On Going Naked: For Better or For Worse?

I find it funny how up-in arms people get over minor things about animals. For example: Dressing your dog. I recently read an opinion written about this subject. The person was quite angry and adamant about the topic. He stated that those who dress their dogs up or put sweaters, shirts and boots/shoes on their dogs are treating them like humans and that dogs should be treated as dogs. He felt that if you dress your dog at all the animal should be taken away from you as you aren't letting the animal be itself and that it's dangerous to personify a dog. He said it makes dogs unhappy and it's unhealthy, etc, etc.
He called the people that put clothing on their dogs some awful names and he was pretty upset over it all. He really seemed sincere (except for the name calling and hatred) about animal rights and welfare. Unfortunately for him, he was rude, demeaning, hateful and it was all just over an opinion. AN OPINION. I think how each individual takes care of their dog is based on their relationship with their dog and what they know their dog likes or doesn't like.

Naked

Clothed

                         

Which is best? Naked or Clothed?

If you put scarves and sweaters and booties on your dog during the cold winter months and your dog doesn't protest then have at it! In my OPINION when it's cold outside I bundle myself up with lots of layers, a heavy coat, thick socks, boots, gloves, hat, and scarf. Why? Because it's cold and this winter has been really cold and in order to withstand more than five minutes outside I need a few extra layers. I then imagine Barry going outside with his short hair and nearly bald undercarriage going outside in the freezing weather with piles of cold snow and ice on the ground and thirty mile an hour winds. When it's cold like that we need to limit the amount of time we're outside as much as possible. Barry still needs a walk and he still needs to use the bathroom so we all bundle up (including Barry) because the amount of time it will take will likely still be longer than we actually want to be outside. I imagine if Barry had longer and thicker hair I wouldn't even be writing about this as it may not be necessary. Or maybe I'd dress him up anyway for funzies.

This was for funzies.

Yes, I have been known to let Barry wear my nice royal blue scarf where I wrap his neck and head to cover his ears. Along with that he'll wear one of a few sweaters we have for him or his red puffer coat if it's especially cold out and always his purple booties. So what? Barry doesn't care. He stands still while we get him ready and he's only anticipating going outside. That's really all he cares about. At this point always putting booties, sweaters, scarves and a harness on him is only out of necessity. It's cute, yes. It's also terribly time consuming (the booties are the most time consuming).

When we are in our home we typically let Barry run around au natural. Our condo is warm and dry and there is no need to bundle Barry up inside. If we lived in the apartment we lived in a few years back we might consider keeping a sweater on him indoors (that place was so old and so cold during the winter it was ridiculous). We got lucky with our condo - we've never needed to turn the heat on - ever. It stays a constant 70-73 degrees. We're not 100% sure why but it's fine with us and it keeps us all nice and comfortable, including Barry.

A few times this week it was pretty nice out and we didn't need to put a sweater or booties on Barry. What freedom! Barry could have also cared less one way or the other. He just wanted to be outside. Of course, today is freezing and snowy and windy again so booties and sweaters are back in order.

A less practical reason for having Barry wear a scarf or cute sweater? Because he looks cute in it and it helps make him not so fearsome or intimidating to those that are either scared of dogs in general or scared of Barry because of his good looks.

In the end Barry would probably happily go outside with or without booties and sweaters. However, it means if he's naked outside when it's cold enough he also won't enjoy it as much and probably be ready to go inside a lot sooner. I think when it warms up we'll happily take him outdoors in the nude (not us, Barry). I will put a bandana around his neck and probably buy him a cool lightweight t-shirt or two as well. Barry doesn't care, though. No one else should either.

Does this look like a fella that cares if he wears a sweater
or not? He's happy and that is what's most important.

Three Months Later

Sunday nap time with Dad. Can't smush my face close
enough to his leg.

It has been just over three months since the day we met Barry and brought him home. I think it feels like so much longer than that. Yet, every now and then I look over at him and think how strange it is that we have a dog. I can't believe how much he has transformed our lives. I think if we had a yard in the suburbs or land in a rural area this blog might not have needed to exist. Living in a big city with so many people and other dogs in extremely close proximity, and little room to play means we have to really be on our game. We can't have Barry pulling us down the sidewalk and lunging at other dogs or people (he's never lunged at a person). He needs to be close to us on walks and as calm as he can be. We expect typical outbursts and the occasional excited happy lunge (it's a happy lunge - he's not lunging because he's malicious - he just wants to meet the new dog). He will not be perfect and I will accept that. We will do what we can to make sure that others view Barry as a happy and well behaved dog, and not a mean and ferocious pit bull. Anyway - he's not even a true pit bull. He's already bigger than a "true" pit bull - whatever that even means. "Pit bull" is a mix breed anyhow and Barry is about 5 -10 lbs heavier than what is normal for a true pittie. I don't care what makes up his DNA. I love this guy so much and to me he's beautiful and perfect. Husband agrees and we couldn't be happier.

I started this blog because I like to talk through issues. When we first brought Barry home we had our hands full and the issues kept mounting. I felt like I was imploding. I didn't want to give up on him but that would have been so easy to do at the same time. We see this scenario so often. A family gets a pet and they have unrealistic expectations of what that's supposed to look like (I know I did). You might get lucky and have the most well behaved and calm dog in the world. Maybe you'll never have an issue arise. Chances are, though, that you will have issues. Many many issues. Then the pet gets taken back to the pound or shelter because the family doesn't have the time or patience to give to train the pet. Can you guess what happens to most of the animals that get taken back to the pound or shelter after they've been adopted? I can't even write it down.

This was taken during the days when we were feeling
overwhelmed and frustrated. Just a few days after he
used his face to escape from his crate.

So the blog was born out of my frustration and a need to view our situation from another angle. It became therapy for me and then I would read what I had written and realize that our issues were so similar to many other pet bloggers I started following. I realized that we weren't alone and our burden was carried by many others. It helped me put things into perspective. These issues we were having were insignificant and would pass. This would pass. And it did. Life with Barry has gotten progressively better and easier. He is still a lot of work and he's quite high maintenance but that is because of the situation we've put him in (bringing him to the city). I think it's extremely important to note that he is high maintenance ONLY because we live in the city. It's not because he's actually a high maintenance dog. Sure we'd have work to do with him if we lived in a large home with land in Somewhere Rural America. I can tell you, though, it would be significantly less work.

No matter the weather - in order for Barry to go to the
bathroom we have to take him outside on a leash. We
would love to have a yard and let him run around and
do his thing but we manage okay with the situation
as it is.

I enjoy writing this blog. It has become a good and healthy hobby and the best excuse to take lots of pictures of Barry. Even more than all of that, I hope that someone with the same frustration as we endured during the first weeks of life with Barry find this blog and it helps to bring them through the issues and encourages them to stick with it just a little longer.

We are three months into this now and I wouldn't take it back for the world. We've gotten a lot more happiness from him than frustration and it just keeps getting better. I'm glad we stuck it out.

Thanks for sticking wif me. I wuv you.

Saturday Schmaturday

Last night we ordered in some naughty food. We didn't give any to Barry but we did give him a couple of extra treats.

Onion rings and french fries? Can I try?

Then this morning he woke us rather early (for a Saturday) to take him out to the bathroom. Now he's sleeping like a log. I wish I could do that but now I'm up and awake. I think a nap is in order later on.

Snoozing is easy when you're in a happy home.

Today will probably wind up being a lazy day. It's started snowing again and I think I am going to lose my mind over this awful weather. When will you get here Spring?

Happy Schmaturday.

Happy Friday!

Hiding under the bed and peering out with my terminator eye.

I've been spotted! Pretend to sleep...

Okay. Now wub my belly.

HAPPY FRIDAY!!

A Few Casualties

Barry has been gradually getting better and better at self control as we've been working with him. He will wait to eat his food until we tell him it's okay to come to his mat and eat. He waits to jump into bed with us at night until we tell him it's time. He is doing great at sit stays. He will wait for his toys and look us in the eye until we give him the toy, etc. He's really impressing us! As he's been doing better at all of that, he's also started a strange new 'thing'. Well, it hasn't just now started but it's suddenly become very frequent. Frequent as in multiple times per day and more consistent.

When I start something I stick with it! I'm professional!

I'm talking about taking non doggie stuff and chewing it. Especially shoes! He doesn't chew furniture or anything like that (though we've noticed he'll chew tags off of furniture and rugs). It started innocently enough. We knew we'd need to put our shoes away and probably keep our clothing off the floor, close closets, etc. That was fine. He wouldn't ever really get into our stuff or chew our things while we were home with him. He'd wait until we left to find juicy leather boots, or expensive brand name trousers that we forgot to put away.

Tie seen in first photo above. It has now been selected to enter the Will
You Survive the First Round of Barry's Teeth? challenge.

He's claimed a number of items of mine. A pair of cheap flip flops, a pair of black flats (that were quite pricey and I'm sad I'm going to have to buy another pair) and almost a bathing a suit. It was a new bathing suit I bought for our trip to Puerto Vallarta. I was able to sew it as the damage wasn't fatal. Yesterday was a pair of cheapish black boots that I've been wearing around since it got cold. He got the back heel of the boot. I think I might be able to super glue/hot glue it back together. We'll see.

Mmm... Shoes. Now you can't leave for work!

Here is a pair of rather pricey boots that belong to
Husband. Luckily Barry only chewed the top ankle
portion and husband was able to get them fixed.

Husband has had more expensive casualties than I have. So we've learned throughout the months to put our stuff away and NEVER forget to leave something out that he'd want to chew on. Except when we're home. When we get home we usually just take our shoes off right by the door and work clothes land near the dirty clothes basket or in it (depending on our aim). Now, even our normal routine has to change a little. No more leaving shoes by the door. No more tossing off work clothes onto the floor. No more dirty kitchen towels lazily thrown on the floor by the washer and dryer. We are on high alert now.

See the two toggle sticks? They used to have grip pads
on them but Barry chewed them off. Not fatal but
annoying.

What's this? A kitchen towel? Don't mind if I do.

The kitchen towel seen here in Barry's lair along
with his hoard of toys and a random bath towel.

Barry is realizing we are throwing all of these really great things onto the floor and if he picks them up right in front of us and runs away to the back room with them we follow and it becomes a game! It's so fun!! Yay!! MORE attention! He also enjoys chewing so it's a win win for him! We wind up running after him and depending on the item it can be quite humorous. Though, we are trying not to laugh. We don't want him to think we enjoy this! We don't really. Barry is just a funny dog and he's trying to lighten the mood and make us laugh - that is his personality. He is also looking for more attention from us and he knows how to get us going.

More attention, please!

We have been using one of two methods to make him 'drop it'. The first thing we do is pick up one of his toys and this usually works pretty well. When this doesn't encourage him to drop the item then we get a treat and wave it at him. We don't give him the treat but we swiftly grab the item and walk away. I prefer not to have to get the treat out and tease him but we don't want to lose any more of our things. Yesterday I also realized that just saying the word treat invokes Barry to listen and drop the new chew item.

This is another thing he's started doing. He's such a faker. As soon as you
notice he looks sad and go over to him he rolls over and starts
hamming it up.

We'll talk to the trainer about this new chewing phase and see what she has to say about it and what we can do to show him to leave our things alone. Until then we'll put everything out of sight.

Training: The Tip of the Iceberg

EHANWUJPY4PS
With anticipation of the behaviorist visit we were all in high spirits. I didn't really know what to expect with the trainer. I was happy she was coming to our home and from there I didn't know what else we could anticipate.

More training? As long as I can have treats!

When she arrived I knew she was going to be awesome right away. Barry promptly greeted her and then stuck his face in her bag. She asked a few questions and the first part consisted of all of us talking about Barry and getting to know one another. She ascertained that Barry's age is closer to a year and half rather than 2 as we assumed. That actually was a kind of a relief to hear. She also mentioned that he has a lot of puppy-type behaviors and it's very typical for that age group. Also, dogs aren't considered adults until they are 24 months old. The initial meeting/consultation with her was so informative and really gave us so much to think about and feel good about.

Listening closely to my new instructions...

We started with a marker word - yes. She showed us how to do this and it seemed to work well. Then we moved on to eye contact. Barry is alright at eye contact but as I've mentioned in previous posts he does okay sometimes and not so much other times. It's iffy once we are outdoors. As we worked on the eye contact method inside we noticed how quickly Barry was figuring this all out. He got it quickly and we marked the eye contact with 'yes' and then gave him a treat. After that we put him on his leash and walked him around our living area. She showed us some correction techniques (a simple back up and stop/wait), and a targeting technique as well. The target is for getting Barry back to your side or wherever you want him to be by using your palm. He comes to your palm and taps it with his nose and he gets a treat. That has been the most difficult thing we've worked on with him so far. He hasn't been able to completely understand the target technique yet but it's improved and with more practice he'll get it.

Going for the 'target'.

Getting a reward for hitting the target!

As a bonus she showed us how to set a boundary with Barry when playing tug-of-war with him with the rope toy. Usually tug-of-war consists of us holding to one end of the rope and Barry yank, yank, yanking away until it comes loose from our hands and then he goes off to chew it. He doesn't like to give up the rope. If you pick it up he'll jump at the rope thinking you're playing with him. With the new technique Megan showed us we hold the rope up and do not allow Barry to begin playing with it until he looks us in the eye (which he got nearly immediately).

Don't look at the rope... don't look at the rope...don't look at the rope...

And the reward for keeping eye contact:

Then we hold tight to both ends of the rope and Barry gets the middle. We do a bit of back and forth tugging and then say, "Drop it." If he drops it we say, 'yes', then give him a treat and then start over again to play. If he doesn't drop it we put the rope in between our legs to steady it and make it not so fun for Barry anymore as the rope is steadied and not giving to his tugs.

At this point he'll either drop it or continue to tug at it. If he lets go we turn away from him and the game is over for the moment. If he doesn't let go one of us intervenes with a treat to lure him off the rope. Once he has let go we'll again turn away from him and the game is over at that moment.

Husband's back turned to Barry and Barry staring at his
reflection in the sliding glass door.

He has done really well with this, surprisingly. He's not perfect but he's shockingly close.

I think Megan stayed for around 2 hours. We went with a training package from her because Barry will need a few more sessions and we'll need to learn some more things. She'll come over on Sundays for an hour and show us more techniques. I'm totally stoked about it too.

Overall - the consultation session turned out to be partial magic. Partial. We still have to work with Barry on all that we learned and be consistent with him but literally the day after her first session we were so impressed with Barry's behavior on walks (still pulling - that hasn't changed yet) that we had to fight back tears of joy. Barry has been an amazing addition for us. He's also been a great challenge. In the end it's the work we put in that is revealed in how well Barry does. I'm so excited for the next steps!

Kaput!
Once we were done with all of our practicing and working on new
techniques this is what happened to Barry. Yes, he is a mouth breather.

Training: Behaviorist House Call

Now that Barry went through an obedience course that we all learned a lot from we wanted to really work on his loose leash skills. The obedience course barely touched on loose leash walking and the trainer thought Barry walked well by our side at the time. He didn't. Not really.

I'm sorry I don't walk well on a leash. It's just not
natural to me to do this. Be patient, please.

Husband has said many times (sort of, kind of, not really jokingly?) that he will need surgery to repair the damage caused by Barry pulling so hard it yanks his shoulder out of place. Barry does pull hard. That hard. We have used the methods we've learned and were shown and maybe we just weren't consistent enough, or didn't use them properly. We're not entirely sure what's gone wrong. There has been progress in some ways. For example, he pays attention to us more often during the walk. It started out that he wouldn't even realize we were walking him. He was zoned out and focused on anything but us. The obedience course did show us the 'Look' command or 'Watch'. This is meant to bring his attention back to us. He knows now if we say, "Look" he will have to look at us and he'll get a treat or praise. Sometimes he still doesn't look at us but sometimes he does. It's better than nothing. It's been getting better but he still pulls like a motha. I mean it. This guy is a bull. His body is built to pull weight I think.

With the Spring and Summer hopefully upon us we'd like to take him on long strolls through the park, around our neighborhood and by other dogs, to pubs and restaurants with outdoor seating, in general just walking down the street without him being so leash reactive to other animals that it scares other people, and last, to let him play with other dogs that are friendly and have owners that don't mind their dog meeting Barry. We likely will never take him to a dog park but we will encounter dogs at public parks, on sidewalks, and other various public spots. I'd just love to be able to allow Barry to meet other dogs. As it is now we only allow it under certain circumstances. He's just too darn leash reactive. We certainly don't think he needs to be perfect. I'm not perfect myself and I'd never expect that of another person much less my beloved baby, Barry. We do want him to be less rude, though.

So it came that we would need someone to help us with his walking and some of the behavior he exhibited while on walks, towards other dogs, and those squirrels. We looked into a couple of things. There are some more courses we could take. People that do specialized obedience training, training for pit bulls, etc. Some were cheap and even free and others were outrageous and would require Barry to be at a boot camp for two weeks. We don't really think Barry needs an entire overhaul, just some redirection. We are the ones that really need to figure out what we're doing wrong and how to change that as well.  We decided if we could get a trainer in to come to our home and and work with Barry in his environment and all of the usual distractions (rather than at a class in another location) it would be highly beneficial.

I don't really wanna leave to do training. Okay?

Our dog walker recommended a behaviorist she used for her dog, Rose. I immediately contacted the behaviorist, Megan, and we were set an appointment for a house call. She is local, makes house calls, is highly recommended and her price is right. With realistic expectations (because please, never have unrealistically high expectations, you set yourself up for disappointment) and a touch of hope we awaited her visit and we all had a bit of pep in our step.

Next up on training: The Tip of the Iceburg