The blue sock incident was the tipping point for Grandma. Her observations were that I had two problems:
- I was overstimulated
- I was stubborn
The first conclusion came as she watched me from my lookout post at the living room window.
Grandma would run to the window when I barked with ferociousness, thinking someone was trying to break in the front door. Several times of this, with no people in the yard, made her wonder if I was seeing things. But she finally saw a person walking his dog three blocks away and realized there was a cause for my reaction. But it was over the top.
She came to the second realization after much thought. At first she wondered if I had a hearing problem. Then she looked at my ears and concluded, “No. He’s just stubborn.” Grandma did take into consideration that I was a farm boy my first four months. Well, a spoiled farm boy. And now that I lived in town, there was a whole lot more to take in, which kept me charged up.
Suspecting these two conditions however, did not solve the problem. She couldn’t handle me, and called Farmer Allen to see if he would take me back.
“What’s the problem?” he asked her.
“It’s like he wakes up at 6000 rpm’s. It takes little more to overstimulate him, and off he goes. I can’t handle him. I’ve never had a dog I could not work with, and I’m very disappointed, but he’s going to get hurt or killed if things continue as they are.” She was trying not to cry.
“What are you feeding him?”
“Dry dog food.”
“Does it have grain?”
“No. I wondered about that and get grain-free dry dog food.”
“I still think it’s the food. Probably additives. Have you thought about raw meat? That’s what I feed my dogs.”
“You mean like ground hamburger meat?”
“No. Like steak or roast.”
Grandma frowned for a moment, thinking of her grocery bill going up. But she looked at how small I was and her face brightened.
This made sense to her for in her “pre-Petey life” (she told me she had one but it’s hard to believe) she discovered she had food allergies that kept her feeling very ill. It took her about a year to figure out what she could not eat, and it improved her health immensely.
“That makes perfect sense!” she replied.
Farmer Allen believes in organic and non-GMO methods of raising dairy cows and pasture. They both were in agreement on this topic of regenerative agriculture.
“Know who grows your food and and you won’t need to know your doctor,” he often says.
“Okay,” Grandma said, “I’ll try changing his food. I love Petey, but I’m at the end of my rope.”
“I think you’ll be alright,” he assured her.
When Grandma first got me, we took a trip to the backcountry where she photographed me in the canyon lands. Light rays played around me, and she wondered if I might be a little angel.
Some of the my many antics, that you may have been reading on my posts, cured her of That Idea.
But you know what?
Soon after I began eating raw meat, supplemented with a vitamin powder called Dinovite, my behavior improved tremendously. I have been restored to Angel status, which makes for a happier Grandma.
Well, most of the time. “Angels do not roll in poop!” she insists.
The new diet did not cure my single-minded stubbornness though. How she solved that is another story.