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!