January 3, 2013

Walking the Plank - Not To Be Confused with Planking

It's Mirth Watch Thursday, and today we learn about planking, as opposed to walking the plank.

If you've been around the blog the last couple of months, you know we've been going through a backyard reno project. We've had a fair amount of rain for San Diego lately, so we keep losing days of work here and there and the project seems like it's never going to end. At the same time, the deck we're having built continues to just be a framework that gets sturdier and sturdier. (I swear this deck is going to outlast any apocalypse! It will be the cockroaches, the stashes of uneaten Twinkies, and our deck.)

Anyway, I think it's been weeks now that we've been "walking the plank" to access our backyard from our sliding glass door, as Rita demonstrates in these photos:
(For an added thrill: she's naked in these photos!)


A naked puppy performs this death-defying feat! (Okay, ankle-spraining-defying...)
"Momma, please stop taking my picture and just get out of the way so I can come inside."

Now, as I mentioned above, this is not the same as planking. You've heard of planking, yes? It's this super silly fad (which is actually now technically dead, so if this is the first you've heard of it, you'll be happy to know that it's already come and gone and you didn't really miss anything) where folks lay face down - usually in a strange location - with their arms at the sides of the body, and they have a friend take a photo.

According to Wikipedia (pretty sure I won't find Planking on Encyclopedia Britannica - yep, a quick search turns up 10 inaccurate hits, the first one being about ship building. Thank heaven for Wikipedia, right?), the "lying down game" as it's alternatively called is also know as "extreme lying down" in Australia. Those Aussies - they crack me up. Spinoffs include: Teapotting (picture the "I'm a Little Teapot" pose), Batmanning, and, of course, Tebowing (which I believe is now banned in 7 states).

Of course this got me wondering about dogs and planking, so I give you this:

And this:

And this:
Planking! Not just for dogs! (and goofy humans!)
 And you should also ponder this:
Snoopy - probably the original planking dog

And last, but not least, a video of how to teach your dog to "plank" (aka, simply the "Down" command at our house, but still it's an amusing video from a dog trainer in LA):


I would post a pic of Rita planking, but she doesn't really do it right. This is as close as I can get, Abby planking with her food bowl:
Planking: for when you're too tired to eat standing up!

Does your pup plank? Happy Mirth Watch Thursday!

Oh, and if you haven't already seen this (which I posted a bunch of other places...) I got interviewed about my writing, my pups and my novel at Petside.com yesterday! Check it out if you have a minute. Thanks!
 

7 comments:

  1. I've never heard of planking before but I think Rita's demonstration is much more my style! Have you thought of putting her in a agility? It looks like she would be a natural!

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    1. I haven't really thought about trying agility with her because we are still working on her leash reactivity! She's gotten a lot better, so maybe we could try it. But she's actually not a super high-energy pup. One good walk a day (we usually go for an hour) and a bit of play time at night and she's good to go!

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  2. My dogs are too hipster to plank. How plebe. ;)

    When the kids worked at Sonic, they'd get drive through conings. One of them got tired of it, saw it coming, and shoved the cone in the teen's face. Takes all kinds.

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    1. You're so funny.

      And can I just say, coning?! That's just a waste of a perfectly good ice cream cone! You'll never catch me coning. But, yes, it does take all kinds!

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  3. Chili Dawg planked like Abby- they are probably planking up at the Rainbow Bridge. Buster planks like them as well. Finchy is too cool to do that.

    And don't forget "owling"- that was big out here in the spring- at night kids would climb out of their houses and pose sitting like an owl on their roofs or anywhere up high. Seriously. My students would show me pictures they took of friends doing it. I just didn't understand how cool it was.

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    1. Oh, I like that image of Chili and Abby planking together at TRB. :)

      I've heard of the owling thing too. So silly. I guess we are not cool enough to see the humor! :P

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  4. Hi! Rita reminds me of our pack walking on the old fence sections that were taken down at our house. It was a great challenge for the blind girls. As for the planking, our boy Forest does that with his food dish in his crate and the pup Breeze does too. Just a relaxing way to have a meal?!

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