Zima was one of those dogs that will be memorable for the rest of our lives. Although I lived in the same household, Zima wasn't my dog. She belonged to my sister and since we share this house, I often took care of Zima, feeding her, walking her, letting her outside and playing with her. She enjoyed attention and she didn't care where attention came from. But, clearly, her heart belonged to Ruth.
Flyball Accomplishments
FD=03/04/00 FDX=03/04/00 FDCH=04/15/00 FDCH-S=05/06/00 FDCH-G=07/15/00
FM=11/11/00 FMX=06/30/01 FMCH=10/27/01 ONYX=05/25/02 FGDCH=08/30/03
FG40K=09/03/05 FG50K=10/18/08 In the Spring of 2009, we learned she had cancer and so we retired her at Chelsea Fairgrounds on 5/30/2009. She deserved to enjoy life and, although she loved flyball, she was soooo much more than a Flyball Dog.As a young dog, Zima revealed she was a character. She loved the sound of ripping newspaper. At first, I thought she just liked to make messes but, her reaction when I tore a paper demonstrated to me that it was the sound that attracted her to make confetti out of newspaper. Who knew?
She liked to bark at thunderstorms, too. I thought she was scared of them but, no, she didn't act nervous or afraid. She just wanted to tell that "big dog" outside to shut up and stop barking at her!
She had herding instinct out the wazoo! Whenever I took her for a walk, she spent countless hours just circling me. Circle, circle circle. My friends would watch us at flyball tournaments and that's how they would know I was walking Zima because she would constantly circle me.
She would also herd us by jumping up and bouncing off of us and barking whenever we started dancing in the house. You know how it is. Some good song with a strong beat would start playing and you just can't help yourself, you start a moving and a groovin'. Well, Zima acted like the "fun police" telling us to stop it! Stop it! Stop it! I thought she didn't like us moving. I was half right. In her eyes, we were sheep trying to run away. She wasn't going to let that happen!
One day, my sister took her to a herding test. We thought she would be a natural with all these indicators. Zima got in the pen with real sheep. It was towards the end of the day after this group of sheep had been herded several times. The ram was fed up, took one look at Zima, snorted and tried to head butt her. Oh-oh! Zima wanted out of that pen in a hurry! Picture this: Sheep on one side and Zima on the other.
After that, we knew that Zima's "herding" behavior was all pretend herding with pretend sheep!
Zima could "spell", too. She was extremely observant of mine and Ruth's behavior and liked to get the whole household stirred up when food was being offered. She knew all the words associated with "food": hungry, dinner, "feed the dogs", it's time, etc. We tried spelling it out to keep the peace. "I think it's time to F-E-E-D the D-O-G-S". It didn't work. She would hear us spell and she was telling everybody, "they're getting out the food!" Bark, bark, bark!
Folks wouldn't believe us. We would demonstrate by spelling the word, F-E-E-D, and getting her to bark. Still, they claimed we were "doing" something that was giving her a "que". So, one night, just to prove it to us, Ruth started to spell out feed in total darkness. Zima still alerted. She knew what those letters meant. We knew she knew.
I miss Zima. There won't be another like her in our household. Not in a million years!
Sleep tight ol' girl. We'll be reunited some day...
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