The Choke Collar

It happened.  I ordered one on Amazon like my dog walker has for her dog, and tried it with Mia this morning on a long trail walk.  If last Saturday was a 1 (with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best walking behavior ever) then today was a 9.  She was So Good, and the collar itself is scary looking but actually doesn't seem to hurt her very much at all.  Our dog has a lot of fat around her neck though, as most dogs probably do.

I got a Herm Sprenger prong collar, which was sort of hard to use for a beginner at first.  I just had to figure it out on my own as far as the fit and getting it on her for the first time.  Basically you just choose a link, squeeze it and pull it out and then you can put the collar on your dog just like a regular quick release type collar - no need to go over the head, a dog doesn't enjoy that.

This collar controlled her pulling while walking, which was becoming a major problem.  She didn't try to run towards other people the way she used to - instead she just continues walking.  I'm not sure if it was the collar or not, but she didn't bark at any of the 6 people we saw on our walk today and usually she will let out a few barks here or there.

I will continue to use this with Mia because she doesn't seem to care - she walks along just as happily with it as without it, and I have so much more control over here which is good for the power balance overall in the household.  Hopefully this isn't a forever tool, but it's a good For Now tool to try to get her back on track.

The Shedding

We have a problem.  Mia is shedding like a maniac right now and I don't know why.  She's on a really good diet with high quality and expensive food.  She exercises every single day at daycare, on walks, or at the dog park.  I brush her daily with a brass bristle and nylon grooming antished brush to pull off the loose hairs at night and yet still the shedding is out of control.  This happened earlier in December when it just started to get cold, which made sense... shedding the summer coat and growing in the thicker winter coat.  She looks great with her winter coat and everything, but I'm not really sure what's going on with it deciding to leave so soon.  Could it be because we've had such a mild winter here in Boston?  The average temp seems to be in the 40s these days, maybe her body has decided that it's much too warm for all that hair?

I'm a floor cleaning maniac.  I sweep it all, then mop the kitchen.  I dry swiffer the family room and use it to get under the couches, then mop.  Next, I vacuum all the rugs.  I shake out all of her beds and blankets outside to get rid of the loose hair.  The amount of hair that I empty from the vacuum and collect in the dust pan/swiffer is crazy.  It's like the size of a bunny each time these days and she's not exactly a big dog and has very short hair.  This can't be normal... can it?  I'm actually concerned, this doesn't seem right.  You'd look at her and think everything was normal though, it's not like she has any weird bald patches or anything.  Is there a better way to handle this?

Sleeping Beauty

She's not much of a lady...

At Least Mia Won't Pee On You

What a strange day at the dog park...

• I got peed on by a dog.
• Mia got humped by a male dog.
• Mia got peed on by the same dog that peed on me.
• and Mia met another boyfriend.

I was happy to learn that my dog was not one of the out of control ones there today.  It felt good... sort of like redemption after our trail walk earlier this morning.

We came across an older woman walking with her husky off leash, which was fine.  I don't really care if people have their dogs on or off leash as long as their mild mannered.  So the dogs meet each other very nicely (I was so proud of Mia!) and get along fine, and then Mia jumps all over the woman, which of course was mortifying.  The woman said, "does she do this to you?"  I said, yes sometimes.  She says, "And you let her get away with it?"  Like, it's a work in progress.  I know that Mia isn't perfect and that she does need a lot more discipline when it comes to stranger interaction but like give me an effing break.  I don't think she was trying to be rude, I think she was just curious.  She's like, "I have one of these [holds up a remote shocker] to remind him once in a while who's in charge."  It was kind of nice to know that not all dogs are perfect and even when they seem like they are, they do still have to be reminded of who the boss is.  Later on the trail we met another dog, and the dogs said hello nicely without much anxiety.  Today was much better than yesterday.

Painful Morning

We had what might be the worst walk in Mommy and Mia history this morning after she woke us up super effing early (and also didn't eat breakfast).  I took her on the woodsy trail from one elementary school to the neighboring one and she was God Awful.  She wasn't just pulling me through the woods, she was charging full speed ahead even with me yanking at her choke leash the whole way.  I'd get her to stop and wait, and then she'd just sprint forward again.  It was so bad.  When we finally made it to the clearing in the football field, I made her do a long stay - otherwise I was going to kill her.  She was apparently really amped up about the woods, but when we got to the road she was an angel and heeled the whole way back home.  She was probably just tired from dragging me behind her for the first 15 minutes and needed a breather or something - or there were less interesting smells.  I have a feeling this is what happened with our newish weekend dog walker Charlotte.  We're about the same size, and Charlotte actually has more dog experience than I do and she politely suggested that we try a prong choke collar with Mia.  Her dog has one and has always had one since he was a puppy and he never pulls on it anymore.  She stopped at her house and grabbed her dog's and tried it with Mia and said that she only actually had to give her 3 tugs with it and after that she didn't pull for the rest of their long walk.  She can be a quick study when she wants to be.  I'm giving serious consideration to this.  I love my princess, but we can't keep letting these bad behaviors continue or she's just going to get worse.  I feel like I've tried everything at this point to turn her into a better walker - we tried the harness (it just gave her more leverage to pull me), we tried just a regular leash (nothing), we sent her to bootcamp... and when she came back she was a million times better but this is one of her ongoing challenges, from bootcamp we learned to use the training/choke leash the Caesar uses... and while it works for some things it doesn't work when she's in Code Red excitement mode.  Like my hand where the strap loops around is all red and swollen now because I was nonstop yanking her neck for 30 minutes.  She doesn't seem to care, but I can't keep doing this.

On our way home, we walked by a dog who was obviously trapped by an invisible fence and he went wild barking at Mia.  I totally thought it was going to be a disaster but we just kept walking and she barely even looked at the maniac.  So it's moments like that when I'm like: ok, bootcamp totally worked.  She's just more strong willed about other things.  Also - new habit of her's: bringing a stick into the house after going outside to go to the bathroom at night.  It's irritating.

She's so cute and so crazy.

A Trail Walk

Mia and I went on our Sunday morning walk today along woodsy trails that connect the three local schools (two elementary schools and the high school).  She did this walk yesterday with her friend Charlotte, and I have been trying to find these stupid trails for a long time now.  I was completely determined to find them, but since Mia went yesterday she sort of lead the way nicely.  The trails are really nice - pine needle covered and mostly clear so you can't really get lost at all.

Mia totally enjoyed our walk in 19 degree weather (my hands are numb).  She deserved a special little treat after her slumber was rudely awakened by the wind blowing something over outside around 3:30am last night.  Abe and I both woke up a few seconds before Mia lost her shit and barked like a mad women for a couple minutes.  Something really scared her, but decidedly it was nothing urgent.  It's good and bad to have a dog that reacts like that to loud noises. The wind was pretty crazy last night and still is today, but hopefully she can get a good nap in - she only ate half her breakfast too.

My little pumpkin being all sorts of rugged.

The pretty ones can't be trusted

Not much going on here these days!  It's quiet living.  Besides trying to attack the monkey sitting on the guest bed, Mia has been very well behaved.  She's super attached to her mom because mom takes her to the park and she Loves the park.  There's something about meeting all sorts of new dogs off leash that really makes her happy.  She whines in the car the entire way there (this is actually not good behavior) because she knows exactly where we are going and can hardly wait.  She still is kind of barky on occasion but is totally fine when we least expect it.  Perhaps her worst habit of all is that she still barks at kids - all the time.  At the park, if someone brings their kid along, she'll bark at them and jump all over them for a few minutes but then she'll stop and play super well with them.  I'm certain that she Likes kids because she'll be the only one in the park that will play with them while the other dogs just ignore them entirely.  It's bad manners for sure but since we don't have kids, or know kids old enough to practice with her on it's sort of something that we can't really work on too much.  Today, I picked her up at daycare and for some reason there were two kids there a 12 year old and a 10 year old and she barked at them the second she saw them [sigh] and then tried to jump on the little one of course.  I tugged on her leash and was just like, "she's really friendly, just really loud!!"  Luckily, they weren't afraid of her vicious bark.  What do I do about this?

This gate actually came with the house.  It's genius.  Our deck is sort of like a teenie tiny play area.  Unfortunately, she does need much more space to run in.  We really need a fence, but the idea of fencing in our entire back yard is 1. expensive as shit, and 2. visually unappealing.  The idea of the invisible fence is like Mehhh.  We'd have to make sure she had that collar on all the time, and she's a bit of a scaredy cat so she'll likely be too afraid to even go outside.  She could even run right through it and then not be able to get back in.  I know this method works for a lot of people, but I'm just uncertain of it.  If you saw what she looked like when we put a simple vibrating bark control collar on her, then you'd understand why this might not work well for us.  She mopes and will barely even move, her entire spirit is sort of killed instantly - and it doesn't even need to vibrate for this reaction.  Sometimes on the weekends if she sees a walker go by, she'll bark in the house and all I have to do is go get the collar and put it on the coffee table and she will instantly shut up.

So she still barks at kids, and might run away.  What now?

Scary Monkey

Mia is terrified of this thing.  I threw it on the guest bed the other day when I was making the bed and it never really occurred to me that maybe it didn't belong there.  Mia made it loud and clear today that she hates it.  She hates the shit out of it.  Goodbye Monkey - I hate it too.