For those of you deficient of the inestimable pleasure of knowing my dog, I will proceed to let you know more about him whether you wish to or not. Tundra is of that rare hybrid designer breed known as a Sibercan. This is a fiendishly clever contraction of the two breeds of his parents, a Siberian Husky and a Canaan dog. The former breed is pretty well known, whereas the latter is a bit more obscure, unless you happen to have read the somewhat recent article about their plight in the Washington Post or you are an expert in obscure AKC breeds. I know that I had never heard of them before we got Tundra. Needless to say, the experiment by the breeder in making this hybrid went over so well, that Tundra's was the only litter they produced.
We first got Tundra at the tender age of 8 weeks, delivered to us by a dog-courier facility from the Michigan location of his breeder. He was even sold at half price, due to the fact that he was a "shy" puppy. Since then, I have suspected that "shy" might be a euphemism for "mentally retarded" in the world of canine husbandry, but since he does occasionally show flashes of functional grey matter, he may indeed just suffer from diffidence.
The best thing I can say about our dog is that he provides us with a seemingly endless source of entertainment, although I am pretty sure that none of it is intentional. He is most easily described (with all due apologies to the late Douglas Adams) as acting in a manner almost, but not entirely, unlike a dog. I have even considered looking for a zipper to see if he is just a sheep wearing a dog suit and often refer to him as our "dog-shaped mammalian pet." The following list highlights his canine deficiency syndrome:
He does not appear to enjoy being petted.
Pleasing his owners only seems to be a motivation to him if he stand to gain something in the process.
If you throw an object at him, such as a tennis ball, piece of cheese, or chainsaw, he calmly lets it bounce off of his head/shoulder/back, without making an effort to catch it.
He will not chase thrown items (which makes it very difficult to play the fun game of faking a throw in order to watch his confusion at where the ball disappeared to)
He almost never barks.
He follows commands at times (i.e. if we are going through his training before giving him a treat), but generally just runs through a sequence of actions, rather than listening to what he is being told to do.
Along that line, he seems to have always interpreted the "sit" command as "take two or three steps back and then sit."
When strangers come to the house, he occasionally gets up to sniff them, but usually just stays reposed on the floor.
He will not climb stairs in the house (either up or down).
He has a nearly constant sad expression on his face, even when (especially when?) he is being petted or otherwise attended.
He has been observed digging a hole in the backyard to bury a rawhide bone....with his nose.
He used to routinely chew on grass when he was a puppy.
When we used to take him to the dog park, his main interest was standing near the water pump and not interacting with the other dogs.
However, this used to appeal to him so much that he would (probably still does) whine and pull towards the park every time we walk in sight of it.
When deer come into our backyard, he just stands around and looks at them (of course this may be due to his concern about the electronic fence..he has been zapped by it before and enjoys it even less than being petted).
I am sure there are many other examples I can come up with, but the above should be enough to give a general idea of what he is like. To be fair, a lot of the reasons listed above are a part of why he is such a great dog for our family. In addition, he is terrifically patient with the kids (my daughter used to pull on him to stand up when she was a toddler and he sat there stoically without making a move toward her), he house trained pretty quickly, he stays off of the furniture, he only requires one walk a day (but is a great pest when he does not get it), and occasionally shows glimpses of being smarter than he lets on. My wifegenerally insists that he is independent; however this does not keep her from calling him "stupid" a good portion of the time. All in all, I am glad we have him.
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