Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Feeling It
It’s been over two years since I retired from commuting to a day-job and yesterday was one of the few days in that span of time when I fully felt the liberation of not being tied to a work schedule. Sure, I’ve thrilled repeatedly over no longer feeling dread on Sunday nights, but those have seemed like small victories.
Yesterday morning, I didn’t change my routine with the shift of clocks to Daylight Saving Time. It felt liberating. Around lunchtime, Cyndie, Asher, and I hopped in the car to head for the lake place. Leaving on a Sunday night to go up north felt rather decadent.
We can go to the lake any day we’d like. We are retired. And I am feeling it.
With only ourselves to accommodate, I enjoyed the luxury of ordering a cheeseburger and fries “to-go” from a nice lakeside diner along the route to fulfill a craving that usually goes unmet. It’s often not the right time when we pass by or there are time constraints, or some other random obstruction that prevents stopping there. Finally getting what I always think about when we pass that restaurant made it taste even better.
There was no traffic heading our direction, though we passed a fair number of cars returning to the Cities. Many of them were carrying muddy fat-tired bikes after a weekend of riding CAMBA trails.
There does happen to be a method to our madness for being here on a Monday. Some work on the house is scheduled to start this morning by a contractor that Cyndie arranged over the phone. This will be a chance to meet him in person and be on hand in case any issues arise in the replacement of a bottom chord truss under the eave on the lakeside of the log home.
Being the only ones up during the week this time of year feels a little disorienting. We can make a mess of the house and not be in anyone’s way.
Actually, the place looks a little like the empty mansions in the movies with covers over the furniture. Cyndie didn’t want Asher to shed on the couches.
There aren’t enough people around to occupy the furniture so he thinks it becomes his responsibility.
I doubt he’ll have any time to rest with strangers working just outside the windows all day long. I expect they will need to be barked at with gusto.
It’s either them or the squirrels.
I think maybe Asher is feeling the same as us. Seems to me this feels a lot like being retired.
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Mamma’s Back
Asher is very excited to find that Cyndie is back in his life again. When the garage door rumbled to life last night, Asher sprung to his feet from a dead sleep. We were up in the loft watching Minnesota’s State High School Hockey Tournament. Well, I was watching. Asher was napping.
We got along well enough in Cyndie’s absence but Asher knows who the real momma is. Now he can get back to playing us against each other to get his way when he wants something.
I’m looking forward to having a break from being the full-time dog trainer that I’d rather not be. That’s not because Asher isn’t making good progress with the things we are trying to teach. I’d just rather not be constantly thinking about the process and whether I am saying and doing all the right things at the right times.
My brain is in entertainment mode with the glorious spectacle of the High School Hockey Tournament games showing on TV. I’m really impressed with the level of play from these young athletes. More than their physical prowess in skating and stick handling, it’s the good decisions they make that stand out. Plus, there isn’t an obvious difference between the best lines and the “not-as-best.”
Also, the goalkeeping is incredibly sharp.
The only thing missing is a tournament snowstorm. That used to be a thing. Not so much anymore. Certainly, not this year. I saw that the planet just experienced a record for the world’s warmest February which was also the 9th month in a row with record temperatures. Seems like a trend.
If that keeps happening, it’ll hardly be worth the trip to Florida in the winter. I really like having occasional opportunities to get a taste of living alone when Cyndie is gone but speaking on Asher’s behalf, he would definitely prefer having Momma not travel.
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Big Gusts
Even though the temperature reached the mid-60s (F) yesterday, the strong winds and general cloudiness kept it feeling more like spring than summer. The dramatic gusts got to be a little intimidating at times. The sound of air racing through the branches of our pine trees can get downright spooky.
Asher is always checking the scent that rides the wind from the properties south of us. It leaves me curious about what he picks up. My first guess would be cats.
I can’t imagine he was able to pick out anything particular from the gales yesterday that were strong enough to flop his ears back.
By late afternoon, my weather app warned of lightning in the vicinity. That was the first time in months I’ve seen that. According to the radar, storms were popping up right overhead and quickly blowing off to the northeast.
As we walked through the woods earlier, I struggled to figure out if there were any new trees tipped over among the ones that have been leaning long enough that I should recognize them by now. They all look alike after a while. The sure thing is when something comes down across one of our trails, like this one did:
From its appearance, it had been long dead before being blown down. Dead trees that haven’t been knocked down yet are, per what Steve R. taught me, “vertical firewood storage.” Now I’ll have to convert this to horizontal stacked firewood.
Asher took great interest in inspecting the base and the hole it exposed after succumbing to the wind.
The wind kept blowing after dark last night so I will get another chance this morning to test my memory of pre-existing widow-makers when Asher and I head out for our usual routine in the next hour or so. I will not be surprised if there are more new “leaners” today than there were yesterday.
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Asher Fixates
A couple of days ago, back before weather conditions turned Arctic overnight, I let Asher lead an off-the-trails exploration through our woods. He stopped at this downed tree and began frantically chewing on it, I’m guessing because he detected some delicious-smelling critter hiding in the middle.
There was nowhere else I needed to be so I granted him full freedom to gnaw away to his heart’s content.
It was a pretty big tree. I thought it looked like a lot of wasted effort but Asher chomped away with a confidence that indicated satisfaction with the progress he was achieving.
I started to get bored watching him work so I read some news on my phone and played my turns on “Words with Friends.” Asher continued to attack the tree trunk with reckless abandon.
I thought about sitting down nearby to rest my eyes for a while. Asher looked like he was willing to bite off splinters until he reached what I assume he hoped would be a chewy center. I always respect his determination.
He outlasted my patience. I began to wonder if he was choosing to stay at it out of embarrassment over the possibility of giving up before he got to the hollow center. Maybe interrupting him is what a friend would do.
I pulled out a treat and waved it in front of his nose. When he turned in my direction, I began walking away with it. Asher followed me, but I would describe it as begrudgingly. It worked though. I saved him from any embarrassment.
We made our way toward the perimeter trail in search of other adventures.
The next day, when we found ourselves bushwhacking in that same vicinity again, that tree held no interest to him whatsoever. Maybe no critters were at home by that time.
Or maybe it’s just that Asher’s fixations are fickle.
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Crash Landing
The high temperature yesterday was another record for February, climbing into the 60s(F) in the afternoon. It is so disorienting. Stepping out to walk Asher without wearing a coat on the way to feed the horses felt so bizarre. It’s still winter here.
In fact, the forecast is showing a quick change is due, with a 70% chance of snow tonight and temperatures in the single digits by tomorrow morning. A day or two after that, the prediction is for a return to near 60° again. I’ve seen the word “rollercoaster” used several times to describe this week’s weather.
The warmth added a spring to Asher’s step as we ventured down the hill of the backyard. I often try to trot along behind him so he can exercise his legs with more than just walking. Occasionally, he gets me running a little faster than my breathing can support and I end up anchoring his fun down a notch.
That routine did not play out so well yesterday due to a combination of factors, the most significant of which was the soft and slippery footing of the thawing ground.
Asher was perked up by the summery warmth and picked up speed down the yard’s slope. I tried to keep up with him but things quickly turned problematic. He was beginning to outrun me and by the time it was too late, I discovered I didn’t have the footing to counteract his increasing velocity. Putting it simply, my brakes were out.
Since he felt no resistance, Asher just kept gaining speed which triggered a series of “No… No… No, no, no!” cries from me as I stomped and slipped along toward my unavoidable fate. I knew I was going down and in those fractions of seconds was trying to have some say in how it would play out, but the footing just wasn’t there and I couldn’t get any control.
It was a pretty spectacular fail. Landing with so much unhindered momentum drove me into the ground hard, grinding up the wet black dirt into my belt and the pockets on the left side of my pants. I smashed my glasses against the ground and wrenched my shoulder as it took the bulk of the initial impact.
Two things probably saved me from more serious injury than just the sore shoulder that resulted: I landed on the shoulder with a permanent type III separation (old flag football injury) and the ground was thawed enough to be rather forgiving.
The clavicle on my left shoulder floats free of the scapula. The lack of a hard connection between the two meant the impact didn’t all go into my collarbone. Instead, I think the worst of the blow dissipated throughout soft tissue. If the ground had been frozen, I might have landed much harder. Of course, if the ground was frozen, I could have planted my feet to stop the momentum.
Today it feels similar to having had a vaccination shot in that arm. That’s nothing that will put me out of action, which is a good thing because Cyndie just left yesterday to visit her mom in Florida for 10 days.
I suppose I should be a little more cautious than usual until she returns.
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Vine Interruption
What started as a typical walk through the woods with Asher yesterday afternoon suddenly shifted on a whim to become an industrious “de-vining” effort. Because it is easy to navigate off the beaten paths this time of year, I frequently allow Asher to wander wherever his nose takes him. Sometimes he turns me around enough that I lose my bearings. Asher can bring me to spots where I’ve never stood before.
In one such spot, I noticed a trunk of grapevine that was thicker than my wrist. We have a general policy of favoring our trees over opportunistic vines but some of these in the center of thick growth have evaded our notice long enough to become monstrosities. The problem is that the rare times I discover such huge vines I don’t have the tools with me to do anything about it.
Yesterday, I decided to act on my chance. With Asher unknowingly tagging along, we marched the long walk back to the shop to get the small chainsaw trimmer and then back again to take on the large, woody vine trunks.
There were more than I realized. In every direction I turned, there were additional branches of the serpentine limbs either climbing another tree or putting new roots into the ground. With the power of that saw, I severed the link between every large chunk I could find.
I’m not sure what I will do with them, but I brought back a couple of trophies from the wildly twisting large sections.
I had tethered Asher to a nearby tree while I worked to find as many of the aggressive tree-climbing troublemakers in sight. Upon exhausting myself of the effort and returning to collect him, I found Asher gnawing on a bone he had found near a large hole he had dug.
I sensed we both headed back to the house with a similar air of accomplishment.
Now, if I can somehow maintain the surveillance in that thicket throughout the coming growing season, that would be just great. Otherwise, they will just return with a gusto unmatched by all the many plants we actually prefer to see thriving in our forest.
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Family Funnest
I find this precious and true: the combination of extended days together where food, activity, laughter, late-night conversations, and early-morning lingering builds unique familial bonds. We are having a fabulous time.
It was so much fun that Asher fell so soundly asleep that he was left all alone in front of the fireplace after all the people had moved on to somewhere else.
I’d say more except…
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Training Advice
We decided to pay a local dog trainer to stop by our home to meet us and Asher, to see some of his behaviors first-hand, and to advise us on what we could work on to improve his compliance in a few problem areas. She makes it sound so easy.
The good news is that we obviously have achieved success in a variety of areas, which the trainer framed as a good sign we should be able to apply the necessary focus and repetitions to train even more desired behaviors.
It will serve me well to get Asher to the point of being able to soothe himself in the house. I’m looking forward to some exercises where Asher will be tethered beside us but will get ignored until we are ready to interact with him. I feel more confident about allowing him to fuss after the latest assurances from a professional.
Dog trainers exude a confidence that I lack when it comes to interpreting dog behavior. After witnessing some of Asher’s behaviors yesterday, our visitor said it was akin to a toddler not getting their way and having a minor tantrum about it. When I am unclear about reading dog behaviors, I give them unhelpful feedback that rarely leads to outcomes I prefer.
Asher will be two years old this month. He has lived with us for just over 9 months and we have made good progress in training him to respect many commands. He will continue to grow out of his puppy rambunctiousness and we will continue to teach him behaviors we require him to master.
I’m feeling optimistic, even though I wasn’t interested in being a dog trainer. It feels a little like taking medicine. I don’t like it but I know it’s good for me.
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More Training
After the recent banishment of Asher from the canine playtime facility for his aggressive behavior, we are endeavoring to return our attention to obedience training. Asher has also begun to disregard (or overrule) our attempts to keep him from climbing up on visitors. We’ve noticed he becomes obsessed with returning repeatedly to try putting his paws on guests while we struggle to redirect his focus to something acceptable.
Last night we watched a webinar from a trainer we are considering and saw that we should train him to better respect our space. That is very logical but it won’t be easy for me to tell him “No” when he shows up at my side (or on my lap) seeking affection.
At 75 pounds and with a long enough body to stand taller than us, Asher is far from being a comfortable lap dog. That hasn’t stopped him. He likes to climb on top of me in the recliner while I am occupied with my computer. I think he was proofreading one of my blog posts in that picture.
As with most dog training issues, it isn’t so much that we need to train him as we need to train ourselves.
If he finds his way to lying down on my lap, I feel happy to have a warm companion for as long as my legs can stand.
It’s different when he obsessively approaches visitors. It’s as if he is demonstrating a need to assure them that he is the boss of them. It doesn’t feel that way when he decides to nap on me.
We also learned that we should avoid ramping up our energy when we command him to keep all four paws on the floor. There is definitely room for improvement in that regard. I’m actually looking forward to practicing more non-verbal gestures to communicate what we want him to do. We align completely with the trainer’s philosophy of teaching a dog to think about the results of his behavior more than simply responding robotically to a command trigger.
What would be more fun for him: pulling against the leash as we stand firm or coming back to us to seek direction? When returning to us brings a treat, one can see where a smart dog would begin to recognize which behavior is preferable.
If Asher wants to nap on my lap, I am not inclined to object, but I am not a guest he needs to respect. I’m family and weak against his superior levels of persuasion.
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Blessed Calm
While it lasts, we are currently enjoying the blessings of calm serenity with the horses. The temperatures have softened, blankets have been removed, no illnesses or injuries to speak of, and all four have settled into a smooth routine of eating their feed out of hanging buckets.
Yesterday, they even got all of their hooves trimmed without incident. Cyndie was away for the day and I was responsible for getting each of them into their halters. For the first time in my experience, not one of them backed off and made me try multiple times for cooperation. Each horse stood firm and allowed me to fumble with straps, latches, and my limited reach around their tall necks.
I think they were being nice for my sake.
They have also been behaving surprisingly well at feeding times. The four of them take up positions in the spots they originally chose for their feed buckets, with only an occasional need for us to coax some relocating.
It is particularly rewarding on days when they step up in advance and calmly await their buckets. That usually coincides with no-fuss eating, devoid of shenanigans or excess spillage.
It’s a scenario where everyone wins.
While things are all well and good with the horses, our dog Asher has gotten himself into a little trouble at the doggie daycare place. We’ve been happy about him having somewhere to occasionally go where he could interact with other dogs and free us for a few hours. He has spoiled that with a second offense of not playing well with others at the place in Hudson.
As a result of his aggression against another dog yesterday, he has been banished for good from the facility.
Not everything was as calm as it seemed.
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Relative Something 