Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Allie Is Strong... and getting Stronger!

My foster dog Allie is a ninety pound Akita/Border Collie mix.  She has the size of an Akita, and the bark of a Border Collie.  She has the intelligence of both breeds, which is quite scary.  This is the dog who learned to open the back door and come into the house anytime she wanted by grabbing the door knob with her mouth, and leaning against the door while turning her head. 


In addition to her intelligence, Allie is quite the energetic and inquisitive dog.  She does not like to be left out of things, and this is never more obvious than when she is in the back yard and someone stops by.  The six foot privacy fence makes it difficult for her to see into the driveway to find out who is visiting. 

The picture below is taken from the driveway, looking toward the back yard. 
You can click on the picture to enlarge it.  Why would you want to do this, you ask?  Well, think of it as a Where's Waldo game, only in this case we'll call it "Where's Allie?" 

Keep in mind that this six-foot fence has the posts on the outside of the fence, so from the backyard there are no posts - we did this purposely to keep the dogs from using the crossbars to launch themselves over the fence. 

Here's a closer picture.


This is what she does when she wants to see what is going on in the driveway.  She jumps up, puts her front paws over the top of the fence, and hangs on!  At first she could only stay up there a second or two.  But she's been practicing. 
She's up to about seven or eight seconds of hang time before gravity wins and pulls her 90 pound body back to the ground.  She also seems to be gaining height as time goes on.  I've decided the best solution to this, other than keeping her in the house 24/7, is to feed her more.  If she eats more, she'll weigh more, and won't be able to jump so well.  This is my theory, and she seems quite happy to go along with it. 

6 comments:

Cupcake said...

She sounds fun to have around. She is smart but I think you have out smarted her with the food solution.

acd6pack said...

Yikes! What fun though to have such a smart dog. Here's hoping she never gets a toe hold with those back feet or she'll be launching herself. Makes for an interesting bio for potential adopters!

Barb's Cats and Quilts said...

I've long said it's hard to be smarter than a cat, but Allie might be the winner. Good luck.

Blueberry's human said...

Holy Cow! I've only ever seen a Jack Russell Terrier do that!

I hope someone adopts her for a very specific job - she is uber smart!

sp said...

seems you have a real need for one of these:

http://www.petpeek.info/

:)

Dog Foster Mom said...

sp - I LOVE this - I so want one! But of course my fosters would all be fighting over who gets to look out the window, so I'd have to buy five or six of them. So I'll have to wait on that, but I'll be sure to tell any potential adopters about it! :-)