It's just a dog

That's how younger-taller brother feels about Conker.  Just a dog.

Last night younger-taller brother was in my room harassing Conker, as usual, and he asked me "What would you do if someone stole Conker?"  I glared and said "Anything."  "Even pay a thousand dollars?"  He asked. "I'd go into debt to get him back."  I reply.  "I wouldn't"  He says.  "It's just a dog.  I'd just get another one."

I tried to explain to him how Conker isn't "Just a dog" to me but he is a thickheaded fuck who thinks he's right, always, and wouldn't listen to my reasons.



And today, I caught Conker in the kitchen with Mom.  I don't want him in there since he begs and eats stuff he shouldn't.  I found a grape and some grape vine things on the ground and asked Mom if she saw Conker eat one.  Asshole brother says "So what?"  I told him grapes are poisonous to dogs and again he is a douchebag.  "Sasha eats grapes and hasn't died yet."

The best part?  After telling him that dogs shouldn't eat grapes and why, he has the nerve to say this.
"Well if I'm eating grapes and Conker wants one, I'm going to give it to him."
Enter choise words.
"It's just a dog."  He says.

So if you hear about a murder in Grant's Pass, it was me killing my fucking idiot of a brother.

Probiotics

Conker gets a probiotic with every protein change or when introducing new ones.  I've found that simply giving him new stuff without it can and most likely will result in problems. The addition of a probiotic has made that almost never happen, so I pony up and buy them for him.


The first probiotic I tried is Ark Natural's Gentle Digest and it worked very well.  The bottle cost me roughly $13 from my favorite St. Louis pet store and contained 60 capsules.  It's active ingredients are simple: Bacillus Coagulans (Lactobacillius Sporogenes) and Chicory.  Inactive ingredients are: Dicalcium phosphate, gelatin, magnesium searate and rice flour.
The ANGD contains not only probiotics (spore stuff) but prebiotics as well (chicory). 

The second probiotic, which got it's first test today, is Futurebiotics Longest Living Acidophilus.  This bottle cost under $10 at local grocery R and has 100 capsules.  It's got a few more active ingredients: Lactobacillus acidophilus,  Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Bifidobacterium longum and Lactobacillus sporogenes.  It's inactive ingredients are: Modified celluloce, ride powder, beet fiber, vegetarian stearate and silica.

The FLLA doesn't have a prebiotic and has a couple questionable ingredients.  However, I haven't been able to find ANGD anywhere here in GP yet, and I'm not a fan of ordering stuff online so I went with something I could find that looked okay.  We'll see how well it did with tomorrow's poop, and if it's so-so, I might try adding chicory root and see how that goes, since I hear that chicory root has some amazing affects on a dog's digestive system.

Siblings can be stupid

Younger-taller brother who is visiting for the summer is messing Conker up.  How?  He allows Conker to beg, something I had almost gotten rid of.  He allows Conker to lick, obsessively, another thing I'd almost gotten rid of.  He grabs, picks up and pets Conker, who, DOES NOT want to be touched by younger-taller brother.

Does younger-taller brother listen to me when I tell him no to do these things?  No.
He argues.

Now Conker begs, licks, and shies away from strangers.  He will follow people with food around and sit very close to them and stare.  If he doesn't get food, he'll begin to lick them and not stop.  On walks, when we happen upon strangers he will shy away or run.  The last one is really getting on my nerves.

Conker's got that stranger fear issue I've been working REALLY hard to sort out.  I don't want him to seek out strangers, or want to be pet, I just don't want him to try to escape.  And I'd gotten him about to that point, and now he's slipping back again.  The other day we walked past a woman who he's walked by before without incident and freakin bolted away from her.  She didn't even know he was there.

All because of younger-taller brother.  He's really beginning to piss me off, and he's barely been here a week.

Yumm

Today Conker got: Chunked pork, chopped chicken heart and gizzard, beef liver and kindey and a turkey wing-tip.  Along with his usual glucosamine/chondroitin/MSM, salmon oil and probioitc.  Which I need to get more of, he's got one left.

Guess what this means

What do you think this expression, stance or look means?  What is going on out of the shot to make Conker sit like this with what look on his face?

Clicker = loose leash

So as you may or may not know, I clicker train Conker these days.  He walks at a perfect heel, normally, because of the clicker.  I don't care if he ranges out a bit but he chooses not to, since he knows if he sticks close, he gets treats.


In the past, pre-Conker past, I've tried almost everything to get a dog to heel or even walk with a somewhat loose lead.  This was before I knew better, and here is my summary of these methods.

Stop n' go:  Every dog I've done this with gets phyched up and runs/pulls harder or frustrated.  Doesn't work.
Stop n' direction change: Same as above but more intense. Doesn't work.
Stop n' ignore:  Dog will ignore me as well, range out to sniff and pull.  Doesn't work.
Choke chain:  Just flat out doesn't work.
Flat collar/normal corrections:  Dog doesn't notice light corrections, dog doesn't like normal corrections, dog gets nervous or doesn't understand why they're getting pulled around. Doesn't work.
Clicker:  Holy shit how come I didn't try this first?


So if you can't tell, the clicker is the only method I've gotten to work where a dog will reliably heel and keep a loose leash.  I might have been doing the other methods wrong, I doubt that though, and while I've gotten loose leash before none of it was reliable and the dogs would break it if they wanted or got psyched up. 
I use the loose leash method on this site and thankfully Conker and the Girls are all food motivated.  If they weren't I don't know what I'd do.


Conker LOVES Zuke's treats and will do things he doesn't really want to for one.  I don't even really need to click with him anymore since he just sticks to my side like glue now.

Juneau... She really likes TOTW so I use that.  And while she wants to please, she gets riled up REALLY easily and tends to lock onto things and completly shuts me out.  Very frustrating, but we're working on that.

Sasha... Click + food = I'll do whatever you want just keep the clicky thing working.  I got her to heel on the first try where Juneau still wants to shoot ahead.

The Rabbit Warrior vs The Crafty Shiba: Beginnings

The Rabbit Warrior dons his red Apple Armor as the Crafty Shiba approaches.  He huddles close to the ground to avoid being seen, but alas, his terracotta fur betrays his presence on the lush emerald grass.  This new enemy has a keen eye.

The Crafty Shiba stalks up to the steel fence, slipping into a sphinx-like posture when close.  He studies the Rabbit Warrior, safe behind his movable wall, his thick Apple Armor appears unpenatrable.  The Crafty Shiba rethinks his method of attack, opting to wait instead of act.

The Rabbit Warrior also studies his opponent.  He has met his kind before, the Black Ones, but they are nice and do not try to chase him.  Will this new one be the same?  The Rabbit Warrior sheds his red Apple Armor and greets the curious Crafty Shiba from behind the steel fence.  He knows he is safe in there, but will the Crafty Shiba try to chase him anyway?

Tune in next time for part two of the epic story.



In other news:  I've had it with my digital point-and-shoot.  It doesn't focus correctly, won't zoom, turns off at random times and is generally a pain in the ass. 30+ year old Mintola film SLR, you've got a full-time job now!  (gotta find some film first though...)

Fun dog park day

Today was a nice day, so there were naturally a lot of people at the dog park.  Hank and River were there, and a mix puppy I'd met once before.  The Mini Aussie Rocket (who tried to hump my leg) and Shadow were there, the Westies showed up, a 7 month Siberian Husky was there...
There were 11 dogs at one point.  It was fun.

Conker got along with everybody, as usual.  The owner of the Siberian was knowledgeable on the breed, unlike most people who get Siberians, and was fun to talk to.  I'm hoping she'll come to that park more often than the other dog park she goes to more often.

After most of the people left it was me and Conker, River, Parker the Poodle and his Lab friend, then two people came in with their dogs.  An Australian Shepherd who was a sweetie and a full blooded Catahoula Leopard Dog named Harley.
That was the highlight of my day.  Harley was awesome!  She was so neat to watch, her colors and patterns were amazing and her owners were very nice people who were surprised I even knew what Harley was.  Conker, much to my amazement, actually let them pet him!  A woman and man whom he'd never met before, he let them unleash their love on him.  Full-on scratches and rubs, kisses, everything.  That was something right there, and that made me very happy to see.

Sadly I didn't get any pictures of any of the dogs since I was so busy talking and watching them play.  But I did get this shot of Conker heeling as we walked home.

Kinda hard to tell that he's walking beside me, but if you notice my shadow's legs, he is right between them and the sun was at an angle that made that right beside me.

Lucky and Star want to go for a walk

I took this a couple days ago when I walked Lucky and Star for Mom's friend Jill.

I found something.

It's raining outside and as usual, Conker followed me into the garage.  He didn't go outside though, because it's not lightly raining, it's actually raining, and he doesn't go out in actual rain.

Anyways, this is what I found.

The date stamp on the picture means I was eleven years old.  I had gotten Jake 17 days before the picture was taken on my birthday.  I had Jake for exactly two years and one day.  He was a great dog, very smart, but developed food aggression towards my siblings and eventually began to bite with no provocation.  He gave my brother a scar, and pinned my youngest sibling to the ground when they walked by a bone that was nearby him.  We were not a dog savvy family and didn't know how to handle this and couldn't afford a trainer, so we had to give him up.  I do not like talking about what happened with Jake in person.

I'm now twenty two years old and again have a dog with food aggression.  But it is not directed at people, it's only towards other dogs.  I now know how to work with this aggression aimed at dogs, and people, and wish we could have handled Jake's situation differently.  If we had, I would probably still have him today, but I don't.
I do still have the tag Jake is wearing in this picture, it's sitting on my desk right now.  I play with it all the time and sometimes carry it around with me.
I never really knew why I kept it, but now I use it as a reminder to always give my best and never give up on a dog.