Stupid People

Why do people think that animals have to become best friends in 24 hours or less? Why don't they understand that animals can learn to coexist, but they need more than a few hours?

CF #5

Reyna was very good in class today….she showed that she really has been paying attention during our practices sessions. And she worked for a full hour today. The poor girl was so ready to leave when we were done. Today was mostly about picking some music, so I had a CD already burned for class. I’m going to take it with me to the seminar next weekend, and ask for opinions from Carolyn Scott and the other freestylers. The songs we’re considering are:

Find Me Somebody to Love – Ella Enchanted
San Antonio Stroll – Tanya Tucker
I’m from the Country – Tracy Byrd
Girl’s Just Want to Have Fun – Cindy Lauper
Man, I Feel Like a Woman – Shania Twain
Brown-Eyed Girl – Van Morrison

I decided we needed something a bit slower than I had originally thought, because even though Reyna heels at a fast pace, some of her moves are slower than others. Her spins are fast only if she’s chasing her tail. Having a song that’s a smidge slower than I’m really comfortable with should help her, as well as accommodate some of her slower patterns. She has some faster moves, and we can choreograph those into the faster spots.

Fingers Crossed

It looks like Jake has a potential home. The dad and kid love him, and the mom likes him, but she's worried about her cat. I tried to make sure she understood that most cats won't become friends with a strange dog (especially if it is the first animal ever seen outside the vet's office), but I'm not sure she fully realizes that. They're keeping him for the weekend, and I'm hoping they'll decide to keep him permanently. Once he settled down, he totally ignored the cat, but that certainly doesn't mean he won't chase it if it runs. I got the impression they aren't as strict as I would be, but that's totally up to them. So, anyway, keep all your fingers and toes crossed that this house works out for him.

My Rock

Somehow, I neglected to mention that Reyna has been the best dog ever during this painful time. Duncan is confused about why he can’t crawl into Mommy’s lap right now, and Jake is just a pettins whore, so he’s constantly up my butt. Reyna is keeping Duncan from jumping on me, and is keeping Jake almost constantly away from me. She doesn’t let them run into me if I’m standing up, and if they start bothering me while I’m on the couch, she not-so-gently removes them if I tell them to back away. She’s spent the last few days going out only when she’s had to, and the rest of the time she is either on the floor in front of me or on the couch beside me. She checks on me periodically, by whining and rubbing her head against my arm, or licking my cheek. She is letting me use her as support to stand up, sit down, and crouch down if I have to get something from the floor. She’s also been following me a little more closely, and leaning against me for support when she realizes I need it. I told my boss I was going to start bringing her in as a service dog if my back doesn’t clear up soon. Everything she’s been doing has been entirely of her own choice and decision. I don’t call her over or ask her to do any of this. She just knows something is wrong, and she’s doing her best to help.

Back pain very much bad.

Last Saturday, I managed to royally screw up my back. Still not totally sure exactly what happened, but I hope to never ever ever do it again. A few weeks ago, I pulled a muscle lifting a 40 pound bag of dog food wrong (we go through those pretty quickly at my house), but I didn’t think much of it, since it quit hurting in a day or two. Since then, I would occasionally pick something up that would twinge my back, but would only hurt for an hour or so, and I would generally smack myself in the head and give myself the “lift with your legs, not with your back” lecture. Sunday the 12th, I felt it twinge again, but that didn’t hurt for long, either. During the following week, I was attending a seminar, and my back would start hurting after sitting in those hotel chairs for an hour or so, but as soon as I got up to walk around, it would stop. And driving didn’t bother me, so I assumed it was just the hideously uncomfortable chairs.

Saturday, though, I decided to come home early, in an attempt to beat the really icky weather that was supposedly coming through the area. So I loaded up the truck, feeling an occasional twinge, but nothing significant. Got the dogs in the truck, helped Angel move the dog house back to its original spot (being careful to not bend over while I was doing that), and finished tossing dog bones and toys and such in the truck. And then I suddenly couldn’t walk.

Thankfully, that eased up after a few minutes, although I couldn’t swing my legs back and forth to scrape the mud off my boots, so Angel had to get a stick for me to do it the hard way. It took me (literally) 5 minutes to get into my truck and get my legs positioned so I could reach the pedals, and then Angel had to close the door for me, since I couldn’t lean out to get it. I also had to stop for gas, which was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.

After getting home, my brother came over to unload the truck and feed the dogs and do laundry (I love my brother). He even brought lunch and ice cream over the next day. I was actually scared to sit down Saturday before he got there, because I really didn’t think I’d be able to get up. And going to the bathroom was certainly not something I wanted to try. In fact, doing that at 2:00am Sunday morning actually made me nauseous. Trying to pee when none of your muscles will relax is not an easy thing to do. I would also like to point out that muscle spasms are BAD. Especially the ones that make your leg and butt muscles hurt, too.

I went to the doctor Monday, and she gave me lovely drugs and told me to go home from work and take them. So I did. And I stayed out of work Tuesday. Spent a few hours in the office Wednesday, and I’m currently planning to be here all day today and Friday. I have an MRI scheduled for Sunday morning – doc thinks I may have a pulled muscle/slipped disc/pinched nerve combo. Leave it to me to do as much damage as possible. Needless to say, Reyna and I will not be attending SAR training Sunday. I’m hoping to make it to her freestyle class Saturday, since we’re picking music, and I was pretty slack about working her while we were at Angel’s.

CF #4

We’ve temporarily given up on trying to make Reyna move side to side in a heel position. She’s really fighting the concept, and why make us both grumpy? We’ve also modified her “around” as she was getting it confused with her “finish” pattern. We did pick up a few new moves at our last session, though.

"Grapevine weave" – she weaves thru one leg, I do a step-together-step away from her, she weaves thru the other leg, repeat. Seems to work better with her long body than a regular weave.
"Spiral" – in heel position, she spins clockwise, while I move around her counterclockwise.
"Rock-n-roll" – she does a half spin, I cut her off, she does a half spin the other way, I cut her off, etc.
"Jazz" – she’s in front position, does a half turn and backs thru my legs.

This coming Saturday, we’re going to work on picking out some music. I’ve found some songs I like that are at least fairly appropriate to the situation, so now we just have to see if Reyna responds to any of them. My biggest problem is that I really love swing and big band music, but I had to keep in mind that we’re not supposed to be running around the ring. So, sadly, most of my swing music went out the window. But I found about 15 songs that I like, and I’m hoping she’ll respond to at least one of them. We’re attending another Carolyn Scott seminar in March, and I’m going to ask her to do a music review for us, since she ran out of time at the last one.

Who knew...

...that pretzels could settle an unhappy stomach?

Jake

This sweet boy needs a home. He’s and 8 month old pure German Shepherd. I’m fostering him while we look for a forever home. He’s very sweet and affectionate. He responds to correction easily, but some of his behavior makes me think he was mistreated. Jake gets along wonderfully with my two shepherds, and is quickly learning the rules of the house (thanks to Reyna’s enforcement tendencies). I was told he isn’t housebroken, but he knows how to use the dog door, and hasn’t had any accidents in the house. Jake is still intact, but I’m hoping the neutering will occur in the next week or two. He seems to be very smart, and really just wants someone to love him and play with him. If you’re interested – or know someone who might be – please let me know.

CF #3

We started putting a few moves together this week, and Reyna and I both have to learn to wean her off of the treats. She has to be able to perform for up to 2 minutes with no treats or rewards, so it could take us a bit to get there. We also decided to change her “move” from going away from me to going towards me. She seems to like that better, and this really is all about her. She still doesn’t take her back end with her, though. We figured out that its not that she doesn’t realize her butt is back there, its that she doesn’t feel like bothering to move it. She figures, if she can get the treats without moving her rear, why exert the energy? I knew she was a smart girl… Since she doesn’t want to move her butt, she now gets to wear a towel wrapped under her belly, just in front of her back legs, so that I have something to pull to force the motion. Sooner or later, she’ll realize its easier for her to just move her back end than to fight the towel.

A Nervous Day

Today was a big day for the canine members of the family. I left them out of their crates this morning when I went to work, and I left the dog door open, too. I spent most of the day stressing that they would either trash the place or jump the fence and run amuck. This was Duncan’s first day loose, but he’s so attached to Reyna, I knew he wouldn’t go anywhere without her. This was the first day in about 6 months that Reyna’s been left loose all day. She hasn’t been particularly reliable, but I figured Duncan would give her someone to play with. When I left this morning, she was very calm and laid back, which is usually a good sign. She normally only trashes the place if she thinks she was going to go somewhere, and then got left behind. Let me tell you, that girl can hold a grudge. The dogs did wonderfully….no damaged furniture, no doggy accidents, and no visible attempts to leave the yard. Definitely a good thing. They have to get used to this, because in two weeks, they’ll be spending their time in my best friend’s back yard while I’m at a conference.

Dark Warrior

Reyna will be 2 years old March 1st. She weighs about 78 pounds, and should be done growing. She’s tall and thin, but she’s basically 78 pounds of lean, hyper-active, searching, dancing, spinning muscle. There is no fat on her at all. Having said all of that, I’m getting a bit nervous about the size of the horse that lives with us. Duncan is 6 and a half months old, and weighed in tonight at 73 pounds. 5 pounds less than Reyna. He’s shorter than her right now (a bit in the height, more in the length), but I expect that to change over the next few months, and he’s certainly not pudgy. Although he has, thankfully, lost the super-skinny look he had for a while. 73 pounds. At 6 and a half months. And he still likes to sit in my lap.

Oh, and my slack self finally managed to send off his registration paperwork. Duncan’s official AKC name is D’Can’s Dark Warrior Dreaming. But you can still call him Duncan.

CF #2

Reyna and I are working hard, and she’s definitely figuring out what I want her to do. Reyna’s still having a bit of difficulty with remembering to bring her butt with her, but we’ve come up with a few tricks to help that. I’m going to start using a dowel rod as a touch stick, for two purposes. One will be to tap her back end as necessary. The other is to teach her to go for the stick instead of the treat, so I can start weaning her off of treats as lures. She knows the word “touch” so I don’t think this will be a real issue for her. We also worked on walking over flat bars, so she would start paying attention to what was happening with her back feet.

New moves we learned this week:

“Back” – with Reyna in front of me, backing away, instead of beside me and backing with me.
“Tween” – Reyna and I walking together, with me straddling her back and her looking up at me.
“Around” – Reyna circling me.
“Paw” – Reyna sitting and putting her paw on my bent leg.

Mmmmmmmmmm

The pups went to day camp yesterday and got baths while they were there. They smell so good now. And I absolutely love how clean fur feels – all soft and fluffy and shiny.

There's one in every class...

I’m taking an accounting class as part of my MBA degree. This class is kicking my tail. The concepts of debits and credits as the world of accounting views them make no sense at all. The book is atrocious. And the amount of homework is insane, considering this is an online class and we all have real jobs and lives outside of class. As part of the homework, we were given a midterm last Wednesday night. It was 30 multiple choice, and written next to the right answer was “(Correct).” Was it an accident? On purpose? We’ll never know… I actually went through the questions to make sure I got the same answers, and amazingly enough, I did. Thursday afternoon, though, Nora - one of the girls in class - posted a message telling the instructor what he’d done. Why? Why would someone do this? What’s the point, except to make your classmates hate you? The instructor fussed about people complaining, so he posted a new midterm. 25 true/false and 25 multiple choice. The second midterm was all theory, with no math at all. I ended up having to guess on some of the answers, because I couldn’t find the information in our book or notes. According to the online word search for our book, the word “voucher” was never used. This is the point where Nora should be very happy she lives far, far away from me……

CF #1

Reyna and I had our first Canine Freestyle class Saturday afternoon. I made sure we took enough quick play breaks to keep her excited. She seemed to enjoy it, and it definitely made her tired. After just 45 minutes, she was actually ready to lay down for a nap. I should have started her on this when she was 6 months old…

We learned some new moves Saturday, and how to modify some moves we already know. Mind you, when I say “learned” I mean we did them a few times and figured out the basic concept, but we’re going to have to practice them a lot before they qualify as something Reyna and I know how to do.

We worked on “heel” which Reyna can do beautifully on the left, but heeling on the right confuses her. Which makes sense, considering that for more than a year, she’s heeled on the left, and I’ve never asked her to heel on the right. “Spin” will also be a directional problem. She can spin to the left beside me, or to the right in front of me. She’ll need to be able to go in both directions. We also tackled:
“back” - walking backwards beside me in a heel position
“front” - her walking towards me as I back up (not hard for her)
“move” – her in heel position, and both of us moving to the left
“weave” – her going under either of my legs

Besides the newness of some of the moves, Reyna also has the challenge that all long dogs face…remembering to bring her back end with her. Her front end will “move” or “weave” but her butt gets left behind (so to speak). When we “move” I have to step across with my right foot (since we’re moving to the left), and then nudge her butt with my left foot. It works for now, but we’ll definitely have to phase that out quickly. When she “weaves” I have to tap her rear to remind her to get it out from under my leg.

Its easy to see how it wore her out.

Attitudinal Change

My dog is a wonderful dog, and I’m really tired of feeling like I have to defend her to people who don’t know her. Yes, she had issues as a puppy (and frankly, I’m amazed I didn’t kill her before her first birthday), and yes, she can still be a real snot sometimes. But you know what? She’s an alpha female German Shepherd. That’s just how they are. She’ll be like that for the rest of her life. Reyna is sweet, loving, friendly, frighteningly intelligent, stubborn, and a hard worker. She’s even becoming more of a couch cuddler as she gets older.

Following on the heels of the Sylvie/Drill Team “Reyna’s a liability” issue comes a multi-email discussion I had last night with a girl on the board of a rescue group that I’ve volunteered with and fostered dogs for.

She sent out a foster home plea yesterday for an absolutely gorgeous 8-month-old female GSD. After thinking about it for a while, I sent an email saying I would take her, and hopefully, she and Reyna would get along. Mind you, that was not said out of concern for my dog’s “attitude” problems, but because I know sometimes dogs just don’t like each other, just like people don’t get along with everyone. And strong female GSDs don’t always hit off really well. But the description of the pup did not make her sound like a strong female. It said she was being bullied by the male GSD she lived with. No alpha female is going to tolerate that.

When I got home, I’d still not gotten a response, which was unusual, so I emailed her again and asked if anything had been decided. She said no one else had offered to foster her, but she didn’t want the pup in my house because Reyna has issues with dogs that challenge her, like Gus did. She also said she’d rather we didn’t foster a dog that hadn’t already been fostered by someone else, so we’d know about that dog’s temperament. I hate to break it to her, but even dogs with great temperaments don’t always get along.

Let me explain quickly about Gus. He was a very large GSD mix that I agreed to foster. Very sweet with people, most of the time. He jumped my fence twice, tried to break through my hall door to get to my cats, and tried to bite my neighbor when he put Gus back in his crate – turns out he had confinement issues. On top of that, he humped Reyna incessantly, and bullied her as much as possible. She didn’t respond in her normal fashion (by putting him down), which worried me. Made me think she knew something wasn’t right with him. The last night he spent at our house, they had played as usual, and Reyna was sleeping on the floor by my chair. With no warning at all, Gus attacked her. And it wasn’t play fighting. I had to separate them (I know, I know, never separate fighting dogs by yourself, but what was I supposed to do…wait until he got tired of mauling my dog?), and he bit me in the arm. Once I got them apart, and everyone calmed down, I called the rescue and told them Gus had to leave. He ended up spending almost a month boarding at the vet, and came very close to being put to sleep. Even the vet commented that Gus must have just been responding to Reyna’s dominant response to his challenge. Um, hello? She was ASLEEP. I’ve heard he’s doing well, now, as long as he’s kept away from crates, cats, kids, dogs that are more alpha, and walked on a leash for exercise. Needless to say, no one has adopted him yet, he’s still being fostered.

So, I took offense that someone would use the Gus incident to decide Reyna had dominance issues. I pointed out that she’d never had trouble with any other foster dogs, and that she tolerated Gus’ crap a lot better than I did, and that the fight with him wasn’t her responding to a dominance challenge, it was her fighting for her life from a vicious, unprovoked attack. The girl then said that we all know Reyna is very choosy about who she lets share her space (aren’t we all?). I reminded her that Reyna has never started a fight for no reason, although she is more than willing to finish one. She doesn’t bully dogs, or pick on them. If she doesn’t like them, she simply ignores them. She will enforce the house rules, however. I also pointed out that I am more than capable of controlling my animals, and know how to work around any issues that come up. No response.

At the same time, I was talking to another girl who works for the rescue, about something else entirely, and was telling her a bit about what was passing through the emails. She said that she was told the pup was a “high energy bratty female GSD” and so she had decided against fostering her. She also said she thought more information had been discovered about the dog. So I sent the first girl an email, asking if that was true, that she had more information about the dog than what she had given me. No response.

This morning, I withdrew my offer to foster. I told her I did not appreciate feeling like I had to defend Reyna for being herself, nor did I like feeling that the rescue didn’t trust me to control my animals. I also told her I was concerned that she didn’t seem to be sharing all of the information about the dog with me.

I’ll probably end up pulling my name from the foster list. If they don’t want to place anyone in my house on the basis of one bad incident, then I don’t need to be seeing all the emails of dogs that need help, knowing I won’t be allowed to do anything about it.

I’ve also decided that there will be no more explanations of how Reyna’s come so far since she was a puppy, no more descriptions of how many obedience classes we’ve taken to get here, no defending her to people who make assumptions about her because of one action or just because she’s a GSD. My dog is wonderful, and if people can’t recognize that and appreciate her for what she is, that’s their loss, not ours.

Peyton Marie

This is my niece at her 1st birthday party last September. You can tell we’re related, because she clearly loves her cake icing. She’s the daughter of my brother, Josh, (the middle of the half-siblings), and his wife, Stephanie. Peyton has definitely reached the point where she is an entertaining child. And she can be freakishly cute (no, I still don’t want one). She and Josh are currently working out who’s really in charge. He’s tough, but my money is on her. Watching him tell her to not drop something, and then her deliberately throwing that item, is absolutely hilarious. I’m hoping that when I’m visiting with my best friend in February, I’ll be able to stop by and introduce Reyna and Peyton. Steph said Peyton’s been around big dogs, so Reyna shouldn’t scare her. And we all know how much Reyna adores small children.

Bobbing for Kibble

Duncan has a brand new game. The silly boy has started taking a mouthful of kibble and dropping it in his water bowl. A few minutes later, he’ll stop eating the dry kibble and start trying to get the wet kibble. Its hilarious. He almost always ends up snorting, with water up his nose. And he’ll leave some in the water, eat some dry, and try again. It usually takes him most of his dry meal to finally get all of the wet kibble out. Reyna just sits and stares at him. I’m sure she’s mentally shaking her head in older-sibling doggy disgust.

CSI

I was boxing my CSI reports for attic storage this weekend, and I came across this poem. It was written by one of my CSI coworkers when we were having some really hard times in the unit. The department was telling us they had no money to give us raises – or even keep us in gloves and fingerprint tape – but they had $80,000 to bring in an efficiency expert to tell them where the problems were in the department. We also had a supervisor who refused to back us, even when officers told us to do something that was clearly against the rules. For some reason, it didn’t bother him (or anyone else in command) that most officers didn’t seem to have a clue about what was actually legal in a crime scene search. We got a sergeant as a supervisor before I left, but the problem with that was that the CSI unit was civilian, not sworn.

From what I’ve heard the times I’ve had to go back to testify, things never really improved in the unit. Between that and the record high of homicides last year, its hard for me to really miss the place. I miss the work sometimes, and being outside, and the relative freedom. And being trusted and respected for my abilities by those higher in the chain. Unlike some folks, I didn't mind belly-crawling through body fluids, if it got me what I needed. Or that sometimes it took four showers and three days of driving with my windows down to get the stench of death off me and out my car. But then it’ll rain for two days, or the temps will be in the high 90s for a month, and I realize that desk work really isn’t such a horrible thing. Plus, even though sitting aggravates my knee, it doesn’t hurt as much as standing on it all day. Every now and then, though, I just sit here and wonder what the heck it is I’m doing with my life. Granted, I’m good at what I do, but I don’t enjoy it like I did the investigation work. I miss being allowed to think for myself. I miss the challenge. I miss figuring out what happened to someone, and how, and looking at a scene and pulling out the information that all those inanimate objects can provide, if you just know how to ask the right question. I just can’t help but think I was meant to do more than sit at a desk and push paper around.

“Work smarter not harder” is to be our new decree.
Haven’t seen it yet, but sounds good to me.

Things will be changing, but not over night.
Haven’t seen it yet, but there’s a chance they might.

Study groups and meetings are set into place.
A lot of BS instead of lying to our face.

They’re waiting on this, they’re waiting on that.
We’ll only wait so long before smelling a rat.

“We’ll leave no stone unturned” is what we’re told.
From what I’ve seen, I’m not sold.

Actions louder than words, you better get it in gear,
Or some day soon none of us will be here.

We’re broke, fed up, and tired of this shit.
What will you do when we all quit?

“We’ve got stacks of applications, you can all be replaced”…oh, give me a break.
Just who’s going to train them, for God’s sake?

No budget for training, supplies, or increase in pay.
City manager got a raise, what can I say?

Two helicopters, an urban assault tank…
Did all other departments rob a bank?

Stepping in blood, brains, and bile…
Have city council try this for a while.

Just continue to search for where the problems fall.
If you want the answer, we’ll be out searching for a person in charge who has balls.

Reyna's baby

My friend, Marla, has a 6-month-old girl, Allegra (LG). We got together a few weeks ago to take LG and the dogs for a walk. Duncan wasn’t too interested in the baby, but Reyna adores infants. All infants. Any infant. Most kids, too, until they hit about 8 or 9 years old, and then she can take them or leave them, unless she already knows them. She’s good with kids, but she’s obsessed with babies. And once she’s licked a baby, its her baby. To the point that I’ve seen her get upset with a baby’s parent because she thought the parent was hurting the child.

Back to the walk with Allegra. The baby was thrilled to see the dogs, and kept grinning and giggling at Reyna. While we were walking, Reyna would check on LG every couple of minutes. If the baby cried (or sneezed, for that matter), the walk stopped while Reyna made sure she was okay. Reyna didn’t show any real interest in any of the people we passed, until one person started walking towards the stroller with her hands out, reaching for the baby. Reyna immediately planted herself between LG and the stranger. She didn’t bark or growl, but it was very clear that that person would have to go through her to get to the baby. Thankfully, that person wasn’t an idiot, and didn’t force the issue.

By the end of the walk, Marla had decided that Reyna could baby sit anytime she wanted. Now, if we could just teach her how to feed the baby and change diapers….