Cujo is a dirty girl

My dog hates girl dogs. And their owners. We’re working on it, but the thing goes all-out Cujo when, particularly, three neighborhood girl dogs walk by. She’s been happily social with two of them before, so I’ve no idea what happened there. The third she’s never met but absolutely goes insane when she walks by.

Yesterday, I figured out she also seems to hate the owners, or at least one. And this person is extremely friendly and nice, so it’s not like she came after my dog with a whip or something. Her fault, in my dog’s eyes, is that she’s the mother of a girl dog. And I thought it was just the dog and not the dog parent, but yesterday, Kudzu and I were hanging out in a green spot and she walked by. Kudzu turned into Cujo and tried to go after her.

I’ve no idea what to do. We’ve now got a “head collar,” which is kind of like a halter, but it doesn’t work for her any more than it did Kocur.

She loves, however, playing in dirt. I’d discovered this early on, when I was dismantling the rotted-out raised garden bed that was in my little yard. I’d be shoveling dirt out, she’d be digging at it in the opposite direction.

With that distraction gone, she laid off a bit, although she did recently find some kind of bird foot on a walk and carried it home through the neighborhood. Seriously, she held on to that thing for about a mile, then just short of the apartment she stopped and buried it. It lasted a week, then she dug it up and carried it home. She waffled on bringing it home because at the gazebo, which is right next to my apartment, she buried it again—dirt flying—and then immediately dug it up and brought it home. Fortunately, she took it right outside and I assumed she’d bury it—she’s buried bones both under the stairs and in these giant flower pots on the patio—but no, when I went out again, I discovered she’d left it right in the middle of the chaise lounge. Gross. Unbeknownst to her, I threw it over the fence. Please don’t tell my neighbor.

Now, her new distraction is this giant red dirt pile in a construction area near the tennis courts. (At the apartment complex but the gym charges American prices so not for me.) They’re building something back there and apparently it takes a lot of red dirt, much to the delight of my dog. She loves it, even more so in the morning before work when I am wearing light pants.

It runs the length of a wall, and her favorite thing is to run to the top as fast as her leash allows, which means I have to climb up behind her. White tennis shoes were good while it lasted. She loves to dig, roll around and just sit in it. I feel a little foolish just standing next to her, but I do indulge her a bit, especially if she lounges near the top, where I can sit on the fence and chill out. We amuse the guard immensely. I feel like a lot of guards are amused by the two of us.