's fun for both of us. I hope to take advantage of that desire to please and to teach her even more.

She has taught her humans a couple of tricks as well. For instance, she sits under the cupboard every evening. She knows if she looks pathetic enough Grandma will fill a cup of Cheerios and share a couple with her.

My last dog never complained. Whether she was sick or injure she was quite stoic about it. Even when the tumor on her leg ruptured, she never whimpered.

Misha, on the other hand, is quite a drama queen. Accidentally, step on her foot and she will act as if you did it on purpose. Hit her with a toy and she goes down into a low crouch moving slowly with her ears back and her tail between her legs.

She's given me a quite a scare a couple of times though. Once she was bitten by a spider and blew up like a balloon from head to tail. She was so miserable until the shot took affect.

More recently she had an anal gland rupture. It's very painful before and after. After the Veterinarian cleaned her up, we brought her home in her hood of shame. She laid on her bed for two days whimpering any time she was left alone. She was on pain medication, but she was still miserable.

It took almost two full weeks for it to heal. During that time, she hated to be touched or picked up. She slept most of the time. When I took her back to the Vets for the seven day check up she screamed, and I mean screamed! And, this was before they even touched her!

She was so happy to get her hood off. I was too! I finally got a full night's sleep!

I had no clue that small dogs love to burrow. If you're looking for Misha, don't look on the bed. Look under the blankets.

She rarely crawls under without rearranging everything first. She is the Martha Stewart of dog blankets. She'll drag the blanket inside her tent then pull it out. You'll see her digging it into a ball then throwing it over her head. Once she's got it right, she crawls underneath and settles into a good long nap.

Sometimes I think she just likes to spy on us.