Business trip day 5: halfway through
And so far things are going pretty well. No accidents at all, despite plenty of opportunity.
Last night it began thundering and lightning shortly before 9 pm. I took a look at the weather, and sure enough it looked like a pretty severe storm rolling in right towards us. I decided to take Chester out early; he hadn’t pooped (that I know of) since about 10 am anyway.
He pee’d right away, but refused to poop. I kept walking him back and forth, back and forth, feeling nervous because of the lightning, and getting more and more annoyed because I felt sure he must have to poop. After 10 minutes of nothing, I took him back in and put him to bed in his crate and went to bed myself shortly afterwards.
No accidents overnight, thank goodness. In fact, he took a couple of minutes of walking back and forth in the morning to produce some poop. Obviously, the antibiotics are really kicking in, although his poops are still a little bit soft.
We worked on more stays with distractions this morning, and he did pretty good. I’ve begun to play a little bit of tug outside with him, and he seems to be really enjoying that. Some people don’t approve of playing tug with dogs, but some trainers I respect seem to think the earth won’t stop if you play tug with your dog, and I’m still not seeing signs of dominance. We both have fun, and it’s a good way to burn off a little energy.
He’s not a retrieving kind of dog. I can get him to get a soft frisbee like toy 2 or 3 times, but then he loses interest even though he gets a treat for bringing it back to me. I actually wish he was more interested in frisbee or balls!
We just happened to go for our walk this morning at the same time as a lady who has 2 dogs, and she already told me they’re not dog-friendly. Luckily, initially, we were on opposite sides of the street. When I did cross over to the other side (there’s really no choice where we walk), I made sure that Chester was far behind them.
Everything went well until she turned to come back the other way, and one of her dogs slipped his collar. Turns out that apparently only one of them is dog-aggressive, and not the one that slipped his collar — only I didn’t know that initially.
So here she is holding onto the other dog for dear life, I’m slightly freaking out thinking this large aggressive dog is going to eat Chester and trying to grab him. Eventually I was able to pick him up and walk away. I suppose I should have offered to help her get his collar back on, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Life with dogs seemed so much easier when I was a kid. Who worried about simply taking a walk with your dog?
I felt for this woman, and I don’t know what the solution for her is. Obviously, she has to be able to walk her dogs. But I should be able to walk Chester, too, without having to worry about his getting torn to bits.
I am disappointed. I’ve been giving Chester more freedom, as he hadn’t had accidents since getting on the antibiotics. He even ran the bells around 3:30 pm, even though I wasn’t standing near him. I was so proud of him!
But I was just making the bed — it takes all of 15 minutes — and came out to a pile of poop on the back doormat. True, at least he didn’t go on the carpet. Did he ring the bells and I just didn’t hear it? Somehow I doubt it. There are days I just despair of ever having a life again. It sometimes seems I’m just going to have to accept him pooping in the house (and I really don’t want to), or hover over him every minute of the day. It’s been 5 months now. I know many dogs aren’t reliable until 9 months to a 1 year, and that’s a long way off.
As I was feeding the boys tonight, I walked away to do a few things, and Gizmo walked away from his food. I walked back to stand behind him, and he happily ate his dinner. Sometimes I wonder if he ever gets to eat when I’m not here, except he maintains his weight well. And sometimes I wonder if I’m creating all these neurotic animals. Am I really that neurotic that I just bring it out in them?
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