Love goes through the stomach

The Alsatian who arrived way back in June to live with my landlord's family is an incredibly nervous dog; big, beautiful, but such a feartie! Barks at everything that moves, won't come near me; when I arrive in the middle of the night, she barks from the minute she hears me open the gate at the top of the 78 steps down to my flat, until I've gone in. Sometimes I think she even barks when I go to use the bathroom. Bit of a pain, all that.

We've taken two steps to deal with it. The landlord now leaves the light on in the yard overnight - this hunk of a dog is feart of the dark??? It has worked already, and she's much quieter.

I'm trying to get her to love me, and so invested in some tiny dog biscuits. Every morning when I go to work, I give one each to both dogs (with the longer resident dog getting hers first; one needs to respect pecking orders). It's beginning to work! Previously Miss Alsatian would not go near me; now she comes running up as soon as I step inside the gate. Does not liked to be touched on the head, but I can now touch her on her side a little.

Interestingly, it's also taken about 3 months for the dogs to play together. Complicated thing, this dog psyche.....

NB the option that she spends the night indoors does not exist.

Those Istanbul cats

I'd noticed all those cats in Istanbul, way back in January....it seems in the summer Istanbul is smitten by a smell of cat pee, much like Prague's residential areas have an aura of dog pee.

Read all about cat/dog interactions in Istanbul here.

It's a dog's life or...unexpected consequences

A few weeks ago I returned to Georgia from somewhere, luckily and unusually during the day time, to find my balcony door open and a huge Alsatian dog on the balcony. We both screamed - well, the dog barked at me and I shouted at it. Whereupon it skedaddled into the furthest corner of the balcony.

Turns out that my landlord, who lives downstairs, has fallen heir to this dog, though not, apparently, to everyone's delight. Now that I was back, my balcony was no longer available, and the dog went downstairs, into the landlord's garden. But what's this? There is already the resident dog! The dog who is always tied up - and here is the Alsatian, pre-owned by an American, but not used to being tied up. What to do next?

There was much debate, including a not very serious idea to get rid of the previous dog, not a pedigree. Meantime the Alsatian was also tied up, in various parts of the yard - and this time of year the main part with shade was used by dog No 1. The Alsatian, a big soul, and quite a bit of a fearty, took well to being tied up, apart from howling for the odd night or two. But after a while she was just let loose, and she was ok - she's not as lively as some dogs we know.

Now, a few weeks later, dog No 1 is also off the lead much of the time, and loves to do a great impression of a cat, climbing onto the outside toilet roof and keeping an eye on everyone coming in. So, thank you, Alsatian!