Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

A Great Time Was Had By All….Day One Hundred, Fifty Two

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Yesterday we were joined on our walk by a couple of our friends from Thursday night obedience class.  Dan and Pam had their two dogs and our friend Dave had his three dogs, Shane, Molly, and Duncan.  I have no idea what breed of dog Molly and Shane are, but Duncan is a chocolate lab.

Duncan is what the rescue groups call a “failed foster.”  This means that Dave was fostering Duncan until he could be adopted, but Dave fell in love and adopted Duncan himself.  Duncan is a special needs dog because he has a heart murmur.  The vet has told Dave that Duncan will live to about two or three.  Dave is determined to give Duncan as much life as he can, so if his time with us is short, at least it will be rich.

Duncan is a very sweet dog and like all labs is highly motivated by food. While we hiked yesterday Sampson, Delilah, Shane and Molly were all off leash, but Dave had Duncan leashed; and Pam and Dan’s dogs were also leashed.

After about 20 minutes Dan and Pam left, leaving Dave and I to walk the dogs.  I had already whipped out my ground beef a couple of times with much success in having the dogs all cluster around me.  Since the dogs were sticking close together and not straying too far from us, Dave decided to try Duncan off leash.  Duncan did wonderfully, all the dogs returned when called and if we said, “Hey we’re going this way” they all followed.

Duncan is the chocolate in the top right.

We had a really nice time, the dogs had a really nice walk.

The funniest incident came at the end of the walk, when we stopped at the stream to let the dogs have a drink; Sampson went to Dave’s right; Delilah went to Dave’s left and I just about face-planted in Dave’s ass.

All in all though, a great time was had by all.

Indulge me…Day One Hundred Fifty One

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Please indulge me for a moment as I vent.

Today we went to agility class, after class we started talking about the various personalities participating in the Thursday night obedience class.   One of the reasons I stopped going to class was because there are certain dogs I think are too aggressive and I’m not comfortable around them.  But there was another reason, a couple of the human attendees ‘rub me the wrong way.’  I won’t place a name to them, but will do my best to describe them.

First up is little woman with Akita.  Little woman with Akita has brown hair and what I call blue eyes.  One blew left and one blew right.  When she is talking to you; you never know where to look!  Little woman with Akita is apparently a dog trainer.  Why she brings her dog to this class is beyond me.  Little woman with Akita likes to be the dominant personality with the dogs and when she sees someone who is not handling her dog the way she thinks they should, she will come over to you and show you how to down your dog.  I told Sara if she sees her heading my way don’t stop her; I will be happy to tell her to back the f&*k off.  Little woman with Akita likes to stand across the room from her dog and whisper his name; naturally her dog goes right to her; I think she’s showing off.

Next up we have man with two dogs. Man with two dogs is apparently quite a big executive at one of the local insurance companies; he is actually quite proud of his dogs who seem to be his only hobby.  I’m betting man with two dogs is single.  Man with two dogs likes to train his dogs in the center of the room, while everyone else is trying to walk their dogs and keep them from dashing after other dogs; man with two dogs plays a game with his dogs called; Articles.  He has these little dumb bells and he takes them carefully out of his backpack with a pair of tongs, then he picks up a dumb bell and rubs his hand all over it and puts it back in the pile.  He gives his dog the command, “Take it.”  This practice is detrimental to the class because the dogs in the center are a distraction for the dogs who are walking.  I think man with two dogs is himself a dumb bell.

Since I have stopped going to class, there are a couple of new dogs, and they are fairly aggressive.  I found out today man with two dogs is deliberately setting his dogs up so the more aggressive dogs will go after them.  If his dogs ‘take the bait’ he is going to discipline them.  This pisses me off like you wouldn’t believe.  WTF is wrong with people?  These are two very sweet dogs, who are extremely well-behaved and he wants them to fail so he can correct them?  How do you deal with a situation like that?  I wonder is he setting them up at home so he can correct them there too?  Is this his twisted idea of training?

More than likely I will be heading back to the Thursday night class, so I can help Marcie with Zoe so I need to really think this through because I’m fairly sure an opportunity will present itself and I need to be prepared so I know what I am going to do.

Delilah found a treat in one of the crates at agility class.

Practice Makes Perfect…Day One Hundred, Fifty

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Delilah has quite a bit more energy than Sampson; let’s face it Chet and I have a pretty mellow lifestyle and Sampson has adapted to it very well.  Since Sampson has been on the Prednisone and antibiotic, he has had even less energy.  The Prednisone has some side effects such as lethargy, and  increased thirst along with (naturally)  increased urination.  I know Sampson is not feeling himself, so I want to be careful on our walks that he doesn’t become over exerted.  This can become challenging considering Delilah’s energy level has not diminished in the least.

I think one of the reasons Delilah has become lax on her recalls is because I have become lax in her training, I got her so she came back to me all the time and then I stopped calling her back to me.  Now if she sees a squirrel or something else interesting she ignores me.   The real key to training a dog is consistency.  So we worked on calling the dogs back to us while we were walking.

After about 15 minutes of walking on the trails, we decided a little training was in order.  We thought maybe we could give Delilah some additional exercise combined with training.

When I went to the store today I decided instead of roast beef, I would get a pound of ground beef.  The dogs eat raw food, so why not use the raw beef, considering it is about $4 less per pound.

We went to the field and Chet stayed on one end with what was left of the roast beef, while the dogs and I walked  to the other end of the field.   Chet called Delilah and she took off running; Sampson stayed with me at first which was good because I didn’t really want him running.  Once Delilah had reached Chet and he had rewarded her with some roast beef, I called her to me and rewarded her with the ground beef.

Chet and I continued in this manner about four times each; just before we called it quits, I had the dogs in front of me and I was feeding them the ground beef when Chet called for Delilah and she turned and ran back to him, totally ignoring me and the beef in my hands.  This was exactly what I wanted, I want her to want to come back to us more than she wants to chase a squirrel or explore a new trail.

Practicing being perfect.

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