Filed under: Uncategorized
The other day at work Mackenzie and I were walking around talking to people and I looked down and saw something shiny on the floor. It looked almost like a silver paw but as I picked it up and inspected it further it appears to be a silver “brass knuckles” pendant. I put it in my pocket and continued talking to my friend. I pointed out to her that the bully sticks that her dogs adore are actually made of bull penises.
To which she replied, “Oh My God. I’m gonna yell, can I yell? I’m gonna yell! OH MY GOD, I’m yelling.” It was great fun. After she left (after yelling about bull penises for a while) I went to the bathroom and added the brass knuckles pendant to my silver chain. On the necklace are the three most important things to me. A peace sign, music notes, a “dog lover” charm, and now… brass knuckles.
It seems that after I found the brass knuckles Mackenzie was more “on” than she’s been in a while. I worked her heel, figure 8s, stand/stay, recall, and she was doing quite well. Of course that’s got very little to do with finding the brass knuckles but I’ll probably keep wearing it on my chain for a while.
Tomorrow morning at 7:15AM Mackenzie and I will be venturing out to Sam Houston Elementary, the southernmost school in the McAllen School District. Obviously being that far south, it is in a very low socioeconomic area (very close to the Mexican Border/Reynosa).
Once there we will participating in an incentive program for the kids to read more. They are offering the top readers at Houston Elementary an opportunity to read to a WAGS team (for example Mackenzie and I) at the beginning of next year as well as receive a “pawtographed” book from all of the teams. They are hoping this will motivate the students to read more over the summer. It should be fun. We’ll be there hopefully from 8:00AM – a little before 10AM since Clementine the Therapy Bunny is getting there at 10AM.
And Mackenzie the Therapy Dog meeting Clementine the Therapy Bunny is NOT something that small children should witness, EVER.
At 4:00PM we will be meeting several clients/friends of mine at our nearby park to have a birthday party for Spencer’s 3rd birthday. I bought Pooch Pops for the dogs, and Ice Pops (you remember from when we were kids) for the humans. We also bought party hats, I made goodie bags for the pups, we’re going to have frisbees and various toys for the dogs to play with as their “party games” and of course I will try and take lots of pictures. I’m totally giddy about it.
Filed under: work
Or Dog-proofing your Child?
I was explaining to some people today that their male un-neutered Pit Bull was most likely escaping their enclosed kennel in the back yard because he was interested in mating with the dog next door (their female Pit is thankfully spayed). As I was talking I, of course, had Mackenzie with me. Normally when I am talking to people it involves talking about training so she had her eyes fixed on me and was in a sit position. So I go on talking to this couple and I notice their little girl is very interested in Mackenzie.
A few seconds later I see that she has taken Mackenzie by the neck with both hands and is restraining/attempting to choke her. I saw her out of the corner of my eye and was about to yell at her when she stopped. I thought maybe it was an accident (Mackenzie was surprisingly calm about it so I figured the little girl hadn’t been applying enough pressure to actually bother her). I continue talking to her parents and AGAIN the little girl does it. This time however she moves from just grasping Mackenzie’s neck to actually holding her muzzle closed with one hand while sticking her face in Mackenzie’s face.
Thank goodness Mackenzie is pretty child-proof, (she’s been accidentally kicked, dragged, poked, pulled, stepped on, choked, etc. by kids yet she still loves most of them). When I caught the little girl with her hand around Mackenzie’s mouth I said “Hey! What are you doing?” and the father also got mad at her later for doing that.
I can’t imagine it would make for a good headline if that little girl did something like that one too many times to either one of their pit bulls…
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In unrelated news I’m currently planning Spencer’s 3rd birthday party…
Every week on one of my days off we go to this elementary school park (which becomes a public city park after school hours) and let the dogs run around off-leash (which is probably illegal but there is usually NO ONE there at that time anyway). I was thinking that since most of his birthday presents would relate to going to the park including but no limited to:
some new Chuck-it balls:
a new supercool Orka frisbee (no picture online since it’s a fairly new product I believe)
a Kong on a rope thingy:
that why shouldn’t we celebrate AT the park. Usually we just meet one of my clients and her Aussie Matilda, but I was thinking we could invite a few more people and their dogs and let them all run around and play and have doggie birthday cake and take pictures. Wow, I just got giddy thinking about it.
Filed under: dogs
If you’ve never been to a Pet First Aid class, you need to go. If only for the amusement of the CPR dummy dogs and cats (well that and for the countless other tips and tricks you should know when living with dogs/cats). When you breath into their noses, their little chests (complete with “lungs”) move up and down as though you are actually bringing them back to life.
Anyway, I must get dressed for work, but I just wanted to say that I am now certified by the American Red Cross in Pet First Aid for both Dogs and Cats!
And after the class I rode around the parking lot on a TRIKKE.
I got my hair cut this afternoon and I must say it looks pretty fierce. And you know I don’t use the word ‘fierce’ that often, so it must be true. After my haircut I went to get some pictures developed at HEB. Then I came home and did some scrapbooking. Is that a verb? Scrapbooking? Whatever, it’s awesome. I can feel myself start to get totally obsessed with it. I try not to shop in the “scrapbooking” section at Hobby Lobby because I feel this urge to spend hundreds of dollars on scrapbooking accessories. God, I love it. It is incredibly fun to do and if I can’t imagine how bad I would be if I were actually a stay-at-home Mom… Thankfully I am not, and instead I scrapbook pictures of my clients and their dogs.
At around 5:30PM I began briefing Mom on what she needed to know to play Judge for Mackenzie and I. And let me tell you, it was quite a challenge. My mom, an extremely intelligent and successful woman, could not for the life of her figure out how to do a logical Heel sequence. Her favorite thing to call out was “Forward…Fast…Slow…STOP!” right before she ran us into the street.
After a few tries however, she gave us some pretty good ones. The “Fast…Halt” was actually pretty good practice even though it can’t be called out in the ring. We managed to get a few good sequences both on and off-leash. We then did a few Stand For Exams which Mackenzie did beautifully for the first (and only) time in her life. And this is my Mom, so imagine how she’ll do with a stranger if she can hardly stand still for my Mom. She’s never understood that even though I gave her a command she is still allowed to be petted. When we are at work and I’m working with her and someone comes up to pet her and let’s say she’s in a sit/stay, she will actually scoot away from the person who is trying to pet her. Either that or she will actually get up, walk a few steps away and then sit down again. Like she simply can not be bothered with petting when she is in a stay. Obviously we need to work on this.
We did Figure 8s with little cones as the posts which she did very well with. And then we did a couple of Heel Off leash sequences. Mom of course was terribly nervous that Mackenzie was off leash in the front yard (no fence) during 5-6PM traffic. Much to her surprise, Mackenzie is actually MORE attentive to me when she is off leash.
By this point I was sweating so much that my hair was about to start getting frizzies so we came inside. I talked to Dad for a little bit about how I was now officially promoting Mom to Head Coach and demoting him to Assistant Coach because she was learning so quickly. As we were talking Mackenzie decided to attack Beethoven (our 16yo Lhasa Apso). Although we’ve made great progress in lessening her food aggression, there are just some times when she can’t help herself (like Spaghetti Mondays obviously). She’s been crated for the past half hour (while we ate dinner) and we will probably work on training some more in a little bit once she calms down.
Tomorrow I’m going to a Pet First Aid class in Harlingen with a few of my clients and people from our therapy dog group.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Just thought I would do a fun little post about some of Mackenzie’s favorite toys:
1. Hide-A-Squirrel Junior (JUST the squirrel):
She’s never actually played with the whole thing. But she is absolutely infatuated with her little squirrel whom I intelligently named Chip (as in Chipmunk, duh). He stays in the car permanently and every time she hops in the car to go to work or the park or wherever, she viciously attacks him. If we are driving and I am not interacting with her she will put her two front paws on my leg and drop Chip onto my lap. If that doesn’t work she will wedge her head in between my body and the steering wheel and make sure to drop chip to the floor near the gas pedal so that I will have to fish him out of there while driving and play with her. This is by far her favorite toy of all time. We are currently on Chip #2 (the original Chip was the bigger one and he is still around, he’s just in retirement). For the record, Chip #2 is in near-perfect health (besides minor surgeries to fix holes and re-attachments of his tail). He has also been de-squeaked by Dr. Mackenzie.
2. Wing-A-Ball (are we seeing a trend here with the names of her favorite toys?):
It’s a ball on a rope. Seriously, how exciting could it possibly be? I bought this toy for Mackenzie in the hopes that she would at least take a slight liking to it so that possibly we could use it as her training reward tug. Little did I know she would LOVE it to death. It is now nearing retirement since she has decided to rip it to shreds. Mackenzie is the type of dog that if you are not interacting with her while she’s got a toy, she will proceed to rip it up and most likely ingest the materials. So clearly it is better to play with her… all the time.
3. Nylon frisbee:
Now this one is a total surprise. I got the large size (as show in the picture) for Spencer. On a whim I decided to get an additional one in the smaller size joking to myself that perhaps one day Mackenzie would enjoy frisbee. Sadly, Mackenzie is not going to be my next disc dog in training, but she has very much enjoyed this toy. She has enjoyed every inch of this toy. Again, Mackenzie will take a toy that she likes, make a HUGE deal of it, and if you don’t join in on the fun she will show you why you should have played with her by destroying the toy. So this frisbee is pretty much ripped in every seam possible and the plastic circle is almost totally chewed up.
Did I mention that Mackenzie is the least destructive of our dogs? These toys that I’m describing to you are her absolute favorites of all time. I could do another list of 100s of toys that she has NEVER even popped a seam or de-squeaked. So don’t be thinking that Mackenzie rips and destroys every toy she gets, quite the contrary. These three are at the Top of their game. The cream of the crop. Mackenzie only destroys the very best of her toys.
(Mackenzie and Mr. Wing-A-Ball at the beginning of their love/hate relationship.)
I think if Mackenzie were a real person she would be some kind of life counselor or a psychiatrist. She has this incredible ability to get through to not only people but she is simply amazing with other dogs.
As some of you may know, a few months ago Mackenzie was showing some real signs of dog aggression. Her label would be “dog-reactive” or “leash-reactive” but to the average dog owner she would be considered “aggressive”. In other words, she was (still is sometimes) a BITCH.
A “happy and playful” (in dog trainer terms: a RUDE, BADLY-TRAINED) puppy would run up “just to say HI” and Mackenzie would react. We got to the point that she was growling/snapping at nearly every dog who approached her unless they were well-trained and calm. So obviously, since my job is as a dog trainer, the majority of dogs she would meet were not well-trained (yet).
I knew something had to be done so I did all kinds of research, asked other trainers, bought books, and got my ass in gear. Today, almost a year after the peak of her aggression (she drew blood from the nose of a Golden puppy) she helped me with a dog/leash-reactive Lab. I let her in the training area (off-leash), she sniffed around, stretched and yawned several times (calming signals) and kept her eyes on me the whole time. The Lab didn’t react at all. In fact, both of them acted, for the most part, like the other dog wasn’t there. Mackenzie was amazing as was the Lab, who also seems to only react when the other dog approaching him is rude and ill-trained.
We’re at the point now that Group sits and stays in the Novice ring are a real possibility. A year ago I might have said her dog show career was impossible. A year ago she stopped coming to work with me and I was thinking that maybe it was hopeless to even try to work with her around other dogs. I was wrong. We’ve worked through it and we continue to work on her reactivity every single day. She has made tremendous progress and now greets other dogs with enthusiasm. She really is incredible to watch.
The Chuck-It is BY FAR the greatest dog invention in the history of dog inventions. Little did I know what I’ve been missing out on, but today marks the first day we try out our new Chuck-It. Initially I thought they were dumb and huge and horribly awkward to use, but once I found the Chuck-It JR. (in bright yellow!!!) at the natural pet food store in Harlingen, I had to have one. Best $8.99 I ever spent.
Every week, (unless one of the dogs is sick with a rash, infection, allergies, vomiting, and any other random ailment my dogs get just to make me worry) we go out to this elementary school park near my house and meet one of my clients/friends and her Aussie Matilda. Usually we just bring the frisbee(s) and toss that around for Spence while Matilda watches and Mackenzie gets into trouble. Today I brought the frisbee AND the chuck-it and I was going to allow Spencer to choose which one he would rather play with. When he insisted on carrying his frisbee all the way to the car, and then getting it down all by himself at the park, I thought he had already chosen. I got the chuck-it down anyway and when he realized OMG ITS A BALL!!! all hell broke loose. This boy is OBSESSED with balls.
My first attempt at throwing left Spencer panting and waiting for me to actually do something even though the ball was several thousand feet away (yes, several thousand feet away). It took him two throws to understand that the yellow stick-thing isn’t actually part of the fun (which of course didn’t stop him from carrying the whole stick + ball all over the park when I told him to carry it).
He has such intense ball drive which comes from how we raised Spencer as a puppy. A professor friend of my Dad’s had a litter of Scottish Terriers that he needed to “get rid of”. Dad and I have always wanted a Scottie so me Dad and Matt went over to look at them. They were the absolute definition of Farm dogs. The mother dog, Maggie I think was her name, was totally scruffy and had probably never seen a pair of clippers much less gotten a proper “Scottie trim”. The pups were probably about 4-5wks old.
Needless to say, we came home with a fat jet black (with a white beard and tie) wiry terrier puppy who we would soon name Spencer. From the day we brought him home my brother kept saying “I hope he likes balls. I want to play catch with him”. Now Mackenzie is no master of catch and fetch, but she does at least try. It’s just that her mouth is too small. So my brother was hoping for a dog who would actually be able to catch a ball in his mouth. Shortly after we brought him home we introduced him to a ball. At this point he’s so ball crazy that we only ever let him see any balls when we take him out to the park.
If he were a Border Collie, we would absolutely be at the top of the flyball and disc dog world. But instead I’ve got Border Collie drive in a Scottish Terrier shaped package.
Tonight’s training session:
Mackenzie: We worked mainly on fronts ’cause DAMN that girl’s crooked when she comes in for a front. I guess it doesn’t help to have such a damn long body. Her head is usually in the right position, but then she swings her little bum all chueca (‘crooked’ in Spanish [slang] for you non-Spanish-speaking folks). I got out her target stick and extended it all the way. So essentially I could remain standing up relatively straight and still have her targeting the right position (instead of targeting my hand between my legs). Oh the trials and tribulations of having a short dog.
We made some pretty good progress even with my brother coming out of his room to tell me that the way I was saying “Front” was annoying him. Generally with “come” and “front”-type commands my voice raises significantly in pitch, which apparently really annoys my brother. We quit on that and did a couple long stays. Which she hates, no surprise.
We ended the session with some position changes (sit/down/stand + random short stays). I’m thinking of switching to German for ’stay’ = blieb (damn this blog is gettin’ all kinds of multi-lingual). She confuses STAND and STAY a lot and I don’t blame her. So maybe it would be easier to switch ’stay’? We use ‘fuss’ for her right finish, and occasionally ‘platz’ and ‘giblaut’ because people are all impressed when I say she understands English, German, Spanish, and sign language. We also reviewed some of her fun tricks and I taught her to “take a bow”.
Spencer: This boy literally go SO EXCITED and worked up when he knew he was having a clicker training session that his red rocket came out (ie: he got a hard on, boner, woody, etc.) Yes, of course he’s neutered, but clearly clicker training is REALLY REALLY EXCITING. Worked on “sit up (and beg)”. He made very good progress and is learning to balance on this big butt of his. Tugged on the leash for a little while as a reward, and then I brought out he hula hoop. Started off with some low hops, but then he was giving me some good solid jumps. We ended his session when he started panting.
April: We worked some position changes (sit/down/stand). Nothing makes me happier than baiting my little Rescue girl pretending she’s in a dog show. She learned that after she’s stacked into a stand/stay she has to look intensely at my hand (with the treats). She looks damn good to me. Even though we’ve got no idea where she came from, except for the glaring fact that she is 100% purebred, maybe she could have been a show dog. Oh wait, no. My dog has ZERO breathing problems because her snout isn’t so far pushed into her face that she looks like a horribly disfigured “show-quality” Boston Terrier. She doesn’t snore, or have trouble breathing, or need expensive surgery to have her airways widened. Anyway, after a few minutes of that we ran through her fun tricks, shake, roll-over, sit up/beg, BANG!, and crawl.
Then I brought out the hoop. HOLY GOD. I was literally holding the hoop probably 3 or 4 feet off the ground and she was clearing it NO problem. She jumps SOOOO HIGH, I can’t even describe how high. Dad was watching and he said that we could probably tie the hoop to the ceiling and she could clear it. She’s so amazing. She jumps like a little horsie doing dressage. Once she started panting (and Spencer got all hot and bothered to join her training session and eating her dropped treats) we quit. All in all, it was a pretty successful training night for all three dogs.
Quite possibly the scariest thing to do in dog training is to videotape yourself performing what you thought was a pretty good heel sequence. Little did I know what I was going to see on the video.
I put the camera on the ground at the beginning of the driveway and got Mackenzie into position and pressed Record. What followed was a wonderful effort at heeling by Mackenzie and a horrifying performance from ME. As it turns out, many of you may already know this, but I am a large girl and Mackenzie is a small dog. What that looks like on video is that Mackenzie is responding to EVERY slight movement of my feet and my body in the fear that any sudden movement and I may fall right on top of her.
I took a few more after that, and they all were increasingly easier to watch. Except for the glaring fact that the more we work in the video, the lower my shorts fall (from holding such a heavy bait bag) and the more likely we are to see my ass or my bright pink underwear as I lean over to drop Mackenzie a treat.
All in all, she’s got a beautiful heel. I just need to work on myself and my body language so that I don’t throw her off. Dad played judge for a little while and gave us a heel sequence complete with running us into the street when he forget to give us a halt, and heeling straight into the back of my car when he forgot to give us a turn. It was fun and she actually did quite well even with the added distraction of April being tied to the basketball hoop pole and having her whine and whimper every time she heard a command and then start quivering every time she heard a click.
The goal right now is August. Corpus Christi. Obedience Novice A/Rally Novice A.
Our first time in the ring. Hell, our first time at a dog show.
Mom and I like to make a snack of bread + butter pickle slices and cheese on whole wheat crackers. Whenever Spence knows someone is snacking he will shuffle his short little body into the kitchen to see what’s up. Mom is a sucker and will almost ALWAYS give him a taste of what she’s got unless it’s on the ABSOLUTELY NEVER GIVE TO THE DOGS list (nuts, grapes, chocolate, etc.) Anyway so we’re in the kitchen preparing the snack and I see Spence is already chomping on something. “What did you give him?” I asked Mom and she replies of course, “A cracker…” A whole damn cracker for doing nothing.
So instead of just giving away freebies, I used one small cracker to get several spins, even a few jumping-spins in BOTH directions out of him. Since I was so impressed (we’ve only practiced spins with food -and not the disc- a few times) I decided to bring out the hoop. Now keep in mind this is only the 2nd time EVER Spence has seen the hoop. And here he goes jumping (like, actually jumping) without me luring him with a treat. I was just saying “Spence Hoop!” and he would give me a solid hop and I would praise and treat.
It’s like magic.
