The Aussie Patrol

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

It's 11:15pm and im Western Nichts Neues. That means All Quiet on the Western Front. It won't last. Any minute now my Aussie patrol will shoot up, race out the back door, and bark viciously at whatever thing has been walking on the hill behind our house.

I know this because it has happened every night for the past month of so. Ninja has even got Penny involved in this adventure every night. She's not a big barker. For the first few weeks she came home I wondered if she even could bark, she was so quiet. I now know she can bark and be loud, along with Ninja who can bark the house down, but rarely does. Except when they are on patrol!

What is it that comes visiting? Who knows. Coyote? Raccoon? Possum? Rabbit? Whatever it is I doubt it posses any serious threat with a fence between the pups and it, but it sure gets noisy at night.

I am not complaining, except that I'd like to sleep instead of checking on the barking dogs. I always praise them for doing their job. I really don't think that anyone could get into the house (with bad intentions) without these two taking them down. What makes me happy about the whole thing is that Penny must be feeling that we are her pack or she wouldn't be out there working with Ninja to keep us all safe.

Sounds like the guest has arrived out back. The patrol is barking. I'd better go check and give them their treats for doing their job! G'night! I'll sleep tight with my patrol on guard.

The Magic Shoes

Monday, June 21, 2010

Once upon a time there was a lady who found a great pair of tennis shoes as Wal-Mart market for $7. They were her size, so she whisked them off to the register in a flurry of excitement.

The woman at the register rang them up- for $11. "Wait!" cried the lady. "They are marked $7."

"Oops," said the clerk. "I'll reverse the charge and fix it!" And she promptly rang in 70 cents. "Oops!" again cried the clerk. "I'll just charge you $6.30 and it will all be right." So she made the adjustment and typed in sooooooos for the description. Uh huh. She really did.

The lady took her purchases home and got to thinking. My goodness, the bill seemed high! So she looked at the receipt and realized she was charged $11 for shoes, 70 cents for sooooooos and also $6.30 for soooooooos. This was a grand total of $18.00 plus tax for her $7.00 shoes.

Back to Wal-Mart she went, and explained to the returns lady 3 times about the charges, and got it all worked out. She came home and went to put on her soooooos to take her darling pups on a walk, and discovered . . . that she had two right soooooooos, I mean shoes.

The next day, she took the whole mess back to Wal-Mart, go the correct shoes for the correct feet and headed home. That night she walked the pups in her new shoes. They were very comfy and she decided that even though they weren't such a bargain with all the trips back and forth, she really liked them.

The next morning the lady came downstairs to discover that her darling pup, Penny, had eaten the heels out both of her new soooos. The moral of the story is that sometimes a bargain just isn't a bargain after all. :)

The end.

Almost Back in Order

Thursday, May 27, 2010

I've been away from blogging since "The Great Flood" while we get the house back in order. It's almost there. Yippee! It almost feels like a whole new house!

In the meantime, the Aussies are doing great. Penny had her vet's appointment last week and the vet claimed she is in perfect health. . .except she's a little. . .umm. . . fluffy? OK, Dr V said she was fat. Well, she fits right in with us, right? We're all a little fluffy in my house these days. I can't help but share yummy table scraps with my beautiful fur babies.

Plus we haven't been going on the long walks we usually do, and McDonald's has amazing sweet tea for 99 cents! (Before you freak out, I do not feed the dogs sweet tea! I was merely trying to point out that I succumb to temptation of sweet tea pretty easily, and therefore I have become a bit fluffy too these days, lol).

That's not to say we aren't walking at all. I would never do that to my sweet pups! It's just that a usual 1 hour walk has been shortened to about 20 minutes. I promised Dr. V we'd all make more of an effort to get back on track.

I'm noticing more good things in Penny. She's coming to my husband when he calls her. Before she seemed more nervous around him than anyone else, but she's decided he's OK, especially when he's got a chicken nugget for her. (You see my point about fluffy?)

She now comes and lays down with us when we watch TV at night, where before she'd stay under the kitchen table. She was always close to us, but she seemed to like the cover of the table. But the best thing is that she doesn't immediately hop and run away when you walk by her. Before she'd hop up and move away when any of us walked by. We've all been on the same page about totally ignoring her as we walk by, and it seems to be working because she's starting to realize that no one is going to hurt her.

So these are all good thing. Ninja, of course, will lay right in front of you with his belly in the air so you have to practically jump over him. I guess that's a relaxed, confident dog!

I love to hear the two of them play in the yard. They bark and snarl and chase each other around and it is so cute!

I'm hoping this weekend to go for a nice walk and take lots of pictures. Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Minor Disaster! But the Dogs are Fine.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

I haven't had a moment to update my blogs lately because our house was flooded a week ago Sunday. A sprinkler pipe blew in a planter just behind our house at about 4am and ran until I came downstairs at about 8:30am, flooding the yard and providing my downstairs with about and inch of water over the entire floor.

It's one of those things you can't quite get your head around. I walked downstairs and the pups were waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, completely bedraggled and muddy. I kept looking at them and thinking, what happened? Why are they so wet and muddy? Why are my floors so shiny?

Penny splashed off and then it hit me, there is water everywhere! I ran out in my pajamas to turn off the sprinkler main valve and ever since then we've been cleaning up the damage. All the carpet had to be ripped up and new flooring installed. Some drywall had to be replaced, walls painted, baseboards replaced. I am thankful that it wasn't worse, but it's been a lot of work.

The good news is that the new flooring we're putting in is beautiful! The dogs weer not harmed in anyway, except that Ninja hates water. Penny seemed to think it was fun to have water everywhere for her to splash in.

I hate having furniture in places it doesn't belong while we finish the floors. The dogs seem a bit frazzled with things out of place too. It's been two weeks and at least I don't have to climb over the couches to get into the kitchen anymore. It's funny how you don't realize how much you miss just coming home to a normal house and resting. It's getting there, but slowly.

So I'm not ignoring my blogger friends. I've just got house stuff going on!

Penny Gets a Back Pack

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Cesar Milan says that putting a backpack on a pup makes the walk seem twice as long. I'm not sure about that, but I know that my Aussies are a herding breed and they like a job to do.

Ninja loves to wear his pack and carry his clean waste baggies in it, and maybe a bottle of water when we hike. Everyone laughs when they see him and says, "You make him carry his own stuff? Great idea!" Anyone can see how happy he is carrying his pack.

The pack I got for Ninja was pricey, and I was concerned about spending a lot for a pack and then Penny being afraid of it. She does not like having her tummy touched, and the strap from the pack goes around the belly of the pup.

My local Marshall's store had these cute packs for around $5. Can you believe that? Perfect! I brought one home for the beautiful Penny and she accepted it a lot easier than I expected.

We started by waiting until after a walk when she was mellow and a little tired and she still had the leash on. She seems much more comfortable with the leash on. Then my daughter and I let her smell the back pack. Next we set in on her back, and gave her a piece of chicken. That went well. After a few minutes I reached under her and clipped the back pack on, and my daughter walked her around the house wearing it. More chicken. No problems. That was enough for one night.

She looks pretty cute in it! Next walk we'll see if she wants to wear it out. I'm curious what the reaction will be from people when they see us walking two Aussies in back packs. With Ninja some people think he is being trained as a service dog, and praise me for what I'm doing. I always laugh- I'm training them for my family, people!

I'll let you know how the walk wearing the pack goes. I have a feeling it will go well.

Dog Behavior and Famous Trainers

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

So, I like to read. That's and understatement. I love to read. And since I have a new pup who has a fear issue, I've been reading everything I can get my hands on about dog behavior and training concepts. I've ready several of Cesar Millan's books, such as "Be the Pack Leader" and "A Member of the Family" as well as his first, "Cesar's Way." I really like his ideas.

I also read Jan Fennell's "The Dog Listener." These two are very similar in their approach. They say that most dogs do not want to be the leader and will gladly give up leadership status to you if you show them leadership. Both agree that you should ignore your dogs for the first minutes when you walk in until they are calm. This has worked wonders for me with Ninja. He used to nearly knock me over every time I walked in the door. I thought this was just , "I'm happy to see you" behavior, but after reading about it, I discovered it's more a dominance thing.

With Penny it's not an issue. She'll come to greet me but she'd never jump on me. The first day I decided to do the No Touch, No Talk, No Eye Contact (as Cesar says) Ninja jumped on me once, looked bewildered when I gently pushed him down and went on my way, and eventually went and sat down to wait for me to acknowledge him. At that point I was happy to greet my calm, submissive pup. After a few days of this, Ninja and Penny are both waiting calmly for me when I come home and no more jumping and acting crazy.

I wanted to see what the criticisms of this method are (mainly because I'm such a bookworm and I always want to see both sides) and people complaining felt it as cruel to ignore your dog. I don't get this criticism. I ignore them if they are misbehaving, and it stops. When they are calm I greet them. How can that be cruel? That seems like positive reinforcement to me. They behave, they get attention. They don't, they don't. I wonder if people are thinking of taking this to an extreme. I just don't get it.

Another book I'm reading is called Culture Clash which looks at how dogs really are, as opposed to how we "Disneyfy" them. It seems like a book all dog owners should read.

There's more to Cesar and Jan's methods, and I'll talk about them in later entries. I just thought it was interesting to see how quickly this one technique worked.

Walking Off Leash

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Ninja loves to walk off leash and I never have any concerns about him coming back to me. If we got to a park and no one is around, I often let Ninja off leash to run and burn off some of that energy.

The first time I tried that with Penny she took off up the hill. That was my fault because it was the first day we had her and of course there wasn't any bonding yet.

Tonight I gave it another try. Ninja took off and ran and ran (although he always comes back), and Penny stayed by my side. She didn't take off but she wasn't much into the running thing either. She walked right by my side the entire time. I do think she is much more comfortable with the leash on. She seems to feel much more secure with it on.

I thought it was cute that she stayed right with me. I think it shows that we are definitely making a connection.