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!