Took Sherman to Camp Diana (really it’s DogStar Training Academy) for boot-camp. Sherman was, as usual, friendly, outgoing and an apparently confident dog. Diana decided to bring out a dog on a leash to get a feel for Shermans Kujo-mode, and sure enough, he did. We discussed if this might be an innate problem, or one from how he grew up. Diana seems to feel he’s quite trainable, intelligent, and should do well in her course.

While we were standing in front of her house talking, Diana put Sherman in the back yard. We were pretty much standing out of sight, so he didn’t get all excited about us leaving him. Diana stuck her head around the corner, and Sherman was busy trying to dig under the gate. When he saw her, he then jumped up against the fence. It’s possible that Sherman is an escape artist, and the reason he was found wandering around Walton county was that he broke out of the yard of whoever owned him. Something to keep an eye on if he’s ever left alone (although I don’t feel comfortable ever leaving a dog in the yard by themselves, for several reasons).

We took Sherman to Petsmart for his first class, only to find out the class had been canceled by the trainer, and would start next week. No big deal, we live pretty close to Petsmart, and we had to buy some dog food anyway. I took Sherman into the training ring and threw a ball around in there, letting him chase it. After a bit, Sherman and I went outside the training ring, while some people came by and petted him. Then Sherman saw another dog on a leash and went all Kujo, barking and jumping like mad. It was, in a word, embarrassing. People looked askance at him, like he was a serial killer. Some people without a dog came by, and he was fine, licked a little girls nose, enjoyed being petted. Then another dog came by, and it was Kujo-mode all over again.

We had mentioned to the trainer when we signed up that Sherman had this “issue” with other dogs. I don’t think I appreciated how bad the problem was. After the little episode at Petsmart, I called a friend who trains aggressive dogs. She said she’d run Sherman through her two week course, and while it was possible that he may never be able to meet a dog on a least, he would at least act civil, not bark and not break his walk or sit. We talked about some other things, and decided Sherman would start a course with her on August 24th. We’ll see how that goes.

A few weeks or months ago we had taken Moon to the vet for her shots. At the time I noticed her eyes were starting to cloud, and the vet mentioned that she was indeed developing Nuclear Sclerosis (also known as Lenticular Sclerosis). Tonight I was looking at her eyes, and noticed it had worsened somewhat. It makes me sad that our dog is going blind.

As far as Sherman and Makeeta go, she does her best to avoid getting run over by them when they’re playing. Of course, if either one of them tries to get her to play, she either ignores them or snaps at them.

Haven’t updated Makeeta in a while. We originally got Sherman because Moon won’t play, and Makeeta really needed someone (somedog?) that would. The first week or 10 days after we got Sherman, Makeeta was someone standoff-ish towards him, almost as if she were pouting. Now they’re good buddies, and they play a fair amount. It’s interesting to watch them at play, since Sherman will readily roll-over in submission position (expose his belly), where Makeeta doesn’t ever go submissive. But to watch the two of them the rest of the time, you’d think Sherman was alpha. It’s a little hard to call at this point, but I think while Makeeta may let him think he’s in charge, they both know she is.

Went to put Shermans leash on for a walk, and noticed his tags were missing. I knew they couldn’t have just fallen off, and thinking about it, I had a sudden suspicion. A couple times when Sherman has laid down on top of the A/C vent, he’s gotten up and the A/C vent came with him. The tags were dropping into the louvers, and getting caught when he stood up. It was quite amusing the first time we saw this, him just trotting around, completely unfazed by the vent hanging from his collar.

I shined a flashlight in a couple of the vents, and sure enough, I found his tags in the vent in the bedroom. Pulling the vent out took some effort. The steel ring that holds the tags was stretched completely out! What must have happened was that during the night, the tags got caught. He just kept pulling until he was free. Never heard any noise of a struggle, panicked barking, or anything. The amount of force that he exerted to stretch a keyring must have been phenomenal. But whatever the case, it hasn’t turned him off from laying on top of the vents. I probably should have taken a picture of the stretched ring. It’s pretty amazing.

My solution to prevent this from happening again was to use a couple small zip-ties and zip-tie the tags to the his collar, so they don’t dangle.

Sherman is now due to start training at Petsmart on August 19th. He’s OK at sit, even stay, but recall is quite spotty. He’s also turning into the consummate counter cruiser. I caught him the other evening licking dishes in the sink that hadn’t made it into the dishwasher. He’s also prone to pulling things off the counter, like dish towels.

I’ve been working with him a little bit myself (not really enough), but I’m trying not to get any bad training habits that we have to change before we get to class. In some ways, he’s a great dog. But there’s a few habits that really have to do. Like nibbling on ankles, stealing things, etc. The worst is leash aggression towards other dogs. He’s fantastic with people, but if he’s on a leash and sees another dog, he’s a handful. I’m hoping training will take care of this.

The Further Adventures of Sherman: He’s been a little unwilling to go into the plastic crate we have for him. The other dogs we’ve had always liked them, since it provided a den-like environment, and was a good place of refuge for a nap, or away from the hustle and bustle of being an indoor dog.

The first three nights we had Sherman, we baited/stuffed him into a crate during the night, since we didn’t want any fights breaking out, unplanned “reliefs”, etc. After the 3rd night, Sherman won, and was allowed to sleep outside the crate. That’s gone really well, as he seems to know that nighttime is for sleeping, settles down either next to my side of the bed, or on top of the air conditioning vent, and sleeps quietly (in the crate, he snored, because of the angle he’d rest his head). However, leaving him out of the crate during the day is out of the question.

So a friend of ours gave us this open wire crate to try. It was in pretty good shape, but missing the bottom tray, which didn’t seem like a problem. Since we weren’t feeding him in it, and he’s potty trained, it just meant we’d have to worry about him eating the carpet. He’d go into it easily enough, which was a nice change. Personally, I think he just wanted a better view, and didn’t like the isolation the plastic crate provided.

Cindy went out one day, put Sherman in the crate, and came home to find… 3 dogs at the top of the stairs. The crate had moved from my office out into the foyer, and Sherman had removed himself from it. The door was still latched, so all we could figure is that he managed to go out through the bottom, where the squares are about 10″ on a side. I have a hard time visualizing that, but it’s all we can figure. I also have this mental image of the crate moving like a cartoon, with little feet sticking through and the “wheedle-wheedle-wheedle” sound effects, like when a character is hiding in a bush then sneaking forward.

Of course, there was damage. Some newspaper fliers were shredded, the remote had a few more teeth marks…