Balou wants

I had to be at work at 9am this morning. Given my inherently lazy nature, this is damn early. Especially considering that it takes, at best, an hour to drive to work at that horrible traffic filled time of day.

Since we didn't get home any earlier than usual Balou and Trillian had a long and lonely day. Fortunately, despite being home alone for well over eleven hours the dogs didn't destroy anything. Well they did open a package of fire logs, but the fire logs are now burning merrily, so no harm done.

Anyway I have sat down to eat my dinner and Balou is happily lying at my feet. All Balou wants is to lie at my feet while I eat my dinner. He's perfectly content to just lie here.

Well, he wouldn't mind some pets.

All Balou wants is to lie here at my feet and get some pets. He's perfectly content to lie here and get some pets.

Well, he also wouldn't mind if I gave him some of my dinner.

All Balou wants it so lie here at my feet and get some pets and have my dinner. He would be perfectly content if I would pet him while he lies at my feet and feed him some of my dinner. Perfectly content if only I'd keep petting him and stop eating my own dinner...

Bones

We feed the dogs raw. This means raw meat and bones, with a few veggies thrown in. I've talked about this before but I'm too lazy to find and link to it.

Anyway, when we first got Balou he was used to kibble. He was perfectly happy to switch from kibble to meat. He took to the ground meat and veggies quite easily. He gave me a look the first time I gave him a frozen chicken foot, but they quickly became his most favorite treat ever. Balou seems to prefer chicken and turkey to lamb and beef. And it seems that his giant head is sensitive to cold. So for a while he would growl over his chicken backs and take forever to eat them. But either I've been defrosting them for longer now or he has gotten less picky and sensitive about his food.

It used to be that when I gave him a lamb neck bone and he'd look at me with a look that clearly said "Why you give me weird food??" But he'd slowly and surely eat it. And if I gave him and Trillian beef rib bones... oh, that just didn't work. Balou knew it was tasty goodness, but he just had no idea how to eat it. He tried chewing through the whole thing: fail. He tried biting off part of it: fail. He tried gnawing the meat off: fail as he didn't brace it and the bone slid away. He just couldn't seem to separate the bone from the tasty meat. So he'd guard it, and get growly. And of course by this time Trillian would have finished hers, including cracking part of the bone for the marrow. So she'd be nosing around him and he'd really guard it then.

But about a week ago I decided to try again. I made sure the beef ribs were nice aand defrosted. I planned that we'd work up to them. So dinner for dogs wa some chicken backs for each of them and when those were all gone they each got a beef rib. Both Balou and Trillian ate their chicken backs with no delay. Balou didn't stop to guard his from the dog in the fireplace (his reflection). He just chomped the chicken right down. Balou seemed happy to get the beef rib, he did a tiny bit of guarding but mostly he just went to town on eating it. Trillian was still finished much faster, but Balou ate all the meat off his bone.

So the past couple of nights I've given them both bones as the last item of food they get. They are both happy over this. Though once they are done with the meat there are small arguments about who gets to gnaw on the bone itself. They will each try to steal from the other. But the bones do keep them occupied and happy for quite a while.

Me and Balou

I'm around Balou all the time so it's hard for me to remember that he is a huge dog. He's over 125lb right now. When I pet him I don't bend over, I lift my hand up a bit and put it on top of his head. In the mornings he'll jump up on the bed and lie next to me. When he does that his head is at my armpit and his butt is at my knees. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures.

Here is happy Balou. I'm petting him, and all is well.



Here is Serious Business Dog.

Dog Repellent

Today as we were walking Balou and Trillian after work the people 2 houses up came outside and gave us what for. Apparently Balou peeing on their bushes is Not OK. Despite the fact that their bushes are perfectly green they are displeased about him doing that. In fact they are so displeased that they have had to put out "Dog Repellent." And could we walk the dogs on the other side of the street so their bushes don't get damaged.

This is all a load of crap. Their bushes are fine. We have been walking various dops past their house for years at this point and their bushes look just the same as they always have. The real issue is that the woman who lives there is afraid of dogs. Hence the asking for us to not walk in front of their house.

So now I have done some research on the dog repellent. I'm seeing wet piles of little green granules by their bushes. I think it looks like this product. The active ingredient here is methyl nonylketone, which according to this site isn't harmful to humans. It's a commonly used anti-dog chemical. However I'm not actually seeing any info on its effects on dogs. Hopefully it's not actually harmful to dogs and cats, but given the crap that happened with cat food I have no guarantees of that.

Honestly I'd like to take Balou to leave a giant crap on their lawn every morning. Then they'd understand that really their bushes were fine before.

Dog Park

This morning my ESO and I crawled out of bed. It was very hard. Bed so comfy! And ESO so snuggly. But The alarm had rung and I'd hit the snooze button a couple of times and Balou was doing his wakeup song and dance. So we crawled out of bed and pulled on clothes. We didn't feed the dog, instead we made sure we had cookies and poo bags and piled both dogs and both people into the SUV.

We drove to Ft. Funston. As soon as I opened my door Trillian had opinions. She was sniffing everywhere and trying to fit her head between the seat and the frame so she could get out. When I shut my door and went to the back of the SUV to get Balou out she whined a lot, at least until my ESO opened the side door and let her out.

Once both dogs were out of the car we started our walk. We didn't meet any dogs until we had gone up the stairs. But Balou had to sniff and pee on everything. His aim is still terrible. Trillian just had to sniff everything over. At the top of the stairs there were a whole bunch of dogs. Most of them off leash. Balou and Trillian were pretty well behaved. There was a bit of butt sniffing. Balou still thinks that he is the sexiest thing since sliced bread, which occasionally makes it hard for other dogs to figure out what he is doing.

After we extricated ourselves from the group of dogs at the top of the stairs we followed a medium-short path around the area. Balou and Trillian got to sniff even more things, and we had a very nice view of the cliffs looking over the ocean.

There was another large group of dogs at the fork in the trail that would lead to the cliffs. We headed back to the car, but we had to make out way through and past all the dogs. Again Balou and Trillian were pretty good. There was one wiry haired male dog who got in Balou's face. I'm not sure if he or Balou started growling first, but the other dog got called off by his owner as this is apparently not new behavior for him.

We passed that group and were walking with a lady who had three off-leash dogs with her. Her dogs were all very mellow and calm towards Balou and Trillian. It was rather amusing, her dogs wanted the cookies my ESO and I had, while our dogs just wanted to sniff the other dogs'. But either way it was a good chance for Balou and Trillian to just chill out with other dogs around.

After that my ESO and I headed back to the car. There was a nice stretch with just us on the path, and we made it back to the car with no bad experiences. So overall it was an excellent dog park walk.

Addendum

I'm proud of myself for breaking up that dog fight this morning. It took a non-trivial amount of strength and coordination to separate the two dogs. The Pit was speedy and swinging a 50lb dog one-handed is no easy task. Especially when I'm pretty sure the reason he let go of Balou was so that he could turn and try to take a chunk out of whoever (me) was grabbing his leg.

It's kind of funny how walking with Balou I really have no care for my own safety. I just don't need to. I mean, aside from looking both ways while crossing streets, there isn't anything that is going to hurt me when my 130lb uncut male Rottweiler is with me. Of course all the cares I would normally have for myself translate into worries for him plus extra. This is a prime example. I was not at all worried about the Pit attacking me. The Pit was clearly more interested in attacking Balou, but even if it hadn't been I am confident that Balou would protect me. I love my giant puppydog. I hope I didn't miss an injury on him. :(

Dog Fight!

This morning my ESO and I were doing out usual dog walk before driving off to work. We were just going to go around a few blocks and then head home since we both needed to be at work for meetings.

We were about halfway done and the dogs were both behaving quite well. There had been some attempts to chase a cat at the beginning of the walk but they had settled down after that. Balou was even not pulling against the leash. (Pulling against the leash is something that we're working on not doing.) I had just commented to Shari how nice it was to have Happy Balou.

We had passed a house with their garage door about three quarters up and were halfway past the next house, when a brown and white Pitbull came charging out of the garage door. This Pit was barking and growling and charged straight at Balou. In dog language this is practically a declaration of war. Since I didn't want to have this dog bite Balou in the butt I couldn't bodily drag Balou away. So they met face to face.

The Pit more or less leaped to meet Balou and tried to start chewing on Balou's neck. My ESO told me later that the Pit was probably trying to bite Balou behind the ear, which is a nice soft kill spot. Balou, quite understandably, was none too pleased about this. So they start to fight, though mostly it is the Pit trying to bite Balou and Balou trying not to get bit, and me trying to break them up.

By this time the Pit's owner has run out or the garage chasing after his dog. I'm not really paying attention to him. I try to grab the Pit's collar so I can hold both dogs apart. But the Pit and Balou are both moving too quickly and too unexpectedly for me to be able to grab it. Then I remember what a friend of mine told me about breaking up dog fights. She said that her boyfriend broke up a similar situation where a Pit was trying to chew on their dog by grabbing both of the Pit's back legs, pulling and then swinging the Pit away. I only had my left hand free so I grabbed the back right leg of the Pit and pulled/threw while using my right hand and leg to pull/push Balou in the opposite direction. Fortunately this was enough to break whatever hold the Pit had and get the dogs separated enough that the Pit's owner could grab his dog.

So then we had a small detente. We held all the dogs apart. The Pit continuously lunged and growled at Balou. Balou intermittently lunged and growled at the Pit. I did my best to see if Balou was bleeding, and fortunately I didn't find any blood. My ESO was holding Trillian back at a safe distance from all of this. Trillian was continuously lunging and growling, because she has issues with light colored dogs. The Pit's owner was apologizing profusely. And a neighbor across the street comes out to yell at the Pit's owner. Since Balou appears to be unhurt my ESO tells the Pit's owner to get some training for his dog, and we carry on with our walk.

Once we're home and the leashes are off I do a more thorough check of Balou. Fortunately I still don't find any punctures. Though I do find a bruise on one of his rear legs. However, I don't know if that is from the fight or from him bruising it while jumping up on the bed.

Now I need to profusely thank my friend who told me about how to break up a dog fight.

Steam Cleaners

I think I am calmer now. I'm not sure about it but I hope I am. My calmness was drastically increased this morning when the nice guys from Stanley Steemer showed up.

By the time they arrived I'd already gotten most everything off the floor, and we only had to put the gate up to keep the dogs in the kitchen. It took them about an hour to steam clean the carpets in the living room, hallway, office and our bedroom. They were quite effective. And I think the house smells less like skunk than it did before. I'm not really sure since I think my nose is still on strike. Even if it still smells skunky the carpets are cleaner.

Currently both dogs are sacked out in the kitchen with me. They seem quite happy on the piles of dog beds from every other room in the house that I had to transport into here. Trillian in particular seems pleased to be lying on a 6 deep stack of dog beds and other blankets.

While the steam cleaners were still here both of the guys were quite appreciative of the doggies. And I was so pleased that I got both of them to give each dog a cookie. I think it helped Balou stay non-growly when they did the section just on the other side of the gate. He doesn't like vacuum cleaners, and in the past he has barked at the steam cleaner/vacuum thing. I think it also helped that just as they were doing that section I gave both dogs a chicken foot, so he was suitably distracted.

When it rains it fucking pours

Yesterday I had started to write a "poor me" post, about all the shit that is going wrong right now. It was about how the cat was sick and our 3rd housemate was incompetent and broke her leg while standing up and all the trials and travails involved in someone who is incompetent on crutches. I didn't finish it because it was just too whiny, and I didn't see any way of not being completely whiny. Hell, it even sounds whiny in one sentence.

Now however, I don't give a fuck. On top of all the shit that has been happening this week Balou got skunked last night. At 3AM. My ESO and I only woke up when he came into the bedroom. This was AFTER he had run around the rest of the house dripping skunk slobber and rubbing his skunked face on everything.

So I smell terrible. The house smells terrible. My ESO smells terrible. Balou smells terrible, and will continue to smell terrible for a while. The skunk shot him in the face. The noxious crap hit him mostly on the right side of the face but a bunch also went up his nose. I wiped off his face. He appeared to appreciate the damp cloth on his eye. But there is no way for me to clean out his nose, so for the next month, if not more, he will reek.

The word of the day is miasma. Or perhaps funk. Possibly it is also noxious. As in: the noxious miasma fills our house and sticks to my clothes.

The steam cleaners are coming on Friday. They will bring deskunking chemicals, so our house will smell a bit better, I hope. Until then my nose is trying to commit suicide. Possibly it already has, I can only smell really bad whiffs of skunk odor...

4th of July

My ESO and I had a three day weekend for the 4th of July. We had Friday off. Unfortunately some of the teams that my ESO supports at work are useless pieces of shit. They are entirely incapable of planning or understanding what their requests actually mean. So one team insisted that she needed to have some stuff done for them. This resulted in her working on Friday. :( Suck. I hate that team.

Anyway, Saturday was the 4th. We spent time gardening and mostly watering the lawns. I felt bad doing that because CA has a drought. However, Pacifica allows fireworks. Allegedly there is a restriction on the size, but in practice anyone can get any firework or firecracker they want and fire it wherever they are. So we thought that while it used up water to keep our lawn green/wet it was less water than would be used if the fireworks set out lawn on fire. Especially if the house happened to catch too. Fortunately our lawn watering efforts were not in vain.

This was also Balou's first 4th at our house. It is quite clear that he had not been exposed to fireworks or firecrackers before. He was very disturbed by them all. So while my ESO and I watched Bubble Gum Crisis and then played WoW, we took breaks quite frequently to calm the Balou down. He was like a ping pong ball. A 130lb black and tan, barking and bouncing ping pong ball. After a couple of hours he tired himself out and put himself to bed in his crate. Poor puppy.

On Sunday night there were still a few left over fireworks. And we were in the office then. After a bunch of barking and bouncing he then wedged himself under my desk and laid down at/under my feet. He was clearly asking me to protect him from the bad loud noises. It was quite adorable, though a bit sad.

Dog Walking

When I took him for a walk this morning Balou had a chance to meet two groups of new people.

The first was a an older couple who live down the street. There are two houses and they both do crazy seasonal decorations all year round. They just put their Mother's day stuff away and I think are in full swing with the Memorial day decorations. Allegedly the two houses have some crazy rivalry going and there is some sort of restraining order too.

Anyway they complimented Balou from across the street and I asked if they wanted to meet him. They said yes so Balou and I ran across the street to them. Balou was quite happy to sniff them but was not interested in getting pets. He was much more interested in sniffing their yard.

Then Balou and I walked around the block towards home. We ran into a group of 4 men, I think they were some form of disabled since a few of them had canes. Again Balou was not interested in getting petted, he just wanted to sniff them a bit. He was wasn't precisely shy, just not interested in the pets.

I'm not completely surprised about Balou's behavior. "The American Kennel Club says he [the Rottweiler] is basically a calm, confident and courageous dog with a self-assured aloofness that does not lend itself to immediate and indiscriminate friendships." It is just nice to know that he really is our dog. The very first time we met him he tried to climb a fence to get to Shari and me, and did slurpie us as much as he could. It's nice to see that while he is interested and friendly with new people he is still our dog.

Dog Park Adventures

On Monday Shari and I brought the dogs to the local dog park, Fort Funston. Balou woke us up early and so we decided to just pile both of the dogs into the SUV and go.

Fort Funston is pretty large and has several different places to go to walk the dogs. We got there shortly after 8am and went to one of the less frequented places. Our route was into the park along a path, then up a long set of stairs, then a winding path back down to the bottom of the stairs, and then back to the car. Basically it's a loop, but only about 20-ish minutes of walking.

The leg from the car to the bottom of the stairs was uneventful. Despite the fact that he hadn't had breakfast Balou was entirely uninterested in the treats we had for him. And I'd even gone to the trouble and ickyness of cutting up part of a Natural Balance thing, which is a rare and therefore special treat for him.

We didn't see any other dogs until we were at the top of the stairs. Then we ran into two pairs of them. The first pair was on a leash to each other with their owner nearby. Balou and Trillian exchanged a sniff or two with them. The second pair was loose and much more interested in a couple of crows that were in the trees above us than.

Fort Funston is really pretty and it was a very nice walk. On the downward path we ran into two white poodles and a dog that looked like a Swissy from a distance. However when we got closer the owner told us that the dog was half Great Dane and half St Bernard. It was huge! I'd say easily 160lb if not more. Balou was so confused. He wasn't sure if he should be aggressive or run away or try to play or just sniff butts. It was definitely the first time in a long time that Balou had encountered a dog bigger than himself and the first time ever that he had encountered a dog that large. But both Balou and Trillian behaved themselves. Trillian doesn't usually like blonde dogs or poodles so I was quite happy that she didn't get growly with them.

We continued on our way and ran into a couple more dogs. The only time there was any worry was when we encountered a Shitzu. I am not a fan of yappy little rat-dogs and Balou isn't either. Especially since there is an annoying lady who lives in our neighborhood and has two badly behaved Shitzus. Anyway Balou pulled and I slipped on the sand and had to do some fancy footwork to not do a faceplant on the sand/pavement. But once he got to the other dog he just loomed and didn't do anything bad.

It was actually a pretty good dog park adventure all told. There weren't any bad experiences with people or dogs. And every good experience keeps reinforcing nice dog socialization.

Mini Vacation

Shari and I are on a much needed vacation. It's only a mini-vacation, we'll be back at work on Wednesday. But we're having a nice relaxing time.

Just now we piled the dogs into the SUV and drove to get coffee and tea and pastries. We then went to the local car wash and detail place. There the car was dropped off and will be picked up clean and pretty in an hour or two. Then we had a nice leisurely walk home. Both Balou and Trillian were well behaved on the way home.

Balou the dog

Balou is growing up. I can actually see the dog he is becoming. And I believe Shari when she tells me that he will stop chewing the couch. Which, since we've been more careful about watching him he hasn't done lately. (Of course saying that we're going to come home today to a completely shredded couch.)

Anyway we have a nice pattern in the morning. After the alarm rings for the second time he will jump up on the bed. He used to loom over me and try to slurpie all exposed skin, but now he will lie down next to me and get morning cuddles. Morning cuddles from a 120lb Rottweiler are quite nice. Not as good, of course, as from my ESO. But there is something special about a dog big enough to lie next to you with his head on your shoulder and his butt at your knees. Especially when he is so adorable and rolls on his back and wants belly rubs.

At bedtime we have another routine. Balou sleeps on the floor at the foot of the bed. He knows that is where he goes when we say "bedtime". Just like Trillian knows that she gets to sleep on the end of the bed. It's so cute how he has his own spot that he knows to go to, and will often go to on his own when he is tired and we're still up.

It's good that Balou knows that he spends the night at the foot of the bed and only gets on the bed in the morning. Despite having a Queen size bed, there really isn't enough room for me, my ESO, Trillian AND Balou. It's pretty cramped with Trillian on the bed as it is.

Things

Things have not been going all that great lately. I'm rather displeased about it, but there isn't really a lot that Shari or I can do about it.

For example our couch is now the zombie couch. It started off as quite a nice couch. It was comfy and had a lovely shade of Dartmouth green velvety upholstery. A while ago Balou decided that it was tasty. Very tasty. He will eat it if he is home alone between 4:30 and dinner time. I tried to put cayenne pepper on it, but all that did was cause him to eat the parts of it that didn't have cayenne pepper. So now the couch has random chunks out of it pretty much everywhere, and it's got lots of red splotches from the cayenne pepper. Zombie couch.

We're not going to replace it until Balou outgrows the couch eating stage. Which should be in another month or three.

Dog Class Graduation

Last night was Balou's third and final class with Dog Evolve and their Never Too Late class. He was pretty well behaved for class, he's just about 3 or 4 times the size of any other dog in the class, so they all seem a bit nervous of him. Well, we all learned stuff. And with the stuff we learned we can go on to other classes or personal sessions with the trainers.

In fact possibly next week, depending on schedules, we'll try to take Balou and Trillian to the local dog park. I got some good advice on when and where to go. Because what I'm worried about is the people who are careless with their dogs. Since I've heard several horror stories about inconsiderate people letting their dog aggressive dogs off leash, and dogs getting hurt.

Things we learned/worked on in this past class:
- Verbal only sits and downs. Balou isn't so great at these yet. I think it is just that he is lazy and was more interested in the other dogs at the class.
- Leave it. Balou is ok at this when we walk him, and did pretty well in the class. Though the can of cat food was mightily tempting.
- Go to your bed. Balou already knows and is about 75% reliable with "on a blanket" in reference to his lamb neck bones. The times he is not completely on the blanket he is good about letting me put a blanket under the bloody bones.
- Wait. Or the preliminaries thereof. We worked with just a gate and tempting stuff on the other side. Balou is pretty good at this when we walk, and will wait with a loose leash when we tell him to.
- Recall. We didn't do to much of this, just a few pointers on where to start, and some pitfalls to avoid. The main one being never use your recall word unless the dog will obey or can be made, via a leash, to obey. You want the dog to learn that the recall word means they must come to you immediately.

Dog Balls!

Here are Balou's Balls!

I told you I'd post them. Hopefully no one is at work and opened this at an inopportune time.



No dogs were harmed in the taking of these pics. Though there were lots of belly rubs.

Dog Class

Short Version:

Balou is going to dog class. He is too old for the puppy class, so he is in a basic obedience class for older dogs. His first class was on Thursday, last week. He didn't like the stairs down to where it was held, but once we lured him down he was pretty good. He knows some stuff, and is learning other stuff. And despite all my fears he is actually a really good dog. He was much better than a couple of the other dogs there. And the socialization he got from being in the same room with the other dogs was great for him.


Long version:

About 2 weeks before Christmas Balou hurt his neck. We don't know what he did, but he was in pain. The (emergency) vet we took him to thought that he compressed his neck. This fits in with our suspicious of him lunging at his reflection or barking too enthusiastically out the window.

We were instructed to keep him quiet and give him muscle relaxants and pain relievers. The quiet lasted for a couple of days, before he was bouncy from being pain free. After 2 weeks he was still limping and sore, so we took him to the local holistic vet for a chiropractor appt. The vet had not met him before. She was intimidated. So far, with both Dasko and Balou our experience has been that if the vet starts off asking when we are going to get them neutered then we get inferior vet service. Unfortunately this was no different. The vet asked how soon we were going to neuter him and then got scared when he growled while she was chiropracting him. So he did the appt with a muzzle on. She finished the appt and I took him home.

The next day Balou was still in pain and had started limping on his rear leg. He had an appt a week later. So we go to that and vet insists that we start with a muzzle. She stands directly over him and starts pulling/pushing/adjusting his back. He growls. She stops, and refuses to finish the appt. She starts asking me what we're doing for training. I tell her that I was going to enroll him in a group class. The vet tears into me. "Balou is aggressive." "He can NOT be put in a regular class." "You need to take him to an aggressive dog specialist NOW." "If you put him in a regular class he'll have a bad experience and be worse."

I take Balou home and tell Shari about the terrible vet experience. She tries to soothe me, but I'm pretty shaken up. I helped to deal with Bohdan, our friend's fear-agressive dog. I understand how hard it is to deal with a dog that is aggressive. Various other people comfort me. I set up a 1:1 training session, with one of the trainers before the class he went to last week. We also get a chiro appt with Shari's chiropractor, who also works on zoo animals.

At the training session, a week plus ago, we meet the trainer. She is really great. She explains to me that he isn't aggressive, but is actually frustrated because he wants to play with the other dogs. So we have a nice walk and train with her. And at least half of what she taught was me and how to deal with Balou. Because at this point my confidence with Balou is completely shot, but the training session helped to restore that.

On Monday, just over a week ago, we go to the chiro with Balou. Aside from trouble with the stairs, it went swimmingly. The chiro was completely unfazed by him. She said that dogs growl to tell you where it hurts. Since they have a limited set of communication tools. He snarls at her once, and she stops the chiro, pets him, says he is allowed to growl but not bite, gives him a cookie and then continues. He growls a bit more through the appt, but mostly Shari and I keep him distracted with cookies, so he gets fully adjusted and was not at all unhappy.

/rant
Augh. I'm so mad at the vet for scaring the crap out of me because she was doing a bad job chiropracting and was afraid of Balou. He is a good dog, he's just big! And OH NOES!!!1!!one!!!111!!eleven!!! he has his balls still!! For Fucks Sake people, dogs are supposed to have their balls! It's not a giant scary thing that he hasn't been neutered. And don't try to give me any bullshit about how he will be harder to train. If Balou didn't have a tiny underbite he would be in (really demanding) schutzhund training. He was the breeder's pick as personal puppy to make into the next champion. And trust me the BREEDER isn't going to neuter a potential champion show dog. Since, you know, he BREEDS them, and it's rather hard to do that when the dog has no balls. I swear the next time someone gives me crap about Balou's balls I'm going to look them in the eye and tell them how my dog's balls are bigger than their ever will be. And he isn't full grown yet!! AUGH!!

A Pox on Chihuahuas

A pox on Chihuahuas and especially their stupid clueless owners.

For the past week or two I've been taking Balou out for a run in the morning. I'm gradually ramping up the distance we run, as I need to get in shape and so does he. Right now we're running around the nearby school, and then walking around another block to cool down. In theory this run is supposed to use up some of his energy, but I think it's main purpose at this point is to get him to wake me up so I take him.

Anyway this morning we were went on our run. We were about two streets over when I noticed a couple of chihuahuas coming up the same side of the street towards us. If I'd not been distracted from the dog in the car that had barked at us just before this I'd have crossed the street earlier. But since it was too late I tightened up on the leash and held on to Balou's collar.

The owner of the chihuahuas started to go around us. Then for some unfathomable reason, she stopped. She asked if Balou was friendly, I said I wasn't sure. Because who really knows until specific dogs have met each other. So instead of doing the smart thing and continuing to walk she said her dogs were "rescue dogs" and picked up her Chihuahuas. They, now big and tall, since they were in her arms, growled at Balou. He, of course, growled back and started pulling towards them.

I wasn't braced correctly, so he pulled me over. I was braced a bit so I got scraped on my knee and elbow, but I don't think I badly bruised them. I was too busy controlling Balou to process what the stupid woman said until later. So I missed a good chance to tell her off when she said "scary" and "he needs training".

What the Fuck. He didn't actually give his hair-raising growl. And while he was pulling, he didn't actually lunge. And if she had kept walking this would never have been an issue. Stupid woman and her stupid stupid chihuahuas. I hate it when small dog owners don't train their dogs well enough, and then blame the big dogs.

New Trick

Balou has learned a new trick! He has learned how to catch a dog cookie when it is tossed. It took him a while of watching Trillian, and then a while more of the cookie bouncing off of his nose or hitting his chin. But now if you give him a little bit of warning, Balou will catch the dog cookie in his mouth! So cute!

Uncrated

Yesterday Balou stayed home while both Shari and I went to work. He and Trillian were home alone for a couple of hours before Heather got up and sat in the living room with them. And both doggies were well behaved.

Balou continued to be well behaved for most of the evening. He was a bit pushy during dinner, but we're still working on that. He napped for most of the evening, and when it was time for bed he was all cute and sleepy in the doorway. So Shari and I decided not to put him in the crate for the night.

Balou was such a good boy. He followed us to the bedroom while we were putting on pajamas and laid on the floor. Then once we had both climbed into bed he hopped up and curled up behind Shari's knees. And that is where he went to sleep.

I woke up a just enough to hear him take himself outside at 7am. Normally that is when he starts whining. But this morning, since he could take himself outside, there was no whining. He just took himself out and then came back and laid on the bedroom floor.

At 8:30-ish I got up and fed him breakfast. And then we all went back to sleep. Last night was probably the most restful sleep I've had in weeks. Because he didn't whine and paw at the crate door when we were falling asleep and waking up.

Hopefully he continues to be good dog tonight and we can leave him out of the crate all night again.

Balou and Religion

This morning we took Balou and Trillian for a walk. It was a nice walk with many things for the dogs to pee on and smell. When we got back we found that we had missed a visit by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Unfortunately, they left a flyer stuck into our screen door.

This is what Balou thinks of their flyer.



To be honest that is also what Balou thinks of everything that he can fit in his mouth, and a lot of things that he can't.

Training

So Balou, as previously noted, is pretty much entirely untrained. He has mostly learned his name and kinda knows sit. We're teaching him off pretty quickly. But he needs lots of training and socialization.

Yesterday we took him to the vet. He was pretty nervous and unsure about the whole situation. There was another dog and a woman with a high-pitched voice, that were setting him off. So Balou and the other dog growled at each other through the exam room door. Now as previously noted Balou has a hair-raising growl. Definitely a growl that would scare the crap out of people that aren't sure he is their friend. So the Vet wasn't comfortable with large growly dog.

I just called the Fawn, and left her a message about setting up private training sessions for Balou. I think we need some professional help with the marking, socialization, and general training tips.

Pronunciation

Oh, and we have decided how to pronounce Balou. It is like the "a" in "father". Or like Bah-lou, if it is easier to think of it that way.

Balou is here!

Balou is here, and he is a very handsome boy! He is a sweetie and almost entirely untrained. But he is getting a bit better all the time.

To start from closer to the beginning: Last Tuesday Shari and I drove to Portland. We had a very leisurely drive. We saw lots of Redwoods along the northern coast of Califrornia. Including the Lady Bird Johnson Grove and Trees of Mystery, which was not actually as corny a place to stop as it sounds like. We also got a chance to meet and visit a friend we have played WoW with for almost two and a half years. On Thursday we arrived in Portland, where we stayed in the Hotel Monaco. Mmmm king size bed.

Friday morning we went to Redwood Krest and met Joeri, who owns and runs it, and Balou. Joeri was preparing for a trip to Argentina where he is showing 6 dogs in a world championship. I am guessing it is for schutzhund, but I have no idea. Anyway Redwood Krest is a pretty spiffy operation. Definitely not a backyard breeder. He has 9 employees and quite a large and well decked out setup. There are two different sets of kennels as well as a bunch of pretty big dog runs. He also has a neat setup for the puppies. When they are 5 weeks old they are moved to a 6 foot square room with carpeting. The only way they can get out is a dog door, so they learn pretty early to go out the dog door for their business.

Anyway we met Balou. My first impression of him was that he was filthy. Really filthy. His snout was covered in dirt, his paws were caked, and when Joeri patted his side a cloud of dust rose up. Apparently Balou is a digger, Joeri said his staff is constantly amazed at how dirty Balou gets. Second impression was that despite all the dirt he was a big excitable beautiful puppy. Balou is probably 90 or 95 lbs, but he still has that bouncy and distractable puppy walk.

But Balou was interested in us. He looked at Shari and I and wanted to get pets and give us slurpies. Mostly he wanted to give us lots of slurpies. Joeri didn't want to let Balou and Trillian have any direct contact until we were going to take Balou, so when we got her out of the car we had to keep them at a distance. But they didn't immediately hate each other, and they both made motions indicating they wanted to play.

So we said we'd take Balou home with us. Probably we are suckers. But here is this gorgeous dog, who is clearly pretty smart, and he is languishing in a kennel. His only fault is a very obvious underbite. He is digging so much because he is clearly bored out of his huge Rottweiler skull. So we arrange to pick him up Saturday and I sign the papers. We chat with Joeri a bunch more. It is pretty interesting, because Joeri is clearly a professional and has all the stories. He is very nice to be giving us Balou for free because of Dasko, and is clearly quite annoyed that Balou has this giant underbite. We are told several times that, if not for the underbite, Balou would be worth $15K. Kind of crazy really.

The drive on Saturday was pretty terrible at first. Football is a pox upon Humanity. Especially all the crazy football fans who were in our way as we drove down I5. What should have been a 45 minute section of road was closer to 2 hours. It was excruciating. Especially since the stop and go traffic made Balou sick. He threw up several times. And even weirder, he threw up ROCKS. His total for throwing up was a double handful of gravel. Apparently he also ate the dirt and rocks he was digging in...

After 14 hours of driving we got home.

And found the house a sty. A complete and utter sty. We'd done a bunch of clean up on Tuesday when we left, and had a bit of a late start as a result. We shouldn't have bothered. The living room was piled with clothes and sewing stuff, including lots of shiney pins and needles. The kitchen had both sinks full of dirty dishes and water. Also in the kitchen was bottles and bags of chemicals for cloth dying. In the hallway to the bedroom was piled a bunch of medicines. The garage floor was covered with dirty lanudry. And all of this was a dog nose height, especially the potentially fatal to ingest stuff. Oh, and the back door and all the windows were open, while the heater went at full blast.

So that night poor Balou got put in his crate, and Trillian had a much reduced run of the house. We spent all Sunday cleaning. And got about half of it done. Heather slept the whole day. When we finally were able to wake her up to ask her where to put the medicine she got mad at us. She tried to tell us how she was so tired from cleaning all yesterday. Both Shari and I lost it, since we'd been on our feet for the past 13 hours cleaning up her mess while trying to keep Balou from jumping up, peeing everywhere, and eating everything. We'd also dug and put several 1 ft square paving stones under the side gate so Balou couldn't dig out. So we both completely yelled at her for leaving the house such a mess and then whining when we woke her to tell us where to put her stuff. We weren't even asking her to pick it up, just to tell us where to put it. Argh.

Today was much better, Balou has a mostly reliable sit, and is starting to learn his name. He doesn't get down at all yet. However he is starting to learn enough and watch me. The watch me command is pretty useful to distract him from growling at his reflection. He has a hair-raising growl and is extremely offended at his reflection. It's also really neat to see him learning how to eat bones. He is so confused by them, he doesn't understand just what a meaty bone is and he is missing a lot of the jaw muscles needed to eat it speedily. It took him about half an hour to eat an already defrosted lamb neck bone quarter. In contrast Trillian was done in about 7 minutes.

I'll try to post a couple of pics soon, but for now I need to sleep.

Balou

So in the continuing story of getting another puppy/dog: after Joeri talked with me on Friday he sent me pictures of the 9 month old dog.

I now know his name is Balou. I don't know if that is pronounced Bay-lou or Bah-lou or some much more German or Danish pronunciation.







Either way I think we're gonna take a road trip. It'll be me and Shari and Trillian all piled into the SUV. We'll go to Redwood Krest and introduce Trillian to Balou and Balou to us. If he and Trillian don't get along, well then we can't take him. But if they do we'll see how well we think he would fit in.

Puppy decisions

I just got off the phone with Joeri of Redwood Krest. I told him what happened with Dasko and how the vet thinks that it wasn't a heart defect but just overwhelming infection, and how all the staff at Adobe were quite shocked.

Then I asked Joeri about the 9 month old dog he offered us earlier. I had a decent sized list of questions that I had written down before with help from Shari and Karine.

The first question I had for Joeri about this puppy (whose name I still didn't ask) was is he housebroken. Unfortunately the answer is not really. He has been in the kennel for the last 3 months so he would need watching and training. However he is crate trained.

Next question I had was about bite inhibition. Joeri is not a native English speaker so he wasn't sure what I meant when I asked that. I eventually got my questions boiled down so I got the answer of the puppy doesn't nip. So no real info on bite inhibition, but his bite threshold is pretty high.

The puppy has only a little experience riding in cars, and almost no experience with buses or city streets. Since Redwood Krest is a pretty big kennel he wouldn't have had a reason to leave until later in his training. And he didn't get there before his bite was shown to be not show-worthy.

When I asked how far this puppy's training got I was told that it wasn't very far along at all. I'm taking that with a grain of salt because he would have been trained for Schutzhund. Joeri said that he knew sit, and down, and walking on a leash. In fact his 4 or 5 year old son can take the dog on a walk.

Joeri was very emphatic about how well the dog was socialized and how excellent his temperament is. He did say that as a kennel dog he is a little wild right now, and would take at least 6 weeks to get into our routine. Joeri suggested that we keep him on a leash inside until everyone was used to things, and gradually go from always holding the leash, to having a leash trailing, to no leash. I did ask specifically about our small house and yard and bringing the puppy to work, and Joeri still said that the dog would adjust in 6 weeks and be happy with a routine.

Joeri also pointed out that at roughly 9 months old the puppy is already shown to be free of any debilitating hip defects. Anything truly crippling would have shown by now. That doesn't mean that he won't get arthritis later in life, but that can affect all dogs and even all people.

I asked about what the bite defect was and was told "reverse scissors" bite. Basically the dogs has an under bite instead of an over bite? or maybe it is the reverse of that. Anyway it is nothing that will affect the dogs ability to eat a bone, it just keeps him out of the show ring.

Also Joeri said that he is just trying to find a home for this puppy. Most of the people he sells puppies to want the next championship show dog, and with a puppy with a flaw that will never be a possibility. And because Joeri feels bad about Dasko and wants a home for this dog he is willing to give us the puppy for free.

So now Shari and I need to think about this a bit more.