Fighting for control

Today’s WTF moment provided by… Well a picture’s worth a thousand words.

Fine, Miss D, we’ll watch “Bad Dogs”. But I get to pick the next show!

Had to share this one. Too cute. Hand to Dog, I found her sleeping like this, remote control and all. My little couch potato.

It’s been a week full of ups and downs.

The Ups: Tonight’s neighborhood patrol went very well. A nice, lovely, calm walk, sitting down to greet walkers and cyclists passing by, crossing the street and sitting down to watch the other dogs passing by (barking, but not going super crazy). Well done. Mom is pleased!

Yesterday, we ran into our neighbor, Heather, with all three scotties in tow. There was some mutual posturing on both sides, but she calmed down quickly and on several occasions, did actually sit down to calm herself… or maybe just to catch her breath before lunging forward again. Still, the humans mark this meeting as a success. After all, all four dogs were meeting and they all were face to face on the sidewalk, not across the street or behind fences.

The Downs: Miss D nearly bit the ankle of one jogger who caught us off-guard. Luckily I was able to get a tighter grip on her leash and hold her back. I apologized, saying “We’re in training.”

He laughed it off, saying he has two yorkies at home then wished me luck. Took awhile to calm her down from that one. She also scared at least two toddlers this week.

It’s unfortunate. Parents like to point things out on their walks, “Look, there’s a birdie. And a squirrel. And a doggie. Do you see the doggie?”

Then the kid perks up, “Doggie??”

Then Miss D puts on her ugliest “Be Afraid!” face. Then the kid starts to cry and the parent gives me the stank eye. Hey, I’m not the one pointing out the “doggie”. I’m just trying to calmly let you pass unnoticed (wishful thinking). I’d say it’s the strollers that freak out Miss D, but she does this with older children too. That’s why we’re training, right?

Exhausted Part 2

Sometimes I forget whether these night patrols are meant to exercise Miss D or me. It’s exhausting! We only walk a mile, but it’s filled with obstacles: the bicyclist zipping past, the neighbor passing by who “snuck up” on us while we were distracted by the Westie across the street. Miss D has begun to take her training to heart. She gets excited, starts breathing heavy and leaning forward in excitement, then stops, sits down, and waits for her cookie. That’s good, right?

Except it’s difficult to get moving again. If Miss D thinks she wasn’t rewarded enough, or is still excited, she’ll just keep sitting there, turning to watch the dog or bike or whatever disappear in the distance. While what I really want to do is pull her up and move already, there’s a little voice telling me to be patient, don’t send her mixed signals, and wait for her to focus on me again, then give her the release signal and be on our way.

As you can imagine, this makes our walks infinitely longer, frustrating, and well, exhausting for me. Add in my rather debilitating seasonal allergies and the rampant, out of control pollen count this spring, my patience wears thin. Fifteen minutes into our walk we’ve barely gone a block, my eyes are itchy, my nose is running, and I just want to turn around and lock myself in the house with the air conditioning on full blast. But I can’t, because Miss D is just sitting there! MOVE you miserable mutt sweet little dog!

Somebody’s in trouble

today’s WTF moment provided by… Spring.

Somebody has been enjoying the warm, spring day.

Somebody has been out in the backyard soaking up the sun.

Somebody has been rolling in the grass and running through the mulch.

Who could it be? You’ll never guess!

Miss D is absolutely covered in grass. The comb doesn’t do a damn thing to remove it; neither does vigorous rubbing or shaking. But rolling around on the carpet seems to work. Quite well. Too well in fact. Sigh. I’m off to vacuum the carpet.

Hmmmm…the vacuum. I wonder…?

No, probably shouldn’t vacuum the dog. Oh, well. It was a thought.

Who, me?

I don’t know what you’re talking about

Spoiled Rotten

Miss D, what do you think about March Madness?

Exhausted

Miss D is exhausted. And she should be. After all, she spent the entire morning chastising the black lab puppy next door. He seems to enjoy the morning jog, but doesn’t seem all that impressed by Miss D. He ended the session by lifting his leg and peeing on the fence. Miss D was sooooooo mad!

It being such a beautiful spring day, we went for a short walk around the neighborhood. Miss D walked like a drunkard. If I moved my hips as much as she did when I walk, I would have some tight, rock hard abs! She was panting up a storm and walking very slowly but when we got home, she caught her second wind and chased that dang puppy some more. And now, having earned it, she has decided to take a little nap.

 

Are we home yet?

You know, seeing Miss D go a little off her rocker when we pass another dog on our walks is scary. Seeing a German shepherd with the same reaction to Miss D? TERRIFYING!!!

Thank goodness for alert owners. We both saw each other and instinct told me to cross the street and put some distance between us. They’re clearly training just as we are. Usually, I would call this a teachable moment. I stood in front of Miss D, taking a “don’t even think about messing with me” stance and puffing out my chest to display confidence.

Then the dog lunged toward us, his leash cracking like a whip, and all I could think was, “How far is it to the emergency vet from here?”

Thankfully, the shepherd’s owner had a strong hold on the dog’s thick, leather leash. Just the one lunge and the owner reacted, forcing his dog into a sitting and then a prone position before finally letting him up and continuing on his way. Miss D and I decided to walk in the opposite direction for a little while longer.

When we finally did turn around and head home, my heart was still pounding and my hands were shaking. I kept thinking what might have been and being grateful for thick-soled mud boots and thick woolen coats. It took everything I had to feign confidence and walk rather than run home!

Lovely

What a lovely day for a walk. We had a lovely walk today. Yesterday’s walk was lovely too. Not because it was a warm, sunny day, because it wasn’t. It was cloudy and cloud and rainy and miserable. Which meant we had the whole sidewalk to ourselves.

We walked further than we ever have before. Nearly 1.25 miles! We even got to walk a little way along the bike trail that runs near our house. We never get to do that because it’s always so busy, full of walkers and joggers and cyclists. And dogs. But not yesterday. We didn’t encounter a single living thing. It was beautiful.

As always, walking with Miss D is a constant battle. I am always reminding her that I’m the boss. Me. The Human. I’m alpha. I decide when and where we go. She tends to disagree, which is probably at the root of our leash-aggression problem. She thinks she’s in control, the protector, and she takes her job seriously.

But when we’re alone, I have more opportunities to remind Miss D that I’m the protector, not her. I’ll decide what’s a danger, not her. And yesterday was the culmination of several such walks. It was awesome.

Today was lovely too. A warm, sunny, cloudless day. Obviously, that meant we were not alone. But Miss D, with yesterday’s reminders fresh in her mind, followed me. She ignored one walker, a pair of joggers, a pair of walkers, a jogger, another jogger, and a walker with dog. OK, she didn’t quite ignore the walker with dog, but she did sit quietly. She was on alert the whole time, but she listened to me and got her rewards. By then, we were nearly out of treats, and I could she Miss D was pretty tuckered, so we turned around and headed home. That’s when she went nuts upon seeing the Boxer. But I was able to ask the owners to stay still while I took Miss D in the other direction to get some distance and some semblance of control.

Our final encounter was a lovely, older couple. Miss D went on full alert, but they were understanding, saying they’ve seen us walking before and know we’re still a work in progress. In Miss D’s defense, the man was egging her on. Leaning forward, staring, and barking right back. I know the tendency is to poke fun at the little dog who thinks she’s so scary, but I really wish he had ignored her like his wife. It’s eaier to regain her attention when she doesn’t get any reaction.

Oh, well. It was still a lovely walk.

Tuckered Out