Off the hook! BAD DOGS! & Re-thinking dog food

Oz is on his collar today FYI. He sorta knows he's on it, sorta doesn't.

I busted Radar digging at the corner of the couch and soaked him with the squirt bottle just as he was getting started. He has retreated to his crate. He remembers pretty well. Fingers crossed. Maybe catching him in the act will fix that one.

Of course, things were okay with Oz when I got up. A little ampy as normal. A couple of squirts and he calmed down. Then Radar came out. The chaos began with the green blanket being drug off the couch.

Then I was getting their food going. I had to go to garage for something. I come back in and Oz is eating the dry food out of his bowl on the counter. That was it. Collar on. Then I opened the can and left it there. I backed off into the hall where I could see the bowl and the can. I waited. Yep, he went up to the counter. I zapped him and he backed off to the counter and lied down again.

Dog Food:

We changed to a mix of I/D dry and I/D canned. It's working but it's disgusting. I can't imagine all that processed shit is any better for them than it is for us. Lord knows what the hell is in it really. They start with crap they wouldn't give to people right? But, making your own is an un-mittigated pain in the ass. The problem is it spoils so you have to either make is daily or make it every week at the most.

Idea - Meat grinder & Freezer

So, what if we get a small freezer so we can make batches of fresh food for them once a month. I can get a small chest freezer for about $200.00. Then we can get a meat grinder for the KitchenAid for $150.00. (plus tax & shipping)  That's a good one that'll deal with regular use.

I think these will pay for themselves in six months.

One week:
Rice - 6 cups ~ $2.00
Chicken - 2 lbs ~ $12.00
Veggies, broth for flavor,  vitamins - $5.00
(We can use scrap veggies since they are going to get cooked & ground up anyway)

One week ~ $20.00 (rounding up) (could be less if I use Costco prices)

That's probably half what we are paying for dog food.

So the payback on the food is going to be about $80:00. Now take away $20.00 for electricity and we are still $70.00 / month ahead. So in six months we end up saving about $420.00. That's close to paying for the initial investment.

The time and fuel investment will be less too. No more separate trips to get dog food. Just a couple hours a month to make the food. I'm guessing that saves us 4 hours a month or more. Maybe more if we tag team it and work it in with regular meal prep.

If the cost difference was only like 10% I'd say no. Usually when the cost difference is penciling at 50% or better like this, you will actually save money.

Maybe we can do a two week experiment without all the extra equipment to see how it goes with the dogs. We need to see what the mechanics are. How does it go when you forget to thaw a batch? How long does it take to thaw out? Stuff like that.

We've done chicken & rice a few days at a time when they get "out of sorts".  These two typically eat anything, with a vengeance. I doubt boredom is going to be an issue. With the broth / bullion we can change it up too.

Oz - 4 / Radar - 40

Out first Thanksgiving with the Pups is behind us. It was also the first Thanksgiving in this house. This has been one hell of a year for change. New jobs, new house, new town, losing Winston, adding Oz & Radar to the family, learning to live with our daughter & her boyfriend as adults. No wonder I'm in a fog about half the time. I digress.

Not too bad a day considering we are just coming up on five months with them. Every day is a challenge with these two. A day full of exposed food tempts disaster. Fortunately we were spared.

I don't think Radar knew what to do. He must have been in heaven. He's such a scrounge he probably gained a pound getting scraps off the floor all day. Poor Oz doesn't even try anymore. Radar is too quick so he gets the good stuff before Oz even knows it hit the ground. So Oz uses time, his honestly superior intellect, and his other true advantages, size and power to score. Yes, less often, but ten times as big.

His reward on this meal was the near surgical consumption about four turkey slices off the stove. It was between dinner & desert. We were doing the table sweep and initial kitchen de-clutering so we could get desert going. As the four humans scraped plates, stacked pots, and took out the trash the dogs worked the room for whatever we accidentally cast off onto the floor. Radar patrolled the edges of the room stealthy avoiding getting stepped on while he darted between our legs. Oz took his normal position in the center of the kitchen. Which, oddly, works out best. He's least in the way there actually. 

He watched and waited for that inevitable moment when we were all out of the kitchen for 30 seconds, including Radar who follows Aaron everywhere. We did not even hear him make his move. I wish I would have had a camera running to see it! It was perfectly executed. The plate did not even get moved a millimeter. He plucked four slices off the top somehow. As I returned from taking out the recycling through the garage door I saw he was licking his chops and checking the floor for anything he missed. You could see the pride of accomplishment in his eyes. Not a bit of remorse. I instantly looked right to the stove to see a much diminished pile of what were to be perfect sandwich slices. These were some of my finest carvings mind you.

I looked back at him. Out of my mouth came the loudest and lowest "OZ .. OUT!" that I could muster. With that he turned tail and promptly left the room. He was on constant surveillance the rest of the evening. Oh, well, lesson learned.

Then I caught him this morning front legs spread eagle up on the dinning room table licking crumbs off the table cloth while I was washing pots. He went on the leash for an hour for that.

That's our version of grounding him. He gets tied off to the Ikea cabinet we put all the heavy pots in. There has to be 300 lbs of crap in that thing. He can move it if he wants, but he's got to really want it. He's tied off to the leg so there's little chance he's going to take it over. Knock on wood.

This is marginally effective for behavior modification. Very effective for getting him out of the way so you can get something done. It's not so bad, it's one of his favorite nap spots anyway. I actually sense some relief in him at times when we do this. It's clear. He knows he's not going to get in any more trouble while he's there. It has it's limits. About an hour is about it. Beyond that he can get agitated. At that point it's not teaching him anything and getting him more spun up. Not the desired result.

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving too!

We've achieved a Winston level walk

I'm tired, get that iPhone outta my face John

Oz had a really good walk this morning! We managed not to come across any other dogs either, so ... But, the squirrel, cat, and skunk hunting was at a minimum. He pulled a little, but he hasn't been out on a walk for a couple weeks, so, some slippage is to be expected.

I've been sick so no early a.m. roll calls to walk the dog. Sorry Oz.

We are still having issues with diet. The only food that seems to work is the I/D from the vet. I think we'll try 2 cups of rice and 1 can of food for a couple days to see. We've still got half a case of Science Diet cans.

The I/D works, it's just a little more expensive. Maybe we can find it on-line for less and get our vet to meet that price.

Jolly Ball!

Oz & Teri playing with his new Jolly Ball. Besides the Kong, this is the only toy we've ever given a Rottie that has not been shredded in 20 minutes. That kinda the test. If it makes it 20 minutes, your good to go.

Nail Trimmer Success!

        

We have acquired one Dremel 3000, pictured to the left < and have successfully trimmed Oz's nails. This is a good thing because:

1. They needed trimming
2. He was not having anything to do with the vet and her team  doing it
3. He is getting better with people messing with him

DO NOT BUY PEDI-PAWS! We did. It's a pile of shit. 

This thing works great. Put in the bigger of the two sanding drums, set it a little higher than the lowest setting and start grinding down some dog nails. 

Little bits of cheese sticks and one other person to distract the patient help a lot. Thanks Teri!

Oz is okay

Other than stinkin' up the place all night, Oz is right as rain this morning. I got a big wet nose in my face at 5:00 a.m. as usual. My clock was set early today, so I get that. What I don't get is all the other days. Someone must have a clock set near us that he can hear is all I can figure.

Teri let him out, I started my a.m. routine. One more commute over the Bay Bridge and I am here at work again. Another day ...  It is nice having the best interactive security system with an attitude that money can by watching over our home.

Green Dog

Walked out the back door to great the great slobber dog, a torn up carton of organic tomato fertilizer, and about 3 cups of fertilizer on the ground. Hmmm. Do I have a problem or not? So without freaking out, a unique event for me, write it down, I gathered up the carton remains, watered in the rest of the fertilizer, stepped in some dog shit, hosed that off, and got Oz back in the house. 

After a phone call or two and some web searches we decide, what the hell? The vet is closed. The MSDS on the fertilizer is vague at best and most of the ingredients are stuff that's in his dog food. 

The exception is pot ash, which is also in most dog foods and some people food, but not his. Pot ash is a good source of sulfur and potassium. I think plants need way more than critters with legs. 

So ... we fed him dinner, a few pieces of bread and we wait. So far so good.

For those of you who are cringing at us for not running him over to VCA in Oakland, let me lay it out for you.

1. $500.00
2. The after hours vet barely graduated and is Googling the answers anyway
3. Oz would very likely try to eat some poor unsuspecting Lasa Apso resulting in I can't even begin to imagine how big a collective vet bill. 
4. If #3, assume a restraining order on Oz from our good friends at the Alameda County Animal Control or worse an order to have him put down ... :-(

Vet visits at this point need to be VERY controlled, well planned, and to a big dog ver like ours.

When you have a big a$$ dog like a Rotweiler you gotta make choices and balance the possible outcomes.

Good walk this morning

Yay! Good walk this morning. So going "the other direction" worked! We did not run into any dogs. One guys gathering bottles out of the recycling bins, no problem. One other guy getting into his car to go to work, no problem. Yay Oz!

Ok walk yesterday

Pretty good walk around the block yesterday. Ran into one other person walking dogs and Oz freaked again. This time he did not trip me up and pulled a lot less than before. He has gone to be very vocal as a way to express his reaction. I feel like that takes up a lot of the energy he was expressing physically before. Not that I know crap about any of that, just a guess.

Teri was along for the walk. I need her to get used to how he behaves, what he gets distracted on, etc.

I think he's beginning to figure out where our house is relative to the rest of the block. One of the reasons I'm sticking to just our block now is to reinforce that. Hopefully he'll be less intent on what's on the other side of the fence if he can remember that he's been over there before.

I've realized that if I go one way on the walk, the timing works out such that we see other dogs. If we go the other way, we miss them. So, it'll be the other way from now on.

I AM the king!

Oz is the best! He puts up with sooooo much from Radar it's crazy. I don't know what their bond is but it's pretty strong.

This was a little while ago. Teri got the shot. They had been chasing each other around for about a half an hour at this point. We got them a couple new bones on Thursday and it's been steal the bone, hide the bone, hog all the bones since then. There is bone dust all over the place. Kinda gross. Good thing we sweep and vacuum a lot. Well, Teri does most of it.

Oz has been doing better at barking and growling at people and dogs out front. We've been able to catch him in the act. He gets a squirt in the face or sometimes the butt and a good scolding. He's beginning to understand that we don't approve. He's actually backed off several times and stopped in his tracks a few others. Radar is too. Which helps. Oz will come to Radar's defense in a split second and he is determined when he does it.

Now if we can just get him to be cool with Dr. Lawrence! One thing at a time I guess.

Nice one John!

Short clip of a little play time until I send the Kong over the fence. Oh, well, it was a good way to meet the neighbors.

I got a "C" at the vet

Driving into the parking lot of the Broadway Pet Hospital here in Oakland on damn warm September afternoon was a bit disconcerting. It was full. A full lot means lots of animals inside. This was Oz's first visit to the vet. I knew from having two Rottie's before that surviving the gauntlet of the waiting room without someones Lhasa Apso becoming a snack and a $1300.00 vet bill was my challenge. Oz does not have great history with new places. His last new place was Happy Hound. That resulted in an $1800.00 training bill. That worked out really well, but it would have been nice to avoid. Oz knows nothing about Visa balances obviously.

Teri went in first. She got the nurse to begin opening up an exam room so we could go directly in. I jumped the gun a bit of course. I could see an empty bench area that is like a little booth. These are nice. It helps give you a space to pull your dog back into. Good design there guys. With his leash wrapped all the way up I went in the door and got him to sit at the bench. All good until some kind of hound came in and of course Oz starts barking. Loud. Oz barking in a closed room violates numerous OSHA rules I am sure. If you are not ready for it, it scares the crap out of you.

Well the nurse got the room open just about then and we got him in there. Phew! No fur, no blood, no news at 5:00. Then he was pretty good. About like Winston actually.

Dr. Lawernce came in, bearing treats, Oz didn't freak again, good. He sat for her, he layed down for her. I was amazed. He did that several times. Must be the white coat. After a long time and some talking we tried to get a blood sample. I had his head, but he still managed to swing around and almost snap Dr. Lawerence when she swabbed his leg with the alcohol. She saw it coming of course. No harm.

She did try taking him to the back. Sometimes they are being defensive of the owners. Nope, he was cool with tummy scratches. Not cool with anyone poking and prodding. So that was the end of that for the day.

So, on the short leash again, out the door, and up into the Xterra. Teri paid the bill. Oz barked at a few pedestrians, and we were off. I was able to give him some corrections with the collar on the last barking fits and that shut him down. I did not do that in the vet's office. In situations with that much going on we've seen the collar just make things worse. It's a training aide, not a remote control. You have to remember that.

On the upside we were invited back.

Interestingly Oz's reputation had preceded him. Susanne from Happy Hound was making a sales call earlier that day. Oz is now one of their success stories. So that was good. I'm afraid Oz was not the perfect salesman today. However, Dr. Lawerence seemed to be pretty impressed with his progress. She even said he was trainable!

p=mv

On the cute side ... He ran down the stairs into the basement office / work area this morning. Usually we sit him at the bottom of the stairs so he doesn't fly up the stairs at full gallop. Well, I reflexive yelled "Oz!" right when I clued in he had gone below periscope depth. Totally out of character he actually turns and starts back up.

Having about 12 feet to get going, he was at full stride entering the stair way. 32 ft / sec² worth of gravity was no match. He accelerated past 14 steps of berber pushing off five or six  steps just to add to his velocity. Tongue out the mouth, ears back, giant grin. For that moment Oz was in his element. His movement was like the perfect video study of mother natures engineering prowess.

At this point I am squarely blocking the top of the stairs. He proceeded with no abatement at all. I was pretty sure one of us was going down and was determined I was not the one. Then, with the grace of a trapeze artist he clears the top step, lands between my leg and the newel post on all fours in a perfect sit. ~ 24 kg*m/sec of energy let him slide about six inches on his polished pads across the tile floor to an even more graceful stop. At which point he looks up at me obviously very proud of his little move.

All I could say was, "Nice job Oz...."

It was win, win. He obeyed the recall, had a little fun, and did not turn it into a challenge. This was a good turn to what had been a really frustrating morning with him.

Yeah ... So today started when the big knuckle head wakes me up at 2:00 this morning. I thought he was just wanting to go out for the skunk. After he paraded around the room, his nails making that clickity clack, clickity clack sound on the wood floors I figured it was not a false alarm. Sure enough, he had to go. It was not pretty. He did settle down and we did get back to sleep. I could have done with out the expedition.

This dog eats anything. Unfortunately not everything agrees with his system. The trouble is figuring out what he's eating and how to either get him to stop or isolate him from it. Kinda hard with a yard full of green stuff.

Teri thinks he's eating sticks. We have a lot of them. Not just on the surface of the yard. He digs up old ones. He might diggin' up grubs & stuff too.That's one of the natural diet items for omnivores right? I think I read somewhere that bears get most of their calories from eating bugs like subterranean termites & stuff.

Hmmm. So I wonder what we need to feed him to balance that out? For now that'll be two cups of white rice at every meal. Sound familiar mom's & dad's. Uh huh. Thought so.

Sing for your supper

A few weeks ago we finally got Oz to sit still while he was waiting for his food to soak. Sounds like it's a dirty casserole dish huh? He'd eat that too ... He just could not contain himself. So he started vocalizing. First it was a few little yelps. Now we have this. Hey, big improvement over him wanting to jump up on the counter get his food and take out every portable appliance we own in the process!

I will not give you CPR!

After several months of us worrying about Oz eating Radar they are beginning to play nicely again, most of the time. The big black spot with teeth is Oz. The little red thing is Radar's Kong. Usually Radar wins this contest for some reason. I think this is Oz making it clear the game is his if he wants it.

Radar makes a nice pillow!

If you have dogs or kids you know well the relief of silence and then the fear that comes on as you realize something is just about to go horribly wrong. A little while ago we had another one of those moments. I grabbed the squirt bottle and headed into the living room as soon as my mind turned the silence into the vision of shredded couch cushions.

Fortunately I rounded the corner to be greeted by these two clowns actually being nice to each other. Even more fortunate, they held the pose long enough for me to get the camera and get a couple of shots of this.

Here's how this goes. Oz will grab the corner of the couch there. Radar will then decide, "no, I want that corner." So he walks over Oz and starts burrowing in between Oz and the couch. This goes on until Oz gets fed up and slimes Radar's entire head. By this time Radar is chewing on his jowls or tongue or something. The slime treatment is well deserved.

They've been pretty good this evening. Dogs have been walking by out front, with people attached. Oz growled a couple times but did not freak out. Radar has even been more reserved in his ferocious attack dog routine.

Hopefully this will be a calm weekend.

Dog Does Not Fit ...

Q - It's 9:00 p.m. do you know where your husband is?
A - He's out in the back yard assembling a dog house of course! Silly!

Make that TWO dog houses. After we got home from dinner last night I realized the four bipeds were going to be out of the house most of the day Friday. Upon checking www.noaa.gov, I saw the Pin Point Forecast was for s cool 52 degrees tonight and maybe 69 degrees tomorrow. Radar was about to be a little tan four legged popsicle. Well maybe a slushee or something. Anyway, he was going to be cold. No good. Fortunately the People's Republic of China and the folks at hayneedle.com via UPS had supplied us with two ready to assemble dog houses.

Radar's house was a snap. 15 minutes from cutting tape to stuffing blankets in it. Done deal.

Oz's was maybe 25 minutes. It was heavier of course. It was bigger of course. It seemed bigger anyway. Eight bolts and a dozen wood screws later I was ready to have the big guy come on down. So half a doggy treat in hand, diet & all, I get him out back. Into the house goes the treat and .... that's where we stop.

He walked up the the house. Stuck his head in. Tried to a put leg in, no. Stepped back, tried again, OK, one leg, then two. At this point he is down about as low as he can get without falling. His shoulders are hitting the top of the door. All you can hear is this snarf, lick, snarf sound. I can see in my head him sticking that giant tongue out as far as he can to get that little nugget of food. He got it! Out he came. He tried a couple more times to see if there were any crumbs left. Each time, up to his shoulder and that was it.

The basic problem here is that Oz's shoulders are 28" off the floor. The door is like 18 inches or something. Let's not forget the other 10 inches of head and neck.   I was holding out hope that his ability to shrink into a little sleeping ball was going to pay off. Nope. I have failed doggy geometry.

Great. $169.00 plus shipping and the dog doesn't fit. Okay, back to the website. Where's that return policy? After reading how happy they want me to be for half a page I find the online return thing. Checked "other", entered "Dog did not fit", as I clicked on submit I looked at "damaged box or product" check box and thought, "hmmm" is there any damage? Well, too late to check that box. The click event had fired and my message was off to customer service.

Still, I had to know. Damage? Was there damage?

It was dark. I built the thing with the yard lights. I wanted a dog house up and ready to go. As long as the thing stood up, I was happy. Besides Oz is damage on four legs fueled by ten cups of kibble a day. What the hell is a little shipping damage to me? So I hadn't really bothered to look.

With flashlight in hand and the eye of an FDA inspector on, I headed out to look. Ureka! Damaged goods! Better yet, damaged box. Always a good thing. Lot's of old beat up tape on it too. Sweet! A couple of cracks and dinged up corners and a few scuffs, perfect. After a brief photo shoot I e-mailed the photo's off to customer service with all the business about it being dark and some hint of how stressed I was just to get it built. The game is on!

The hayneedle.com website promptly e-mailed me another explanation of how happy they want me to be and a case number.

So now we wait.

Meanwhile Teri's shift was cancelled, so Oz has won another day of lounging on a nice warm couch. Hopefully today I will learn that I will get my $169.00 bucks less shipping back. Then this weekend it'll be off to Home Depot for materials.

How is it that the Postal Service is going broke by the way? What portion of the GDP goes to shipping all this crap around anyway?

Where's the raccoon?

Where's the raccoon?

Oh Oz ... Today was not a great day. Not sure if it was that I was gone all day yesterday and he was happy to have me home, if was all the activity around the house, or what. Whatever. He was just a butt head all day.

This morning was normal, he was a bit pushy about us getting out of bed. That's typically because there is some critter out back. Now, there are four young racoons around. We saw them the other night up in the big redwood tree next door. Maybe they are the added attraction.

He proceeded to really be after food today. We've had him on a rice diet the past few days since he's not been, uh, normal in the output department. Maybe Teri's been cutting back on rations too. Just asked, yep. Well that maybe explains it and confirms the experiment to some extent.

Zzzzz ...

Right now Oz AND Radar are asleep on the couch. We have peace!

Oz and the Anvil

So weekend before last I had to drive up to Chico. Chico is about 3 hours from Oakland. North East. Chico is probably most famous for micro brew beer and Cal State Chico. No correlation I am sure.

Why was I driving to Chico? To pick up an Anvil of course! I bought the anvil on eBay the week prior. Anvils being heavy are expensive to ship. So when I found one within driving distance I jumped at it.

Teri was working that day and I didn't want to dump Oz on Hayley & Aaron so I decided to take him with me. I figured it would be a good bonding exercise for us, it would get him out of the house, and it would allow me to "road test" him a bit. Y'know, the whole car sick thing.

So at 6:00 a.m. I loaded Oz up, taking the shock collar just in case, and an extra leash and off we went. He was ampy and active until about Martinez and then he chilled, layed down and settled in for the ride. With the exception of a few time where he wanted to watch out front and nearly moved into the passengers seat, all went well.

We stopped at a mini mart on the way back. I got him some water and me a diet coke. He was really good. He emptied three bowls of water, got back in the Xterra, in one jump as always. I have to get a video of that. It's amazing. Sit to truck, one smooth motion. Then we headed west on 32, south on 5, I missed the 505 and ended up in Sacramento, of course. That added another hour to the trip. Boy was I pissed!

Anyway, after an entire day of being in the car, Oz was still going good.

Now, if he only had oposable thumbs, he could help me get that thing out of the Xterra!

Good Boy Oz!

This was yesterday at Happy Hound here in Oakland. Tom Merz, Oz's trainer shot this. He's doing really good. Tom said Oz will get up on his hind legs when he's playing and kind of wave his front legs. Radar does this exact same thing. I seriously blame Radar for a lot of Oz's bad habits. He's leading him astray and the big dope doesn't even know it.

Happy Hound has been super cool with this too. They haven't charged us any day fees for the last two visits. I think they've kinda taken a good approach. They know if he doesn't make it with us, he's probably going back to the foster home. Then who knows where after that. The foster home would be a great place for him, and they love him. Still they are doing good work there and Oz would be a drag on that. I feel like they are invested in Oz and that's a great thing. Happy Hound was great with Winston too. Winston never got to the point where he could socialize this much. He's was great with people but was really, really picky with dogs. It'll be a while before Oz will be ready for a dog park or anything like that, but this is encouraging.

On the downside, he totally went off twice on the drive over at dogs out for walks. One little fluffy dog, and one Pit mix. The Pit just looked bewildered. I could see, "Dude, what the hell did I do?" all over his face. Then there was the black & white border collie looking dog that he didn't even make a peep about. Dunno. My plan on this is to take him out in front on the porch next Sunday and correct him when other dogs come by. He will be tied off with the pinch collar and the harness as a back up. I have a long heavy rope lead I spliced. We used it with Britta & Winston when they were out front with me at the old place. That'll be the safety.

Radar, is getting really, really good at minding. Not so great with the jumping thing. That's OK as long as Oz doesn't play monkey see, monkey do. We'll keep working on it. Aaron & Hayley have been great taking Radar out to get him some socialization so he doesn't freak out at other dogs either. This is important because Radar is the spark plug the set's off the Oz explosion.

So, if we can get them both socialized better, then they both will benefit.

Yesterday I got all the gates done. The back yard is basically split about 2/3rds / 1/3rd. The 1/3rd is for gardening. The rest is for recreation & the dogs. There are three gates on that fence. Then I added two gates on the side of the house. We have a deck that is used to access the garage side door. The gates are at the bottom of the stairs from that deck to the walk to the back yard. One blocks the stairs, one blocks access to under the deck. This creates what will essentially be a dog run for Radar along the side of the house. So Oz get's the yard and Radar get's the side of the house when we are away for long periods.

I'm now designing dog houses. Once those are built, we should be at our first complete outdoor system for managing these two.  Hopefully we don't end up with a barking problem next. We'll see. So far they bark, but not all the time. Just when they think there's something to bark at. Cross your fingers.

Oh, our old standby Tabasco is working to keep them out of the "skunk hole". There's a couple of holes under the fence that we think were used by the local skunk to travel through our yard. Oz and Radar were all over it. That was the first thing they ran to out the back door. Now they are greeted by the lovely aroma of hot pepper sauce. They don't run so fast over there now. I also think the skunk has decided to travel elsewhere.

Saturday with Radar & Oz

Oz in medium pout mode

Oz has been okay this morning. This pic is after breakfast and after a little play time with Radar. They started off this morning dragging a blanket off the couch and playing tug-o-war with it. Oz lets the little guy win most of the time, or at least enough to keep him in the game. Of course then I come along and take the blanket away. Fellas, the furniture and home accessories are NOT chew toys.

Radar - "My bone man, go away!"

Then the game becomes "Okay, what can I chew on?". We have to catch each infraction issue a stern "NO" and usually a good squirt of water. Tom advised against "no". Too many words. We are bringing it back in because "sit" can get too over used.

There's a fine line between too many commands and not enough. In the past we've gone with sit, stay, heel, out, off, drop it, and no. Peppered with the occasional shit head, dufus, and ass hole. Often preceded by, "What the F&*K are you doing NOW??"" Well, maybe not so occasional.

Then there are the non words. Something like "Aaaaat!" and or "Ay!" with proper inflection and tone seems to become very well understood in pretty short order. I actually think tone and inflection are plenty to express yourself to a dog. Heck, that's what they do. This could be good cover for those random fits of grunting and barking too. Always a bonus.

Heel is tough. The problem is it becomes a command and a scolding. Some trainers have told us to use "good heel" and "heel". That just sounds stupid to me.

I've never been able to get "come" to work. Not enough time for training basically. I have been able to use "get over here" with Britta and Winston. That was good for short distance things. My take is the multi syllabic command seems to be more effective. There's more time for them to hear it and you have more ways to turn it to mean different things.

Our daughter will attest that our child rearing and dog training methods are remarkably similar. Ya' know, she's doing pretty damned good considering. Sorry kid.

Ok, well, off to finish the fence out back to keep the boys here out of the vegetable garden to be.

When things are good.

This was a couple weeks ago. This was a big, big day. It was one of the first times in a while they had actually sat down with each other and not been either fighting or challenging. Since then their play has improved a lot. We still have to watch them. Dogs get rough with each other. In this case it's 110 lbs. to 14 lbs. Not exactly a fair match.

I kinda feel bad for Oz. He's being held to much higher bar because he's big. Maybe that's why big dogs die sooner. Performance anxiety! :-)

I'm glad he's here. I'm not sure how many people can hack a dog like Oz. These big "scary" dogs are a challenge. I think a lot of folks would have thrown in the towel by now.

So when things are good, they are very good.

Getting Better

So this week has been better in terms of "big" events with Oz. He's still driving Teri nuts. He ate half her breakfast yesterday. He keeps jumping up at the front window when people & dogs go by. Fortunately, no breakage this time.

Radar decided to make a meal out of the ends of the blinds earlier this week. That little shit will chew on anything. Yesterday he ate a crab shell that Aaron was using for a model for a print. There was still some dried up crab in there so we were a little worried he was going to get sick. Fortunately not. He's fine. Then there was some other bone like thing in their studio he chewed on too.

Oz is lying down peacefully right now on the kitchen floor. This has become a more frequent event as well.

Oops ... well ... so much for that. He just barfed up who knows what. Okay, well, off to clean that up!

Sleepy dogz

So tonight, knock on wood, we've got Oz an Radar sleeping peacefully on the giant dog bed. We bought the bed for Oz. I way over estimated the size. It's twice as big as it really needs to be. So there's plenty of room for them both.

They're not playing their little game with hoarding the bones. One will grab the other's bone and take it to some spot. Then when that one walks away the other one runs in and snags the bone back. Ultimately Radar ends up getting both bones. He hunkers down and Oz, who weighs Radar x 9, sits there whimpering at Radar to get the bone back. Meanwhile Radar is chewing on the bone with his ass in Oz's face.

Bad Radar!

Hey Dad! I got an A on my test!

So last week we decided to have Oz go back to Happy Hounds for a little doggie socialization. Today was the day. I dropped him off with Tom, his trainer, at 10:00. Oz looked back at me as he was walking across the street with Tom like, "hey man, don't leave me here". Even though I knew he was in good hands I felt sad like I was abandoning him.

We went back at 5:00 to pick him up. The girl at the front went back to get him. She came back, no Oz. She told us Tom would bring him up. I'm thinking bad sign. Then we saw Tom walking briskly around the back of the little dog play area. The stopped at the gate. Oz sat nicely. They both came walking toward us looking happy.

Long story short, Oz was in with five other dogs for at least an hour, and did well. He even got barked down by one dog when he apparently went sniffing around where he should not have been. No fights. He just backed down. This is all way better than Winston ever did.

Good job Oz.

This morning began with skunk hunting. There's a skunk next door and we think it's used to coming and going via these holes in the bottom of our fence. We've tried to plug them but either Oz is moving the rocks or the skunk is or both. I hosed him down two or three times. Yes with the hose. It took a good soaking before he backed off enough to do his business.

After that he was minding okay, not great getting up the stairs and while I was getting him hitched up with the pinch collar and the shock collar. He was ampy, which is typical. Actually he does that little routine better than either Britta or Winston. They never needed a shock collar though.

The walk went pretty good. I gave him no leash. He was on the short loop the whole way. One block. Up Coolidge, across Alida, down Rhoda, across Carmel & home. He got corrections every time he started to pull. By mid way he was beginning to actually heel properly. I am introducing "heel" again. I have no other voice command for that now. Someday I want the shock collar to go away. My thinking is that the voice commands will replace that. I might be smokin' crack on that one.

Upon returning home and explaining the skunk hunt and dog watering to Teri, she says, "oh, that explains why the floor is a mess." At which point I look down. Yep, looks pretty much like a pack of 10 year old boys tramped through right out of the creek. Oh well. At least that cleans up.

He is totally in hunting mode. There are skunks and possum around. The raccoons will probably be coming down off the hill soon too. Let's not forget cats. I suspect that's a powerful instinct. It's going to take some work to get it under control. Hmmm. Maybe we need to look at how hunting dogs are trained. Too many books, not enough time.

He continues to eat food off the table. Last night he artfully swiped one scoop of ice cream out of my bowl. He ate half of Teri's sandwich at lunch. I offered him more ice cream and the squirt bottle in the face. He eventually got the hint and the rest of the evening he stayed away from food on the table.

Day two of early morning walks. This is maybe his 4th or 5th walk total. All around the full block. Today I went one block over to Laguna.

We saw another dog this morning and he was very hard to control with the pinch collar and the shock collar turned up into the 80s. He was up on his hind legs and pulling. I had to basically drag him across the street. He was whinning. He didn't seem angry and his hair wasn't up or anything. I think he just wanted to play.

He also got a smell of something behind a fence, maybe a cat, and was very stubborn. No jumping on that one. Again the shock collar was only marginally effective.

As a result I have a nice blister on my hand from gripping the leash when he took off.

All this was in the last block of the walk. I thought I was home free! Not. :-(

He was a little more "pully" this morning. Still very heads up and smelling the air. More heads down than yesterday. I used the shock collar more this morning than yesterday morning.

I think the collar is either not working right or losing power. When I put it in my hand I can't even feel it until it's up to 18 or 20. At the highest I had it today I could feel his muscles reacting through the leash. So it's working, just not on the low settings.

The walk went good this morning. He's acting like Winston did when we first got to Shattuck. He's very heads up. Very nose in the air. Very distracted. To the point where we walked right by a cat and he didn't even know it. He's younger and more active than Winston so it looks different, but I think it's pretty much the same.

He pulls a little, but honestly not that much. He sits on command. He's turning on command. We practiced that once.

I used the collar a few times in the first block, especially by that poop spot he went after the other day. The poop was gone, but he remembered exactly where it was. He seems to remember where he's seen dogs before and looks for them again.

The pager function absolutely works on him better than the electrical stimulation. After we headed back up Moraga(?) after Carmel I didn't have to use the collar much.

He got very interested in the Asian guy who is always out at that time walking up Coolidge. No whining or barking or pulling, but he was very interested. I used the pager to try to correct that. Not much good. He stayed "locked on" even when we got in the house.

Tomorrow I'm going to take him up Lincoln and see if we can get up to the temple and back.

Luckily I did not see any other dogs.

I am going to start using that head lamp. Some of these houses with the big trees are really dark. A flashlight and the controller are just too much shit to deal with.

Oh, I don't think that collar has as much power as the one we initially tested at Happy Hounds. Holding it in my hand, I don't even feel anything until 18 - 20. Dunno. They might not be very well calibrated and they might be very inconsistent from collar to collar. They might also be very inconsistent based on fur density, where it's placed, etc. Which I'm not sure I like as I'm saying this.

I may need to put it on my big scope and see what the hell it's doing ...