Digger, the dog.

I told him, he was in trouble now, he was going in my blog!

Digger is my 12 years old Border Collie Mix and he is on my nerves today.  Did you ever have the hiccups in the morning and then have them all day.  Well, if the oil man comes in the morning - Digger barks his head off and then barks at everything all day thinking it's the oil man.  Now if anyone should bark, growl or even hiss at the oil man it should be me.  I am the one who gets the bill.  But for some reason the oil man drives Digger nuts.   Why, I mean, he doesn't come in, he doesn't knock at the door?  Why the oil man?  He doesn't bark at the Jehovah Witnesses and perhaps he should. 

Anyway Digger, and by the way, yes he does dig, (I just found out he has been digging in the arborvitae again)   has Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome; which is Doggie Alzheimer's.  This is what the vet says, but he has Seasonal Affective Disorder, because it mostly happens in the winter months.    This winter has been good to Digger, not much snow.  Last weekend's snow sent him into CDS land for a brief time.  He limped, he stared into the corners of the room, he paced around.  Snow covers up smells which is the last sense Digger has that works well.  Parke told him last week, Digger snap out of it, the snow is going to melt tomorrow.   We had to put a rug down in the kitchen for him because he didn't want to slide on the kitchen floor and refused to come in.  When he was young, he got a static shock once from the carpet and wouldn't go into the kitchen for days.  I finally figured out that at one time he must of came from a home with an electric fence (he was adopted from the Northampton County SPCA by some other people, and I got him from them).  I finally took off his dog collar and he then went into the kitchen. 

Every morning you can catch Digger and I going for our morning walk around the block.  We do the same walk every day and we keep the same schedule everyday, that seems to help him the most.  I just got done yelling at him and brought him in a few minutes ago - he was barking at some people going by, it was the bezerk bark he uses on the oil man.  Today everyone is the oil man, included me.  He was barking at me when I went to take the garbage out because the garbage can is right by where the oil man delivers the oil.  But hey that's my digger.

and that's another day in Catasauqua