tribute to the tanz

[beach beaut]

i'm not much of a cat person - partly because of allergies, but they're also not particularly nice to me (if you would like to hear a funny story about me cat-sitting, you should ask...this might explain my problems with cats). anyways, enough about cats: i love dogs -- the ones that are sweet and fun and sort of dumb, but they're so cute they make up for it. that description describes our dog tanya pretty darn well and i know she was the perfect addition to our family 11 years ago. so to pay tribute to my dearest tanya vanbaker, here are 10 things that you may or may not know about her:

1. tanya's original name was taffy. i think we called her taffy for about a week before we decided we didn't like it and decided to re-name her. thankfully this time her name stuck

2. tanya is an expert gopher hunter. currently, the gopher count in our yard is at 9 gophers. my mom takes tanya outside to wherever the gopher hole is and tanya sniffs out where to set the trap and...9 counts later, we have a successful gopher hunter team! she also loves gardening and gets this cute smile on her face with perked ears and dirt on her nose & paws.

3. tanya loves chasing birds - and this has been a problem. one afternoon i decided to go rollerblading with her and we went by a neighbor's house who had a pet chicken-like bird in their front yard. since i was on wheels (never doing that again!) i couldn't hold on to the leash and tanya took off and got the bird literally in her mouth. somehow i got the bird OUT of her mouth and it ran off. it was a very embarrassing conversation to have with the neighbor later that afternoon

"Hi, my name's Alyssa and I was rollerblading down the street and my dog got your bird in her mouth...I'mreallyreallyreallyreallysorryisthereanythingicando??!"

Thankfully the neighbor happened to be a bird doctor and was able to help the bird recover

5. she likes apple cores and orange slices and sniffs them out from wherever she is in the couch to find you in the kitchen eating your afternoon snack

4. tanya LOVES the beach. maybe going along with the bird theme, she loves chasing the birds along the sea shore (yep, got one of those in her mouth too which was taken to animal rescue!). she loves the waves, and the sand, and then laying in the sun

[annual christmas present]

6. puppy training was a complete disaster: we spent the majority of the time trying to find her mingling with the other puppies and she didn't listen to any of our commands (rather embarrassing when you are the only family whose dog doesn't "come" when called but is instead sniffing the trash cans). somehow she "passed" the class...

7. we have never had a successful tomato crop because she always finds some creative way of attacking the garden (believe me, my mom has tried every trick possible to keep her out, but to no avail)

8. she once ate a plate full of brownies and had to get her stomach pumped and they found all kinds of weird things in their like a bouncy ball and a peach pit

9. she is quite sneaky and seems very well-behaved outside without her leash and then BOOM, she is off, running down the street. one time we had her leash tied to a big bounce ball which we thought would keep her in, but instead she took off with it trailing behind her and ran into the neighbor's house and the ball knocked down their new lamp.

10. she sleeps about 22 hours of the day

love ya tanz!