I have 2 Shelties, Bailey and Fancy. Like most shelties they are what I call food hounds. But Fancy is absolutely incredible. She was adopted by me at 5 yrs old - a breeding bitch who had to have an emergency spay for pyometria. Scientifically speaking she is an opportunistic eater but she doesnt just eat what she happens to find -she goes searching for it. and remembers where it was last time! Most of my jackets have treats in the right hand pocket - she has learned first to get into any pocket hanging low enough to reach and more recently to actually pull down jackets that are too high so she can reach the pocket. A couple of weeks ago she polished off my dinner which was sitting on a hassock in front of my back porch chair - I had gone out for a minute or two and - silly me - didnt let the dogs out too! And it was a really good hot shrimp stir fry - She didnt even get indigestion!
I have a large veggie garden. It was surrounded with a chain link fence but I learnt that if I dug up any veggies and left them lying within her reach she would munch on them (like digging potatoes and putting them on the back step until I went in the house) . 2 years ago I had cabbages planted in a flower bed - Fancy devoured most of them before I noticed!
Recently my veggie garden was converted to raised beds. There are walks all round and access in 3 spots but I learned pretty quickly to gate the access - she will actually jump up into the beds to check out what is there. - she was munching on turnip tops and tails last fall. She seems to have learned to pull part of the access gate out and squeeze thru because now I find her in the garden when the gates are closed! (they are just hanging on hooks at the top) This morning I put my garden stool in front of the gate she is using - Big mistake! I called the dogs in as it started to rain - where was Fancy? in the garden and couldnt get out. How did she get there? Figure she jumped up on the stool and over the gate! GRRRRRRRRRR!
This message was edited Sep 12, 2005 1:50 PM
