Puppy Training

Well she is 18 months old but between her ears Molly is a puppy! No manners and no understanding of household behaviors.  So you sign her up for training with other puppies.  She is certainly the biggest puppy in the room and the most mature in that she is less tolerant of really bad behaviors but she is still way to unruley for us.  Plus she gets lots of socialization which lets her meet and interact with other people and dogs.

The class has 2 huskies, a boxer, a bull mastiff, a australian sheperd and Gracie a Sheltie. Gracie has “issues”. That is the understatement of the day. She won’t walk on concrete, eat with anyone else in the room and is totally blown away by all these DOGS. The instructor puts her and Molly together and they get seperated so Gracie can lower her “HOLY CRAP” levels to defcon 3.

They gets along OK but Molly senses the weakness and leaves Gracie pretty quickly so we bring in the Australian Sheperd who gets along with Molly and Gracie fine. We work on sit and down and stand and get “homework” for next meeting in two weeks when they should sit, down, stand and begin coming to their name.  Right now Molly is doing great and we have had her doing her homework alot today and she is great with treats and hit and miss without.  We are making progress and Molly is liking it.

Meanwhile Molly is finally beginning to acclimate to our house.  She is getting better at “kennel” command and seems conforted in her crate. Jan came out of the shower this morning and both Katie and Molly were in Molly’s kennel and they were fine with that albeit a bit crowded. She is still a barker and some of that has to get under control. Jan tripped on Molly’s Nyla bone and ran her hand into the wall and this required ice cubes in a wash cloth. One ice cube fell on the floor and Molly snarfed it up and ate it and then proceeded to bark at Jan until she got another and another … Well you get the picture. We are really enjoying having a distraction from mother-in-law so Molly gets lots of attention.  What fun.

Creator Bless, Love Dad.

Well it has been over a year, now

Life has a way of evaporating in the trails of time.  My last post had you walk with me through the death of my father and all that is part of that.  In the ensuing 14 months lots has happened but most of that has been of little consequence.  My brother and I  have been working albeit not as quick as we like, toward getting dad’s house ready for sale.  It has been a bit of a journey but there is significant movement and I like the progress we are making. Hopefully by year’s end we will have that completed.

Now on to the continued life cycle events. This last June we lost our beloved Maggie a Golden Retriever of 10 years.  Lots of health issues the last several years.  These included her going “outside” every 2 – 3 hours 24/7. It has been like having a baby for the last 5 years. You adapt and it just becomes part of your life to make sure you check on her regularly, and get her out, day and night. Anyway, there was a seizure one evening and the trip to the vet and some x-rays and a prognosis that indicated significant discomfort and pain. And you stand in that small white room with your spouse and you decide to end Maggies’ life. I reread this and see how cold that sounds but that is the description of the event. You hate this decision and all that it entails. This is the responsibility of pet ownership. Don’t do the good times if you cannot be there at the end. It is a heart rending decision but one you signed up for the day pup came home with you. So make the right decision for your pet and understand that there will be a dull ache to deal with for a while into the future. A week later I sat in the den and the door bell rang.  I paused for about 10 seconds then realized what I was waiting for…. Maggie was an alarm barker and every time the door bell rang, for real or on TV, she barked, and I was waiting to hear her bark.  As I walked down the hall to answer the door the tears streamed down my face as they do as I write this now.  Gosh, she is missed.

So then you watch as your spouse, yourself and your other dog (Katie) adjust to the unthinkable, life without Maggie.

And in a couple of months life circumstances bring an opportunity to you that let’s you think about getting another pet. Through a highschool classmate we become aware of http://www.goldenrecovery.org/ and ultimately we adopt a recovery dog.  This dog comes to us with no issues. Her circumstance was that her owner died and an elderly parent was the heir and could not take care of the animal and turned to GRRRR for help. Anyway, long story short, we have a teen age dog in our lives who provides us with all of the things a teen age animal provides.  Fun, junk drug out of every corner we had forgotten about, mischief, new behaviors, old memory stirring behaviors, and most important the responsibility of pet ownership, which is why we added another pet in the first place. So we have Mollie. Maybe I will find some time and post a bit about her first month or so with us as we enter the fall months.  The short version is she is a delight and the adjustments have been harder on her than on us, I am sure. She is doing great and we are having a lot of fun training and working with her. Cesar Millan says, “rule, boundaries, limitations.”

So that this does not turn into the “who died this time blog” I will try to add an entry soon that speaks to the joys in our lives.  There are many, I just seem to only get in the mood to write when some tragedy is finally in focus.  It is kind of like family, we only get together for funerals and wedings and I seem to only write at one of those seminal events as well.  Until next time, Creator Bless, Love Dad.