Hops in the Right Direction: Who You Gonna Call?

No, probably not the Ghostbusters, unless your dog's missing leg has come back from the dead and is stalking your family.  (Actually, call me for that.  I want pictures.)

The point is, although I like to pretend otherwise, I am by no means a dog expert.  Like every aspect of my life, with Prada, I am winging it.  And when I run out of "winging it" ideas and need advice, I have a short list of people I trust to give it to me straight.

• Example 1:  I cut Prada's nail too short and now it won't stop bleeding and oh god do I need to get her to the emergency vet and I am the worst pet mom ever? 

 I call my mom.  She's a life-long dog-owner, she went to school to be a vet tech, and she's great at calming me down when I'm freaking the freak out.

• Or, Example 2:  Is that a pimple?  Does Prada seriously have a pimple?  Can dogs even get pimples?  Maybe it's an ingrown hair or folliculitis.  Or cancer.  Shit.  It's probably cancer. 

To the vet I go.  I try hard not to panic before absolutely necessary, but if it's health-related, I want to know asap what's going on. (Don't worry, it's just folliculitis.)

• Example 3:  Most dogs will let you pet them.  But hands make Prada so freaking overexcited!  What do I do?  I just want to pet my dog!

Here's where I go beyond the "Yes, Dana, we already know all this because anyone who owns a dog knows to go to the vet when the dog is sick so shut your trap" part.  See, the training facility I go to, Animal Sense, has a blog.  I've linked to it before, but I will again because of one very special feature on that blog:  "Ask a Trainer."  That's right.  You type in your question, and they answer it, and it's awesome.  You don't have to be an expert.  You don't have to be their customer.  They're cool like that.  This week, they answered my question.  You can see it here. 

So many good dogs with well-intentioned owners end up in shelters, and often that is because of behavioral issues.  Maybe, if more people had good resources for helping them learn to integrate their dogs into their life successfully, that number wouldn't be so tragically high.

Lots of shelters offer low-cost or no-cost seminars, like preparing your dog to acclimate to a new baby, or no- or low-cost microchipping or vaccinations.  Local expos are a great way to learn what your area has to offer and maybe even score some freebies!

Point is, the resources are out there.  You don't have to be an expert as long as you know where to find them.  (By the way, I love research.  If you need a hand, let me know.  Finding all these links took me about twenty minutes, and some of that time I was fooling around of Twitter.)

Karma is a spunky little angel who only needs one resource--you!

Surprise! It's a Dog!

Prada came to work with me today.  She is currently hanging out under my desk by my feet, gazing longingly at all the people walking by who aren't loving on her.  Occassionally, she pops out to say hello, or cries a little because I'm not sharing my pizza (I never do, poor girl).  And then the passers-by are all, "Oh!  It's a dog!"  And then I laugh because what else would I have under my desk, a chicken? 

And now I want to bring a chicken to work just to see what people would do.



She's not blind.  I'm just the world's worst photographer.



Sunny would love to hang out under your desk.

The Warm and Fuzzies

Ahem.  You may have heard--I grew up in the country, on a bitty little hobby farm (i.e., my parents weren't professional farmers, we just had lots of farmtype animals).  A good half my stories from my childhood come from interesting interactions with these farmtype animals, or those animals that just wandered into the barns to mooch food.

Let's meet some of my childhood companions, shall we?

'Possums.  We had them.  Not on purpose, but the oversized rats seem insanely attracted to cat food, much like the aliens in District 9.  They're about as cute, too, but much less sympathetic.  My mom was feeding the barn cats one evening, and either the power was out or she hadn't bothered to turn the light on.  In any case, she was in the mostly-dark barn, and when one of the cats wound its way around her ankles, she bent down to pet it--and came face-to-face with a 'possum who just wanted some lovin'.

Wanted:  Cat food and some sweet, sweet love for "attractive" single monster.

Shudder.

Sunny is way cuter.

This Title Won't Be Emusing to Anyone But Me.

Yeah, puns.  I like them.  So did Shakespeare, so I'm giving myself a pass on this one.  Please be warned that this post starts out as a memory and quickly descends into madness.




'Sup?


Emus.  They are big.  And they are really pretty fast.  According to Wikipedia, they can go as fast as 31 miles per hour.  Apparently, their legs are so strong they can rip through metal wire fences.  Maybe that explains it.

As you may have heard, I grew up in the country.  A few miles down the road was an emu farm.  No, I don't know why people would farm emus either, except maybe for the world's biggest friggin' omelets. 



Green ham, anyone?

Anyway when I was little, a bridge by our farm was out for several years, which made us go the long way around to town and near the emu farm on a regular basis.  One day, as my mom drove me to town for one event or another, we saw a blur of brown in the field to our right.  Accustomed to having to stop for deer, my mom slowed way down.  As you may have guessed, the blur was not a deer.  It was an emu, and it was not only keeping pace with our much-slowed-but-still-pretty-fast mini van, it was edging ahead. 

That emu was daring us to a race.

My mom floored it.  Defeated, the emu disappeared into a cornfield.

I don't know what happened to the emu.  We weren't even very close to the emu farm when we saw it, maybe a mile or two away, so perhaps it was an emu on the lam.  That's how I like to think of it, still out there today.  In fact, I've imagined a whole life for that emu where it is skulking in the patchy woods and various cornfields, with a nice family of turkeys for companions.  And when a hunter uses his call and the turkey family falls for it, the emu goes with them and scares the bejeezus out of the hunter, who wants to tell his hunter buddies all about the emu who now thinks it's a turkey, but nobody will believe him and he is run out of town under accusations of lunacy.  And then the mayor almost hits the emu on the road, but misses him, and then our road finally gets one of these:

Which will promptly be defaced with a red dot on the "nose" like every other animal crossing sign in Wisconsin, inciting a local legend wherein Santa's sleigh is not pulled by ought-to-be-flightless reindeer, but rather by ought-to-be-flightless birds, which sort of makes more sense, anyway.

(True:  There is an Icelandic Christmas legend in which a giant cat named Jólakötturinn eats children who don't get new clothes in time for Christmas.  If I ever have kids, I'm totally selling them on it.)

Sunny gets along with cats, but she'd rather avoid Jólakötturinn, if it's all the same to you.

Ah, free stuff.  Who doesn't love free stuff?  It's just like a present, but you aren't required to write a thank-you note or feel like a tool because you didn't get the other person anything.  I'm a huge language/syntax/spelling/grammar geek, so stumbling across these was my version of a mini-Christmas.  Haven't downloaded them yet, but if I suddenly stop blogging for a week, you'll know why.  (Why yes, I am a huge dork.  DON'T JUDGE ME!)

I think winning things is pretty darn cool too, don't you?  I sign up to win stuff at my two favorite radio stations' websites all the time.  Sometimes I do win--stuff like tickets to see the latest Winnie the Pooh movie and CDs I don't really want, but whatever.  I won!  I can feel like a champion who is way, way better than anyone else for the simple fact that I lucked out.  No skill required!  No work required!  Winning is seriously the best.

But I lie.  You know what's the best?  Being awarded something--and that happened to me!  I get something, it's free, I feel lucky, and I maybe even sort of deserved it!  (Or at least fooled someone into thinking I did...)

So, without further ado...

LOOKEEY WHAT I GOT!

The lovely, lovely (you're my favorite) Jo at "The Bright Yellow Balloon" thinks I'm cute!  Or my blog is, anyway.  Or my dog.  Whatever.

Das Rules:

1. Link back to the person who awarded you. (Check!)
2. Follow the blog of the person who gave you this award.  (Check!)
3. Proudly display this award on your blog.  (Check!)
4. List 5 of your favorite things.  (Cheating!)
5. Pass this award on to 5 fellow bloggers.  (Cheating!)

I'm mashing those last two rules into one and then mixing in a healthy dose of "this is not at all what the inventor of this award meant."  I'm going to list five of my favorite dogs I've featured in the past, and instead of awarding new bloggers, I'm awarding these dogs.  They're cute, and you should follow their stories.  I can't wait until the day that all of these dogs have their forever home!

#1:  Bob

Bob is one seriously chill dude who's foster mom can't say enough good things about him, but he's still waiting...

#2:  Noodles

Do you guys remember Noodles?  He was the first dog I featured, and since the last time I checked in on him, he's found his new family!  Yay, Noodles!

#3:  Trapper

Trapper's story is so sad--remember how he was caught in that animal trap, and then the first shelter he went to wasn't able to provide the care he needed?  Well, look at him now!  He's come a long way from the frightened, pain-ridden guy he used to be.  I seriously love his smile in this new picture.

#4:  Dora

This pretty girl has been adopted recently, too!  (But really, who could resist that face?)

#5:  Prada.

That's what Prada looked like when she was brought to the shelter a yeat ago.  She was a matted mess with a broken leg and a happy grin.  This is the photo I first fell in love with, and now my computer is chock-full of files crammed with pics of this girl.  She's down a leg and lots of snarls, but that grin hasn't changed a bit.


(True:  Prada is going to be featured in the newsletter of the humane society where I adopted her!  I'll keep you posted...)

Doesn't Sunny look like she's looking for something in this picture?  I'll tell you what she's looking for--you.

Run for Your Lives!

Good God, you guys, this.  This:

Via

I saw this at Deals (a grown-up version of the Dollar Tree), and I've got a picture of my own on my phone that I took in thrilled horror.  I mean, look at it!  This is meant for children!

I'm pretty sure it's an undead, zombie-blue, buck-toothed horse with a messed up tail and a thirst for blood fresh from the jugular of your child.  I'm calling it Tweedle-Dead.


(True:  Anthropomorphic pillows freak me out.)

Even Sunny is in a rush to get her people out of the path of that monstrosity.

Hops in the Right Direction: Trick My Dog!

For a long time, I really believed that teaching a dog tricks was something a "serious" dog owner would never do, that it would lead to bad habits, that it wasn't important.  Oh, how wrong I was.  Teaching tricks acutally has a lot of benefits, especially for the dog with altered mobility.

It's true that tricks aren't as serious as teaching "come" (which could save your dog's life if she runs out into the street) or "stay" or those kinds of things.  But they do provide mental and physical stimulation, as well as building the bond between you and your three-legged pal.  If running around for hours isn't an option (as it isn't for some tripods), tricks can channel and exorcise a lot of energy in a low-impact way.  And it's fun!  Why shouldn't your dog have a hobby too?

"Put your toys away" is both fun for your dog and crosses off one of the items on your "things to clean up" list.

"Roll over" can be extremely helpful, thoough many dogs start out uncomfortable with the idea of showing their bellies.  You can also stop halfway through, and teach her simply to lie on her back.  Just think how much this could help at the vet!  It's also a great position for some gentle massage.  Prada loves to have the inside of her back legs rubbed, but she's so tiny, it's hard to get at them from any other position.  She doesn't roll all the way over onto her back; she only goes about three-quarters of the way--no big.

"Sit pretty" is what I call "beg."  I hate the idea of a dog begging for food--it's just bad manners.  However, "sitting pretty" is a great core muscle workout.  Prada's chest is already really strong from hopping around all the time, and this is a good trick for keeping her tummy and back muscles toned.  We have a long way to go on it (I've frankly let the training slide for a while), but it does seem to be helping her balance, as well.

"Touch" is super easy--just rub a treat on your palm to make it smell yummy.  Then, when your dog touches her nose to your palm (no teeth allowed!) say "yay!" and reward her.  It's great for getting your dog to focus on you, and because it is so easy for your dog to learn and remember, you can use it in high-stress situations to remind her that you are in charge and she can relax.  So, if you are being approached, for example, by someone who is wearing a long coat that is billowing in the wind at ankle-height and your dog is suddenly afraid, "touch" can remind her you've got everything under control.  It also works for redirecting your dog's attention from undesired behavior, like jumping on visitors or barking at leaves.

There are a lot of great resources out there, but I particularly like this one for its ideas for you to keep in mind while you're training, and this forum, where there are a lot of really knowledgeable people who have lots of different ideas of teaching the same trick.  Like people, each dog learns a little differently, so it can be helpful to not be set on one way of teaching a trick.  Both of these sites frequently recommend the use of clickers for training, but a voiced "Yay!" or "Good!" work just as well, as long as you're quick about it.  (Your dog will associate the good sound with whatever she's doing right then, so make sure you're not rewarding her for the wrong thing.  You get about 1.7 seconds after the behavior to reward.)

Because Prada spins incessantly when she is anxious, I'm trying to put that on cue (Dance!) as well.  My hope is that if I can put myself in control of her behavior, I'll be able to help her stop before she makes herself puke.

Best thing about tricks?  They are a polite, positive way for your dog to ask for attention.

What awesome thing can your dog do?

Sunny's awesome things include looking stinking adorable, loving on everybody, and playing "couch potato."