Not A Terrier

I've been pondering this topic for some time now. Azza is most definitely, most emphatically not a terrier.

Azza modeling her new ModDog collar. And yes, she can get decent satellite reception with those ears.

 I am still not sure that this non-terrier is a good dog for me. But while I continue to work on that problem, I've been making some observations re the states of terrier- and non-terrierness.

Fox terriers walk on their toes. The large pads on their feet rarely touch the ground completely, even when they run flat out or make tight turns.

In contrast, Azza the non-terrier moves her front paw like giant paint brushes. For the first time, I can examine the function of dewclaws up close. Fox terriers have their dewclaws removed when they are just a couple of days old, and now I understand why. They don't need them. Their wrists simply never bend enough to allow this sixth digit to come into play. Azza slaps her big old paws back and forth on the concrete and even at a normal walking speed her dewclaw can come into contact with the ground.

Fox terriers have front wheel drive. Their motion can be almost mechanical as their stiff legs swing far forward of their upright heads, pulling the rest of the dog forward. Azza has rear wheel drive, as her hind legs, seemingly proportioned for a rabbit instead of a dog, propel her forward.

Besides these interesting mechanical differences, I discovered tonight that Azza apparently lacks another characteristic terrier feature: blood lust for small furry creatures.

I was walking Azza and Mimi tonight with a friend and her dog (Boodle from agility class). We decided to duck into the yard of an empty house to let the dogs off leash.

I released the dogs and turned to latch the gate when I realized that Mimi and Boodle were in a serious fight with an animal. It turned out to be an extremely pissed off feral cat. MW pulled Boodle off the cat right away (he wasn't that committed to the fight, only following the leader) but Mimi had what would certainly have been a death grip on it so I had to slam her and the cat into the wall to get her to let go. There was blood everywhere, from whom I had no idea but Boodle had an ear bite (a nice bleeder) and Mimi was ripped up on her face and throat (some good spurters there too). She also had a giant mouthful of fur. The cat was very much alive when we left it.

And where was Azza during these adrenaline-filled few seconds? Sensibly crouched 15 feet away then hiding behind MW and Boodle, waiting for the drama to subside. Once we got both dogs off the cat and dragged them a few feet away to catch our breath, Azza gave the cat a few barks, as if to say, "Yeah, that'll show ya!"

At least Mimi comes by her terrier feistiness honestly. (The tale of The Incident and A Series of Unfortunate Events are worth a read at this point.)

Sigh. I'm afraid I'm a bit too used to cleaning up bloody terriers.

I'm pretty sure the cat was not rabid but I was worried about infection since Mimi got a number of deep bites, so I doused her wounds fairly liberally with betadine solution. I have not seen that for sale here so thank goodness I had some I brought with me on the original move out.

And Azza? She might yet turn into Cujo but she is not a terrier.