Patience of a saint

My two year old has been relentless in naming the parts on Shiloh's head lately. Her litany of “eyes eyes eyes, nose, nose, nose, ears, ears, ears” is accompanied by poking little fingers into the appropriate parts. Shiloh is amazingly patient with these episodes, but will get up and move away when they continue past about 7 minutes. I usually move after about 3 minutes, so I think that is pretty good!

Can dogs be dysfunctional?

We were playing outside in the yard (all three kids, the dog and I) when the neighbor zoo moved outside. The three-legged dog was on a leash while the other two charged the fence, barking all the while. The owners will stand there and call to the dogs, who ignore them. There is no follow through, there are no real rules nor consequences. Maybe dysfuction CAN spread to canines...

The puppy is still enthusiastic about trying to play with the kids. It is hard to tell a 2 year old not to play with the puppy at the fence. Shiloh WAS trying to separate the two by going between the 2 y.o. and the fence and giving a little growl towards the pup as if to say, "back off of MY baby!" Evidently the puppy was unimpressed. I was playing fetch with Shiloh to keep her busy. This always leads to huge barking from next door. The puppy came to the front to investigate. I had Shiloh on a sit/stay when all of a sudden, that puppy dropped down on its belly and wriggled right under the fence at a low place in the grass. OMG!!! I grabbed Shiloh by the neck and told her to stay there. She looked as shocked as me to see this interloper in her yard, but she didn't try to get to the puppy. The kids and my husband escorted the puppy to the gate and out to the teen boy who is now also living next door. He told us he was "sorry about that." I told him I was just worried about how Shiloh might react if we are not right there. No response.

In a couple weeks, that puppy will be too big to repeat that little trick, but until then, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Neighbor dogs and cats take over...

My neighbors have been steadily adding to their small animal herd as of late. As recently as January, they had two dogs and one cat. As of this past weekend, they have added another puppy and several cats. I think they now have 5 cats, one that is very bold. It will climb through our fence and just walk up and start rubbing on the back of my leg. The first time this happened, I almost jumped out of my skin. It was a very good thing (for the cat) that Shiloh was not with me at the time. I'm not sure how she would have reacted to that one.

As annoying as these animals (well their owners actually) were, I am a bit afraid of how these new animals will affect the dynamic. Don't get me wrong, I am a big animal lover and in general, having many animals is not a bad thing. However, these neighbors are not responsible pet owners and having a lot of pets will only make things worse. And really, the cats probably won't cause TOO much trouble. Although I did have to "shoo" one off of my deck the other day. As you might imagine, a kitty sitting right outside the patio slider did NOT go over well with my dog.

I just hope that they change their ways and start exercising their dogs or at least spending SOME time outside with them rather than just shoving them out the door to run around and bark their fool heads off. One of said neighbors actually yelled at ME to fix my fence when I asked her to keep her dog off of my back deck.

Really though, we probably just got another neighbor dog that will learn the annoying habits of it's cell mates. From the looks of him, he'll be a MUCH bigger dog too. Fun times ahead!

More confidence...I think so.

I have continued with my confidence training and it may be working. Yesterday, I had to scold Shiloh a bit as she was having a hard time calming down and not mauling our visitor (my Mom). I scolded and both of us thought she might pee. Shiloh even went back and smelled on the ground where she had been walking as if she couldn't believe she had not left a urine trial behind her. Phew! LOL She even seemed to hold her doggie head a little higher. I don't think her problem is completely solved, but I think this is helping.

confidence training day 1

Yesterday, I made sure to stop and give Shiloh some attention several times throughout the day. My toddler was "off" on her nap schedule and went along to the bus stop to greet her brothers. This meant no training time, but we did throw the stick for Shiloh.

This morning, after the boys got on the bus, I did some serpentine heeling work and reinforced that fact that dogs SIT when the heel-ey stops. She picks up quickly. We then worked on sitting and waiting while I walked across the field and then called her to me. She does well on sitting and waiting, but sometimes "come" means come NEAR you, but not quite. LOL

She did seem proud at the praise for a job well done and was rewarded with some fetch time. That dog LIVES for playing fetch.

Re: a new puppy I was thinking that a puppy would build confidence for Shiloh. I mean, what dog can't beat up a puppy? LOL But then, that confidence may be short lived. Puppies grow.

Apparently, my dog lacks confidence!

It is not as big a problem as it was, but Shiloh will still pee at times when she thinks she is in trouble or sometimes when people come over and greet her with GREAT enthusiasm.

Submissive urination.


I am determined to help Shiloh get over this issue. It is rather annoying. LOL From the reading I have done, it looks like confidence is what she lacks. She definitely had early training from Maggie that taught her the only way not to get her butt kicked was to roll over, bare the tummy, and pee as she frantically thought, "don't kill me don't kill me." This fact combined with her seeing me as the new Alpha to pacify with her tinkling puts us where we are today.

So, I am going to step up our training. I already take Shiloh on short walks (to the bus stop) twice a day. We practice heeling at this time. I also usually combine these trips with a bit of fetch. Now I am also going to do a bit more training and use the fetch as a reward for getting it right. This is also supposed to increase her confidence.

The second new tactic will be to take the time to pet her more during the day. Getting down on her level. Maybe even hand feeding her. Again, this is said to increase confidence.

I'll keep you posted on if it works. If it doesn't, maybe I need to get one of these.

JUST kidding!!

Poop free yard

I finished picking up poo in the yard this weekend. There is one corner where Shiloh prefers to do her business. I swear there were not stacks of poo there, more like a carpet of poo. I wanted to get the leaf blower and blow the top layer into the neighbors yard.

Have I mentioned the obnoxious neighbor dogs that yap continually at us whenever we are outside? Or even on "that side" of our house. Even if they are inside their house. That's right, they bark at us INSIDE our house from INSIDE their house. They also run the fence line and tempt Shiloh to do the same. I thought that pushing the poop carpet from our yard to theirs might make them stinky enough to encourage keeping them on a leash instead of letting them run wild. But who am I kidding, they don't think anything of letting them terrorize the neighborhood with their indimidating racket. One neighbor is afraid to even go on a walk when those dogs are outside.