You can both plan it and play it.

Hee. That's what I meant, I just left off the playing part, by mistake.

Sadly, I don't think I can do either though, because I will be out at the end of the week.

smonster, I was interested to read, on that wiki page, that studies show happy dogs are less susceptible to bloat.

Sadly, one of Bartleby's good friends, Fred, died of bloat 6 months ago. It is true that he was a more worried than happy dog.

I wonder what the correlation really is.

I never spend that much money on shoes unless they`re Docs. But Docs last forever so you have amortize the cost out, which means by now I`ve spent about ten bucks a year on my current pair. I thought I was tossing them when the laces wore through and the pull loop broke, but it turns out those are trivial things. New pair of laces, another three good years so far. I love them because they have the paint splotches from painting this house on them.
 
I was feeling all hormonally lonely and shit, probably from reading Anne of Green Gables books too many in a sitting, but I`ve got my head on the dog and the SO is chattering to someone on the phone in the other room, and here you all are.

t tacklehugs Liese

No lonely for you, missy.

I have been Ms. Procrastinator Procrastipants this weekend and am staring forlornly at the very small pile of grading I did get accomplished and the much larger pile I did not. Sigh.

Bonny, I have a question for you. Kaylee is super well socialized and loves everyone she meets, but she definitely has that herding instinct to reach out and grab every new person; she doesn't intend to nip them, but she does grab their scarves, their skirts, their jeans...which often leads to accidental nipping. She has great bite inhibition, but she's a big pup (62 lbs of German Shepherd and counting--she's only 10.5 months old), and people who don't know her understandably get freaked out. Do you have any advice?

Pix, you can work with Kaylee's instinct by giving her an activity she can succeed at. Teach her the 'take' command by putting an object she is likely to grab in front of her. When she does so, mark and reward that behavior.

Then, teach her 'no take' or 'leave it.' That means asking her to wait before putting her mouth on anything. (including her food...this is a HUGELY important behavior to teach)

Bartleby didn't nip, but he DID put his nose on every living person on the street. It was awful. So, I taught him leave it, and I trained him to come back to me when I saw someone I thought he might nose. The good news is that he stopped touching everyone. The other news was that I had to teach him to 'say hi' (by running up and sitting in front of a person I was okay with petting him). He got so good at NOT touching people, we had to codify when that behavior was okay.

As with every behavior you don't want, the best strategy is to ignore it (thereby not stimulating it) and teaching a better, preferred behavior instead.

Pix, here is a follow up.

Ask a bunch of friends to volunteer as test dummies for Kaylee. Go to a park or somewhere neutral and have one or two people walk near her. When she grabs at their stuff, have them stand stock still, look to the sky and NOT move, speak or stimulate her in any way.

You may want to supply the clothing for her to bite at, rather than asking them to risk their own.

The point is to break the 'toy' of people squealing, pulling, yelling or in any other way rewarding her grabby behavior.

If she was grabbing at the leash, I'd have you attach two leads and immediately drop whichever one she put her mouth on. This causes the toy to 'die' and become uninteresting. Within a matter of a day or two, she would stop grabbing the leash because nothing good comes of it.

Also, if you play tug with her at home, stop it immediately. If she has a high prey drive, she should play tug with other dogs, but not with people. If she wins at tug, it feeds into the prey drive in an unhelpful way.

You may want to google herding pens in your area that accept dogs. We have several within 90 minutes of DC where you can let your dog herd goats or sheep for 30-45 minutes. One of my clients takes her two Shepherd mixes and, for days afterward, they are both wiped out, it drains them so effectively.

A tired dog is a well-behaved dog...and your puppy needs more exercise than anyone with two feet can give her!

Running a bit late, but GO KATHY!!!

Timelies, all. I like whimsical shoes, but never buy them for myself. It's a hangup from the days when I could afford one pair of pumps, one pair of flats, one pair of sandals, and one pair of sneakers in a given year (or, for a while there, over 2-3 years). So I bought plain black shoes for work, as they'd go with most of my wardrobe. Now that I'm not quite as constrained I should probably add a pair of red fluvog mary janes or suchlike to my wardrobe.

Wow, I am feeling sluggish and blegh this morning. I hope it's just Monday and not the onset of something or other. Maybe I'm just coming down from the high of a really nice weekend.

bonny, he seems a bit lethargic and floppy. But he did have a very stimulating weekend, so I'm not sure what's worn out and what's lethargy. He walked fine last night and his poop was mostly solid with a bit of diarrhea at the end .

My roommate who used to work at a vet looked at him last night and thinks he's just uncomfortable from overindulgence. Next time we go visit, I will be asking my aunt to put away all the chew treats.

I only wear black shoes. I occasionally buy other colors, but really, I only wear the black ones. Ah well.

I am playing hooky! OK, actually I'm taking a sick day because I'm actually sick and it's negative degrees out, and I have an unrelated doctor's appointment this afternoon, but still. Not going to work. Man, I feel like shit, and am not sure I can handle going to the store for drugs.