Chili the Explorer

Chili has a very curious nature or to be more accurate, she’s nosey. Absolutely everything new or different must be checked out. If you try to keep her away from something she has in her sights, well, it just makes it worse. Now, she really, really has to check it out. Have you ever tried to keep a very determined dog away from something? Not an easy task. We can tell how determined she is by the level of crazy face she’s wearing. She doesn’t forget either. You can drag her away but a couple of hours later, as soon as she sees an opportunity, she’ll run to the spot you tried to keep her away from.

The Poor Bee. All it was trying to do was warm up in the sun, but no, it had to be stalked by a big crazy faced beast. Chili loves sticking her nose on things and stomping them with her paw to see what will happen. It’s all a part of the exploration. We did keep her away, but it made her even more focused and as you can see from the picture, the crazy face was on. Of course I didn’t want the bee to get hurt, and I didn’t want Chili to get hurt either. I knew what would happen if I let her explore this one, she’d end up with a bee sting on the end of her nose, then knowing me, we’d be throwing her in the truck and going straight to the vet. No waiting to see what might happen, just straight to the vet just in case. Call me crazy, I call me cautious.

Everything new that’s brought into the house has to undergo a thorough inspection. She’s got her head stuck in every bag or box. “What’s in there, let me sniff it. Is that a new shirt? It looks better with a nose print, don’t you think?” Oh yes, she sticks her big head in the bags as you’re carrying them in. You wonder why the bag suddenly feels so heavy. When you look down, all you see is her body and her head buried in the bag. She can’t even wait until you put them down. Her favourite bags, the grocery bags of course. There’s always something interesting in those.

Today, I pulled out a cowboy hat that I had bought in Mexico a few years ago. I was sitting on the back step wearing it when Chili came by and sat beside me. Then she mashed her head into my neck and started licking me. At first, I thought she was just being loveable, I should have known better. She had an ulterior motive. She had to check out the hat. It didn’t matter that it was on my head, she was going to check it out and that was it. Before I knew it she was on top of me licking my hat. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t push her off. Of course this just made it worse.

Why haven’t I trained this out of her? Some of it I’m working on and some of it I’m not. Although we protest a lot, we laugh a lot too. If I trained everything out of her, then I’d be left with a dog that just lays there not being allowed to be herself and explore and love the life she’s living. I think there’ll be plenty of time for lying around when she’s older. Although I have a hard time picturing Chili just laying there and watching things happen instead of being in the middle of it. To me, she’ll always be crazy Chili.