Boston Terrier Tazo’s owner claims that her dog has moments when he blanks out completely, is unaware of his surroundings, and has to be physically removed while apparently under heavy sedation.
She said that this happens on nearly every walk.
Tazo will notice something mildly unusual, like a stick on the path or a plastic bottle by a tree, and then freeze. He becomes nearly catatonic in his utter and complete fixation on the object he spied.
Tazo’s owner insists that we go for a stroll so that I can witness her dog’s “altered state.”
And so we meet at The Crossings in Colonie. It’s a lovely venue for a stroll, because all dogs are guaranteed to be leashed. Unlike neighborhoods, there are no surprise appearances by loose dogs that can sabotage a training session.
As soon as we began the walk, we almost ran headlong into a mourning dove sitting on the pavement. Mourning doves don’t seem to have the built-in avian radar that enables birds to detect the imminent presence of humans. That is, until you nearly step on them. Then they startle into a flurry of indignant, belated flight.
Just as his owner stated, Tazo took one look at this ditzy dove sitting in the grass and stood in suspended animation, as if in a trance.
We shooed the bird and pried Tazo from his stupor. Not two minutes later, Tazo halted again, hypnotized, it seemed, by a divot. The clod of grass and dirt, which most people and dogs would hardly notice, made Tazo lose all sense of reality. “Oh, for God’s sake, Tazo!” his owner declared, “it’s freaking mud!” She kicked it (the divot, not the dog) to the side and hustled Tazo away.
As you surmised from the title of this blog post, a turtle on the edge of the pond had Tazo so benumbed that his owner, exasperated, turned to me. “Is there anything we can do for this dog?” she pleaded. “Blinders? Drugs? A cattle prod? Frontal lobotomy?”
As yet, I haven’t patented the Earth to Bailey spray, which might actually be as effective on canine somnolence as it is on canine ADD. So we employed a variety of treats, squeakers, whistles, and other diversionary tactics, which unfortunately proved useless in breaking through Tazo’s brain freeze.
Success came in the form of a lowly sports bottle. Not squirting it – just showing it to Tazo. As long as a glimmer of the bottle remained in view, Tazo could walk like a champ.
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