Archive for the Pets Category
It’s been two weeks since Sherman returned from Camp Diana, and he’s doing well. In the last 14 days, we’ve gone walking in the park 6 times. Using Google Earth, I plotted the path we walk, and it comes out right at 0.83 miles. We walk a minimum of 2 loops, and usually 3, which gives a nice 2.5 mile walk.
On our walks we practice “Let’s walk” (heeling), sits, and downs. Some days we’ve had a lot of distractions, with baseball games, tennis players, screaming kids and bicyclists. Those are not Sherman’s best days. He’ll do the sits and downs, but the walking can be another story. He’s either constantly running into my left knee, trying to see what’s on the other side of me, or trying to spin around to see what’s happening behind him. There’s gradual improvement, but with his low pack drive and higher prey drive, the distractions can prove to be a challenge.
Other days, he does darn near perfect. The day after I was getting frustrated with his progress (which I try not to let him sense), we went up there and he was near perfect. Sometimes he was getting a little far ahead on the walking (which means his neck is past my knee, which is where it should be), but some minor corrections brought him back. I was pretty proud of him! He did his sits pretty quickly, and the downs not quite as fast, but I didn’t have to step on the leash to pull him down.
Much of the problem is mine. Sherman is the first dog I’ve had that really required some firm corrections to get his attention. We use a prong collar for training, and I’m unwilling to put some of the force behind the correction that I should. Diana says two or three good corrections are worth fifty small corrections, and I don’t doubt that.
On a couple of our walks, we’ve met some fairly young kids. One time a couple 4 or 5 year olds came up to him, and were petting him and telling him how pretty he was. Sherman seemed to enjoy that, and I have no qualms about letting him meet people (just not other dogs). I do wonder where their parents were, as I sure wouldn’t want my kid to run up to a strange dog without me being, at the very least, aware of it, and preferably approving the kids action.
On another walk, a couple of two year olds (or something like that, I can’t tell kids ages worth a damn) with their grandparents met Sherman. I could tell the grandparents weren’t *quite* sure about it at first, but rapidly warmed up to Sherman as he sat to be petted. The little boy had no hesitation, but the little girl had to be convinced by her grandpa that it was OK.
For all of Sherman’s improvement, there’s still a couple problem areas we’re working on. When he gets wound up he likes to get grabby, and there’s an issue with the dish towels being stolen. We’ve purchased a Dogtra 280 NCP training collar. Sherman is fixing to discover the kitchen counter has developed magical powers that know when he’s up there and shouldn’t be.
Generally, I’ve always been adverse to the idea of shock collars (or “e-collars”, as the more P.C. term). Unfortunately, there are just some behaviors that it’s a more appropriate tool for. Actions that require a rapid response, where the window for correction is small are the primary type. And when he grabs your ankles, other than shouting “No!”, there’s not much in the way of correction you can do that doesn’t involve striking the dog. And that’s a MAJOR no-no.
Later today we’re going to try to get up to the park for some more training. Sherman isn’t feeling well today, apparently having ate something that didn’t agree with him. Since we know what he eats, we’re not sure what triggered this. We changed his food from puppy chow to adult chow a few days ago, so he shouldn’t be having a reaction to that this much later. He also managed to bang his hip while horsing around with Makeeta, and he’s limping a little bit as a result. I’ll let him rest a while longer, but walks are important for both of us. Can’t have that 50 pounds coming back!
This is a wonderful video about Cat House on the Kings, a no-cage, no-kill, lifetime cat sanctuary and adoption center.
I can’t even begin to imagine living with, much less taking care of, 700+ cats. My wife and I currently live with 3 dogs, Makeeta, Moon, and Sherman, and just those three are quite the handful.
We’ve talked about getting a cat several times. Makeeta is known to be OK with cats, Sherman is an unknown, and Moon definitely hates cats. So I guess it’ll be a while longer…
Sherman returned from Camp Diana on Sunday. We arrived about noon, and spent two hours with Diana, putting Sherman through his paces, discussing training, and the what not. We could have easily spent another hour, but her 2 PM appointment showed up, and we had to wander off.
So what do we know about Sherman now? Well, we now think that instead of 10 months, he may be closer to 2 years. This is based on a slight tartar build up on his teeth, the fact that he moves with a fair amount of grace and none of the young dog klutziness, and his overall demeanor. I don’t have a problem with that, other than it means switching him from puppy chow to adult chow when this bag runs out.
We also learned that Sherman is very intelligent, but independent. Dogs have three basic drives: pack drive, prey drive, and defense drive. Loyal and person or family oriented dogs have a high pack drive; Sherman has a very low pack drive. This also explains his lack of food motivation. His prey drive is middle to high; this means he’s prone to react to stimulus quickly. Luckily, his defense drive is low. From what I understand, if this drive was high, he’d likely be more prone to fighting.
When is dog is in the prey drive state (wanting to chase a car, squirrel, what-have-you), to get them back to pack drive (where you want them to be when you’re walking, training, etc), you have to take them through the defense drive (via disciplining, such as a sharp tug on the prong collar).
Sherman occasionally tries to exhibit dominant behavior, an undesirable trait, particularly when directed towards the human. Dominant behavior in dogs is typically curbed by entry protocol, downs (general obedience work) and the like. Occasionally it takes something more severe, like a pop across the muzzle with the leash. Sherman had direct experience with this.
When dogs discipline each other, they do it quickly, severely (when warranted and all other warnings have failed) and they get over it (unlike us humans, who hold grudges forever). A snap across the muzzle is like another dog biting him, which is what would happen when all other resources to garner respect of the alpha had failed. No screaming, yelling, or going postal. And just like when dogs discipline each other, it takes decisive and severe action, but keeping it unemotional.
After two weeks, Sherman can now walk fairly politely on a leash without constant correction, he can sit and lay-down on command, and he’s better (but far from perfect) about being around other dogs on leash. The last one is the main reason he went to Camp Diana; as I mentioned in one of the previous entries, he tends to go Cujo on them (apparently I’ve been spelling it wrong for years).
The “let’s walk” goes pretty well, and he can even maintain a fairly good walk on his flat collar, although corrections are far less effective. The sit and lay-down commands can be fairly quick if it’s in his self interest to do so, such as when he wants to go out. Otherwise, a sit may take a couple seconds to get executed, and for a lay-down you may want to go make a cup of tea. Well, maybe not *that* slowly, but there’s no sudden drop to the ground. This is because Sherman knows he’ll have to do it, but there’s no reason to drop like a rock, because it doesn’t suit his personal interest.
The one problem we still have is he’s quite the mouthy dog. Playing and such is rough on the hands and arms. Sherman will bring you his favorite squeaky toy, but he won’t give it up, and he’ll paw at you while he’s trying to get you to take it. This, I think, is the whole point of his game: wrestle with me for the ball. Once you get it free and throw it, he’ll immediately bring it back for another round of wrestling it away from him. Usually I don’t play his game; if he doesn’t drop it on command, I stop playing. After a bit, he’ll drop it and whine, and we go back to playing.
Luckily, Sherman is a great people dog. Diana took him to Petsmart several times, and he met a number of people and was great with them (we knew this before he went to camp). It’s the dogs he has more trouble with. Although we haven’t had a dog introduction experience since we got back, Diana says he acts better.
I’ve really wanted to take him to the park and practice commands on a long walk. Alas, it’s been raining in the evenings on the last couple days, and the forecast doesn’t look good. It’s pretty much limited to taking him out to the yard and driveway to practice. And there’s not many good distractions. But we’ll get him out there and work him. He’ll be completely worth it.
After being 3 days without Sherman, the house is much quieter. It’s pleasant, in a way, having just the two old dogs around, but I miss him.
I also talked to Diana briefly today (less than a minute), who said that things were going well, but he did manage to break out of his crate and eat $30 worth of specialty dog treats (wheat free treats, gluten free treats, chicken strips, etc).
The folks at Alcovy named him after the Sherman tank, figuring he was going to be a really big dog. I’m thinking now it’s more like Shermans march through Atlanta, and the trail of destruction that was left…
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.