Almost Wordless Wednesday: Place

“Me, dog reactive? You must be mixing me up with someone else.”

Sorry for the blurry photo (no fancy phone here!).  Edwin loved practicing “place” in class last night and sat happily as other dogs came into the room!  He even rolled around on his back for belly scratches when he got the okay to leave his place.

He did have a run and rescue remedy before class, but I have no clue if these things helped or if he was just this happy on his own.  He also did well around other dogs in a crate and on leash in a training session this weekend at Crossroads’ celebration of being open for 5 years.

Also, for every 100 “likes” CARE (Crossroads Animal Rescue) gets on their new facebook page, Crossroads Animal Hospital will donate enough to rescue one kitten from the local shelter.  It is kitten season, and the shelter took in dozens of kittens yesterday alone.

Doing their share

Recently, we had some rewards points to use at Amazon and there are loads of household goods I would love to get.  Naturally, almost everything we ordered was for the dogs.  This was partially because we didn’t want to add too much more stuff that could wait until we move, and partially because the boys needed Nylabones and gear to help make beach trips a little easier.

With plenty of days on the lake to come this summer, we decided the boys could use a backpack.  They got the Kyjen Outward Hound Backpack in large.  Gambit, whose lanky frame hovers around the pack’s lower weight range of 50 lb, could probably get away with a medium while it fits Edwin, who is at the top of the weight range, perfectly.  The price was good for a first backpack that will be used to tote dog gear for a mile or less, and the saddle bags are roomy.

Now the boys can haul some of their gear, and things that are used only on lake trips with dogs can find a permanent storage spot in it- long lead, a light towel, a toy, and the collapsible bowl.  I had never seen a dog backpack until a couple years ago, but if it means they can carry a few things, I’ll happily use one put one on my dogs.

Clipping a roll of potty bags to the outside means no more digging around or grabbing extra bags!

Gambit was perfectly happy to model his new gear, although he did scare himself by knocking into the baby gate after miscalculating his width while wearing the pack.

Thanks to the treat in my hand, he was making lots of his funny faces.  Unfortunately, he was moving too much to capture all of them.  His signature face was out in full force, naturally!

One of the neatest things about this backpack is that the saddlebags are attached by strips of velcro.  If you need to take the bag off quickly or while taking a break to rest, it can just be pulled off without undoing the buckles.

The portion with the straps ends up looking like a vest with a handle on top once the backpack is pulled off.

We haven’t made our first beach trip with the backpack yet, but the boys seem happy to wear it, so hopefully it will make lake prep a little more smooth and remove 5-10 lb of weight from my own bag.

Do you have a dog backpack that you love?

On another note, Crossroads has a new Facebook page for their rescue, CARE.  Like them here if your news feed hasn’t yet hit dog, cat and horse cuteness overload.  You can also follow CfB on Facebook here.

Working for the beach

Our beach trips normally start by early April, but the weather has not been on our side lately.  During this year’s wintry and rainy spring, we managed to find one nice day for a lake trip.  The prep work for the trip was a reminder of just how much time I spend preparing for my nearly daily lake trips in the summer – without dogs it’s not so bad.  At least one dog goes 3-4 days per week, and 2-3 dogs would go last summer if both of us were taking them.

Sunscreen, sunglasses, coverup, flip flops, ID, keys, human and dog towels, long leads, water they’ll refuse to drink instead of the lake water, collapsible bowl, a toy or two, potty bags, training treats, a bag to keep phones dry, car harnesses, now-broken swimming/running harness, tie out stake if 1 person trip without a large tree nearby, Gambit’s favorite stick, and oh wait, let’s make sure no one had topical preventatives in the last 24 hours and that there’s still a towel to cover the car seat.

Now dogs, we couldn’t hide the getting-ready-for-beach process since the beach bag contents change depending on the number of dogs and humans making the trip, but please don’t get overexcited.  Drive to the beach, wait for everyone to stop being noisy so they can get out of the car, grab a couple more bags from the dog walking station because all of ours are at the bottom of the bag, lug a heavy, overstuffed bag or two of gear down a forested walking trail while the dogs go wild, do as much training on loose leash walking as possible before shoulder starts to hurt, inevitable stops to clean up after the dogs, peering down favorite paths to the lake to make sure other dogs aren’t hanging out there, discovering that the lake finally being full after a year of docks sitting on dry ground means that all of last summer’s favorite beaches are gone rather than shrunken and the current beaches’ paths are overgrown.

Securing dogs so long leads can be unraveled, sort out long leads, stash coverups, tether at least one lead, pour dog water, wait for dogs to behave well enough to get beach-enjoying privileges, race for the water, jumping incoming leads, playing fetch, cooling off in the water with the dogs, high tailing it out because a 5 minute isolated thunderstorm is about to start.

Just thinking about it makes me exhausted.  We persist with this routine because that fun with the dogs is absolutely worth it.  Everyone goes home tired and happy after a couple hours – unlike a one person or one person + one dog trip, the prep time for bigger trips mean that a 30 minute lake trip doesn’t make too much sense.

But what if, somehow, we could make the prep time shorter, haul less stuff, and calm the dogs down all at once?  This is our last summer on the lake, and our lake days will end in early August instead of late September.  Clearly, we need to make the most of it!

We’ll make our first test run soon, but the boys got a new tool to help us reach all of those goals.  What do you think they got?

Momma, what do you mean “you’re gonna have to work harder for your beach privileges?”

Wordless Almost-Wednesday: Cuddling with Big Yellow Ball

Eddie is looking for his forever home.  For more information on adopting Edwin, contact Crossroads Animal Hospital.

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Statue Stranger Danger

Gambit is finally starting to learn that most statues with faces are not out to get him.  Like the guy that permanently chills on this bench on campus – doesn’t he look perfectly happy to sit with our Gamborino?

The tongue isn’t from stress, either, it was one of the 2-3 not frigid or rainy days we’ve had this entire spring.  Dear weather, usually by early April we are sunning and swimming at the lake every single day.  Please stop this nonsense!

Eddie forgot to show up for Wordless Wednesday this week, but he’s looking for his forever home.  For more information on adopting Edwin, contact Crossroads Animal Hospital.  They also currently have a few rescued Tennessee Walking Horses!

Self Control

One of the things we’ve been working on with Eddie is self control.  While he’s extremely laid back at home and will happily nap the day away, the prospect of food and going outdoors excite him greatly.  Thankfully, he has been able to differentiate between my poorly chosen command words for “look” and “lick” – both of which are used for self control.

“Lick” (your lips) has helped him to calm himself when it comes to meal times.  He’s supposed to wait in his crate while food is prepared, and did so successfully for the most part when he ate out of a bowl.  Now that he eats exclusively out of toys to prevent bloat, meal prep takes a little longer and meals are more exciting.

After lots of work, a firm “stay” command at key times like right before scooping food out of the bowl will usually result in Edwin staying in his room.  Still, we occasionally have to pause and send him back to his room.

We also require that all dogs sit patiently while we humans open the front door and screen door and cross onto the porch.  I often think life with dogs would be much easier without a screen door!  Eddie has gotten much better at this, but once again, it’s difficult for him.  I watch him try so very hard to keep his hind end on the ground while raring to head through the doorway.

Thankfully, we’re now able to get out the door in 15-30 seconds instead of the minute or two it used to take while we waited for him to stop whining and rushing the door.  He’s also gotten better about sitting on the porch once he gets outside – or at least when he hits the end of his leash while I close the doors.  Baby steps.

Today’s massive success in self control happened after breakfast.  Edwin is the most food motivated dog we have had in our home.  He excitedly and desperately works to get the food out of his toys while Gambit calmly and methodically empties his.  Then Eddie proceeds to furiously lick under the TV stand or any other spot he may have lost a kibble.

After finishing his carpet licking for hidden kibble, Eddie went into the kitchen and barked.  We train our dogs to bark when they need to go outside to potty, but he had just gone recently so this seemed out of place.  When I went to the kitchen a few seconds later, Eddie was patiently standing in front of the open food bin with a huge grin on his face, wagging his tail.

Is this really the same dog who, when we were working on seeing if we could leave him alone uncrated, knocked down the baby gate, opened the food bin that he’d never paid attention to before, and devoured 1 1/2 weeks worth of food?

Did he really just alert me to the fact that the food bin was open and taunting him rather than promptly knocking it over to get the the food?

Slowly but surely, our hard work is paying off!

Wordless Wednesday: Hanging out in the doorway