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.