Well, I almost made it through the day without a crackup.
Almost.
I cleaned my back door off today, to remove all the dried muddy paw
marks, and slobber residue.
I did fine.
I can look at the grave in the back yard and just feel an emptiness now.
I hung my bed sheets out on the clothesline today for the first time
this year without any concern that someone would see them as a game
and pull them off.
I managed that okay, too.
All the toys are picked up and safely in the landfill, inside and out.
I still go the back door and look in the back yard out of habit.
I know there is nothing to see out there now.
Just the grass with that little patch of brown dirt out next to the fence...
But I go anyway, and look.
I don't know why.
Maybe just to test myself in some way.
But as I was pondering what to fix for dinner tonight, I saw the beef
strips in the refrigerator I bought for my friend two weeks ago.
I had cooked them so that they would be ready to warm up and mix with
her corn-ball food.
I could not decide if I wanted to have dinner from Mexican Express, or
fix something here, maybe using those un-used beef strips.
And somewhere in my attempt to make a decision, I lost it.
It kind of surprised me.
Meal time was a special time for us.
Breakfast and dinner.
We would eat together....
Well, we ate separately but at about the same time.
Just a few feet apart in the same room.
She would always finish hers first.
It was never enough.
And she would shadow me as I sat down at the table with whatever I had fixed.
In the last couple of months she had settled into a routine of sitting
or laying next to my chair, or at my feet under the table and quietly
wait while I ate.
Sometimes her paw would settle on my foot.
And I spoiled her by letting her lick the last residue from my plates
or bowls when I was finished.
Then while I washed the dishes, she would play in the back room with
some of her toys.
Interestingly, the place where my chair sits while I eat, is the exact
spot where she choose to lie down for the last time.
Did she knowingly choose that spot to die?
Or was that a coincidence?
Somehow I doubt it.
But sometimes I try to read too much into situations.
Still a ways to go....
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Second Guessing
I caught myself second-guessing my actions in the last days of Sally the dog again this morning.
If only I had done this, or not done that.
If had known she was going to die so soon Saturday night, I would have stopped reading the stupid book I was reading and sat with her in the dining room that whole last hour.
(Jesus said, "What, could you not watch with me one hour?" Matthew 26:40)
Then my mind goes to the thought I had Sunday morning as I was going through this line of thought,
She does not care now.
She does not hurt now.
She holds nothing against you.
The truth is, Sally just wanted to be near me.
She expected very little from me.
She had no expectations about what I could do to ease her discomfort or heal her illness.
She only knew that she was sick/uncomfortable.
My time with her those last three days was all she expected and thus, all she wanted.
All she knew to receive from me was food (which she could not use at the time), water (which I provided for her and she drank the first two days), physical proximity (which meant I was interested in her), my occasional petting/scratching/rubbing, and my occasional chatter.
The truth is, even when I was busy doing other things, she was happy just to be near me in the same room, or in the room next to me, or in the same house with me.
If you watch two healthy dogs, they occasionally play with each other, which involves running/chasing each other, chewing/biting each other, and pawing/touching each other.
At other times, they simply lay near each other.
Occasionally they will sleep touching each other, but not always.
The key element in friendship/relationship for a dog is proximity.
I have learned this over the last 20+ years and did my best to apply this understanding to this relationship with this dog.
Interestingly, only humans pet/scratch animals.
Animals do not do this among themselves, though they will occasionally lick each other.
The human element in my relationship with my dogs is that I talk to them.
Not in a squeaky baby-talk voice, but in a regular tone, like I would a child or adult.
I understand that dogs do not understand english (or any human language), but they do understand the emotion/energy (as Cesar calls it) that we humans have.
Over time, they learn what we want them to do and not do, and we learn what they like to do and not do.
The animal I named Sally was just a dog.
Although humans and some animals can develop strong relational bonds, in the final analysis, animals are still just animals.
It is easy for we humans to over-interpret the actions and thinking of our pets.
I still catch myself feeling guilty for some of the things I did or did not do with Sally.
The truth is, she probably did not notice.
Even if she did, she did not hold it against me.
I miss my dog.
If only I had done this, or not done that.
If had known she was going to die so soon Saturday night, I would have stopped reading the stupid book I was reading and sat with her in the dining room that whole last hour.
(Jesus said, "What, could you not watch with me one hour?" Matthew 26:40)
Then my mind goes to the thought I had Sunday morning as I was going through this line of thought,
She does not care now.
She does not hurt now.
She holds nothing against you.
The truth is, Sally just wanted to be near me.
She expected very little from me.
She had no expectations about what I could do to ease her discomfort or heal her illness.
She only knew that she was sick/uncomfortable.
My time with her those last three days was all she expected and thus, all she wanted.
All she knew to receive from me was food (which she could not use at the time), water (which I provided for her and she drank the first two days), physical proximity (which meant I was interested in her), my occasional petting/scratching/rubbing, and my occasional chatter.
The truth is, even when I was busy doing other things, she was happy just to be near me in the same room, or in the room next to me, or in the same house with me.
If you watch two healthy dogs, they occasionally play with each other, which involves running/chasing each other, chewing/biting each other, and pawing/touching each other.
At other times, they simply lay near each other.
Occasionally they will sleep touching each other, but not always.
The key element in friendship/relationship for a dog is proximity.
I have learned this over the last 20+ years and did my best to apply this understanding to this relationship with this dog.
Interestingly, only humans pet/scratch animals.
Animals do not do this among themselves, though they will occasionally lick each other.
The human element in my relationship with my dogs is that I talk to them.
Not in a squeaky baby-talk voice, but in a regular tone, like I would a child or adult.
I understand that dogs do not understand english (or any human language), but they do understand the emotion/energy (as Cesar calls it) that we humans have.
Over time, they learn what we want them to do and not do, and we learn what they like to do and not do.
The animal I named Sally was just a dog.
Although humans and some animals can develop strong relational bonds, in the final analysis, animals are still just animals.
It is easy for we humans to over-interpret the actions and thinking of our pets.
I still catch myself feeling guilty for some of the things I did or did not do with Sally.
The truth is, she probably did not notice.
Even if she did, she did not hold it against me.
I miss my dog.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
My First Walk Alone Since....
I promise this will not go on forever.
But I have to purge my mind/heart of this pain.
And I am getting better.
I walked around the neighborhood this morning at dawn.
This is the first time I have done this in several months.
My daily walks with Sally had become my exercise walking time.
Now I am back to the solitary method.
It felt both strange and comfortable.
While walking, I think about stuff.
Not unexpectedly, my thoughts lately have been predominantly introspective.
And perhaps a bit selfish.
One thought I had this morning was, did I even have a big white dog?
Were the last 150 days real?
Or did I just imagine it all?
I did okay for most of my walk, but my mind wandered into forbidden territory toward the end.
I was in the last quarter mile of my walk and my mind replayed my last 20 minutes with Sally.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
I don't know but I did it.
Again.
How many times in the last two days have I tortured by heart with a re-run of those last twenty minutes or so?
I remembered when I came into the dining room to check on her, her tail did two weak flops.
It was her acknowledgment that she knew I was there and she appreciated my presence.
She was giving me all that she could at that moment.
Two little tail wags was all she had left to give to me.
I lost it then.
Right in the middle of the street.
I kept going, struggling to get my childish boo-hoo's under control.
It took a few long seconds, but I managed.
It will be hard not to think of her when I walk alone again because we walked these streets together.
I see things that she found worthy of a extra sniff.
Sorry to prattle on....
Monday, May 07, 2012
On Sally the Dog
Please bear with me in this.
This is how I drain the pain and grief I have inside me now.
I write.
I do not wish to spread my pain to others, but for those few who are interested in the details of Sally, the Great Pyrenees Mountain Guard Dog's final days and her passing, this will answer most questions.
My motive is not to cause you to feel sorry for me, because in a few days or weeks, I will be fine, with just some memories of these events.
This is how our last days together went.
I realize that for most people this is TMI to the extreme.
But I need to do this.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
The first indicator that something was wrong was Wednesday evening when I let Sally into the house and presented her with her dinner.
I had just cooked some beef strips and mixed a few of them with her dry dog food.
Normally she would have gobbled this combination down in a minute or two.
But that night she took a couple of sniffs and looked up at me.
I knew right then that something was very wrong with my dog.
I put her food down on the floor in its usual place and continued to prepare my dinner.
She went back to the back door to be let out.
I let her out and she went out onto the grass and vomited.
After eating my dinner I went out in the back yard and sat with her for about 30 minutes.
In that time, she heaved 5 more times.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Thursday morning when I greeted Sally in the morning about our usual time of 6:30 she was about the same.
Still no appetite.
She wanted to be in the house with me and watched from the back room as I ate my breakfast.
Since the morning walk was cancelled, I spent some time with her in the back yard.
As the day went on she was throwing up every 30 minutes to hour or so.
I had seen her be sick before, so I was not too concerned.
After a few heaves and some rest she would recover and we would be fine.
Or so I thought.
Since her stomach was empty by now, her throwing up amounted to the dry heaves.
Very little substance with a little light-colored liquid of stomach bile and/or the last bit of water she had drunk came out.
I was concerned and did some online research on sick dogs.
One item stated that being sick was not as big a deal for a dog as it was for humans.
It said that for most sickness, they heal on their own within 24 hours.
This seemed reasonable to me so I made a mental note to wait until Friday morning before taking any action.
I also did an online search for nearby veterinarians just in case.
Since she was too sick to play or go for a walk, I consciously made time to go out and sit with her in the yard while she lay around being sick.
I was worried about my doggy and it was killing me to watch her suffering.
After seeing pictures of dogs sitting/lying near their dead owners/companions, I felt that she would understand if I just sat quietly by her.
I began praying for her.
Not knowing what we were in for, I prayed that God would either heal her or take her quickly.
Helplessly watching her suffer was killing me.
I prayed and cried for her several times that day.
That evening I let her in the house and she slept quietly most of the night next to my bed.
She seemed to rest well and I hoped we were turning a corner.
Maybe all she needed was some rest to beat this bug.
At about three AM she woke up – which woke me up.
I assumed she needed to go out to pee.
I let her out and she went into the grass and threw up again. (dry)
I was feeling sorry for my dog.
I left her outside and I went back to bed.
And at that moment I knew we were going to the doctor.
Friday, May 4, 2012
I called the selected veterinarian's office as soon as they opened Friday morning and made an appointment for that morning.
I did not call this an emergency but we needed some help/information quickly.
My dog was suffering and I could not stand to watch helplessly much longer.
The doctor and the assistant were very gentle and careful with my Girl as they poked and prodded her.
They took her into the back room to do blood samples and x-rays while I waited in the lobby.
About 30 minutes later the doctor came out and we looked at the x-ray pictures (2 of them) together.
Her large intestine seemed to have a lot of material in it.
There were no other obstructions or other indicators of a problem to be seen.
Sally's blood showed all normal.
She was not dehydrated, her heart beat was strong and clean and normal, her temperature was normal, the doctor said there was a lot of intestinal gurgling.
She weighed 63 pounds.
There was no obvious indicators for her sickness.
I mentioned the dead bird that she had munched on during our wednesday morning walk.
The doctor noted that, but there was nothing in the results of the examination to indicate that it was the cause of the problem.
They gave me some pills to fight her gastroenteritis and another to calm her nausea, and scheduled another appointment for the following Friday.
She continued to throw up every hour or two that day.
I went out and sat with her for an hour or so three or four times.
Each time I talked to her, petted her, prayed for her, cried, and felt totally useless.
Since Sally had been mildly sedated to allow the vet to do the x-rays and blood tests, I did not give any pills to Sally until that afternoon.
Ten minutes after I put the two pills on the back of her tongue she threw up again.
That evening I offered her the chance to come inside, she seemed content to stay outside, so we slept separately.
She woke me up around midnight with the sound of her vomiting just on the other side of the fence outside my bedroom window.
I lay in bed crying and praying for her for a while before drifting off to sleep again.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
I went on my usual Saturday morning run at 5:30 AM.
I went outside to visit her that morning hoping for some signs of improvement.
There were none.
She did not seem worse, but no better.
I fixed breakfast for myself but fixed nothing for Sally because I knew she was not able to eat.
(had she shown the least amount of interest in eating anything I would have gladly complied)
I sensed that Sally was vomiting less often.
I hoped that perhaps we would see some improvement soon.
But the day wore on and I was becoming increasingly concerned.
She look exhausted and spent the day lying in a spot for 30 minutes or so, then getting up and slowly walking to another spot to do the same.
And the places she picked were interesting.
She went to the far south-west corner of the yard, then to the far north-east corner, then to another far corner against the fence.
In almost every case, she went to the farthest edge of the yard and laid against the fence.
Her walk was that of a zombie.
She would get up and stand still for a few seconds.
She could not hold her head up, her front legs were covered with vomit or saliva and thick strings of it hung from either side of her mouth.
I would wipe her mouth with a paper towel and 10 minutes later she would be messy again.
This was not always from vomiting again, but just from slobbering, it seems.
She walked slowly to her next destination then plopped down and lay like the sphinx.
Evidently, she could not lay on her side or she would become sick again, but I am just guessing at this.
I went out to sit with her several times that day.
I would talk to her, pet her, cry and pray for her.
My prayer was basically the same from the beginning – I asked God to heal her.
And if He was not going to heal her, then allow her to die quickly with as little suffering as possible.
I was silent much of the time I was with her.
As bad as it hurt me to see her suffering, I felt that I needed to be near her.
That SHE needed to know that I was near her.
My motive for this came from some pictures I had seen in the last few months of dogs who had lost friends or owners.
In each case, the dog would remain near the dead companion in silent vigil.
Sally was not dead, but I tried to emulate that dog action, hoping she would understand.
And I hoped that it would provide some measure of comfort to my, otherwise miserable, friend.
By afternoon I realized that Sally had stopped drinking her water.
I was dying for my dear, suffering dog.
I could do nothing for her and she had no idea how to communicate anything helpful to me.
Strangely, at dinner time, she went to the back door of my house.
I opened the door to let her in.
After several long seconds she stepped into the house and lay down by the door.
As sick and weak as she seemed, I hoped that this was a sign that she was getting better.
While I fixed my dinner in the kitchen, she lay in the next room quietly panting.
By this time, her mouth was dry. (too dry, I was to soon find out)
I took turns reading a book, playing on my computer and talking and sitting with Sally after my dinner.
She in turn moved slowly from lying in the back room to the bathroom, to my bedroom.
While I lay on my bed reading a book, Sally lay in a narrow patch of the floor next to my bed.
At about 6:30 PM she stood up.
She tried to turn around the leave the narrow (about 18 inches) area next to my bed but her hind legs would not cooperate.
It took her several seconds to get them to function, then she walked slowly to the dining room next to the chair where I usually eat.
At first I thought she wanted to go outside, but I was wrong.
I left her there and, unable to know what to do for her other than be near her, I returned to my book.
Just before 7:00 PM I went out to the dining room to see how she was doing.
Sally was laying on her side, panting.
It was a new posture for her.
This did not look good.
I sensed that she could lay like this for another 12 hours or it could be a matter of minutes until she died.
Her tongue looked like a piece of cooked bacon and her mouth was dry.
I got a spray bottle and filled it with cool water and sprayed her mouth a few times.
Her tongue never moved.
This was not good at all.
I went into the back room and got a seat cushion and sat down on the floor next to her.
Her tail flopped weakly twice.
She knew I was there. (although her eyes were open, I was not sure she could see anything)
I scratched her neck and ears a little and spoke to her.
With my heart breaking, I started to pray again and then I began to cry.
When I started to cry, SHE started to cry.
I immediately got control of myself.
If she could sense my emotions, even in her declining state of health, then I needed to be strong for her.
In those minutes I told Sally that I was sorry I could not help her.
I prayed quietly that God would take her quickly.
In the next minutes her breathing became more labored and shallower.
Soon, she was working so hard for her next breaths that she was pushing her paws against the floor.
A few times she mixed a faint high-pitched whimper in with her exhales.
She was struggling.
This was it.
Helplessly, I watched with morbid fascination as my friend faded from this life.
Finally, she stopped breathing altogether.
I felt her heart still beating, strongly, in a surprisingly slow rhythm – about one beat per second.
It would be just a few seconds now...
She let out a deep exhale.
About a minute later her heart stopped.
She gave one last deep gasp, her body convulsed and she was gone.
I looked at the clock, it was 7:17 PM.
An inky black liquid oozed from her mouth onto my white vinyl floor.
I got up and got some paper towels to clean up her small mess.
I checked her back end to see if there was anything leaking from there, but there was nothing.
I was coldly lucid.
There were no tears, no prayers now.
My Sally was dead.
Gone.
There was nothing more I could do.
In a selfish way I was glad she was dead.
She would suffer no more.
And I would suffer no more, either.
I remember thinking, this is my last dog.
I knew I needed to move her fairly soon so I looked in my back room at my available wood to find a pallet to transport by big, dead dog outside.
I found a four foot piece of plywood left over from a piece of furniture I had built then dismantled that would fill the need.
I slid Sally's body up onto the piece of wood and pulled her out of the house, being illogically careful as I went over the step-downs to the patio.
Even though I had not given much conscious thought to where I would bury my dog, I dragged her pallet across the back grass to a spot about three feet from the back fence.
I slid her body off the plywood and went back into the house.
I little more black liquid had run from her mouth so I wiped it off of the plywood and returned the piece to its place against the wall.
I did a final wipe up of the dining room floor and went into my bedroom and posted the notice on Facebook that she had died.
I debated whether to bury her body then or wait until morning.
It was so dark at about 7:30 that I was not sure I could finish the job and do it properly.
But waiting until morning allowed the risk of varmints coming to desecrate my dog in the night.
I decided to wait until morning, wake up early and dig the hole.
I was surprised at my cool demeanor.
Fifteen minutes ago I was crying, now I was cool.
I knew what was going on.
I was in shock.
The state would not last.
And it did not.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
I took spells of reading and crying until 1 AM, when I finally turned out the light.
I slept fitfully, waking up every hour.
After I woke up at five AM I could not go back to sleep.
I was thinking of digging that hole.
As I was putting on my work boots, I heard the distant rumble of thunder.
Now what, I grumbled.
I went outside and began digging.
Fortunately, no critters had found Sally's body.
I dug my hole down to about nine inches when the weather threatened to rain and zap me.
Reluctantly, I took Sally's body by her hind feet and dragged her into my tool shed to protect her from the coming rain.
Why I did this I am not sure.
I went into the house to look at the local radar.
The storm was significant but mostly to the east of my part of town.
It rained a little, but not hard, and not for long.
After about 30 minutes, I decided to risk getting killed by lightening to finish my job.
At this point I did not care if I got killed.
In a light drizzle with lightening rumbling around me, I finished my hole.
I rolled Sally's stiff body into the hole, arranged her head, legs and tail then began putting the dirt on top of her.
I tired to not think about what I was doing.
One thing I noticed when I had rolled her over was that her now-stiff tongue had fallen out of her mouth and had lay flat against her jaw.
When I finished covering the hole and scraped most of the mud off of my work boots, I took them off and went into the house.
The first thing that hit me was the memory of Sally's tongue, now stiff and still, that used to lick my hand and my used dishes.
And I fell apart.
Again.
…...............................
I did not realize how many times in a day I used to look into my back yard.
This comes to mind because now I catch myself start to look only to realize that there is nothing back there to see.
It was an acquired habit.
Any time I was not otherwise occupied I would take a peek at my dog in the back yard to see what she was doing.
When I left the house to go somewhere, when I returned, while going to or from the kitchen to the bedroom, or just because I was curious.
There is no need now.
I did not mind eating alone.
I have done it for twelve years.
Occasionally, I would have a guest or two.
But mostly I have eaten alone.
After Sally came I got used to having her around while I ate.
After she learned the rules about not taking what was not hers, she was very well behaved.
Now, suddenly, eating alone feels VERY alone.
Empty.
Lonely.
It will take a while to get comfortable eating alone again.
I have removed the special plywood shelf I fixed in the rear seat of my car so Sally could ride back there more steadily.
(I was in the process of building a smaller one for the front passenger seat, no longer needed.)
She loved to ride in the car.
All the towels I had dedicated to her car trips are now washed and ready to put back on the shelf.
No longer needed.
I have mopped up all the faint paw prints from my kitchen floor one last time.
The box of doggy toys has been removed and the toys thrown away.
Tomorrow I plan to rake the back yard to collect and remove all the doggy toys and sticks from there.
There will be one last scoop up operation with the shovel to remove the remaining deposits from the back yard.
I want to remove the dog house, but my son warned me to keep it around for a few weeks.
I loved my dog.
I am surprised by the depth and intensity of my reaction to Sally's sickness and death.
She was just a dog.
But apparently I had invested a lot of emotional resources into our relationship.
The greater the commitment, the greater the hurt at separation.
She only lived 195 days.
WHY DID SHE DIE?
We do not know.
I went back to the veterinarian today to ask her why my dog died.
She had no answers.
I questioned her about parvovirus.
Did she test Sally for it?
No.
Why?
There were no indicators that it was present (rectal bleeding/discharge/diarrhea, extreme weakness, very low or very high white blood cell counts, etc.)
I asked her about the dark liquid when Sally died.
The vet said it was probably old blood but there was no indicators at the time of her examination what caused that.
(I never saw any dark liquid when Sally was vomiting. And I saw her vomit at least ten times or more...)
From the time I first noticed that something was wrong (Wednesday evening) until the visit to the veterinarian (Friday morning) was 40 hours.
From the time of the visit to the veterinarian until her death (Saturday evening) was 34 hours.
Total time of Sally's illness – 74 hours.
I am saving a question for God - Why did you allow me to have this dear creature for five months or so and then take her away from me?
Friday, March 16, 2012
A SPECIAL TIME
[For perspective, read my previous post before reading this entry.
These two events took place less than two hours apart.]
Last night about 7:15 a powerful thunderstorm came through our town.
It produced some of the most significant lightening I have seen in a while.
I like watching thunderstorms, and, since I did not have anything pressing to occupy my time, I turned off all the lights in the house and watched the light show outside through the windows, and from my covered back porch.
I was also curious how Sally the Great Pyrenees Mountain Fluff Pile would respond to the storm.
From previous observations, it seemed that she was not particularly bothered by thunderstorms.
In times past, I have watched her lay around in the yard as the wind picked up and the rain started, seemingly unconcerned by the environment.
When the rain became heavier, she retreated to her dog house to wait out the excitement.
So, amid my personal observation of the approaching storm last night, I took occasional peeks at Sally in the back yard.
The lightening was spectacular and the thunder was impressive, with deep, overlapping rumbles, booms, bangs going off all around us.
Finally, the rain changed from a light drizzle to a heavy downpour.
Sally went from her snuggle spot against the back of my house into her house to watch.
But apparently the lightening was too much for her.
As I watched, she bolted from her house out into the heavy rain to her napping spot in the southwest corner of the yard.
There is no protection from rain there so in a second or two, she raced across the yard to the northeast corner, another one of her favorite spots to nap sometimes.
No escape there, either.
At this point, I could stand this no longer.
I opened the back door just enough to stick my head out and began calling and whistling to her to come in.
Amid the racket of rain and thunder, it took a few long seconds for her to hear me, but when she did, she came to me.
I got a towel and wiped her off.
It was clear that she was excited and distressed and it took a minute or two for her to settle down.
But finally, she laid down on the floor next to my work table, about three feet from the back door (now closed).
I opened the curtains so we could watch the excitement outside, and I sat down on the floor next to her.
I gave her a few scratches around her ears (contrary to what Cesar Milan and his disciples say to do in this kind of situation, this seemed to help calm her....) and sat still and mostly silent.
I say mostly silently because I could not help muttering occasional comments about the jagged streaks of light that were lighting up the dark sky.
(in fairness to Cesar, I purposefully remained mostly still, quiet and calm, as he suggests, to allow her to sense my calm “energy” in spite of the distressing environment outside, which seemed to work as he describes.)
I laid my hand on the floor between us (we were about six inches apart) and she skooched herself so that one of her front paws was under my hand and the other was halfway covering a couple of my fingers.
We sat quietly in the dark and watched the light show together.
She calmed down and laid her head next to my hand – within tongues reach, and occasionally licked my hand.
This reminded me of my former dog, Woof.
He was a big country mutt (I suspect he was part Great Pyrenees because of the shape of his ears and his heavy fur – especially in winter) that for his heroic antics in good weather, was afraid of thunderstorms.
Woof never liked to be inside a building.
He never came into our house.
But when a thunderstorm came, I let him into our small back porch room, and he would lie on the floor next to the freezer to wait out the storm.
Many times I would sit there in the dark with him for a few minutes.
So last night, with such memories in my head, Sally and I shared a special time together.
We sat/laid in the darkness, watching the storm outside for about an hour.
I had the feeling that it was a life-changing event for my dog.
While I may be over-estimating its effect, I suspect that she will feel differently about me from now on.
When things settled down outside, I invited her to go out, reluctantly, she went.
While I would have liked for her to remain in the house (even all night), she is still a puppy and wants to constantly play with me.
And playing for her means biting my hands, legs and feet.
I am sick of that, and did not want to change our quiet time together into a nose-slapping “NO!” session. (Which is exactly what happened between us when I went out into the back yard with her after dinner tonight – see previous posts.)
These two events took place less than two hours apart.]
Last night about 7:15 a powerful thunderstorm came through our town.
It produced some of the most significant lightening I have seen in a while.
I like watching thunderstorms, and, since I did not have anything pressing to occupy my time, I turned off all the lights in the house and watched the light show outside through the windows, and from my covered back porch.
I was also curious how Sally the Great Pyrenees Mountain Fluff Pile would respond to the storm.
From previous observations, it seemed that she was not particularly bothered by thunderstorms.
In times past, I have watched her lay around in the yard as the wind picked up and the rain started, seemingly unconcerned by the environment.
When the rain became heavier, she retreated to her dog house to wait out the excitement.
So, amid my personal observation of the approaching storm last night, I took occasional peeks at Sally in the back yard.
The lightening was spectacular and the thunder was impressive, with deep, overlapping rumbles, booms, bangs going off all around us.
Finally, the rain changed from a light drizzle to a heavy downpour.
Sally went from her snuggle spot against the back of my house into her house to watch.
But apparently the lightening was too much for her.
As I watched, she bolted from her house out into the heavy rain to her napping spot in the southwest corner of the yard.
There is no protection from rain there so in a second or two, she raced across the yard to the northeast corner, another one of her favorite spots to nap sometimes.
No escape there, either.
At this point, I could stand this no longer.
I opened the back door just enough to stick my head out and began calling and whistling to her to come in.
Amid the racket of rain and thunder, it took a few long seconds for her to hear me, but when she did, she came to me.
I got a towel and wiped her off.
It was clear that she was excited and distressed and it took a minute or two for her to settle down.
But finally, she laid down on the floor next to my work table, about three feet from the back door (now closed).
I opened the curtains so we could watch the excitement outside, and I sat down on the floor next to her.
I gave her a few scratches around her ears (contrary to what Cesar Milan and his disciples say to do in this kind of situation, this seemed to help calm her....) and sat still and mostly silent.
I say mostly silently because I could not help muttering occasional comments about the jagged streaks of light that were lighting up the dark sky.
(in fairness to Cesar, I purposefully remained mostly still, quiet and calm, as he suggests, to allow her to sense my calm “energy” in spite of the distressing environment outside, which seemed to work as he describes.)
I laid my hand on the floor between us (we were about six inches apart) and she skooched herself so that one of her front paws was under my hand and the other was halfway covering a couple of my fingers.
We sat quietly in the dark and watched the light show together.
She calmed down and laid her head next to my hand – within tongues reach, and occasionally licked my hand.
This reminded me of my former dog, Woof.
He was a big country mutt (I suspect he was part Great Pyrenees because of the shape of his ears and his heavy fur – especially in winter) that for his heroic antics in good weather, was afraid of thunderstorms.
Woof never liked to be inside a building.
He never came into our house.
But when a thunderstorm came, I let him into our small back porch room, and he would lie on the floor next to the freezer to wait out the storm.
Many times I would sit there in the dark with him for a few minutes.
So last night, with such memories in my head, Sally and I shared a special time together.
We sat/laid in the darkness, watching the storm outside for about an hour.
I had the feeling that it was a life-changing event for my dog.
While I may be over-estimating its effect, I suspect that she will feel differently about me from now on.
When things settled down outside, I invited her to go out, reluctantly, she went.
While I would have liked for her to remain in the house (even all night), she is still a puppy and wants to constantly play with me.
And playing for her means biting my hands, legs and feet.
I am sick of that, and did not want to change our quiet time together into a nose-slapping “NO!” session. (Which is exactly what happened between us when I went out into the back yard with her after dinner tonight – see previous posts.)
Another Whiny Post
I am so discouraged.
My poor dog does not know how play without biting.
I feel so sorry for her.
After dinner (during which she was very good (went outside to drain,
etc) I went outside with her to play for a few minutes (since I am the
only person she has to play with [about which I feel guilty]).
I decided to play pull rag with her as she seems to enjoy the physical
challenge of the game.
She is still teething and got some blood on our pull rag.
I moved on to tossing her teddy bear (which magically appeared in our
yard a couple of weeks ago) to see if she wanted to play fetch - after
a few tosses she seemed bored.
We tried pull again but she got excited and began biting my hands and
legs and shoes instead of the flannel sheet I had given her for this
game.
As I have written before, she seems to know that she is not supposed
to bite, but she seemingly cannot help herself.
She will stop for a few seconds but returns to snapping (gently,
playfully) at my hands, shoes and legs.
I tell her no and try to move my hands away from her head.
I have taken to slapping her nose when she bites.
I hate doing that because I do not want her to become afraid of my hands.
Finally, she had both of my hands/wrists bleeding from her
still-hypodermic teeth.
After the last grab, she got a new hole bleeding in my hand, I swatted
her nose hard with a final "no" and went inside.
I wiped off the blood and bathed my hands in rubbing alcohol.
Looking out the window, I saw her laying on the patio by the back door
waiting for me. ;(
I actually prayed to God to help my dog understand what was acceptable behavior.
I know she does not speak English and has only a vague idea of what I
am saying/doing/want
.
In many ways she is doing good but this is a real problem.
I feel guilty that she has only me to play with.
I like her to be near me, but I cannot play with her constantly.
I feel guilty when I hit her or scold her because I know she does not
really understand what is expected of her.
She is only a dog.
Living is the city is different from living in the country like her siblings.
I feel sorry for my dog.
I know this sounds whiny but I love my dog.
I do not want her hurt or to do things that will get her in trouble.
This is another of my mood swings where I get so discouraged with her
I want to give her away to some people who have a nice big farm where
she can play and romp and BE a guard dog.
My poor dog does not know how play without biting.
I feel so sorry for her.
After dinner (during which she was very good (went outside to drain,
etc) I went outside with her to play for a few minutes (since I am the
only person she has to play with [about which I feel guilty]).
I decided to play pull rag with her as she seems to enjoy the physical
challenge of the game.
She is still teething and got some blood on our pull rag.
I moved on to tossing her teddy bear (which magically appeared in our
yard a couple of weeks ago) to see if she wanted to play fetch - after
a few tosses she seemed bored.
We tried pull again but she got excited and began biting my hands and
legs and shoes instead of the flannel sheet I had given her for this
game.
As I have written before, she seems to know that she is not supposed
to bite, but she seemingly cannot help herself.
She will stop for a few seconds but returns to snapping (gently,
playfully) at my hands, shoes and legs.
I tell her no and try to move my hands away from her head.
I have taken to slapping her nose when she bites.
I hate doing that because I do not want her to become afraid of my hands.
Finally, she had both of my hands/wrists bleeding from her
still-hypodermic teeth.
After the last grab, she got a new hole bleeding in my hand, I swatted
her nose hard with a final "no" and went inside.
I wiped off the blood and bathed my hands in rubbing alcohol.
Looking out the window, I saw her laying on the patio by the back door
waiting for me. ;(
I actually prayed to God to help my dog understand what was acceptable behavior.
I know she does not speak English and has only a vague idea of what I
am saying/doing/want
.
In many ways she is doing good but this is a real problem.
I feel guilty that she has only me to play with.
I like her to be near me, but I cannot play with her constantly.
I feel guilty when I hit her or scold her because I know she does not
really understand what is expected of her.
She is only a dog.
Living is the city is different from living in the country like her siblings.
I feel sorry for my dog.
I know this sounds whiny but I love my dog.
I do not want her hurt or to do things that will get her in trouble.
This is another of my mood swings where I get so discouraged with her
I want to give her away to some people who have a nice big farm where
she can play and romp and BE a guard dog.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The State of the Union
Not of the United States, just my house.
Sally the Great Pyrenees Mountain Guard Dog Fluff Muffin has been showing more little bits of improvement this past week.
This past Friday I left the back door open after I let her in for breakfast, because the weather was so nice.
At one point, after Sally had eaten, she walked to the back room, went out the doorway and did her business in the grass.
I was impressed.
When she was done she trotted back inside.
I told her how impressed I was with her achievement.
For the last week or so, we have had no Events to tarnish her record of self control.
And due to her learned behaviors and my watchful eye, I have found her standing at the back door, waiting to be let out to do her morning squattings every day.
We have this routine down pretty well.
We have been able to take a walk almost every morning this past week or two, and Sally has been taking new routes almost each session.
She has met some new dogs and seen many more that she could not get close enough to meet.
And she has found many yucky things to taste, lick, eat, and sniff.
Saturday was the big day for us.
After I did my morning run and shopping, I took Sally the Mountain Dog to a mountain.
We went to the Bankhead Land Trust for a hike on one of their many trails.
We did this the week before but there was a time limit on us that day so we could not go as far as I would have liked.
This day was different.
We could go as far as she could stand (I just assumed that I [ahem] could go the distance with no problem. This proved to be only partially true.).
I set a time frame of about two hours – one hour out and one hour back – because that has proved to be about Sally's limit of endurance.
Even if she does not know it.
Being a typical dog, she will bop til she drops (literally) if I do not intervene.
It had recently rained and there was plenty of mud on the trails, but I expected this.
I had an extra towel in the car should I need to de-mud my Fluffy Muff.
The springs and streams along the way were chattering happily with fresh water, which Sally played in and partook of at every opportunity.
We hiked about a mile out.
This included a brief off-the-trail jaunt up some steep rocks to give her (and yers troolee) some REAL climbing experience.
We went up about 30 or 40 feet then walked a short distance of a level shelf and found an easier descent path back down to our trail.
At a point or two I had to allow Sally to work out her fear/perplexity about how to scale the terrain presented to her.
She is a puppy yet, after all.
But she did fine.
At a certain point, I decided that she had had enough, and convinced her to turn around and go back.
When we go back to the car, she did not want to get in, so we sniffed around the parking lot for another ten minutes.
Finally, I convinced her to get into the car and we drove home.
During the ride home, it was clear that Sally the Mountain Dog was tired and hot (the temp was about 65).
I got the impression that she wanted to sit up an see the traffic and scenery but was too tired to do so.
Thus, she laid down in the back seat (properly covered with a towel) and panted most of the way home.
When we go home, she took another big drink of water and laid down in the shade.
She slept for almost three hours.
Then came the phone call.
Jef called and we arranged a drop-off/pick-up deal with some vehicles nearby (he is moving).
In the process, he invited me and Sally to his new homestead to explore and visit with his wife, and children and dogs – Sally's brother and sister.
I had been wanting to do this for a while so quickly agreed.
I went home and fixed up the car for more possible dirty doggy.
When Sleepy Sally saw the leash again she was ready to go.
She had a pleasant time riding in the car again; this time, on the longest car trip she has ever been on (about 30 minutes).
When we got to the property, I let her off her leash, with my heart in my throat, and let her go.
Her brother and sister (and the family) had not yet arrived.
She trotted off down the gravel road by herself, sniffing and looking around (this was her first visit here).
Soon the gang arrived, and like the clown car at the circus, dozens of occupants poured fourth from the big truck/car.
Sally soon took up with her siblings and they began frolicking and exploring together.
While the humans talked and played and watched, the dogs played and sniffed around their new territory.
We had to call them back from the neighbors yard once, but the dogs mostly stayed within view and played and watched the area.
Romeo the cat came along as well and played Yard Tiger as the people talked and planted potatoes.
Romeo is an amazing animal – especially for a cat.
He is very tolerant of big playful dogs and little children who love to carry him around.
He, in turn, likes to engage the humans by lying or sitting or standing on them, if they are not moving around too much.
There is a famous picture of Romeo lying on Jef's lap while he is driving.
Romeo is my kind of cat.
The dogs played off and on the whole time we were there (about 2 hours).
Sally had a wonderful time, but I knew she was very tired.
On the ride home, she took spells to sitting up and watching the passing parade and laying down panting.
She was dirty, too.
I was tired as well.
But I debated with myself whether to give her a bath.
She needed it and I knew I could not give her a bath on Sunday because of all the comings and goings I must do.
So, after dinner, I got the bucked and extra towels and took off her collar.
She really did not want to get into the tub and do this, but she took it all reasonably well.
And she was ready to get out of the tub when I was done rinsing her.
She WAS dirty.
The rinse water was light brown.
Sally's fir is so thick it absorbs a LOT of water.
Drying her off will soak two large towels and probably a third.
She is never completely dry when we are “done”.
So, even though she was still damp, and was going to be in the 40's that night, I let her outside to bed down in the cool breeze.
As usual, I worried about her, but I need not have.
She was fine, and happy to see me the next morning.
And dry.
But she was not the same doggy.
Sunday morning, Sally was quiet, and subdued as I fixed her breakfast.
She sat or laid on the floor and watched me do my morning doings for the both of us.
I was tired, too.
Since I did not have time for a walk Sunday morning, I planned to take her for a walk that afternoon.
But I was so tired after morning church meeting, that I took a nap first.
Later that afternoon I took Sally for a walk, but she could barely trot.
As is our custom, I let her pick the route, she plodded along sniffing and looking, but after a turn around the block she headed us back home.
Instead of her usual 45 minute to one-hour session, this one barely lasted thirty minutes.
Monday morning, she was STILL sagging.
She was quiet for breakfast, and our morning walk was more sedate than usual.
The walk lasted about an hour, but Sally did a lot of walking (and much less trotting or running).
I was a bit sore as well.
Tuesday, Sally was a bit more her old self, but still a bit more subdued than usual.
That evening after dinner I played with her in the yard and she became more rowdy (play-biting, etc).
This morning she was mostly quiet, sitting or laying as she watched me prepare our food.
I think her big weekend has changed her forever.
Sally's most annoying habit is play-biting.
We are working on this.
On my part, I am trying to train/teach her to not bite with a combination of keeping my hands/arms away from her mouth so that she cannot bite me, and slapping her nose when she does.
I do not like hitting her.
I do not want her to be afraid of my hands.
But she seems to not be able to keep herself from biting when she is playing.
I have tried everything I have read to correct this problem (substituting a chew toy, turning away from her, yelping like a dog when she bites, etc).
Nothing has worked.
On her part, it is clear that she knows it is forbidden.
It is clear that she tries to not bite hard.
When she is slapped and scolded, she tries to stop but gets frustrated because she does not know how to play otherwise.
In addition, she is teething.
Her new adult teeth have come in across the front of her mouth (and perhaps her new molars).
But her baby incisors are still in place, and they are the four teeth that do the most damage/injury.
I thinks things will improve when her adult teeth are all in.
I am looking forward to taking the big dog on another trail hike soon.
Since I have a commitment this Saturday, I may try to go hiking with her on Friday.
Stay tuned.
Sally the Great Pyrenees Mountain Guard Dog Fluff Muffin has been showing more little bits of improvement this past week.
This past Friday I left the back door open after I let her in for breakfast, because the weather was so nice.
At one point, after Sally had eaten, she walked to the back room, went out the doorway and did her business in the grass.
I was impressed.
When she was done she trotted back inside.
I told her how impressed I was with her achievement.
For the last week or so, we have had no Events to tarnish her record of self control.
And due to her learned behaviors and my watchful eye, I have found her standing at the back door, waiting to be let out to do her morning squattings every day.
We have this routine down pretty well.
We have been able to take a walk almost every morning this past week or two, and Sally has been taking new routes almost each session.
She has met some new dogs and seen many more that she could not get close enough to meet.
And she has found many yucky things to taste, lick, eat, and sniff.
Saturday was the big day for us.
After I did my morning run and shopping, I took Sally the Mountain Dog to a mountain.
We went to the Bankhead Land Trust for a hike on one of their many trails.
We did this the week before but there was a time limit on us that day so we could not go as far as I would have liked.
This day was different.
We could go as far as she could stand (I just assumed that I [ahem] could go the distance with no problem. This proved to be only partially true.).
I set a time frame of about two hours – one hour out and one hour back – because that has proved to be about Sally's limit of endurance.
Even if she does not know it.
Being a typical dog, she will bop til she drops (literally) if I do not intervene.
It had recently rained and there was plenty of mud on the trails, but I expected this.
I had an extra towel in the car should I need to de-mud my Fluffy Muff.
The springs and streams along the way were chattering happily with fresh water, which Sally played in and partook of at every opportunity.
We hiked about a mile out.
This included a brief off-the-trail jaunt up some steep rocks to give her (and yers troolee) some REAL climbing experience.
We went up about 30 or 40 feet then walked a short distance of a level shelf and found an easier descent path back down to our trail.
At a point or two I had to allow Sally to work out her fear/perplexity about how to scale the terrain presented to her.
She is a puppy yet, after all.
But she did fine.
At a certain point, I decided that she had had enough, and convinced her to turn around and go back.
When we go back to the car, she did not want to get in, so we sniffed around the parking lot for another ten minutes.
Finally, I convinced her to get into the car and we drove home.
During the ride home, it was clear that Sally the Mountain Dog was tired and hot (the temp was about 65).
I got the impression that she wanted to sit up an see the traffic and scenery but was too tired to do so.
Thus, she laid down in the back seat (properly covered with a towel) and panted most of the way home.
When we go home, she took another big drink of water and laid down in the shade.
She slept for almost three hours.
Then came the phone call.
Jef called and we arranged a drop-off/pick-up deal with some vehicles nearby (he is moving).
In the process, he invited me and Sally to his new homestead to explore and visit with his wife, and children and dogs – Sally's brother and sister.
I had been wanting to do this for a while so quickly agreed.
I went home and fixed up the car for more possible dirty doggy.
When Sleepy Sally saw the leash again she was ready to go.
She had a pleasant time riding in the car again; this time, on the longest car trip she has ever been on (about 30 minutes).
When we got to the property, I let her off her leash, with my heart in my throat, and let her go.
Her brother and sister (and the family) had not yet arrived.
She trotted off down the gravel road by herself, sniffing and looking around (this was her first visit here).
Soon the gang arrived, and like the clown car at the circus, dozens of occupants poured fourth from the big truck/car.
Sally soon took up with her siblings and they began frolicking and exploring together.
While the humans talked and played and watched, the dogs played and sniffed around their new territory.
We had to call them back from the neighbors yard once, but the dogs mostly stayed within view and played and watched the area.
Romeo the cat came along as well and played Yard Tiger as the people talked and planted potatoes.
Romeo is an amazing animal – especially for a cat.
He is very tolerant of big playful dogs and little children who love to carry him around.
He, in turn, likes to engage the humans by lying or sitting or standing on them, if they are not moving around too much.
There is a famous picture of Romeo lying on Jef's lap while he is driving.
Romeo is my kind of cat.
The dogs played off and on the whole time we were there (about 2 hours).
Sally had a wonderful time, but I knew she was very tired.
On the ride home, she took spells to sitting up and watching the passing parade and laying down panting.
She was dirty, too.
I was tired as well.
But I debated with myself whether to give her a bath.
She needed it and I knew I could not give her a bath on Sunday because of all the comings and goings I must do.
So, after dinner, I got the bucked and extra towels and took off her collar.
She really did not want to get into the tub and do this, but she took it all reasonably well.
And she was ready to get out of the tub when I was done rinsing her.
She WAS dirty.
The rinse water was light brown.
Sally's fir is so thick it absorbs a LOT of water.
Drying her off will soak two large towels and probably a third.
She is never completely dry when we are “done”.
So, even though she was still damp, and was going to be in the 40's that night, I let her outside to bed down in the cool breeze.
As usual, I worried about her, but I need not have.
She was fine, and happy to see me the next morning.
And dry.
But she was not the same doggy.
Sunday morning, Sally was quiet, and subdued as I fixed her breakfast.
She sat or laid on the floor and watched me do my morning doings for the both of us.
I was tired, too.
Since I did not have time for a walk Sunday morning, I planned to take her for a walk that afternoon.
But I was so tired after morning church meeting, that I took a nap first.
Later that afternoon I took Sally for a walk, but she could barely trot.
As is our custom, I let her pick the route, she plodded along sniffing and looking, but after a turn around the block she headed us back home.
Instead of her usual 45 minute to one-hour session, this one barely lasted thirty minutes.
Monday morning, she was STILL sagging.
She was quiet for breakfast, and our morning walk was more sedate than usual.
The walk lasted about an hour, but Sally did a lot of walking (and much less trotting or running).
I was a bit sore as well.
Tuesday, Sally was a bit more her old self, but still a bit more subdued than usual.
That evening after dinner I played with her in the yard and she became more rowdy (play-biting, etc).
This morning she was mostly quiet, sitting or laying as she watched me prepare our food.
I think her big weekend has changed her forever.
Sally's most annoying habit is play-biting.
We are working on this.
On my part, I am trying to train/teach her to not bite with a combination of keeping my hands/arms away from her mouth so that she cannot bite me, and slapping her nose when she does.
I do not like hitting her.
I do not want her to be afraid of my hands.
But she seems to not be able to keep herself from biting when she is playing.
I have tried everything I have read to correct this problem (substituting a chew toy, turning away from her, yelping like a dog when she bites, etc).
Nothing has worked.
On her part, it is clear that she knows it is forbidden.
It is clear that she tries to not bite hard.
When she is slapped and scolded, she tries to stop but gets frustrated because she does not know how to play otherwise.
In addition, she is teething.
Her new adult teeth have come in across the front of her mouth (and perhaps her new molars).
But her baby incisors are still in place, and they are the four teeth that do the most damage/injury.
I thinks things will improve when her adult teeth are all in.
I am looking forward to taking the big dog on another trail hike soon.
Since I have a commitment this Saturday, I may try to go hiking with her on Friday.
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Progress of the Dog
Sally the Great Pyrenees Mountain Guard Dog is now, officially, four months old.
About 17 weeks, to be precise.
She is changing and maturing almost daily in small ways.
We are still working on her play biting.
She is doing better (better = less), and it is clear that she is trying to do better.
But my still-bloody/scared hands and wrists testify that she is failing to overcome her puppy habit.
Some days she does better than others, but it is clear that she understands that I do not like it and she tries to restrain her natural tendency.
Yet, she still bites me when she feels playful or excited.
Sally seems to do better at this in the mornings than in the evenings, I am not sure why.
Sally's progress on house training is spotty at best (sorry).
She can go days without an indoor transgression, then do (sorry) as she did the other evening and, as I was doing the dishes, produce a fresh, warm puddle on the kitchen floor, looking me right in the eye the whole time.
Of course she was banished to the back yard, which she seems to understand better than that she is not to eliminate in my house.
But if I am watchful, as I said, she can go several days in a row without a ill-placed deposit.
By far, Sally's favorite time is our walks together.
She has learned that they usually happen in the morning after we eat and I finish washing the dishes and brush my teeth (lest I forget).
I have a certain jacked that I wear in the cold weather, that she now recognizes as my walking uniform, and when I reach to put it on, she becomes excited.
My reach for the leash – which hangs on a screw in the back room wall – she becomes slightly more excited.
I always hook the leash to her collar when we are outside, and she can barely hold still enough to allow me to find the D-ring on her collar to attach the leash.
Then it is off down the driveway to sniff the surrounding territory.
While she tends to travel the same basic paths, she has in the last week or so, begun to travel new streets.
Some of them, I have never been on the whole time I have lived here.
Thanks to Sally, I have now.
And we have settled into a cooperative negotiation process in our walks.
She seems to like to pull me along a bit, especially at the beginning of a walking session.
Cesar would be disdainful of how she “drags” me around.
I don't care, really.
His theory of Pack Leader vs submissive/passive walking is not valid for all dogs, methinks.
Sally is almost always compliant with my modifications to her chosen path or items of interest.
As I have stated, these walking sessions are for the DOG, not the people.
So I let her have a good bit of leeway in where she goes.
I mainly control her so that she does not dart into the path of a car (which she occasionally will try), or wander too deeply into a neighbor's yard.
In addition to her neighborhood walks, we go almost once a week for a car trip.
These are short rides to either a small park about two miles from my house, or the local dog park, about three miles from my house.
Sally enjoys both places, but I think she likes the dog park the most because there are so many of her cousins there.
Sally is very sociable and submissive with the other dogs and very friendly with the people.
We are often complemented on how pretty/cute/fuzzy she is.
Some ask her breed, other seem to know, and as she grows/matures, her breed is becoming more evident to those who know breeds.
She can only stand about 30 minutes in the doggy park because she runs herself to exhaustion with the other dogs.
I can see, as she gallops about, when she begins to drag a bit.
I will probably see some day soon just how long she will go before she stops on her own volition.
This past Tuesday was a day off work for me, the weather was pleasant, so I decided to be brave and take Sally the Pyrenees Mountain Guard Dog to mountains for a short hike.
We drove to Bankhead Land Trust and hiked a short distance on one of the trails there.
I had a time constraint so we only traveled about a mile or so, which took almost an hour.
This was the second walk for Sally that day (we had already walked the neighborhood that morning), and it was the third walk for me (I had also done my 3 mile pre-dawn walk that morning).
We were both ready for a nap that afternoon.
I was a bit stiff and sore that evening.
But the net result of all of that was, when I took Sally out this morning for our usual neighborhood walk, she tried to get in the car.
To that issue, I have been pondering what I need to do to my car to better accommodate my increasingly big doggy.
While I like her to ride in my front passenger seat (covered with large towels), she is becoming so big that she just barely fits on it.
I may have to permanently assign her to the back seat, modified appropriately for her.
I may create some sort of wood platform to give her a more solid place to stand/sit/lay.
And, in spite of my efforts to cover my car interior, everything there is beginning to look like old flannel.
All of this is rocking along made possible by my current work schedule.
If I find another job (as I NEED to....) our walking, visiting schedule will have to be modified.
I feel a heavy weight of responsibility to my animal.
It is not fair to her to relegate her to my tiny back yard with no interaction for her with other dogs or people.
She is a social creature and needs regular communication or she will become a problem/destructive.
I dread that.
About 17 weeks, to be precise.
She is changing and maturing almost daily in small ways.
We are still working on her play biting.
She is doing better (better = less), and it is clear that she is trying to do better.
But my still-bloody/scared hands and wrists testify that she is failing to overcome her puppy habit.
Some days she does better than others, but it is clear that she understands that I do not like it and she tries to restrain her natural tendency.
Yet, she still bites me when she feels playful or excited.
Sally seems to do better at this in the mornings than in the evenings, I am not sure why.
Sally's progress on house training is spotty at best (sorry).
She can go days without an indoor transgression, then do (sorry) as she did the other evening and, as I was doing the dishes, produce a fresh, warm puddle on the kitchen floor, looking me right in the eye the whole time.
Of course she was banished to the back yard, which she seems to understand better than that she is not to eliminate in my house.
But if I am watchful, as I said, she can go several days in a row without a ill-placed deposit.
By far, Sally's favorite time is our walks together.
She has learned that they usually happen in the morning after we eat and I finish washing the dishes and brush my teeth (lest I forget).
I have a certain jacked that I wear in the cold weather, that she now recognizes as my walking uniform, and when I reach to put it on, she becomes excited.
My reach for the leash – which hangs on a screw in the back room wall – she becomes slightly more excited.
I always hook the leash to her collar when we are outside, and she can barely hold still enough to allow me to find the D-ring on her collar to attach the leash.
Then it is off down the driveway to sniff the surrounding territory.
While she tends to travel the same basic paths, she has in the last week or so, begun to travel new streets.
Some of them, I have never been on the whole time I have lived here.
Thanks to Sally, I have now.
And we have settled into a cooperative negotiation process in our walks.
She seems to like to pull me along a bit, especially at the beginning of a walking session.
Cesar would be disdainful of how she “drags” me around.
I don't care, really.
His theory of Pack Leader vs submissive/passive walking is not valid for all dogs, methinks.
Sally is almost always compliant with my modifications to her chosen path or items of interest.
As I have stated, these walking sessions are for the DOG, not the people.
So I let her have a good bit of leeway in where she goes.
I mainly control her so that she does not dart into the path of a car (which she occasionally will try), or wander too deeply into a neighbor's yard.
In addition to her neighborhood walks, we go almost once a week for a car trip.
These are short rides to either a small park about two miles from my house, or the local dog park, about three miles from my house.
Sally enjoys both places, but I think she likes the dog park the most because there are so many of her cousins there.
Sally is very sociable and submissive with the other dogs and very friendly with the people.
We are often complemented on how pretty/cute/fuzzy she is.
Some ask her breed, other seem to know, and as she grows/matures, her breed is becoming more evident to those who know breeds.
She can only stand about 30 minutes in the doggy park because she runs herself to exhaustion with the other dogs.
I can see, as she gallops about, when she begins to drag a bit.
I will probably see some day soon just how long she will go before she stops on her own volition.
This past Tuesday was a day off work for me, the weather was pleasant, so I decided to be brave and take Sally the Pyrenees Mountain Guard Dog to mountains for a short hike.
We drove to Bankhead Land Trust and hiked a short distance on one of the trails there.
I had a time constraint so we only traveled about a mile or so, which took almost an hour.
This was the second walk for Sally that day (we had already walked the neighborhood that morning), and it was the third walk for me (I had also done my 3 mile pre-dawn walk that morning).
We were both ready for a nap that afternoon.
I was a bit stiff and sore that evening.
But the net result of all of that was, when I took Sally out this morning for our usual neighborhood walk, she tried to get in the car.
To that issue, I have been pondering what I need to do to my car to better accommodate my increasingly big doggy.
While I like her to ride in my front passenger seat (covered with large towels), she is becoming so big that she just barely fits on it.
I may have to permanently assign her to the back seat, modified appropriately for her.
I may create some sort of wood platform to give her a more solid place to stand/sit/lay.
And, in spite of my efforts to cover my car interior, everything there is beginning to look like old flannel.
All of this is rocking along made possible by my current work schedule.
If I find another job (as I NEED to....) our walking, visiting schedule will have to be modified.
I feel a heavy weight of responsibility to my animal.
It is not fair to her to relegate her to my tiny back yard with no interaction for her with other dogs or people.
She is a social creature and needs regular communication or she will become a problem/destructive.
I dread that.
Monday, February 13, 2012
The Philosophy of Dog
The other day a flash of insight came upon me regarding my dog.
It ran something like this....
Sally is a Great Pyrenees Guard dog.
She does not really know this, she just knows she exists.
But she cannot escape her heredity.
Genetically, she is programmed to behave in certain ways that are, to a degree, unique to her breed.
As a guard dog, she needs something/someone to guard.
It is in her unconscious makeup to find/define the limits of her territory and to supervise activity within that area.
Although I am her companion, and she recognizes me as such, I am also that which she feels compelled to guard/protect.
I am her herd – in the absence of a real heard of animals.
This understanding displays itself mostly in our walks around the neighborhood.
Lately, I have let Sally decide which of two basic routes we are to go.
She has settled into a path and pattern on both routes and she visits the same spots.
She seldom, if ever, tries to deviate from the path she has established.
She seems to alternate each path from day to day; which I find interesting.
She remembers which path she took the previous walk.
And to my surprise, she has rather quickly learned the “wait” command at each street crossing.
Lately, she has occasionally stopped at a street and sat down for a moment waiting for me to give the command “okay” to proceed.
Otherwise, she will stop at a street when I say “wait”.
Sometimes she is less focused on my commands and timing (how long to “wait”) but she is doing very well given the vague circumstances for the command (crossing a street).
She keeps the distance to about a mile out and back, and the time to about 45 minutes to an hour.
Last Friday was an exception.
It was the first walk in the morning we had done in four days and she was ready to get out of the yard.
When we finished her southern loop she turned and started on her northern loop.
She was well behaved and although we did some running, she was not agitated or “frantic” in her explorations.
In fact, she was quite well behaved.
When she sees or hears another dog or people, she usually stops and sniffs and looks.
I stop also and take the tension off the leash and let her satisfy her curiosity.
It only takes a few seconds (10-20?) and then she moves on.
Sometimes she stops again and re-examines the point of interest again.
Occasionally, she will stop three or four times before moving on.
Sometimes she wants to go in for a closer sniff, if it is people I let her get closer if they are on or near the sidewalk.
If not, I hold her back.
The same goes for other animals – sometimes I let her go for a closer sniff, sometimes not.
I do not allow her to invade other people's property without their permission.
Sometimes we run.
It is usually in short spurts of 100 feet or so, then she must stop and sniff something for a few seconds.
Then off we go again.
She is the one who initiates the runs, usually.
But I don't mind letting her run.
After all, this is HER walk, and one of the purposes is to allow HER to get some exercise, especially that which she cannot get within the confines of her yard.
And being a runner, how could I deny the benefits of this activity to someone?
Or some doggy?
So we run.
And when she is done, she is ready to return to her yard.
I do not have to coax her to go home when she has run her loops.
Saturday, in spite of the biting cold and wind, I loaded Sally into my car and we drove to the nearby park where we have walked before.
We owned the park.
No one was there but us.
As is usual, we started out on the nice, paved walking/running path but Sally soon wanted to examine the perimeter of the area.
So we went off the paved path and she sniffed the fence line around the west half of the park.
My only correctional input was that she stay out of the mud in one area.
Which she complied with.
Although I did provide some limits on how far she could go near the main highway and large city river, she pretty much had her way.
And when she was done – 30 minutes later – she was ready to get into the car.
In fact, when we went walking on Sunday afternoon after church, she sought to get into the car.
I do not know what she had in mind as to a destination, but it was clear that she wanted to go for a ride.
I dissuaded her and she went into the back yard without further protest.
My point?
Simply that she enjoys the walks with me and also it allows her to be a guard dog to me.
She needs to have a job to do.
She needs to have THIS job to do.
She needs to fulfill the inbred function of defending or watching for possible threats to me (and herself).
The RUN
Saturday was my first run in two weeks.
My work schedule has cut into my exercise time such that I have neither walked nor worked out in two weeks. (I did walk my dog almost every evening)
Anyway, there was some concern about my strength for the full 4 mile jaunt.
Also, it was 25 degrees with a lovely 20 MPH wind that had the windchill factor in the single digits.
This allowed me to try my new terrorist mask.
It is a long, knit watch cap that completely covered my head and neck, with holes for eyes and mouth.
It proved to be ideal for the situation.
In mile two I took off my wool mittens and held them in my hands.
Just holding them was enough insulation to keep my hands warm in the 8 degree breeze.
I also had to unzip my wind layer and the knit layer underneath as I was generating more heat than my top would allow to escape when closed.
All in all, I was quite comfortable given the nasty environment in the pre-dawn morning.
I took my time and just pounded along trying to be careful so that I did not break anything.
And, as has been the case for the last couple of runs, I found myself daydreaming about this and that as I bopped along.
There was nary a pain or whimper from joint or connector anywhere on me.
When I got back to my car, though, I was ready to stop.
I did not feel tired in the bad sense.
There was no struggle or argument with Running Central about whether to continue or not.
It was a good run.
A great run.
In two months I will turn 67 years old. (assuming I do not drop dead within those 60 days...)
I find that hard to believe sometimes.
Running has been a wonderful privilege for me and I am delighted and amazed that I am able to do it at my age.
I have been running off and on for eleven years, now.
As I have said before, if someone had told me in high school that I would be running 4 miles once a week when I was 66 years old, I would have told them they were nuts.
But here I am.
I feel very blessed.
.
It ran something like this....
Sally is a Great Pyrenees Guard dog.
She does not really know this, she just knows she exists.
But she cannot escape her heredity.
Genetically, she is programmed to behave in certain ways that are, to a degree, unique to her breed.
As a guard dog, she needs something/someone to guard.
It is in her unconscious makeup to find/define the limits of her territory and to supervise activity within that area.
Although I am her companion, and she recognizes me as such, I am also that which she feels compelled to guard/protect.
I am her herd – in the absence of a real heard of animals.
This understanding displays itself mostly in our walks around the neighborhood.
Lately, I have let Sally decide which of two basic routes we are to go.
She has settled into a path and pattern on both routes and she visits the same spots.
She seldom, if ever, tries to deviate from the path she has established.
She seems to alternate each path from day to day; which I find interesting.
She remembers which path she took the previous walk.
And to my surprise, she has rather quickly learned the “wait” command at each street crossing.
Lately, she has occasionally stopped at a street and sat down for a moment waiting for me to give the command “okay” to proceed.
Otherwise, she will stop at a street when I say “wait”.
Sometimes she is less focused on my commands and timing (how long to “wait”) but she is doing very well given the vague circumstances for the command (crossing a street).
She keeps the distance to about a mile out and back, and the time to about 45 minutes to an hour.
Last Friday was an exception.
It was the first walk in the morning we had done in four days and she was ready to get out of the yard.
When we finished her southern loop she turned and started on her northern loop.
She was well behaved and although we did some running, she was not agitated or “frantic” in her explorations.
In fact, she was quite well behaved.
When she sees or hears another dog or people, she usually stops and sniffs and looks.
I stop also and take the tension off the leash and let her satisfy her curiosity.
It only takes a few seconds (10-20?) and then she moves on.
Sometimes she stops again and re-examines the point of interest again.
Occasionally, she will stop three or four times before moving on.
Sometimes she wants to go in for a closer sniff, if it is people I let her get closer if they are on or near the sidewalk.
If not, I hold her back.
The same goes for other animals – sometimes I let her go for a closer sniff, sometimes not.
I do not allow her to invade other people's property without their permission.
Sometimes we run.
It is usually in short spurts of 100 feet or so, then she must stop and sniff something for a few seconds.
Then off we go again.
She is the one who initiates the runs, usually.
But I don't mind letting her run.
After all, this is HER walk, and one of the purposes is to allow HER to get some exercise, especially that which she cannot get within the confines of her yard.
And being a runner, how could I deny the benefits of this activity to someone?
Or some doggy?
So we run.
And when she is done, she is ready to return to her yard.
I do not have to coax her to go home when she has run her loops.
Saturday, in spite of the biting cold and wind, I loaded Sally into my car and we drove to the nearby park where we have walked before.
We owned the park.
No one was there but us.
As is usual, we started out on the nice, paved walking/running path but Sally soon wanted to examine the perimeter of the area.
So we went off the paved path and she sniffed the fence line around the west half of the park.
My only correctional input was that she stay out of the mud in one area.
Which she complied with.
Although I did provide some limits on how far she could go near the main highway and large city river, she pretty much had her way.
And when she was done – 30 minutes later – she was ready to get into the car.
In fact, when we went walking on Sunday afternoon after church, she sought to get into the car.
I do not know what she had in mind as to a destination, but it was clear that she wanted to go for a ride.
I dissuaded her and she went into the back yard without further protest.
My point?
Simply that she enjoys the walks with me and also it allows her to be a guard dog to me.
She needs to have a job to do.
She needs to have THIS job to do.
She needs to fulfill the inbred function of defending or watching for possible threats to me (and herself).
The RUN
Saturday was my first run in two weeks.
My work schedule has cut into my exercise time such that I have neither walked nor worked out in two weeks. (I did walk my dog almost every evening)
Anyway, there was some concern about my strength for the full 4 mile jaunt.
Also, it was 25 degrees with a lovely 20 MPH wind that had the windchill factor in the single digits.
This allowed me to try my new terrorist mask.
It is a long, knit watch cap that completely covered my head and neck, with holes for eyes and mouth.
It proved to be ideal for the situation.
In mile two I took off my wool mittens and held them in my hands.
Just holding them was enough insulation to keep my hands warm in the 8 degree breeze.
I also had to unzip my wind layer and the knit layer underneath as I was generating more heat than my top would allow to escape when closed.
All in all, I was quite comfortable given the nasty environment in the pre-dawn morning.
I took my time and just pounded along trying to be careful so that I did not break anything.
And, as has been the case for the last couple of runs, I found myself daydreaming about this and that as I bopped along.
There was nary a pain or whimper from joint or connector anywhere on me.
When I got back to my car, though, I was ready to stop.
I did not feel tired in the bad sense.
There was no struggle or argument with Running Central about whether to continue or not.
It was a good run.
A great run.
In two months I will turn 67 years old. (assuming I do not drop dead within those 60 days...)
I find that hard to believe sometimes.
Running has been a wonderful privilege for me and I am delighted and amazed that I am able to do it at my age.
I have been running off and on for eleven years, now.
As I have said before, if someone had told me in high school that I would be running 4 miles once a week when I was 66 years old, I would have told them they were nuts.
But here I am.
I feel very blessed.
.
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Random News n Thots
Random News
I have been working long hours this week.
Hours so long, that I have had no time for exercising or walking.
I have done my best to make time to walk Sally the Lint Pile as many evenings as possible.
Last night I squeezed a walk in between dinner and church.
Tonight we walked after doing the dinner dishes.
She waited patiently at the back door twice to be let out to do her biological business in the back yard.
A
She earned a D in her play biting.
Honestly she is doing better with her biting, but she still has a problem when she gets excited when she is in the house with me.
She likes to jump up on me and/or hang her incisor teeth in my jeans, or shirt sleeves, or arms/hands.
I get weary patiently telling her no every five seconds for thirty minutes.
Finally I just snap and grab her by the neck and pull her to the floor.
Sometimes I swat her snout but I do not like to do that because I do not want her to become hand shy.
But constant jumping and biting is maddening.
She also has developed a habit of jumping up on the kitchen counters to see/sniff what is going on up there.
Again I try to calmly tell her 800 times in a row to get down, calmly push her away/down from the counter, and tend to the business at hand on the counter (fixing her dinner, my dinner, washing the dishes, etc.)
If she was older and less excited, I might tolerate a bit more of such behavior, but now she is too jumping and undisciplined.
To balance this bothersome behavior is her more calm moments.
She lets me pet/rub her neck, shoulders, chest, tummy, and hips without biting me.
It is clear to me that she is trying to respond to my petting without biting me.
She just does not quite know how yet.
When I eat at the table, she often sits quietly at my feet or next to me waiting for me to toss her a crumb.
Sometimes she lays on the floor at my feet.
Occasionally she will nudge me with her nose to be sure I know that she is here.
I do not mind this subtle action and find it endearing.
Sally was especially well behaved this evening on her walk.
She did very little tugging on the leash, responded to my most subtle tugs on her leash, waited at each curb on command (“wait”) before crossing (“okay”) each street (except when I forgot to give the command...) and generally acted rather mature.
A NEW DEVELOPMENT
I was sweeping the kitchen floor this past week and discovered something new.
There among the bits of dog food and leaves from the back yard were some long, wispy fibers of white hair.
They were not mine.
So, Sally's coat has begun to mature from her puppy fur to her dual layer winter mountain coat.
Soon it will be time to comb/brush her.
I may try this weekend, though the weather persons are talking of cold temperatures and snow flurries.
Sally will love it.
It seems that I will have to run Saturday morning in 20+ degree coldness.
Where is July when you need her.
.
I have been working long hours this week.
Hours so long, that I have had no time for exercising or walking.
I have done my best to make time to walk Sally the Lint Pile as many evenings as possible.
Last night I squeezed a walk in between dinner and church.
Tonight we walked after doing the dinner dishes.
She waited patiently at the back door twice to be let out to do her biological business in the back yard.
A
She earned a D in her play biting.
Honestly she is doing better with her biting, but she still has a problem when she gets excited when she is in the house with me.
She likes to jump up on me and/or hang her incisor teeth in my jeans, or shirt sleeves, or arms/hands.
I get weary patiently telling her no every five seconds for thirty minutes.
Finally I just snap and grab her by the neck and pull her to the floor.
Sometimes I swat her snout but I do not like to do that because I do not want her to become hand shy.
But constant jumping and biting is maddening.
She also has developed a habit of jumping up on the kitchen counters to see/sniff what is going on up there.
Again I try to calmly tell her 800 times in a row to get down, calmly push her away/down from the counter, and tend to the business at hand on the counter (fixing her dinner, my dinner, washing the dishes, etc.)
If she was older and less excited, I might tolerate a bit more of such behavior, but now she is too jumping and undisciplined.
To balance this bothersome behavior is her more calm moments.
She lets me pet/rub her neck, shoulders, chest, tummy, and hips without biting me.
It is clear to me that she is trying to respond to my petting without biting me.
She just does not quite know how yet.
When I eat at the table, she often sits quietly at my feet or next to me waiting for me to toss her a crumb.
Sometimes she lays on the floor at my feet.
Occasionally she will nudge me with her nose to be sure I know that she is here.
I do not mind this subtle action and find it endearing.
Sally was especially well behaved this evening on her walk.
She did very little tugging on the leash, responded to my most subtle tugs on her leash, waited at each curb on command (“wait”) before crossing (“okay”) each street (except when I forgot to give the command...) and generally acted rather mature.
A NEW DEVELOPMENT
I was sweeping the kitchen floor this past week and discovered something new.
There among the bits of dog food and leaves from the back yard were some long, wispy fibers of white hair.
They were not mine.
So, Sally's coat has begun to mature from her puppy fur to her dual layer winter mountain coat.
Soon it will be time to comb/brush her.
I may try this weekend, though the weather persons are talking of cold temperatures and snow flurries.
Sally will love it.
It seems that I will have to run Saturday morning in 20+ degree coldness.
Where is July when you need her.
.
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Of Sally and Not Running
OWNER HEART FAILURE
While walking Sally the Dog Friday evening after work, the event happened that I have dreaded since I started walking her – I dropped the leash.
I was in the process of moving the leash from one hand to the other when she made a quick little lunge to some item of nasal interest on the grass of a neighbor's yard.
Her move jerked the leash out of my hands and I feared I had lost her.
In fact, she only trotted about 10 feet away from me, whereupon I picked up the leash loop again and my heart rate slowly receded to its normal rate.
She may not have even realized that she was not restrained, she was busy sniffing.
I have observed that many dogs do not stray far from their human companions, even when off a leash, IF the dog is used to walking with said person.
My sister's dog never went farther than a few dozen yards from us when allowed to run free in a school yard.
As I have stated, my greatest fear is that Sally will charge into the street in front of a car because she has no fear/understanding of them.
Anyway, the rest of the walk went generality well.
THE DOG HOUSE
Today it was rainy off and on all day.
Sally and I did manage to get in a good 45 minute walk in-between drizzles.
But we had to spend most of the day indoors.
I am sure that it is gratifying to architects and contractors when the structures they have created are finished and provide space and service to people, as intended.
So it was today when I looked out my back door and saw Sally the Dog laying in her dog house while it rained.
In fact, she went into and out of her house several times today.
Sometimes she played in it and other times she slept in it.
I felt gratified.
And I am certain that her days under the utility building are numbered.
THE SATURDAY RUN
… was cancelled because I am sick.
I have a mild cold that is just strong enough to sap my strength a bit and stuff up my nose (mostly in the morning).
I have a very slight fever and a very slight sore throat.
All of this has not taken me down to a bed-ridden state, just a bit lazy and grumpy.
So... I may run tomorrow morning (Sunday).
I will see how I feel.
My extended work schedule has forced me to cancel my morning workouts and walks so I am slightly weaker than I normally would be.
That may affect my running, also.
I have run and worked out when sick before and most of the time, other than being weaker, I have suffered no ill effects.
I will see how I feel tomorrow morning at 5 AM.
SALLY AND THE BACK DOOR
Sally is, in people years, nearly in her “terrible twos” - 13 weeks = 91 human weeks = almost two years.
And she is acting like it.
In some ways she is doing better – like house training (sometimes) and play-biting (sometimes).
But she is developing new bad habits – like jumping up on my lap, table and kitchen counters to see/sniff what is going on up there.
And she takes samples of whatever she can reach if I do not dissuade her quickly enough.
I tell her to get down and she generally responds, but the compliance is usually short-lived.
And up she comes again; often in a different spot.
Today she was particularly obnoxious.
Wanting to play with me and nipping at my pants, feet and hands.
I could not get her to stop so I sent her outside.
Upon closing the back door I resumed my dishwashing chores.
About a minute later I hear a faint noise in the back room and then Sally the Dog trots into my kitchen.
I am both astounded and scared.
Astounded because she got into the house by herself.
Scared because I was afraid she had broken the window in my back door.
The good news was she did not break the glass – the door was standing open.
The bad news was she got back in.
At the time, my only conclusion about how she did it was that I had not fully latched the door and she just pushed it open.
This evening, she was mis-behaving again (wanting to play and bite) and I, again, sent her outside after she had eaten her dinner.
This time I was in my bedroom (here) at my desk when I heard a faint sound from the back room and a moment later, Sally appears in my room.
She seemed pleased with herself and hopeful that I was pleased to see her.
That was not the case.
And I was concerned about my back door.
Upon inspection I figured out how she was getting in.
My back door is a “French door”.
As such it does not have a common round door knob, but, rather, a lever.
Inside and outside.
Apparently, Sally has learned the raise up on her hind legs and pull the outside lever down enough with her front paws to unlatch the door and nose her way into the house.
In both cases today, I had failed to engage the dead bolt.
Doing so solves the problem.
Sometimes I do not like having a smart dog.
While walking Sally the Dog Friday evening after work, the event happened that I have dreaded since I started walking her – I dropped the leash.
I was in the process of moving the leash from one hand to the other when she made a quick little lunge to some item of nasal interest on the grass of a neighbor's yard.
Her move jerked the leash out of my hands and I feared I had lost her.
In fact, she only trotted about 10 feet away from me, whereupon I picked up the leash loop again and my heart rate slowly receded to its normal rate.
She may not have even realized that she was not restrained, she was busy sniffing.
I have observed that many dogs do not stray far from their human companions, even when off a leash, IF the dog is used to walking with said person.
My sister's dog never went farther than a few dozen yards from us when allowed to run free in a school yard.
As I have stated, my greatest fear is that Sally will charge into the street in front of a car because she has no fear/understanding of them.
Anyway, the rest of the walk went generality well.
THE DOG HOUSE
Today it was rainy off and on all day.
Sally and I did manage to get in a good 45 minute walk in-between drizzles.
But we had to spend most of the day indoors.
I am sure that it is gratifying to architects and contractors when the structures they have created are finished and provide space and service to people, as intended.
So it was today when I looked out my back door and saw Sally the Dog laying in her dog house while it rained.
In fact, she went into and out of her house several times today.
Sometimes she played in it and other times she slept in it.
I felt gratified.
And I am certain that her days under the utility building are numbered.
THE SATURDAY RUN
… was cancelled because I am sick.
I have a mild cold that is just strong enough to sap my strength a bit and stuff up my nose (mostly in the morning).
I have a very slight fever and a very slight sore throat.
All of this has not taken me down to a bed-ridden state, just a bit lazy and grumpy.
So... I may run tomorrow morning (Sunday).
I will see how I feel.
My extended work schedule has forced me to cancel my morning workouts and walks so I am slightly weaker than I normally would be.
That may affect my running, also.
I have run and worked out when sick before and most of the time, other than being weaker, I have suffered no ill effects.
I will see how I feel tomorrow morning at 5 AM.
SALLY AND THE BACK DOOR
Sally is, in people years, nearly in her “terrible twos” - 13 weeks = 91 human weeks = almost two years.
And she is acting like it.
In some ways she is doing better – like house training (sometimes) and play-biting (sometimes).
But she is developing new bad habits – like jumping up on my lap, table and kitchen counters to see/sniff what is going on up there.
And she takes samples of whatever she can reach if I do not dissuade her quickly enough.
I tell her to get down and she generally responds, but the compliance is usually short-lived.
And up she comes again; often in a different spot.
Today she was particularly obnoxious.
Wanting to play with me and nipping at my pants, feet and hands.
I could not get her to stop so I sent her outside.
Upon closing the back door I resumed my dishwashing chores.
About a minute later I hear a faint noise in the back room and then Sally the Dog trots into my kitchen.
I am both astounded and scared.
Astounded because she got into the house by herself.
Scared because I was afraid she had broken the window in my back door.
The good news was she did not break the glass – the door was standing open.
The bad news was she got back in.
At the time, my only conclusion about how she did it was that I had not fully latched the door and she just pushed it open.
This evening, she was mis-behaving again (wanting to play and bite) and I, again, sent her outside after she had eaten her dinner.
This time I was in my bedroom (here) at my desk when I heard a faint sound from the back room and a moment later, Sally appears in my room.
She seemed pleased with herself and hopeful that I was pleased to see her.
That was not the case.
And I was concerned about my back door.
Upon inspection I figured out how she was getting in.
My back door is a “French door”.
As such it does not have a common round door knob, but, rather, a lever.
Inside and outside.
Apparently, Sally has learned the raise up on her hind legs and pull the outside lever down enough with her front paws to unlatch the door and nose her way into the house.
In both cases today, I had failed to engage the dead bolt.
Doing so solves the problem.
Sometimes I do not like having a smart dog.
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