Round Up

November was like a black hole. I started out the month with a pretty reasonable list of goals, and I got none of them done. None! Not in the blog, not in my dog training, and not even in my non-dog life.

So I’m going to post a mishmash of things and get caught up.

First, because one is sitting next to me right now, I want to tell you all that Nylabones now come in peanut butter flavor. Both the original and chicken flavored ones have enough chicken in them to flare Silas’s allergies, and for some reason the bacon flavored ones only come in the “extra tough” type. Silas does a good enough job tearing up his mouth with the regular ones. (I’m really of two minds about the Nylabone for exactly that reason.)

Secondly, Silas just got a very positive evaluation at the behaviorist. I’m so happy! When the receptionist asked the vet if we needed to come back in for a recheck, she said, “Oh, just keep in touch.” Meaning, we don’t have to go back again in six weeks. We’re going to adjust his medication a little bit, but she thinks I can handle the training stuff from here.

In that same line, Silas is making great progress with the Relaxation Protocol. You have your dog lie down on his mat and relax while you do increasingly harder things over a span of weeks. It’s well calculated to include something bound to set off almost any dog–clapping your hands, counting out loud, jumping, walking away, disappearing from the dog’s sight, knocking on the wall, or (our nemesis) ringing the doorbell. I’ll write more about this separately tomorrow. The doorbell thing was hard work.

I’ll end with some proof that white dogs are hard to photograph. So cute! So overexposed!

Yes, I know his coat is comically small. His bigger, newer, much nicer coat sends him into a depression so deep he can barely walk at all, let alone go to the park.

So what’s going on with you all? I’m about to start making my blog rounds to see what all I’ve missed!