Champion of My HeartA dog blog, where everything is a work in progress, by Roxanne Hawn

Last Friday on Twitter, I posted a Mini-Rant that prompted a few people to ask what on earth had happened. There is NO way to tell that particular story in 140 characters, so here is the full-sized rant.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of well-planned dog training that takes place in a relatively controlled setting so that we afford our dogs every opportunity to succeed. These scenarios form the critical foundation for the behavior modification work Lilly and I undertook all these years ago.

However, I am also pragmatic, and I understand that training in the “real world” remains both important and useful.

Indeed, I often use (or am forced to use) myriad of scary realities, including encounters with other dogs, as training fodder as Lilly makes her way in the world.

For example, when we go for walks and dogs race out to their fence lines or property lines to bark and jump and make scene (which all the dogs up here do, including mine), I work to counter-condition those moments (with food) so that Lilly is less afraid and can cope with the noise and proximity of other dogs.

I typically cross the road (or get as much space as possible between her and the barking dogs). I hustle Lilly along with purpose and a certain speed so that the encounter is as brief as I can make it. I put myself between her and the other dogs, and we work hard to appear as non-threatening as possible.

While I’m tending to my sensitive and fearful girl, I take into account the other dogs’ behavior. I do not talk to them. I do not look at them. I tip my shoulders away from them, and … again … I give them some space (by crossing the road with Lilly). In other words, I do my best not to make things worse for any of the dogs in the encounter.

So, last Friday, when I saw some guy I’ve never seen, with two dogs I’ve never seen, spend a good 10-15 minutes standing on the road right above our fence while Lilly and Ginko flipped out, I was pissed.

While cleaning house, I kept an eye on my two monkeys out various windows. I actually saw this guy and his dogs coming up the road, so I immediately went out to round mine up:

a) because I really don’t want Ginko hurting his knees jumping and running around

b) because I don’t want Lilly getting all stressed out

c) because I do my best to keep the dogs from getting the chance to practice this particular behavior (I want them to see dogs and think, “Where’s Mom with the food or toy?”)

I grabbed a squeaky toy and high-value treats and made my approach. My goal? To get them away from the fence and as close to me and engaged with me as I could before the guy and his dogs got to our house.

No luck.

So, I got closer and closer until Ginko, at least, could hear me and respond.

It’s something Gigi teaches, where you cannot just stand in one spot and holler at your dog to COME despite the distraction.

When I got Ginko to move toward me, and he realized I had the REALLY GOOD treats, getting him back to the house was pretty simple.

At this point, Captain Brilliant is standing right there at our fence, while Lilly barks and leaps and generally freaks out that he AND his two dogs are basically staring at her. Full-on, frontal facing, staring at her while she has a fit.

I’ve already gone out and back and out again on our long-ass driveway, so several minutes have passed, but I literally have to walk all the way up to Lilly at the fence before she calms down enough to “hear” me.

Once she does, she follows me back toward the house without issue.

I say to the guy that I’m sorry my dogs caused a scene, and I kid you NOT, he replied, “That’s OK. I’m using them to train my dogs.”

Really, I do NOT mind people using my dogs in real time to do a little training, but … seriously … standing there and baiting my dogs to misbehave so that you can teach your dogs God knows what? C’mon, man!

What? Did you attend the Jack Ass Academy for Canine Drama?

Clearly, they were barking at YOU, so how about you move you on down, move on down the road?

Thanks to diligence on my part, Lilly is MUCH better about the toenail thing than Ginko. I take the tiniest bit off of each of her nails once a week, both so that they don’t get too long and so that she never gets out of practice with this grooming task. We jokingly call it Turkey for Toenails, but most times I use cheese instead. One toe, one hunk of cheese. It’s a good trade.

For comparison, I offer this photographic evidence of the difference between weekly nail trims and the more like quarterly pedicure smackdowns I have with Ginko over his toes.

Ginko                                                                Lilly

Truth in Adversiting: I am not perfect, however, in my execution of these dog mom duties. This shows Lilly’s foot before her latest trim over the weekend.

This is immediately afterwards. I cut one too short, and it bled. She is such a good girl for putting up with my mistakes.

When I first explained the ideas and emotions behind Champion of My Heart, I waxed a little poetic (I hope) about our new-found interest in dog training beyond the basics.  A condensed version of that post now lives on its own page in the sidebar. It’s called Why Champion of My Heart?

An excerpt:

I’ll admit that I mist up as I watch friends and their dogs earn championship titles. It’s an emotional moment … the crowd goes dead quiet as the handler-dog team step to the start line on what could be their final run to earn the championship title. Everyone holds their breath as the dog speeds over jumps, through tunnels, and across teeter-totters. Waiting. Hoping for perfection (because at that level zero mistakes allowed). The goal? Clean run.

We watch the dog, but we also watch the judge, hoping her hands don’t fly into the air signaling a mistake.

It’s over in less than a minute.

Often the final obstacle is a jump with PVC bars, marking the height. As the dog clears that final bar, without knocking it down, the crowd erupts in cheers. Then, the handler grabs the final bar (often painted gold for the occasion) and turns to run a victory lap around the course with dog flying high.

Typically dogs go straight to their leashes after an agility run, so they get this funny, confused look on their faces when mommy or daddy turns and runs the other way back onto the course. But, they love the sport so much that they happily oblige with an encore …

I’ve wanted to show one such moment for ages now. Today, I can.

Many thanks to our agility friend Betsy and her amazing boy MACH Pitsch for sending us a link to the MACH-umentary video that shows their personal championship moment. (The video was done by our pal Don, who is Indy’s daddy.)

(It’s been a while since Lilly and Pitsch got the chance to train and play together. He is Lulu’s big brother, if you’re keeping track. I got to see both dogs at an agility trial recently, but alas … they are moving from our lovely valley back down in the city, so our opportunities to bond will take more planning. Still … we wish Betsy, Pitsch, and Lulu all good things in their new adventure.)

During the long, cold, snowy winters, it’s hard to find a good time for a real deep-soaking, heavy-sudsing bath. So, we sometimes resort to the famous “snowbath.” Observe.

Continue Reading »

It’s been a couple of months since we got our Therapaws mat from Soar Pet Products as an experiment for Ginko’s arthritis. Since he had a major swelling/pain flair up right after New Year’s Eve, I’m not sure we’ve had the chance to give it any kind of quasi-scientific go.

Continue Reading »

I shot a little video earlier this week of Lilly and Ginko playing chase and jaw wrestling games. For those who know Lilly’s noisy play style and stunted social skills, I’ll ask you to pay attention to how quiet this particular play session is. Ginko does many things to ensure Lilly continues to play, which is very smart and polite of him, I think.

Continue Reading »

I get all kinds of interesting alerts via email. This includes tidbits from something called Packaged Facts. Today’s missive touts a 5% or $2.5 BILLION increase in pet-related spending in 2009 — despite the recession. Those outside the dog world might be surprised by the data (which is used to promote a whole, big report on the pet market), but I am not. It’s really quite simple.

For people like me, our dogs are NOT discretionary.

Continue Reading »

Saturday, I caught up on my dog grooming duties. Most weeks that means Lilly and only Lilly, but I decided I’d attempt to trim Ginko’s front toenails. With a muzzle and enough cheese, I can occasionally get him to cooperate. Just as I imagined myself drafting a victory blog post, our celebratory dog training jackpot went terribly wrong.

Continue Reading »

Hey, kids. I did a FeedBurner thing (now owned by Google, I guess) that allows people to subscribe to the blog via email. It’s in ye olde sidebar to the right. It seems to be working OK. Not great, but OK. The problem? There is a sizeable delay between when I post new blog entries and when they arrive via email.

Continue Reading »

I learned yesterday that a blog owner in the UK is feeding my copyrighted blog content (and a bunch of others) into his blog. He lists someone else as the author. Can you say “copyright infringement”? I’m pretty sure it’s all done automatically, including Tweets on Twitter to drive more traffic to his site. I’m posting this as an experiment so see if it shows up today in his timeline. Hey, Mister! Stop stealing my blog!

Continue Reading »