Fixing my life: The River Project
Today is the first day I've had in the office since... December, maybe?... when I haven't been scheduled with clients. I specifically and on purpose tried to keep Tuesdays and Thursdays free for working on projects. Working "on" the business instead of "in" the business. Time to think, which for me looks like going for a long walk and/or getting to the weight room to workout and/or blogging. To reach for the creative problem-solving version of me, instead of the overworked technician version.
So first I'm going to tackle the easy one. What's wrong with my relationship with my dog, and how can I fix it.
What do I want to happen?
If River were a perfect dog she would follow me around on a heel and always be enthusiastic for whatever I wanted to do, so long as she could be with me. Except she wouldn't NEED to be with me, she could also be with her boy or with my husband or, for that matter, happily hang out at home and not destroy the place. She would come every time I called her. She would stay in sight of me when off leash. She would bark when someone came in, but not rush the door or put her hackles up... unless I wanted her to. Or perhaps she could put her hackles up from a distance and then resolve it at once when I called her down.
So, what ways is she already perfect? She's absolutely beautiful. The right weight, perfect face, strong and healthy with a shiny coat and not smelly. She is always happy and playful (except when someone comes in the door unexpectedly.)
What ways am I making progress? What am I doing that is working?
She is really learning to walk on a heel, so long as I work with her on that. I recall, when I think about it, that Ela used to lose her good heel if I went a couple of weeks without walking places with her where she had to behave. I've gone back to doing training walks a couple of times a week when we walk Tall Boy to the bus stop. After Tall Boy gets on the bus I keep walking up the busy central artery street for a few blocks with the dog on a heel, then let her relax when we head into neighborhoods (but still on the flexi leash) and then when we get to the park I take her off leash and throw her a ball for a half mile of trails. Then we go back on the flexi leash for a combination of heel and relaxed walk back to the house another 1/4 mile. She is really starting to get the commands, and the play time with the ball is good re-enforcement for the mile on a heel that came first. (We had been doing this last fall, but she was too anxious to play and couldn't be good for the first mile, then winter came and I abandoned this. I'm glad to have it back in the mix. A two mile walk before work doesn't harm me any, either.)
She is responding to training on the "come" command, too, since I've spent the last two weeks re-enforcing it with treats and enthusiastic praise. I am still shocked that she could lose central core training like that, but it might be another case of just forgetting how long it took to get Ela to be well-trained. The good news is that the hand commands for sit and stay are coming back at the same time.
She happily sleeps in the locked crate in my son's room. She needs to be fed at 6:30, though. It'd be nice if she could sleep *a bit* longer, but that's when we're up 5 days a week.
I have been leaving her at home alone on week-day mornings for the past week and going home for her at lunch-time and that works both in the sense that she isn't destroying the house but also gives me some dog-free time that I've been needing. (The Constantness of ALWAYS having the monster puppy with me was bugging me.)
What is NOT working (and what could I do about it)?
I don't want to bring her to the same vet I had with Ela and Shitty Kitty. She is up for shots soon, I need to find her a new vet.
I haven't made any progress whatsoever on keeping her in sight of me. She is just so full of adventure and wanderlust! I'm being boring, filling water jugs from the rain barrel, or sitting at my desk working on the computer; she can (and does) think of more interesting things to do than just hanging around me. It's really frustrating to me that I can't be outside gardening with her. The tie-out is broken (by her) and I can't garden if I'm carrying a leash, nor do I really want her to be restrained like that. Today I stuck her in the truck while I laid down grass seed because she kept going over to the asparagus bed to eat all the stalks. So we got this radio-controlled collar thing and we need to spend some time setting it up and training her on the collar. Perhaps this week-end. We can also fix the tie-out.
I am annoyed that I can't leave her in the office to head over to the gym next door. I just don't know what she'll decide to do; knock over plants, get up on the counter where we keep trash, go nuts if someone comes in... I haven't felt like I can leave her, but I really do need to leave the office without her once in a while. The solution to this might be to bring the extra crate over that we have at our house (thinking we'd crate her on the porch, but really we'd just leave her in the kitchen/livingroom which we've fairly puppy-proofed. Leaving her for an hour in the crate could certainly work. Maybe I can set it up in the work room?
I need to figure out how to teach her to lower her hackles when I approve the visitor. I could probably figure it out myself, but I haven't yet and I would like to get this solved, so perhaps I hire a dog trainer to come and show us this in the office. My husband knows dog trainers, perhaps he can hire one.
I would occasionally like to be able to go away for the day, just a day trip into Boston or whatever. I'm going to have a bunch of day trips up to the cottage to clean between tenants this summer, it'd be nice to be able to take my family with me WITHOUT the dog. (Believe me, the dog is not helpful to have around when I'm cleaning as she sheds one step behind me.) I need to line up someone to do a 3:00 romp with her. There is a family with a bunch of kids across the street that moved in last year, perhaps engaging the neighbor kids to do occasional pet care would be helpful. I should make a point of reaching out to them. Now that the business isn't in the home there isn't as much of a security issue preventing us from giving keys to neighbors.
Okay, that seems manageable. Look at me, fixing my life!
So first I'm going to tackle the easy one. What's wrong with my relationship with my dog, and how can I fix it.
What do I want to happen?
If River were a perfect dog she would follow me around on a heel and always be enthusiastic for whatever I wanted to do, so long as she could be with me. Except she wouldn't NEED to be with me, she could also be with her boy or with my husband or, for that matter, happily hang out at home and not destroy the place. She would come every time I called her. She would stay in sight of me when off leash. She would bark when someone came in, but not rush the door or put her hackles up... unless I wanted her to. Or perhaps she could put her hackles up from a distance and then resolve it at once when I called her down.
So, what ways is she already perfect? She's absolutely beautiful. The right weight, perfect face, strong and healthy with a shiny coat and not smelly. She is always happy and playful (except when someone comes in the door unexpectedly.)
What ways am I making progress? What am I doing that is working?
She is really learning to walk on a heel, so long as I work with her on that. I recall, when I think about it, that Ela used to lose her good heel if I went a couple of weeks without walking places with her where she had to behave. I've gone back to doing training walks a couple of times a week when we walk Tall Boy to the bus stop. After Tall Boy gets on the bus I keep walking up the busy central artery street for a few blocks with the dog on a heel, then let her relax when we head into neighborhoods (but still on the flexi leash) and then when we get to the park I take her off leash and throw her a ball for a half mile of trails. Then we go back on the flexi leash for a combination of heel and relaxed walk back to the house another 1/4 mile. She is really starting to get the commands, and the play time with the ball is good re-enforcement for the mile on a heel that came first. (We had been doing this last fall, but she was too anxious to play and couldn't be good for the first mile, then winter came and I abandoned this. I'm glad to have it back in the mix. A two mile walk before work doesn't harm me any, either.)
She is responding to training on the "come" command, too, since I've spent the last two weeks re-enforcing it with treats and enthusiastic praise. I am still shocked that she could lose central core training like that, but it might be another case of just forgetting how long it took to get Ela to be well-trained. The good news is that the hand commands for sit and stay are coming back at the same time.
She happily sleeps in the locked crate in my son's room. She needs to be fed at 6:30, though. It'd be nice if she could sleep *a bit* longer, but that's when we're up 5 days a week.
I have been leaving her at home alone on week-day mornings for the past week and going home for her at lunch-time and that works both in the sense that she isn't destroying the house but also gives me some dog-free time that I've been needing. (The Constantness of ALWAYS having the monster puppy with me was bugging me.)
What is NOT working (and what could I do about it)?
I don't want to bring her to the same vet I had with Ela and Shitty Kitty. She is up for shots soon, I need to find her a new vet.
I haven't made any progress whatsoever on keeping her in sight of me. She is just so full of adventure and wanderlust! I'm being boring, filling water jugs from the rain barrel, or sitting at my desk working on the computer; she can (and does) think of more interesting things to do than just hanging around me. It's really frustrating to me that I can't be outside gardening with her. The tie-out is broken (by her) and I can't garden if I'm carrying a leash, nor do I really want her to be restrained like that. Today I stuck her in the truck while I laid down grass seed because she kept going over to the asparagus bed to eat all the stalks. So we got this radio-controlled collar thing and we need to spend some time setting it up and training her on the collar. Perhaps this week-end. We can also fix the tie-out.
I am annoyed that I can't leave her in the office to head over to the gym next door. I just don't know what she'll decide to do; knock over plants, get up on the counter where we keep trash, go nuts if someone comes in... I haven't felt like I can leave her, but I really do need to leave the office without her once in a while. The solution to this might be to bring the extra crate over that we have at our house (thinking we'd crate her on the porch, but really we'd just leave her in the kitchen/livingroom which we've fairly puppy-proofed. Leaving her for an hour in the crate could certainly work. Maybe I can set it up in the work room?
I need to figure out how to teach her to lower her hackles when I approve the visitor. I could probably figure it out myself, but I haven't yet and I would like to get this solved, so perhaps I hire a dog trainer to come and show us this in the office. My husband knows dog trainers, perhaps he can hire one.
I would occasionally like to be able to go away for the day, just a day trip into Boston or whatever. I'm going to have a bunch of day trips up to the cottage to clean between tenants this summer, it'd be nice to be able to take my family with me WITHOUT the dog. (Believe me, the dog is not helpful to have around when I'm cleaning as she sheds one step behind me.) I need to line up someone to do a 3:00 romp with her. There is a family with a bunch of kids across the street that moved in last year, perhaps engaging the neighbor kids to do occasional pet care would be helpful. I should make a point of reaching out to them. Now that the business isn't in the home there isn't as much of a security issue preventing us from giving keys to neighbors.
Okay, that seems manageable. Look at me, fixing my life!