Dogs know what they're doing!

When two adults decide to own a dog it is necessary that both people agree on how to train the dog!
Most of the dog shows I've watched the main issue is always between the owners not having their act together.
When we first got Hope as an eight week old pup, I wanted her to be well trained so I borrowed every book I could get from the library, researched her breed characteristics online, started watching The Dog Whisperer...   anything I could get my hands on. I wanted to 'raise' this dog to be a contributing K-9 to society. I wanted to teach her "rules, boundaries and limitations" just as Cesar Milan says you should. http://www.cesarsway.com/tips/basics/rules-boundaries-and-limitations
So I began... but every step of the way Brian (my husband of 25 years!) - who was formerly of the mindset that a dog belongs outside - fell in love with Hope and was going to spoil her. "Look, she's just like a person that can't talk.", he'd say. She became his or should I say... "He became hers".  He spoiled her rotten. We had her spayed in June of last year and by August, when I brought her to the vet for her vaccines, she had gained 22 pounds from being fed treats and table scraps! *~* She was being spoiled into obesity.

Here's a great story of personal experience! (I can tell it because I was in the right!) :-)

To help housebreak Hope we would keep her in her kennel overnight so that she learned to hold her bladder. She was a quick learner and after the first few weeks could sleep through the night and not have to go outside to pee. As she got older we started trying her out of the kennel at night to see if she had 'got' the idea of waiting until morning. All went well... no accidents, she was successfully housebroken. Months later, she came late one night to Brian's side of the bed and jumped up to paw him awake. He figured she had to go outside so he got up and let her out. When she came in I heard the kitchen cupboard open and the pull-out drawer being slid out. I knew by the sound it was the cupboard where we keep the dog treats. Now, in the beginning I knew Brian always 'treated' the dog when housebreaking her and he would give her a treat if she had successfully gone to the bathroom outside. I didn't agree with the idea but decided to leave it. But this??? When Brian came back to bed I said, "You know, you're starting a bad habit. She's going to start waking you up at all hours of the night especially if you 'treat' her for doing it." Nope, he felt she was being a good dog for telling him she had to go out and for not messing inside and she deserved a treat............*~*
Months went by....... Hope came in at 2 a.m. or 3:27 or 5:42 or whenever she felt like it and pawed Brian awake to get let outside and then get a treat. He was being used by his dog and couldn't see it! And they say animals are dumb!

Brian's idea - don't look at me

Brian was going away for a week in November and I had forewarned him that there was noooo way! I was getting up in the night to let the dog out. If she tried it with me she would be spending the night back in her kennel. The first night Brian was gone I went to bed anticipating a midnight rendezvous with Hope. I fell asleep, awoke to my alarm in the morning and Hope sleepily greeted me in the hallway. We went downstairs... there were no messes. The rest of the week went the same. Not once did she come to wake me. I am a light sleeper, especially when I am the only adult home with the kids, and I know Hope didn't even enter the room. Now I wanted to see what happened when Brian came home - how premeditated was her middle-of- the-night wake up calls? The first night Brian was sleeping in his bed, after a week's absence, in walked Hope at 5:30 a.m. I heard her come; she walked around the bed - dog tag gently jingling as she approached, and jumped up on Brian's side of the bed. I sat bolt upright and bellowed at her, "GET OUT! OUT!!! GO LAY DOWN. OUT!" She attempted one more time to get Brian to move, who, I'm sure, was shocked awake by now. As he didn't move, (smart man), Hope slowly left the room head hanging down. She gave me one last pathetic dog look at the door and when I yelled, "OUT!" she left to go lay down on our son's bed. The next day she made the attempt again but I was able to stop her in her tracks just as she entered the doorway with a sharp, "OUT!" and to this day she has not troubled us to be let out ahead of our alarm even on days when we sleep in. Don't kid yourself dogs are brilliant! To those who say animals can not reason or problem solve I say, "Think again!"

Hope is very well behaved by all standards - not perfect, but pretty close :-)
It's her owners that need help!

Can I survive Spring?

Yuck! is right!

Manitoba is cold and wet right now. For mid April we are still waking up to minus temperatures and daytime highs are not in the double digits often. Then we have Spring run off which - yes - could be worse but when you have two inside dogs and two inside male children (I guess you can't have outside male children... although I'm tempted! *~*) it can't be much worse - dirt wise. So let's look at the senario, boy leaves the house wearing rubber boots and clothing. Boy is later seen running around inside the house in his underwear - there are mud caked boots up to the hilt, on the deck and splatters of mud near the laundry hamper just inside the laundry room door which is just beside the mudroom (aptly named). After my tirade about, "Who's cleaning those boots off, mister? It isn't going to be me.",  I enter the laundry room  to investigate the mud there. (Note: I should have been an undercover cop, or detective or something because I am quite good at ferreting out evidence). In the hamper I discover a sodden pair of jeans - mud encrusted from bum to cuffs - along with a sweatshirt that is also mud caked on the sleeves from elbows to cuffs. I quickly deduced that my eight year old son had fallen in the mud and was trying to "hide" the evidence (like the situation will improve for him when I find this mess on laundry day?!). Thus started tirade #2!

We live in the country and although we have cats and dogs we do not have livestock, or a barn, so where does all the grass, mud and straw materialize from that gets dragged in? Do they have a secret stash somewhere? I have stopped putting the vacuum away because it needs doing twice a day.
Now, take the dogs...  I can't let them out loose or they go straight for the mud - without rubber boots! Neither are leash trained well. I'm working on the Brad Patterson method of umbilical training by wrapping a 6 foot leash around my waist and attaching a rowdy, two year old Retriever or a lunging 9 month old German Shepherd to the other end and bravely attempting to "walk" them. Hmmm.... got a mental picture of that yet?  If I'm one-on-one with them it isn't too bad but if my husband and I try this together!?.... I'm amazed whichever vital organs are between my rib cage and pelvis are still functioning! How much abuse and punishment is the human body to endure in the name of "responsible dog ownership". The dogs never power out, their tongues just get longer. I don't know how Cesar Milan does it. Maybe I need to try a cheap nylon rope like he uses, maybe the magic is in that. With my luck I'll just get severe rope burn and dislocated shoulders. Our three cats follow us on these "walks". I think they're laughing at me but I can't be sure.

Ownership

I think they know who's boss!

So, really, we "own" our animals? You bag or shovel up their poop, they wait at the door for you to let them out, you "walk" them - or in most cases they walk you, you wait outside in all kinds of bad weather for them to "do their thing" (which I really think they take longer to do in bad weather just to spite you), you vacuum and sweep their hair, brush and bathe them, and feed them and water them, pay for their toys, food and vet bills and you're their master?! Right!
And yet we wouldn't trade them for the world... except maybe when they shed all over, get into the garbage bag you forgot to take out, rip up a prized belonging or throw up or pee in the house! But if you were going to base dog and cat ownership on those inconvenient issues no one would have kids either, (minus the shedding my kids have all done all of the above and I wouldn't trade them either).

Beginnings

So, obviously if I've created a blog about dogs and cats I must share my life with them!
As a kid I wasn't able to have any animals because my brother was allergic to them. (Not fair to me!)  O.K., truth be told, I was allergic to cats too but that didn't stop me from owning two cats when I moved into my first apartment. I was so allergic in the early days I lived on Chloro-tripolon and on days when my allergies were especially bad I'd hang my head out the window and wheeze in fresh air. I know... stupid right?
But I loved my cats! When I was moving to Manitoba to get married I knew my cats would not take well to the move so I re-homed them for their happiness. Then I got my first DOG! Don't get me wrong - I still love my cats and presently have three of them - but dogs have a charm all their own. The first night I brought my new German Shepherd mix puppy back to my apartment I invited all my closest friends to come and meet her. Within 15 minutes she had cleared my townhouse of friends by unloading what must have been a weeks worth of "waste product" in the middle of the living room. You know who your friends are in a crisis as I watch mine jump the fence in their haste to get away from the stench - and so began my adventures into dog ownership.