Oh My Dog!

My big baby dozing on my lap

There are some moments when, as a dog guardian, I fail spectacularly. Our little dogs, no matter how smart, how well-trained, how reliable, are still dogs. And it’s our responsibility, as the humans in their lives who expect them to conform to our silly human rules, to safeguard our pups.

Today we experienced one of those moments, one of those moments when I should have known better. One of those moments when I should have reacted in my human way instead of trusting Lucas to react in a non-dog way.

Today, a horse kicked my Lucas.

Gah, the guilt, omg, the guilt. A local trainer invited Emmett and Lucas, among a few other dogs, to spend the morning running around her farm. How could we pass up five glorious acres of running space for the boys to play and socialize and work on attentiveness and recall in the process? Those five fenced-in acres turned out to be five mostly-fenced-in acres. There was one hole. One tiny little hole where the fence crossed a creek bed. And, of course, Lucas discovered the hole and scooted himself underneath while we people stood chatting several acres away.

On the other side of that fence was a horse, tucked away into her safe space, a one-acre area with a small barn for her to avoid the dogs. For an instant, nothing happened. Lucas sniffed the horse. The horse stood still, tolerating this invasion to her privacy. Then Lucas turned playful. He jumped around the horse. He play-bowed. He ran right in front of the horse, nose-bopping and nudging her.

And that was the moment we failed him.

Instead of mobilizing, instead of running across the field, instead of calling him… we froze. All three people standing in the paddock froze. The horse did not freeze. She ran to hide behind the barn, and Lucas chased! Fun game! he clearly thought, his tail wagging, his tongue hanging out.

John started to scale the fence, leash in hand, ready to grab him, when from the other side of the barn, Lucas yelped a loud, painful yelp. He limped around the barn, and John got the leash on him. He bit his tongue; blood pooled around his mouth. His eye was red and puffy, and he hung his head, tail down, thinking he was in big trouble.

Thankfully, about two minutes later he was running with the other dogs, playing, and taking treats. But woah, the guilt. Why didn’t we react? Why didn’t we call him or jump in there faster or do anything? We just stood there watching? The trainer, in fact, encouraged us to whip out our phone and snap a picture while Lucas sniffed the horse. “A Kodak moment,” she said.

Gah, we all should have known better, and now my baby is hurt. Not badly, luckily. His face is puffy and his eye is red. He has a small cut under his eye, and his limp will go away in a day or two of alternating heating pads and ice bags. Maybe I’ll double his Dasuquin dose tonight.

But my God, my baby got hurt when I should have been more attentive, I should have known better, I should have reacted and protected my guy.

(My guy who, by the way, is now curled up on the sofa, snoring softly, with his belly full of cheese and turkey, his two favorite foods, because plying him with cheese and turkey made me feel slightly better…)

After last week’s strange temperature spike (50 degrees! in January! in southern Indiana!), we’re back down to the more typical 14-degree weather. Of course, when it gets this cold, it’s impossible to walk the dogs. I can barely stand to be outside to walk to my car, let alone around the block… and that’s when I’m wearing my puffy coat, lined boots, gloves, and a hat. So in addition to our indoor agility course, we’ve been finding lots of other indoor activities.

One of their favorite indoor games is “find it.” Basically, I put them in a wait on their beds and sneak off to hide a toy somewhere in the house. Not only does it keep them moving, but it also exercises their senses and gets them thinking! Plus, I’ve recently started working on specificity: find hedgehog, find rope, etc.

Waiting for the cue to "find hedgehog"

Whoever finds the toy gets a few victory chews before I hide it again.

Emmett takes his victory chews.

Here’s where Lucas’ confidence issues come in: He finds the toy many, many times. However, he will only extract the toy from its hiding spot IF it’s somewhere he is totally confident. For instance, when he spots the toy on a dining room chair, he will poke his big old head under there and get the toy (sorry for the blurriness, he was moving too fast):

However, if that same toy is hidden on my desk chair -which has wheels and is, therefore, frightening – he will spot the toy, stare at it for 2-3 seconds, then keep looking. I don’t know why he does this. I have a few theories: he doesn’t want to clue Emmett in on its location, he’s hoping to find another toy somewhere else, he’s stalling to work up the courage to grab it. Who knows? But, of course, Emmett always ends up with the toy because Emmett is afraid of absolutely nothing.

It’s not just the desk chair either. If the toy is hidden in any of the bathrooms, behind a door, near the washer/dryer, the list goes on… he does the same thing every single time. He spots it. He stares for a couple seconds. He backs up, then resumes his search. I tried hiding treats with the toy, but of course that just led Emmett to the toy even faster and didn’t help encourage Lucas at all. I tried playing it with Lucas when John was out walking Emmett, and instead of continuing to look for the toy after spotting it in the scary location, he sat staring at it and crying, in essence asking me to get it for him. Which I didn’t. Because I’m mean.

My goal, of course, is to continue building Lucas’ confidence. Maybe this isn’t the right game? Or maybe I need to increase the stakes? I’d love to do an activity (indoors until it gets warmer) that will keep him moving, motivated, learning, and help build his confidence.

Any suggestions or insights?

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”
– Unknown

We returned Otto to my parents this past weekend. If nothing else, the week of dogsitting followed by a 90-minute drive up north proved that if we were to adopt a third dog, we need a bigger car, even if the dog is as small as Otto.

After Otto’s visit, Lucas needed a bath. From a week of playing with Otto, his fur was matted with slobber, and he had chunks of mud stuck to his belly. He really only needs a bath a handful of times each year, and he was due. While this might not seem like a big deal, poor Lucas hates water. Not just a little bit. A lot. He runs from the hose in the backyard. He refuses to dip his toes in puddles on the sidewalk. He won’t swim, and he definitely won’t go into the bathroom. Bathing him is an epic struggle. Last time John tried, Lucas kept trying to ninja-escape from the bathroom. And, of course, nosy Emmett was all up in Lucas’ bath business.

Since then, I have tried everything to lessen the horror of bath time. First, we worked on decreasing his bathroom-associated fear. I left treats in there for him to discover on his own. I started brushing him in the bathroom while giving him tons of treats and praise. Then I got in the tub with him and fed him treats while getting just his feet wet. When it was time for a full-fledged hose down, I cooked him sausages and hot dogs and bacon. I tried liver. No matter what, the poor guy just shut down the second he got in the tub. He tucked his tail, hung his head, and froze, refusing any of the meaty treats.

Until.

It’s such a great moment when you find the exact right motivation for your pup, right? It’s such a relief to know that you finally, finally got him past the pain of fear and into tolerance. Yesterday, Lucas got into the tub, allowed his feet to get wet, tolerated his back and neck getting wet, even stood for a good scrubbing. For what?

Slices of processed American cheese.

Huh.

This was the first bath that he didn’t tuck his tail. It was the first bath that he didn’t forcefully try to push past me to get out of the tub. Heck, it was the first bath that he actually ate the treats I was offering. It was the first bath that we got all the way through the last rinse before he started to get panicky.

All for slices of food-product-flavored-to-resemble-cheese.

Who knew.

I’m so excited to announce that I am registered and booked for this April’s BlogPaws conference. I’m really looking forward to meeting other pet bloggers and attending all the event sessions. But one quick confession: I’m not great at big social or networking events. And by “not great” I really mean that I can basically manage standing awkwardly near the food, striking up conversations along the lines of “I love shrimp cocktail” or “Do you think there’s dessert?” Or, if the event is at someone’s house, I tend to corner the host’s dog or cat and spend the evening with him/her. That being said, I am super excited for this event. I can’t wait to mingle with other like-minded pet bloggers and learn lots more about blogging!

In other news, dogsitting Otto turned very, very easy today after the boys had a playdate with our neighbor Cady last night! This is what they’ve been doing up until a few minutes ago(sorry for the blurry cell phone pics):

Lucas in my room

Emmett in the office

And Otto on today's laundry in the hall

Of course, as soon as I started writing about them sleeping all day… all three woke up and are now staring at me! Off to go walk, feed, and play with the boys!

Kole and Wookie

“To err is human. To forgive, canine.”
– Unknown

Emmett caught mid-yawn!

Dog bites. Not a cheery topic. Same with breed bans, which are inexplicably linked to dog bites. I’ve written a lot about my bully-mix Emmett and some more general bully love and rants (click on the Animal Rights category on the left side for previous posts). And though I’m sure most people who come read this blog (hello!) are of a similar dog-drool-loving mindset, I recently started tracking keywords that lead people to the site… I discovered a surprising number of dog-fight and pit bull related keywords. Hmm.

However, I don’t want to belabor the points (i.e. “pit bull” is an extremely misleading term, pit bulls take the fall for bad, irresponsible owners, etc.) So I thought it would be worthwhile to share some really good info I’ve recently discovered through the internet link-clicking rabbit hole!

2009 Dog Bite Fatalities Final Report: Read this! If only I could get a copy of this to every legislator who feels breed bans are the way to curb dog fights… If you read each incident thoroughly, several trends emerge. Which leads to the next article, also from the same site.

Dog bites vs dog attacks: Great article that goes into the dog bite epidemic (totally different from fatalities) with an awesome list of sources at the end.

Also, some major pit bull rescue love on The Brown Dog Blog, which I only discovered through The 2010 Brody Award page. Which led me to discover

Pinupsforpitbulls.com for which I have fallen madly in love and will be ordering a calendar ASAP!

Those are just a handful I’ve bookmarked in the last week… What about you? Any good links or resources to share?

My parents, who live about 90 minutes from us, are on vacation. So for this week, my mom’s little dog Otto is staying with us. Otto is a one-year-old bichon/shih tzu mix with the funniest little underbite. He just adores Lucas, and Lucas loves him, too, though Lucas tends to tire out long before Otto. With the three dogs, it’s a pretty funny dynamic around the house.

Big friend and little friend

Lucas is a trim 75 pounds; Otto is a porky little 12 pounds. Despite their size differences, they play together most of the day, wrestling, tugging, chasing. Lucas is really amazing at self-handicapping.

Although he usually lets Otto win, which has led Otto to think that he’s much, much stronger than he really is.

Emmett… he doesn’t mind Otto, and occasionally he lets on that he might actually like him, but mostly, Emmett is just happy to hang on the sidelines and watch Lucas and Otto duke it out. But I did catch them snuggled up a couple times today!

Otto is a pretty easy dog. He has great recall and is a generally happy fellow. The hard thing, though, is that his set of rules and boundaries are completely different from the rules I have for my guys. It’s difficult to decide whether or not to teach him the rules (i.e. out of the kitchen while I’m cooking) or just let it go for the week. Of course, as soon as Emmett realized Otto is in the kitchen while I’m cooking, he slips right in trying to get away with it, too!

Overall, Otto is doing great. It’s tough for any dog to be away from his people and his home, with all different routines and rules. He settled in pretty much right away, in large part because he worships Emmett and Lucas and just does whatever they do!

He’s here until Saturday, and I’m sure it’ll be an easy week. Although… Lucas will probably sleep for three straight days after Otto leaves!

So this is maybe the most exciting day for me…. um… ever! I just discovered that Oh My Dog! blog has been nominated for a 2010 Brody Award! Here’s my nifty brag button! Because I have to brag, of course!

I have to say, I absolutely adore the Pawcurious blog. It’s interesting, entertaining, and it completely satisfies my voyeuristic interest in veterinary medicine. And I’m nominated for an award! From that blog! Woohoo!

(Real post to come later today, I promise. I just had to get my excitement out. Excuse me while I go shout from some rooftops, then I’ll be back to post this week’s adventures in dogsitting!)

Have you ever had a training session that just dissolves into laughter? You just have to stop working because you can’t stop laughing? Meanwhile, you dog is staring at you like you’re a raving lunatic?

I taught the boys to “wave hi” using the clicker. Since they both already knew “high five,” I started with my hand in the “high five” position but clicked whenever they missed, giving the “wave hi” verbal cue. They got it immediately. They got it so quickly, in fact, that Emmett basically sat waving his little paw in the air, like a second grader trying desperately to get the teacher to call on him. Every time I glanced in his direction, his little paw flew up in the air. After a few minutes of that, John and I were laughing so hard, I could barely continue with the training. Even when I was working with Lucas, Emmett sat with his paw poised and ready to wave!

Also, John was hanging around while I was working on the behavior. About three minutes in, he pointed out that when Emmett responded slowly, I said, “Come on, buddy!” or something similar… so poor Emmett would get confused and scootch forward like… I’m already here, lady! Stop saying come!

That’s the great thing about the clicker. After a few minutes, we were able to refine the behavior so that Emmett wasn’t holding his paw up in between turns, and they were both waving on the first cute.

In this last pic, thanks to Emmett’s bandage (after last week’s biopsy), you can see the waving movement we finally nailed!

It was nearly impossible to get a good picture with our little point-and-shoot camera, but I might try to get some film footage of a training session next week!