DIY Dog Gate

So one of my dogs is nine years old and for most of that time I've used those crappy plastic and wood tension baby gates. For a few months when I first got that dog I used a 4 foot tall piece of plywood that hung on hooks on the door frame to keep her in my kitchen. She just jumped baby gates. Eventually, I graduated down to stacking two of them, and fast forward to now when I can just lean a baby gate across the door and she mostly won't cross it. The problem with the gates was me, and how I always assumed I could clear the baby gate because moving it was too annoying. It was of course just that extra inch too high for my second foot to clear easily, and I tripped over it a number of times, but notice it never made me move it. My other dog was also terrified of them and panicked if one hit the floor and wouldn't come near the door if they were there.

Then a few weeks ago someone (miraculously not me) went over one with a bucket of water and spilled it all over my living room. I'd just taken apart an ikea bed frame at my cousins and saved the boards that made up the mattress support because why not. They were just about perfect. I added one on each side to anchor the gate to and spent two hours fiddling with some others to make the gate. I knew I wanted it tall enough that I'd have to open it, and it had to be easy to open. I also spent some time making sure it was level so unlike every door in my house it will stay open or closed without being latched. I added a small barrel lock to keep it closed, but the dogs aren't super interested in pushing it. I may paint it white, but I really like the look of it. And I get to throw out my bent baby gates now. Ignore the foam in the background, it was also from the bed deconstruction and the dogs are getting more comfortable beds out of it.

My Unbelievably Good Dog

So, Tuesday morning while being coerced (read told repeatedly then dragged so she'll stop whining at me and bouncing around) out of my bedroom Toka got a toenail stick in the threshold of the door. I thought is was just a broken nail and after getting her to stop bleeding all over the house (really, everywhere), wrapped it up to keep out the dirt until I could check it and put a dog boot on it. I got stuck working and finally looked it over last night. Mind you she hasn't been touching it, or chewing on it, and wasn't limping. I cut the wrap off and found she actually split one of her nails and has to go to the vet, to have it dealt with. That's not the interesting part for me.

My dog, who needs to be sedated for vet visits so she doesn't injure herself or anyone else, put up with standing in my bathtub with her injured foot in a bucket of water, for quite a while. She put up with my poking and prodding to get all the dried blood off so I could actually see her foot. She let me dry it, wrap it back up and put the boot back on and has gone back to ignoring her foot. I expected her to pull the boot off the moment she was left alone. I'm extremely impressed with her behavior. There was some grumbling, and I did need two people (thanks Mom!) to put the first wrap on, but wow.

She did just start limping this morning and at this moment is sleeping the sleep of the drugged while I wait for vet appointment time to come. (last time it took over three hours for her to start falling asleep, this time it was barely an hour, I might ask about lowering her dosage so she freaks me out less, she'll still be a little loopy tonight I expect.)

Update: $55 later the nail is clipped and the dog is fine.

Daily Photo - Nose

Another 12-18 inches of snow in the forecast. I wonder where we're going to shovel it.

Daily Photo - Snow Dog

My neighbors are having the snow in their parking lot hauled away by dump trucks and a bulldozer. It is driving the dogs nuts and has been going on for 3 hours now.

Daily Photo - Toka - Happy New Year

She really wants a hot dog.

Daily Photo - Snow

Finally.

Daily Photo -Toka

Toka holiday attempt. I did go on a hike this morning which my sister insisted I do when I admitted I had taken almost 200 photos of my cat yesterday. More on my freezing dawn hike later.

Daily Photo - Toka

Out of 70 pics yesterday, only one came close to nice. I have to stop pretending cloudy is bright enough.

Daily Photo - Peaceable Kingdom

I declared Juicy out of quarantine 2 days ago. That meant I could move her tank upstairs to the nice warm rooms rather than the cooler living room. However I don't quite have a specific spot yet, so she's hanging out on my bedroom floor. I think my dog's might be getting too used to the other critters. Juicy is also in need of another bath as she shed for the second time in as many months on Monday, and I didn't catch it early enough to shift her onto coco fiber like I wanted, so she has some stuck shed again.

Daily Photo - So Happy Together

Anyone who has met my dogs would know this is significant. They're both in the same picture and neither of them is looking possessed. Admittedly it isn't an awesome picture, but I can try harder now that I know their constant battle of one up man ship can be interrupted if I have hot dogs. Most of these attempted pictures devolve into a dog wrestling match.

Daily Photo - Look I Went Outside

Toka and some afternoon sun.

Daily Photo - Nails

Daily Photo - Rain, Rain, Go Away

Boomer would like the rain to leave so he can go on walks. Personally I like not having to keep wondering how much longer everything can last without water.

Daily Photo - Dog

If my day is going as planned, I'm now sitting at the car shop waiting for my brake pads and a few other things to be done. It's a good thing I like my car.

Daily Photo - More Dog Walking

This was today's haul from about 2.5 miles of my walk. I skipped the Town Center but noticed more trash there now that I'm looking for it. Number 1 item is a bud light can, flattened or still whole. There were even 2 liter bottles. I took all the cans I could see flat or otherwise though I didn't cross the street for any of them. So this is just one side of the street. I didn't pick up anything but cans and the occasional complete bottle. I left a number of perfect plastic bottles that had water or something else in them. There are also still huge numbers of cigarette packs and such. Maybe next time. Boomer put up with it okay. He's not a fan of plastic bags at all, so didn't like heeling to avoid people with the bag over his head. I'm sure plenty of people though I was nuts, but I just couldn't stand the trash anymore.

Walking the Dog...

I've been working myself up to 3 miles a day walking. My goal is higher but I'm working on this for my trip to Utah. I want to be able to hike for good chunks of time before I need to rest. So far I'm using the time to work on Boomer's leash walking manners. I might have a dog yet I can walk down the street without having them try to jump any dog they pass to play with them... I have come up with a lot of complaints about my walking location. I live in a nice town, low crime rate and such anyway. Due to a bunch of people voting for it (not me, I view it as a ridiculous waste of money) the town redid the Town Center during the last few years. Pretty trash cans are on every corner, brick is now in the sidewalks that kind of thing. The Town Center does look nice provided you aren't planning on driving through it. Less than a block in either direction though and I'm finding the trash excessive. Too many Bud Light cans and water bottles along the sides of the road. Now I'll admit some of this could be getting blown out of recycling bins on trash day (only way to explain clean large juice bottles really) but it's freaking everywhere. Every time I walk I spot at least one new beer can and water bottle. And what is with throwing cds from cars. Was the music really that bad??? I walk a fairly heavily trafficked commuter route, so I expect at least a little of this is from drivers. Do people think this stuff biodegrades or something??? Once Boomer gets a little more reliable about wanting to foray into the street I'm going to bring a bag with me and at least pick up the flat cans and water bottles, because it's driving me absolutely nuts. And the freaking dog waste. If something comes out of your dog what makes you think someone else wants to clean it off their yard everyday??? Do I like picking up after my dogs? Nope, I find it fairly unpleasant, however I know someone else would find it more unpleasant to try to clean it off their shoes on the way to work. I seem to spend a lot of my walk time staring at the ground. I've been rather unimpressed with some of the drivers too. I make an effort to cross at crosswalks with walk signals. On smaller roads that don't have that I use the basic crosswalks that you see on just about every road. If there isn't a crosswalk I wait, and jog across the street during a clearing. I don't expect drivers to stop for me if I'm not in a crosswalk. However if I am in a crosswalk, by STATE LAW I have the right of way. Yesterday I was crossing a smallish street and had a car come within two feet of hitting me because he wanted to get into the 'shortcut' side street. When I started to cross it was clear. Mr red car had been sitting in traffic farther down the street but had decided to pull into the oncoming traffic lane, zoom up and try to turn left before any cars could hit him. He couldn't wait for the three cars in front of him to pull up enough for him to just turn. There was also a car pulling out of the street, which he almost hit as well. Mr red car zoomed up and was mighty annoyed I was in front of his car and that he had to wait. I've had other cars zoom past behind me by the same 2 foot margin. I know it's horrible that I keep blocking traffic for those precious 5 seconds it takes me to cross half a street. Why is everybody so impatient. The world will not spin off its axis if you don't get to work at the time you were supposed to. It's called planning ahead. Rather than leaving with just enough time, give yourself an extra 5 minutes and you won't be late again. And please try to remember that all those other people are in the same boat as you, trying to get somewhere, though hopefully at least a few of them are on time, so are less impatient. Maybe I should just change my route. And sorry it went kind or ranty...

Daily Photo - Spectators

Apparently Abby has figured out click means food, so now I have two spectators for training Boomer, since I borrow his clicker for the cat. Abby will also settle for hot dogs, even though she wouldn't touch them just two days ago.

Daily Photo - Clicker Training Revisited

Last weekend I convinced my cousin to bring one of her dogs over for a play date sort of thing and it went well (She has two small dogs that have a tendency to redirect frustrations at each other, so understandably she was a little concerned about one meeting bigger dogs.) I suddenly became interested in training my dogs again. They know the basics reliably, sit, down, leave it, drop it, ball, Frisbee and a few other besides. They're both iffy at stay, passable at come, and one knows more tricks but ignores them rather regularly. For the last few years having two meant one was freaking out in the other room while I was training the other one. Boomer especially has a little breakdown if left alone without another person or dog. I know I can fix most of their irritating behaviors, it would just take some time. I especially want to remove Boomer's tendency to jump on people when they stop petting him. Early this week I picked up this book off the new books shelf at the library. I skimmed it, and got a few ideas. I pulled out my two clickers, which conveniently over time now make very different noises. One has a nice hard click and the other has a lazier one. Turns out the dogs have zero problems knowing which is theirs and will sit in the next room behind a gate quietly waiting their turn. I of course had to write their names all over each clicker to keep me from messing it up. I decided to look up clicker training specifically and found some more books. I got two out of the library, the theoretical one Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals and the more instructional one Clicking With Your Dog: Step-By-Step in Pictures. I noticed later the instructional one is put out by the author of the other one. Both books said the true way to use a clicker is shaping. I'll admit I'm guilty of luring quite a bit. Only one of my dogs really has any idea how the shaping works. The other will just sit there and stare at me until I give him some kind of clue (Poor Boomer.) Since getting the books at the beginning of the week I've gotten both to touch a target stick on cue, touch my hand on cue, sniff things I point at and one to go through a hula hoop (Boomer is too afraid of the hoop so far to put more than his head through.) Both are much better at their existing behaviors, though I've realized I only taught Boomer sit, down, move, leave it, drop it, get out and ball. He just learned those so quickly with luring I got lazy and stopped. Toka has sit, down, roll over, paw, spin, over, move, up, off, leave it, drop it, catch, Frisbee, ball, closer, get it, bring it and get out. Both have added touch, hand and sniff, with Toka learning an alternate spin and hoop as well. My eventual goals are rather strange for each dog. I want Toka to reliably do things like spins when we play frisbee and I want Boomer to stay in the bathtub once I start running the water so I can wash him inside rather than walking 3 miles in the rain every few weeks. (He loves the tub, he used to shut down in it, but now he loves hopping in, but not the water part, that I did with luring.) The bad part about reading two books about clicker training is I now have goals in mind for one of the cats and the bird. However since I'm using Boomer's clicker the dogs need to be hanging out in the yard for me to train either of them. Otherwise he sits and the door whining and carrying on, another example of why I'm liking having different clickers. I want Max to spread her wings on command and I'd like Abby to stand all the way up on her back legs ( I might give up and try high five though.) I'm going with hot dogs, sunflower seed chips and tuna fish as rewards and tuna fish seems to work much better than cat treats with Abby. Maybe I'll even manage to get that 13 yr old loony cat to stop chasing Abby all over the house.

Yard Cleaning

With all the snow and rain I've been quite lazy about cleaning up after the dogs. I spent an hour or so this morning filling 5 trash bags. I'll probably need to fill two more before I consider it done. This cleaning led to my first fungus photo of the year.

Daily Photo - Relax

Nothing sleeps like a tired dog.