Marley in the porch

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

re: Boy, 2, dies after being bitten by family dog

http://bit.ly/7SdD06

what this article doesn't talk about is why dogs bite. it pisses me off how uninformed people are about their dogs. I know very little IMO about dogs but I feel like I know 1000x more than people who have had dogs all their lives. the amount of misinformation and lack of information is astounding. what gets me is that the AP ends the article saying that weimaraners aren't usually aggresive.

people... dogs bite for all sorts of reason and aggression is just one. Fear is one reason. in the case of the AP story... does it not occur to anyone that dogs carry their young by holding their scruff with their mouths. Dog does that to a baby and it's a bite. and it's aggressive?

here's some advice that i've read elsewhere. don't let your dog near any baby. no matter how awesome your dog behaves. no babies. that's it.

Tiltshiftgen + M

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Gf + iPhone

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

food cost per day

i'm doing an experiment feeding Marley raw food. right now i buy Wellness ocean formula dog food (i switch between ocean and chicken). If i recall, it costs close to $59 per 26lb bag. I usually have a coupon which brings it down. I feed him .232 lbs per day which yields between 44-53cents a day depending if I get the dog food on sale. I've never weighed the actual amount of kibble either, so i'm sure there is some measuring variation.

Right now my price goal is getting food at under a dollar a lb, which yields 50cents a day because I feed him .5lbs per day. Per the guidelines you should feed your dog 2-3% of ideal body weight. this comes out to .5 lbs.

He is so much happier with raw it's not even funny. I was a little hesitant on feeding him bones but damn does he munch through those things like no other. he's also very protective. apparently this is innate behavior. So far he's cleared out all the frost bitten meat :) I don't feel like getting into all the raw food stories like what his poop looks like or how he ran around the living room with a fat piece of drumstick in his mouth because he thought i was going to take it from him. More later :)

RAWR!

$2 beef bones at 99 market.

san diego socialization

Not much happening in the dog world. New scents really increase his wanting to mark in the house. He had 2 incidences in the past few months. I think one was related to me not cleaning it up properly. for steam cleaner solution I like to use the OXY brand pet cleaner. The other time he marked was actually in our bedroom and I think it was because the house smelled like korean bbq. when he does mark I've never been able to catch the bastard. We got one of those baby gates to prevent him from entering the hallway/bedrooms. it's proven effective. I will say that the $10 target gate we got sucks. I think i can macguyver something to make it more sturdy though.

I also bought one of those trashcans with a lid on it so that should prevent him from going in the bathroom and pulling out all the trash.

We took him down to SD a few weekends ago. It was really great. I was afraid Marley would be very timid around people but he seemed to get along really well with everyone. Mostly males too-- he still prefers females. I think it had a lot to do with the food around. That's probably the best association. It was really hot there too, he was panting a lot. I was a little worried he would get a heat stroke. There was 4 other dogs around and he got along with all of them except one. Amazing. He's definitely gaining confidence day by day.

He got super dirty from all the sand. I also made one too many u-turns while we were trying to find a place to park and he threw up. And he threw up in a really hard place to clean too!

When we got home I assume he would be tired because he didn't get to nap all day. It was one of the rare occasions I didn't walk him 2x. lesson learned because he woke me up super early in the morning-- 2-4am'ish?

today we are going to see if he can swim.

session 04-05

Session 04: Petco and Home Depot

Session 4 was kinda weak but I'm probably being unfair. We practiced off leash and "come" in Petco. I suppose for many dogs this is an impossible task. We even sprinkled dog biscuts on the floor. Marley does fantastic in heeling and coming to me from afar. Doesn't get distracted at all.

In front of home depot, just outside of the gardening area, we practiced off leash training. I can't remember or not if we practiced the moving down-- a down command in the middle of movement. At any rate, that was my homework. It was quite difficult.

Session 05: back to the park

On session 5 we brought 2 lab mixes with us to the dog park. We practiced stop, halt, and emergency down. Stop is exactly as it entails... dog comes to me and I tell him to stop and he stops in his tracks. I've been trying to practice this but I think it might be easier to use another person.

Halt is the reverse of stop. dog is running/walking away from you and you tell him to halt. this required 2 people. this will defintely require more work.

Moving down was surprisingly easy. Well... i'm still bridging the behavior. I call to Marley and i crouch down with my hands on the floor and tell him "down". That last part is key. By being near the ground is primes him to go in the down position. eventually we'll work on it without crouching. I've been playing this game with him lately.

session 03

yesterday we went to a park and did off leash training. we practiced 3 things:

down now means down stay

hide and seek

heel

to practice down he had to stay down and i had to walk away and return. suzanne also did this where she would walk around him in a 15 ft radius. he screwed up once when i was walking away and then he got it after she gave him a slight audio correction ('uh uh uhhh').

for hide and seek we went into an area surrounded by birds, hidden squirrels, and palm trees. So while Suzanne would distract him I would leave and hide. I would then call him. At first i wasn't calling him loud enough. His first reaction when he heard my voice was to look at Suzanne. I think he doesn't understand that i'm calling him from afar. Eventually he would get it and run to me. I've actually been practicing this today with him.

the heel command was surprisingly easy. I wasn't sure if he knew to heel when I was walking. He already knows to run around my back and heel left. So basically I start walking and tell him heel and tap my side twice. Walk a little and hand him a treat when he heels. Then walk further. When he starts to wander off tell him "uh uh uhh" and grab his leash and pull him (not agressively) to the heel position and tell him "good boy".

Ck and I actually tried some off leash heeling with him today in the park. We had no treats and he did fantastic. He wandered off a little 2x but did a really good job of heeling.

We also practiced down in the middle of a play ground. There was people on bikes and people around us. They weren't that close though. I told him down and then walked around the playground. He stayed down the entire time.

So my homework this time was to continue hand signals, the down stay, come here when hidden, and heeling.

session 02

Tonight's training was tough. talk about distractions. We have a lot of work ahead of us. marley was very distracted today. But he is still highly motivated by food.

Suzanne had me working on signal only commands. He's pretty spot on with audio only but with visuals only? I switched the visual command for sit at the lesson. I was using a palm up with my hand next to my body. Suzanne was using just a palm up. this way she could do the palm up signal right in front of his face. the way i was doing it he had to be looking at me in order to see the command.

this sounds so easy but basically i had to make him sit, stay... then i walk back a few feet and give him the down command... then come. no audio. she could do it but i couldn't. I think it had to do with the fact that she had food and i don't think i was utilizing the food well. I was also really tired and it was hard to act cheerful with him. I was also not using any audio... i just can't use audio for the commands... i should have used audio to praise him. i was also doing the down command too fast. mine was more of a quick palm to the ground. she wanted me to make it more smooth and gradual.

then we took a small break. you can't train with dogs for very long durations.

we then went inside the kennel with 2 other dogs. it was good to see marley interact. i think he liked playing with the smaller of the 2 dogs. he even started to mount him... heh. but that is a no no. he wasn't scared either. it was really good socialization. he's curious and will sniff the nose but when a dog goes to sniff his butt he then becomes scared. he wasn't scared at all.

the exercise we did was to put all 3 dogs in a down stay... then we have call a specific dog to us... the other 2 have to stay put. So marley is learning that "marley come" is when he goes. he has to recognize his name. this was very tough. lots of distractions. I was pretty worn out myself. the last thing we did was to make him go up on a small ramp. we would then repeat the exercise. he had to be lured up the ramp and when i called him he hesistated. eventually he will have to jump over stuff to come to me.

my homework for this week is to master the visual commands. I also need to teach him the "look" command. i find this tough because when there are no distractions he's looking at me already. On saturday we get to go on an excursion!

unruly dog!

so last night Marley got into the dog food bag that I was "just" about to put into his food container, which I had just washed and was drying. he apparently at A LOT of food. So much, that we speculate, forced him to find a place in the house (hall way) to take a dump and pee. Today he has so far defecated 3 more times, outside fortunately.

Then as a new surprise to me... he starts barking when the door bell rings. when the F did this start happening? I did some training exercises with him to break this habit. I ring the door bell and if he reacts then he gets a correction. If the door bell rings and he doesn't react... he gets a treat. I did this half a dozen times. I think he got the point pretty fast.

session 1

the fundamentals of off leash training... session 1

• is your dog a visual learner or audio learner?
• use of a clicker - demonstration
• review of hand signals
• basic off leash heeling

this morning was the first day of intermediate training with Marley. It was a 1 on 1 session for misc reasons. We talked about a lot of things. She told me that dog's don't obey a command (and i'm assuming this is a command they know) for 2 reasons. either they are scared or whatever they are doing at that moment is better than you. I tried to give some counter points to this, "what if..this and what if that", but it always went back to those fundamental points.

on clicker training I had a few specifics about that. I think the way she was using it was a little different than what I read on Leerburg. Leerburg site stresses that a treat always has to follow the marker... but susanne was saying that is only the case in the beginning. Also, it's ok to follow up the marker with "good boy".

I first showed Susanne what things Marley knew. With no hand signals, Marley obeyed my sit, down, stay command instantly. He also obeyed the hand touch. She told me that when I do the hand touch i should always finish with him actually touching the hand instead of me just getting him to move around in different directions. Noted. So apparently this is very impressive for a dog to obey on audio only. But because the hand signals are also very important we worked on integrating them back in.

Training started with walking him on my left as opposed to my right. I guess this is the AKC standard or something. I don't always do this but I was doing it then, I wrapped the leash around my hand as it was too long. She said that that is not good practice. With Marley I can get away with it but with a stronger dog it can damage your tendons if the dog is pulling. Noted.

I'm not sure if she was telling me to hold the leash like this all the time or just for training but basically I was told to hold the leash sort of like a bar bell with both hands. Leash loose of course. So the training began with me walking him on my left and then I would slide my hand (closest to him) down the leash, "sit", hand up... if he doesn't do it, then pull up on the leash.

It took me a few iterations to get the mechanics down of how to do this. the main point to walk away with was to have a short leash on him. when the leash is long he has too much freedom to move around. for example, his initial reaction to "hand up" was to stand up and sniff my hand. but he got it pretty quick.

Another point was that a lot of times why hand signals don't work is because the dog can't see them.

We did the same exercise with "down".

ahh... i remember why we did these 2 exercises while walking. One of the problems I told her I was having with him was that he didn't know sit from the down position, only from the standing position. then i started wondering if he only knew "sit" when he was in front of me. but he needs to know the command when he's beside me, not just in front.

Then she taught me how to train the heel command. He has to sit and stay. then I walk back a little. with my left hand I tap my side twice and lure him around my back from the right side using the leash. He's supposed to wrap around me and then he gets the treat in my left. heel on the left is the AKC standard i think. I don't think I was doing this very well. it seems a little clunky and i wasn't using any markers either to let him know he was doing it right.

When I got home we trained on this more. this is also my homework for the week.

I already knew this but training sessions should be short. 3-5 mins.

In telling susanne about our feeding ritual I went on a tangent about the "crate" command... where he goes to his crate. when I say "crate", he knows to run to his crate but most of the time he will run out and when he sees me he will run back in. She suggested that i stand next to the crate and when he gets in I immediately tell him to stay. when the exercise is over I can then give him a command like "free" or "break" to release him from the command. she liked using "free" because it's one syllable and it doesn't sound like any other word. "ok" was a common word to use but she felt it was too common of a word. I agree. this is also part of our homework.

"not now" was also a command she suggested I use when he goes on his back and wants to be petted and I don't feel like it. She reiterated the point that you should never give affection unless the dog does something. I already knew this but backed off a little after the initial phase of establishing rules. But i think need to go back to being more strict.

She was wondering what mix he was and thought he might be part border terrier. She knew of a place to get DNA testing for 150ish... i need to get that info from her next time.

things to come. he will be taught the "stop" command. "come" when i'm hiding. she called this hide and seek. I think we'll be going on walks to the mall and other areas as well. should be fun!

Fetch!

Bang!

so it's been a while since I last posted an update. He's off his meds. I'm glad that's over with. I really didn't like giving him medicine. And for some reason I found it really hard to find canned pumpkin in the store. something about it not being october? So afterwards, his foot started looking red and through a series of trials and good thinking by CK, I stopped giving him yogurt. We believe that was the key to his red feet.

He still goes in the bathroom and yanks out the stuff from the trashcan. I need to set up some alarm system that freaks him out. He hasn't gone pee in the house in a while. I think this is a combination of 2 things. he's used to my roommate now. we steam cleaned the carpet. I can't believe how much money I spent on various urine remove products.

He's fairly easy to walk. though the one thing that puts him into Hyde mode is squirrels. I've never seen him so possessed. Tapping him with my foot a few times didn't even snap him out.

CK began teaching him some new tricks. One is where she points her finger at him (like a gun) and he is supposed to lie on his back. Bang... you're dead... get it? I've been working on "roll over". though i think it's useless. I guess it's good for the sake of training. what I should really be teaching him is heel. I think i'll go do that now.

poo!!!

skip this post if you don't like the title. The last few days have been a little stressful. The antibiotics were making him sluggish and constipated. When he did go poop, it was "bad". The vet told me to give him half a pill of pepsid AC 2x a day for 3 days to help with the "bad". He also suggested feeding him a tablespoon of pumpkin with his meal. I'm doing that now too. He loves pumpkin.

He went a day and a half without pooping. I was getting concerned so I left him outside in yesterday morning. He left the biggest surprise when I got home. Hehe. Today was a similar deal. He didn't go last night or this morning but he did go on today's evening walk.

He's showing a bit more energy. He's happy to see me and I didn't have to call him out of his crate this morning. Though he doesn't have the energy to run with me. He just walked fast. I know he has it in him though.

Spraying his feel while standing doesn't work. I go back on what I said before. It's easier when he's on his side. I actually had to go through some exercises with him so he wouldn't be afraid of the bottle. At first I wanted him to come near me so I could pet him with the bottle. that didn't work well. They i put food on the bottle. He had to go near it in order to get the food. I don't think he's afraid of the bottle any more.

vet

Last weekend we bathed him for the 2nd time in the house. I think he was washed better this time... it's a lot easier with CK helping. It might be me but he seemed less scared this time around. We also clipped his nails. He looks great :)

I finally got around to scheduling a vet appointment to see what was up with his feet. He's licking him severely. So $199 later, he got some shot and some medicine he has to take for a month. I created a google calender for him so I could remember the exact schedule.

For the 2 pills he has to take i just dropped it in his food bowl but he wouldn't eat it. Not even when it was covered with yogurt. I then smeared it with peanut butter. that worked like a charm.

for the spray on his feet, I took a cue from how the vet was looking at them. basically just have him stand up and pull is feet back and up. when first sprayed his feet i had him on his side but I find it much easier when he's standing up. I also get a better grip on him as he tries to run away.

He seems really tired or unmotivated today. I was getting worried that it might be the medicine. though when i went to get him a chicken snack he was back to normal. he also didn't go poo on his evening walk. I wonder if it's because of the medicine. or perhaps it's because I didn't give him a Kong treat today. He weighed in at 20.3 lbs at the vet. 2 lbs heavier than before. fatty! though I will say he's pretty fit. when we used to run he was pretty fast. He can also leap up on my bed and it's pretty high up too.

Last week I accidently stepped on his feet when I was opening the side gate. He yelped. I think it affected him on his walks... in a good way. for some reason he stands a foot behind me "sometimes" on walks. he never used to do that. He's been pretty good lately about not marking a whole lot.

update

I'm beginning to have a problem of not having enough plastic bags.  I finally got to that point.  I may invest in some biodegradable environmentally safe bags on amazon... or i might just steal a bunch at the market.

Last week he woke me up at 3am.  not sure why.  when we went to sleep he wouldn't get in his crate either.  When he woke me up I  went to the bathroom and he went to his circular pillow near in the living room... and left me alone for the rest of the night.  the incident never repeated itself but it was just odd.  

I fed him raw egg with his kibble the other night.  he loved it.  licked the bowl clean.  However the next morning he took a very long time to poo.  and then he went a 2nd time.  and for the 2nd walk he still took a long time.  he's either picking up on my habits or somethin's goin on.

There have been at least 2 incidents where I will leave him a kong when i leave and he doesn't touch it.  so odd.

we taped him again to see if he would whine... unfortunately he did... though it was only for a few minutes :(

random uneventful news

no exciting news as of late.  last weekend CK found a flea on him so I immediately gave him his first dose of comfortis with a half meal.  I guess i should have read the instructions as you're actually supposed to give it to him on a monthly basis... not a "as needed" basis.  So CK was playing with him shortly afterwards and as she was holding him his stomach started to gurgle and what comes next?

something that resembled chunk soup.  i guess that's why I have my parent's steam cleaner.  

he's also been quite adventurous on the sofas.  I can't catch him in the act but he's all over them... the hair is obvious.  I even try to lure him on the sofa and he won't go on.  I guess he remembers from when I reprimanded him before.  

I'm trying to teach him to go to his crate but he only seems to go when I have a treat.  I've tried grabbing him by the collar when he doesn't go.  I think he remembers it as one time he ran away as I was going near him.  He's a soft dog so I have to be easy on that.  

last weekend he was whimpering in his sleep.  I think he was dreaming.  it was pretty funny.  for about 20 secs he was making this sound; it's hard to describe.  

dog park / shower day

It's still a puzzle to me why some days he walks right by my side and other days he's hunting. this last past week he's been real good... but on the way back from the dog park he had surprisingly a lot of energy.

dog park was uneventful. I only took him there because it was something to do. It's a 30 min walk; exercise is always good. I have absolutely nothing to say about it... so boring.

So the picture in this post is about my DIY dog bath. For a few weeks I've been struggling with how I was going to get an adapter on the bath faucet. For those who are interested, they are very hard to find and i've read they suck. i believe it as well. if you look at the design of the tub faucet it's clear you cannot put an adapter on it. I did find a faucet from Danco? at lowes that had an attachment where you could attach a shower head w/hose (like the one i have). I almost went with that approach except for the fact that if you want to use the Danco then the pipe coming out of the tile can only be 1 inch. as you can see in the pick, the pipe thread extends a few inches. Rather than putting in a new pipe that is shorter (that could possibly be more complicated that first glance btw ), I just took off my faucet and slapped on that shower head i bought from amazon. the thing i like about it is that it has a switch that 98% shuts off the water (water still trickles, but it's fine). I would recommend it for anyone who is in a similar situation. Oh, i forgot... my bathroom has a bath only and shower only setup.... which is why I had to have that setup in the first place. I also had to buy a bath mat so he wouldn't slip.

I had to leave the leash on him because i knew he would try and move. He actually jumped out of the tub in the beginning. good thing I was prepared in having treats with me. I fed him the entire time. I did feel that he enjoyed this bathing experience more than at Tidy Dog. I used my hands to wash him instead of the rubber brush we used at tidy dog. He probably enjoyed that more. I also had my foot in the tub... I'm not sure if it made him feel like "we" were taking a bath and thus making him more comfortable. Actually he seemed more afraid of the hair dryer than the water. All in all it was a smooth experience.

clean carpets

No real big news. Bought a huge bag of wellness and 3 bags of this chicken jerky at the Centinella sale this weekend. Also bought a 30 lb container for the dog food. one of those air tight ones.

We decided to paint my room this weekend so while it was drying we slept in the living room all weekend. I think Marley liked it. My bed is comfy and he really enjoyed the blanket. He would even sleep in till really late. He's usually up and looking at me before 7am. The rain this weekend didn't really pose any issues either.

right now i've blocked off the hallway because I don't know if he will pee again. I bought some nature's miracle to test out. the other stuff i've been using apparently hasn't done its job. I also steam cleaned the carpets. We'll see how that goes.

Next week is bath week. hopefully i can find a good deal on a shower head and we'll see how it will be bathing him at home. He is starting to smell.

We're still working on the "crate" command. it would be easier if i could associate a hand signal but what hand signal to use?

clip clip clip

Last week was our last obedience training session. It was a good experience, I'm strongly considering taking the intermediate training course. We got a cute little certificate that's up on my fridge right now. The last 2 classes dealt with the "come" command. So basically the dog has to come to you in the most distracted state. we practiced this with a long leash. CK would distract him with food while I would call to him. If he didn't respond I would yank on the leash. And we would do this vice versa. I didn't think it was much of a distraction though. I think his most non-responsive time is late at night when he's been sleeping on his circle pillow. So what I've been doing is calling to him and if he doesn't come I drag him by his collar. Not for very long, just to get the point across. We'll see if that is effective or not. Most corrections have to be immediately after they don't respond. it takes a few seconds for me to actually get to him to tug his collar. he may associate me walking to him with tugging and completely not get the point that i'm doing it because he didn't respond to my "come" command.

He's been a little unruley on walks. it's very odd. some days are great and some days he wants to mark. It's been raining lately and I've been worried that I wouldn't be able to take him on his walks. Luckily this one morning it was still clear and at lunch I came home and noticed it was still clear so i took him out for a quick 5 - 10 min just so he could pee. then at night when I came home it was still clear so I was able to take him for a walk and he was walking very well. I deduced from this one scenario that it may perhaps be that he just has a lot of energy as opposed to disobedience. In obedience class the teacher taught us to do this exercise where we walk a little and quickly turn directions and keep doing this... to teach your dog they need to watch you because at any point you may go in any direction. I've found marley to only walk behind me when I do that exercise but it never translated on the walk. perhaps i need dedicated sessions where i do this for 10 mins straight and then continue on the walk.

this morning it was sprinkling but since it was light I geared up and took him out. I had slept in 90 mins later than usual because it's saturday. it was amazing because when I took him out he pee'd, not marked, and immediately "did his other business". luckily I could see the blue sky an hour later and so we went on a real walk.

So the update on the separation anxiety is that I've been reverting back to the Kong. But this time I put high value rewards. I was bored one day and put some trader joe organic low fat cheese in his Kong and was amazed as he chewed on it for well over an hour trying to get the cheese. He did not care about me at all, it was great for him to be independent. So what I've been reading about treating separation anxiety is to associate me leaving with "good". Depending on the severity of your dog's SA you may have to take much longer steps. Marley was not a severe case. he basically whines for 20 mins and then stops. So I've been giving him a Kong stuffed with some combination of cheese, beef stick, duck treats, kibble, dog bisket, yogurt, peanut butter, and hot dog. I timed him this morning and it takes him a while to get it all out.

I also found out he loves beef intenstine. that seems to be an insane reward.

We also were able to successfully clip his nails. it wasn't that hard to get him comfortable as I know it's a bad experience for other dogs.

more food and pee

We switched him off the Purina to Wellness Core. A much better dog food. I keep forgetting to taper him off old food to new food. It's supposed to help with digestion. I also bought him salmon Zukes but it turns out he doesn't like it. I'll have to return it to Centinella for the other meat flavor. centinella is my new favorite pet store. they let you return the food if your dog doesn't like it! we also got him a pig ear that he demolished.

He seems a little more unruly on walks lately. He sniffs a lot. I walked him on a different path today and he was almost sniffing the entire time. I'm not sure if i'm supposed to correct him or not as he still stays on the path. I guess i'll let it go for now.

House training issues seem to be the number one issue at the moment. He pee'd again in the 3rd room and he peed a few times in my parent's house. Since this is a dog blog and not a "me" blog, I'll refrain from explaining why his marking in my parent's house pissed me off so much. I ended up buying a black CFL at home depot. I had a plug in auto/garage type lantern that i hooked up the light to. we were able to see any residual stains in the 3rd room with the use of the light. Kinda neat. We've been using a vinegar/water solution to clean up, followed by either borax or baking soda. I think the commercial products are no better than household items.

I emailed the people at Leerburg about Marley's separation anxiety and the whole crate incident. Cindy at Leerburg responded to me.

2 months isn’t very long to clear separation anxiety. Actually, it is many times a lifelong management issue that may be something you are always dealing with on some level. I know this because I own a dog with SA.

I’d use a bark collar and a crate. It’s not about the dog knowing you will return, it’s about the anxiety he feels when left alone. Building up the time you are gone is a good idea but if the dog is ever let out of the crate or room he is confined in while he is still feeling anxious, it will actually reinforce the feelings of anxiety he feels. This is why he goes wild in the crate when you are gone. It’s not the crate that he’s worried about, he’s anxious about being left alone. The problem is that if you don’t deal with this it will escalate, it’s not uncommon for dogs to chew through doors, drywall or hurt themselves in a crate trying to escape.

You will need to give this dog consistent handling to get him through it and it may be a project that gets easier but it may never really be cured completely.

Through various web searches I decided to put the Kong he doesn't chew, back into the game. the other day he amazingly played with it for hours when I put cheese in there. Then the next day when I left i added a little yogurt and "C" said she didn't observe any whining. Today I left him a frozen banana and yogurt mix. We'll see how it goes. I have a feeling it'll be a mess but oh well. Price you pay for having a dog.

Back to the house training... yeah this post is all over the place. I put his favorite pillow in the room and give him snacks. I spent some time with him in the 3rd room as well. I've been feeding his meals in that room for a few days. I think he won't pee in that room any more. I've also been giving him a verbal cue when he goes pee outside ("go pee!"). Now i'm not sure if i'm supposed to repeat it over and over while he pee's... but i did do that. I was previously telling him, "go pee", and then praising him while he did it and instantly stopped. that obviously wasn't a motivator. this time i repeat the cue and give him a snack when he's done. he's learned to expect a treat when I say that. hopefully he'll hold it when he's indoors (any indoor place) because he'll be waiting for me to give him the cue/treat.

ANXIETY!!!

Let's see... latest news... took Mar to dog park and a small dog wanted to play with him but he was too chicken and started to yelp. Dog parks don't seem that fun for him really. All he does is sniff the ground. Later we took him to tidy dog to wash him. I struggled with finding a shower setup to wash him at home.

I've been researching dog food. I think the purina brand i bought is crap. I think i'm going to try Innova Evo brand next time. It's one of the few kibble brands that is recommended on Leerburg.com. I really like the innova site.... they have a comprehensive comparison against all competitors and they tell you why each ingredient is good or bad. And Mar takes way too long to poo as well. That's usually a good indicator the food sucks.

So this weeks problems all stem from the fact that we found out he pee'd in the 3rd room. From what I've read dog's pee inside the home because they are nervous, fearful, anxious. I originally thought it was him being bored or acting out. When he acts out he goes into the trash, not pee. So we tried crate training him and for the first time we saw him go absolutely nuts. We taped him for 14 mins as we went to the market and he went nuts the entire time. I'm almost starting to think it's when I leave... not when anyone else leaves. The gf tried crate training him earlier today and he was fine. I tried it recently when I went to take a shower. he was fine until the middle of my shower when I could hear him. When I shut off the shower he stopped. I don't know if this meant anything so after I was done I walked back into the room and left again. then I opened and shut the door to the garage and he was fine. Did he get over it? it will probably take more time.

This morning when I left I left him in my room and he went nuts again. The gf had to kick him out. I wonder if this would be a good way to correct him for whining. We could leave the leash on him and I could leave the room and make all the usual noises when I leave.

I've also been leaving the leash on him all day. I'm not sure if it is a pyschological message to him saying he has no control. At least for a while I'm not going to give him any affection without him doing something for me. He was pretty good tonight. He even played fetch for me... but I had to give him the super happy attitude to get him excited. This time was pretty good because he would do it without a treat... the reward was me giving him affection.

Right now he's in his crate sleeping. I'm worried about the rain tomorrow. I won't be able to walk him. I actually had to take him on a 3rd walk today because he didn't go poo on the 2nd walk. Damn purina crap!

dog growls at japanese man

My roommate came home tonight and Marley growled at him! hah! but in all seriousness, that is not acceptable behavior. I "hey'd" him and stood up to him... not sure if he understood me. He was really distracted afterwards as he wouldn't respond to my call.

more dog like?

Lately he's been exhibiting more dog like behaviors... which I guess is good considering how reserved he is. On walks he definitely marks more. He still walks on a loose leash but walks fast so he's a little ahead.

I have a suspicion he doesn't like my roommate. so this morning, my roommate woke up early and was making noise in the hallway. first time Marley woke up as well and started to growl. shouldn't I assume he could smell who it was? and when he came back at night as he was dragging is snowboard in (which also make a little ruckus) he made a sound... that sound you hear before a bark. not sure how to describe it.

He has been doing the down command on walks though. even if he is slow at times. I don't need to use the treat anymore.

Oh, we got him some new dog food as well. can't wait to see how he likes it. has good ingredients and is 30% protein. I haven't found much dog food that has that much protein in it.

Marley (1)... Rottweiler (0)... haw haw!

Today we had our first obedience lesson. We learned to walk properly, sit, and down. Walking Marley was pretty easy but the trainer's technique was pretty good. it was actually something that I had tried earlier that morning but wasn't quite sure about. To master the walk she told us to walk in random directions. it forces the dog to pay attention to you, otherwise he/she gets a correction. I think Marley knows how to follow the human. The trainer said shy dogs like him really don't want to be a leader. I also didn't need to focus on getting him behind me. Besides me was good already. It's very enlightening watching him as the gf walked him. he was looking at her quite often actually.

The sit command with lots of distractions was good to learn... obviously. tell the dog to sit and if he doesn't obey, you walk up to him and slowly pull up on his collar. Position of his leash collar has to be high up on the neck. this is causing some issue as in order for Marley's leash collar to be that high, it has to be tighter... which makes it more difficult to put on. they also gave us martingale collars but I already bought one from them earlier.

the down command was pretty difficult. first off dogs don't want to lie down in front of other dogs. it's too submissive. we also had to use food as a lure. i'm still having some trouble with getting him down. you basically want to lure him down and then give him the treat when his head is up. mastering the down command was our homework. i practiced with Marley on our night walk. He's not fast but he gets it. He was even able to do it in front of 2 huge barking dogs.

We also learned that dogs tend to be aggressive to dogs who are not fixed. dogs who aren't fixed are sort of showing off and dogs don't like that behavior. so there was a 6 month old rotty... and Marley barked at him and the rot backed away. that's 90 lbs vs 17 lbs. haw haw!

We also tried exercising his anal glands. Not successful yet. He's beginning to stink!

brushing teeth and the trash

I must say it's somewhat challenging to brush a dog's teeth. Marley will always come to me when I ask him to go in the bathroom. we've been doing this for a while and the gf and I try to make it as comfortable for him as possible. He never shy's away. I even have his toothbrush in my hand as he comes towards me. There's no surprise here. Yet, whenever i try to brush his teeth it just seems uncomfortable. the moment i put the toothbrush in his mouth he licks the toothpaste from his teeth. when I hold his snout he moves around. not wildly but he makes it rather difficult. not sure what to do here.

today he misbehaved twice. when i came back from work at lunch and after work was over he had gone into the bathroom and taken trash out of it. I don't get why dogs do that. He knows he's not supposed to do that. I'm positive of it, though the trainer says that he actually doesn't. I have to correct him in the act. Well i have corrected him for going into the bathroom without being called in. I've done this while i'm in the bathroom as well as catching him walk into the bathroom. So in order to take the trash out, he has to first disobey my command in not entering the bathroom. Even when I take the trash out and lay it in front of him, he will run away. I've disciplined him on other occasions about this. I know I can just shut the bathroom but I prefer to keep it open to test his behavior from day to day.

Today i also left the mino camcorder on to see how long he whined after I left. I think it was pretty short but then again he was out of camera for a while. it only recorded 10 mins as well... which is odd because there was 60 min of recording time. I'm not sure if i mentioned this before but the last time we recorded him he whined and walked around for 20 mins before he finally sat down on his circle pillow.

tomorrow is our first obedience training session. stay tuned!

blehhhhhhh!

That would be the sound of throw up!

I guess that will be the last time we feed him prime rib bone. He threw up this morning. I saw a small orange, cracker shaped, orange thing on the floor. I "hey'd" him because i thought it was a cracker but upon closer inspection it was liquid throw up. He was fine on his walk later so it's all good.

We were wondering last night if it was safe to give him bone. From what we could gather, chicken bone is a no no because it can splinter. Raw bone is preferred over cooked bone because cooked bone is more fragile. other than that... it seems to be safe.

This was also a good opportunity to see if I could take away a highly prized food item from him. I could. At one point it appeard that he clamped down on the bone as I slowly took it away. When we gave that minor resistance I "hey'd" him and he let go. I would intermittently call his name, which would draw his attention so I could take the bone and inspect it to see if it was still safe to eat.

Bark 4,5

More barks... wow. Unfortunately we did not prepare adequately in the morning and we had to quickly drop off Marley at my parents. While we were away my mom said that he started barking when he heard noise coming from the garage. She was amazed because he is usually so quiet. When we came back we had to leave suddenly. When we left the house I forgot to get something so I went back into the house and I could hear him clawing at the door. When we finally did leave my mom said he continued to claw at the door and began to bark. I had a feeling he might be upset at us leaving so abruptly.

I've noticed him marking more often since his stay at sunny dog. I wonder if he picked up this behavior from other dogs. It is normal after all. On the past 2 walks he pee's in the beginning and near the end. It used to be just at the beginning.

I've started him on marker training. I'm choosing to use the word "yes" as opposed to using a clicker. I've also ordered a DVD on marker/clicker training... I can't wait to try this out.