Panting

Backfill: Feb 22Tika's panting will yet be the death of the known universe. One of my former housemates hated it. Complained about Tika always being right there "hahhh hahhhh hahhh hahhh" all the time. Current housemate's boyfriend hates it. They go hide in the housemate's bedroom to avoid it when eating meals. (I did clean up the dining room and move the big table in there so we could actually close the doors and keep the dogs out if we want, which they've done a couple of times, but it feels more like you're closing yourself in--)

I took the dogs to the Big Park this morning. Tika sat (loosely speaking) in the passenger seat. It takes about 15 minutes to drive over there. By the time we had arrived, the entire side window and fully half of the windshield were steamed up so as to be almost opaque. That's a lot of panting.

Later I was working at the computer, ignoring the dogs--deadlines, you know. Tika decided it was time to do something. She's gotten much better about pawing at me or nudging me. So she sits about 18" from my elbow and pants. "hahhh hahhhh hahhh hahhh" constantly, not a break. I don't know how long she'd been sitting there before I noticed that she wasn't going away (one does develop some immunity), so I decided to keep an eye on the clock and see when she'd give up and lie down, go away, or stop panting. 15 minutes later I couldn't stand it any longer and got up to go do something else. (Can't do something *with* the dogs because that would be reinforcing the behavior. But she did get me to stand up and leave the computer. Hmmm.)

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