elegy

The Karen Overall article linked is an excellent one. Patricia McConnell had some good stuff about thunderstorm phobia on her blog awhile ago, too. We do Xanax here. My first thunderphobic dog, an old pit bull, took Clomipramine twice a day during storm season with Xanax on top for storms. Thankfully my BC doesn't need that much (yet?). The Xanax does it. He's also much more comfortable if he can sit in my car in my attached garage during storms. I'm not quite sure why, but as long as he knows he feels better there, I don't care why. Bathtub is his second choice.

Which are you interested in doing? AKC or APDT? (or both?) This is the website for APDT and there is a calendar of events on it that tells where all the trials are. http://www.apdt.com/rally/default.aspx You have to register your dog with APDT. I think turnaround time is 3 weeks-ish. AKC event search is on this page http://www.akc.org/events/index.cfm?nav_area=events The rally signs and rules for both organizations are on their websites. Search around a little bit- they're not too hard to locate.

see, this would make me EXTREMELY uncomfortable. imo, your dog's behavior outside of the ring is as important as your dog's behavior INSIDE of the ring. a dog who is aggressing and "acting like an a-hole" outside of the ring doesn't sound like a happy dog anyway. (and for clarification purposes, it has nothing to do with whether a dog is or is not aggressive, it has to do with the dog's behavior.) i don't know you. i don't know your dog. i don't have any reason to really trust that you are completely physically in control of that dog, that she's not going to have any way to slip her collar, that she's not going to lunge and you're not going to slip and lose her. and really i don't have any reason to trust that she's not going to lose her focus in the ring. maybe i've just been in too many bad situations and seen too many bad situations that i don't trust anybody.

Good thoughts to Vala and I hope treatment goes well!

And it's still the owner's responsibility to keep their dogs safely. I don't care how aggressive a dog is, and I don't really even care why. Nor do I care what breed the dog is. They are still just dogs, and it is always always the responsibility of the owner. Mick might benefit from the LAT game from Control Unleashed or from the exercises in Click to Calm. My dog who was attacked is still leash-reactive to some extent, but LAT definitely helped him. He's sadly a very soft, insecure dog to start with, so being attacked was a huge deal to him.

That just seems so freaking wrong to me. Breed shouldn't matter. What matters is that Mick was attacked and injured because of the negligence of the attacking dog's owner. Period. The end. Nothing else matters. I'm glad the authorities were contacted, but I hope that this does not become a breed thing. I was very glad that when my dog was attacked (by an OES of all things) that the cops were willing to get involved immediately. The owners of the dog were breaking the law and endangering my dog and that was the bottom line. Then again, we don't have BSL here. Dangerous dogs are labeled dangerous because of their behavior, not the shape of their heads. Good thoughts to Mick. I hope he doesn't have any longlasting effects from his terrible experience.

*shrug* I had my non-fetching dog blow both cruciates just running and doing her thing in the yard (neither were acute tears). It happens. I could not have ever said to her no you may not run around in the yard, it's too dangerous. I've curtailed her activities a little bit since her surgeries, but not much. She's still a dog and I still want her to be a dog as much as I possibly can. Yeah, it was heartbreaking that she got hurt and that she has long-lasting effects from that and can't participate in the dog sports that I'd hoped to participate in, but life happens. Fetchy dog doesn't worry me very much when we play. Mostly we play in the house or in a clear open lawn, and I've never had him hit a wall or tree or anything crazy like that (I had him land on his head once in agility and I still don't even know how that happened since the jump was all of 12" high). Sometimes we play mindlessly, sometimes I require things of him in exchange for a ball toss. I use a ball a lot in training because he loves it. Maybe he will get hurt someday while playing ball. I minimize the risks as much as possible, but there will always be risks. I'm ok with that.

Steve doesn't like the green erratic balls, and I don't really know why. I don't find that they bounce tremendously different indoors where we play. My best guess is that he doesn't like how they feel in his mouth for some reason. But he loooves the regular rubber Chuck-it balls. He also likes the medium size Orbees.

You know, Lyme was one of the first things that crossed my mind on Wednesday. Then I kind of dismissed it as he has no fever or apparently lameness or discomfort. Thanks everybody for your advice. I'm going to get him checked out by the vet, and just chill. The good side of this is that it doesn't happen at home (or at least hasn't), so whether it's a training building issue or a training issue, at least I have my normal, obnoxious, in-your-face puppy at home, and that's the very most important thing. Oh this puppy. I love him so much and he is such a good dog, it just broke my heart to think I'd screwed things up in a big way.

puppy steve is a 13 month old intact male sporter collie. he's always been very soft but he's never shut down on me before. i've had him since he was a baby. wednesday night at agility class, steve suddenly became afraid of me. i have no idea what happened. i didn't correct him, didn't step on him, didn't whack him in the head with a clicker, nothing. he was happy happy happy and then he was shrinking away from me, wouldn't take treats from my hand, wouldn't come to me. if i approached him, he'd shrink away, go lay down at the wall, head down tail down eyes down, looking away. i took him outside and walked him around, because i was so confused and bewildered. i was afraid he was hurt or sick or something but he seemed fine. he was on leash when it all started, but then i took the leash off to see if it was a leash-related issue. it didn't make a difference one way or the other. now, he'd still work with me happily- head up, loose, enthusiastic- as long as i didn't get near him. he'd take direction around the jump standards we were doing crosses around, do his crosses wonderfully and correctly as long as i stayed back. he would come in to me for a tug, but continued to not take food from my hand. he'd take it if i threw it to him. he'd go to other people, just not to me. his restrained recalls were fantastic, but there was a tug toy involved. the trainer blew me off, told me he didn't want to be caught because that ends the fun and i am expletive expletive upset about that. that is NOT what was going on, not even a tiny little bit and i am debating what to do about that facet of things, whether i'm going back to this class or not, whether i'm going to contact the agility director about it or not. i'm that angry. anyway, an hour or so after we got home from class, he decided i was ok again. thursday and friday he was fine but we didn't do any significant training other than my asking for behaviors in exchange for throwing the ball. today we had obedience class. i got there early and we did some heelwork for tug and just played together. class started, the first two exercises we did went well, and then he was afraid of me again completely out of the blue. this trainer did NOT blow me off, but she didn't really have any good solutions. she had me sit on the floor and then lay down on the floor and see if he'd come to me that way, and he did initially investigate my weirdness but still didn't want to be touched and wouldn't take treats. he totally whored himself out to her, of course. i finally got him back through the tug and he worked a little bit, then got squirrelly again. i had him off leash because we were working recalls, and he ran away from me, was running circles around me. at that point i grabbed him by the collar (and then immediately showered him with treats) because if he'd run out of the ring or into another ring, something bad could have happened to him. that of course upset him again. (this was a mistake- i should have not grabbed his collar, but i could reach him and that was just my instinct.) i was in tears at that point. the trainer had me sit and massage him, but i bailed, went for a long walk with him, sat outside as far from the club building as i could and massaged him. after class i cried on the trainer's shoulder (yes, literally. god i'm such a girl sometimes.) and she was really supportive and encouraging, but she didn't have any great ideas or solutions. so, guys? ideas? sorry this is so long. i've been crying off an on about it all freaking day. i feel like i'm ruining him. could this be some kind of fear period thing? i love him so much, and the idea that i've done something that makes him afraid of me just breaks my freaking heart.

Dress a dog up? I can't imagine why anybody would do such a thing. Luce is a scary dragon (toddler costume from Walmart purchased after Halloween for a couple bucks) again this year because I had Flying Monkey Wing Attachment failure. In the past she's been the Headless Horsedog of Sleepy Hollow (pumpkin hat from Walmart and a black cape) and a poodle. When I can, I take her out around the neighborhood during Trick or Treat. People love it, she gets a ridiculous amount of attention, pets, and cookies, and it's good PR for her breed. Steve will tolerate little things like Doggles or the pumpkin hat briefly for photo ops, but then he's over it.

in terms of intelligence, i'm not sure steve has much on my female pit bull, luce. he's infinitely more biddable for sure- he spends his time trying to play my games and con me into throwing his ball. she spends her time plotting world domination. (my male pit bull is dumb as a box of rocks but a happy soul.) as far as athleticism though, the border collie wins hands down. he's amazing to watch. he just moves so differently than any other dog i've owned.

Steve is 13 months and he eats 3-3 1/2 cups of kibble a day depending on what I'm feeding, plus a peanut butter smeared bone when I leave for work in the morning and again after lunch break. He's skinny, but healthy skinny.

It depends. I know we've had the issue come up scanning a stray at the vet clinic where I work. The dog had a chip, and we could read the chip, but HomeAgain told us that it wasn't a HomeAgain number. This was awhile ago, and the chip ended up being with a registry nobody at the clinic knew about (it wasn't AKC/CAR... maybe Petwatch?). I want to say the HomeAgain people pointed us in the right direction. At any rate, the dog got back home, but I have to question how many shelters would follow through on trying to find which registry the chip is from. Personally I think all these new registries popping up with microchips are a bad thing for people who just want to get their pets back. I wouldn't chip my own pets with anything but Avid or HomeAgain, but we seem to get a lot of pets with AKC/CAR chips.

Congratulations! How exciting!