Icicle Beard

Today we walked the bike path again. It was only 19 degrees when we left the house! We met a German Shepherd mix who wanted to play at the ball fields. They ran and ran chasing each other around a spruce tree. So funny! By the time we arrived home, I noted that he had icicles in his beard! So I had to take a picture.

Camera day

We went back to the bike path today with camera. New snow was falling, but the beauty of two days ago had dissipated. I did take a movie of him doing a come from being distracted. If you watch the beginning closely, you will see that he is happily sniffing the ground, then suddenly looks at me attentively before I have said a word. So I missed capturing him from a “cold start.” Come!

I took a few shots of him in the park, but I should have used a flash since it was overcast and snowing. This one taken in our yard when we arrived home turned out better though still could have used a flash.

Then he found a lawn sprinkler behind a holly bush which I had forgotten to put in the garage in the fall. So you get to see a little catch-me-if-you-can game. The Gingerbread Man

Why didn't I take my camera?

Some one turned off the global warming switch and winter has descended upon us. Yesterday we had a blustery day called “wintry mix” – freezing rain, sleet, and snow. It was too yucky for anything except a double “prom” (aka promenade) around our property. Today, it is only 17 degrees with enough sun diffusing through a layer of clouds to create bright spots and shadows. I donned my winter dog walking outfit: purple sweatsuit, super warm double-layered purple jacket, purple windproof pants, purple Uggs, topped off with a black neck scarf tied across my nose and mouth. My warmth was not in question.

Guinness and I set off for the nearby bike path. I was concerned about how slippery the walk might be, but the frozen precipitation on the ground is a hard crust of ice and snow dimpled by sleet creating fair traction. Our normal destination on the bike path is the ballfields. If no one is around, I drop the leash, allowing him to wander, dragging the leash behind for easy retrieval if necessary. When he is distracted by something, I pull out treats and call, “Come!” from across the field to test his recalls. He races barreling towards me and does a front sit. He has become so used to this drill that, after wandering on his own for a while, he will stop, stare at me expecting a come command. If I don’t respond promptly, he bolts without being called and sits before me expecting his treat for being such a good boy. I can even allow him to wander out of sight, and he will still respond with enthusiasm.

We usually cross the soccer field, round the baseball diamond, then cut behind the row of trees, mainly spruces, which create a secluded walkway. Today, as we took that turn, we were facing the sun. Guinness’s dark brown body ran over the white snow creating a striking contrast (winter is the best time to take a chocolate lab’s photo!). The deciduous tree branches, laden with a thin coating of ice and arching over our path, were loaded with tiny bulbous diamonds sparkling due to the soft glowing of the sun directly ahead. The snow was something I don’t think I have ever seen in my sixty years! It was as if Swarovski crystals had been finely ground and dusted over the landscape. Blue, green, and red glints were dazzling my eyes! Even if I had had my camera, I don’t think I could have pulled it out, turned it on, and snapped in time to catch that fleeting visage of brown dog on white snow with diamonds over his head and under his feet. It is doubtful that the amazing glistening crystal snow could ever be captured on film or CF card. But it is in my memory – a phenomenal sight!

When we arrived home, I looked to see if the Swarovski fairies had sprinkled their magical crystals in our yard, but they weren’t there – only colorless clear sparkles twinkled.

A New Greeting

“Have a Guinny Day! (That means bouncy, happy, loving, fun filled and nutritious.)” My husband wished that for me today. Ü

You ask: what does Guinness eat that is nutritious? Carrots! While he was in his fancy obedience school, we started training him to lie under the table and be a good boy while we eat meals. At first, we used the mini-treats used for training. We wanted to get away from using treats, so we started giving him ice cubes, which he loved. For some unknown reason, we gave him carrots instead of ice cubes once. That did it. He would not eat an ice cube during dinnertime again. He insisted on carrots.

Just yesterday I was wishing we had never started this treat-while-eating business. If we forget to keep giving him a carrot, he will sit. If we don’t notice him sitting and waiting for his next carrot, he will paw at one of us. How do we end this?! We have created a vexation.

The power of suggestion through thinking

I heard Guinny prancing around making funny noises. When I walked out of the den, he raced from the dining room – his favorite place to chew on things he shouldn’t have. There were rippled pieces of white plastic on the floor. I did not recognize them. Of course, he would not let me near him. I grabbed a treat to get this over quickly. He had the lid to my blender. Some of the edge is chewed off, but it is still useable (I think) though it looks disgusting.

Earlier this morning as I made my smoothie, I was thinking how grateful I am for my Waring Blender! It was a wedding gift almost 38 years ago. It had very irregular use until a couple of years ago when a friend hooked me on smoothies for breakfast. Now it is used every day. I bought a blender “for Greg,” so that I could make smoothies when I am at his house. It is not nearly as good as my old Waring Blender. In fact, when I have used blenders at anyone’s house, they are not as good.

Fred Waring was well known for his radio show and as the founder and conductor of the singing group, the Pennsylvanians. The summer of 1973, we attended a concert of Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians at Chautauqua Institute. I learned that night that Fred Waring was the financial backer behind the invention of the Waring Blender, making his name a household word. I had no idea that my kitchen blender was related to the musical Fred Waring!

In recent years, I have thought that my blender, even though it is a superb performer, appears dated. Then I saw a Waring Blender in a Williams Sonoma store for about $100 which looked exactly like mine. No wonder the performance of the average $20 to $30 kitchen blender does not match mine!

While making my smoothie this morning, the memory of my dated-looking blender and the cost of a new one, looking equally as dated, crossed my mind. Now that I am officially an “old” person complete with pension and senior rebates, I wondered if mine will last my lifetime. As is my custom every morning, I made my smoothie, rinsed out the blender and lid, placed them upside down beside the sink to dry. Today is the last time I will do that.

My smoothie recipe for 1 serving:
½ cup orange juice
1 banana
4 frozen strawberries (or other frozen fruit)
½ cup of low-fat yogurt

My favorite combinations:
Strawberries with cherry yogurt
Mango with raspberry yogurt
Peach with blueberry yogurt

Body Language

We picked up Guinness from his 13 days at the pet hotel on Tuesday morning. At this stage in life, I am always a zombie for a day or two after a trip. Guinness is also a zombie his first day home again. He slept at my feet or in his crate all day. I still was not ready for a big walk on Wednesday, though he was. He had to wait for Thursday, when I had a bit more energy and felt more in control of life being put back together again. For a reward, we went to the beach. He was so cute leaping through the water! The other beach walkers enjoyed his show as well.

If we walk to and from home and go to the pier at the far end of the beach, it is an hour and a half walk. I prefer to only spend one hour walking. There are other things to do in a day. So when we were three quarters of the way down the beach, I turned around to head for home. Guinness knows that the beach goes all the way to the pier, and he was not going to miss out on one inch of his beach walk. He jumped at me repeatedly and barked. His body language told me in no uncertain terms, “No way, Mom! We are not going home until we finish our walk!” I had to give in. How could I say, “No”?

Walking the Lake Ontario beach has many similarities to the NC beach we enjoyed over the Christmas holidays. The main difference was the water -- the lake was perfectly smooth today, unlike the roiling ocean. And the birds, except the Ringbilled Gulls, are different. Here we have the Trumpeter Swans, Canada Geese, Mallards, and Longtails. In NC, we had mainly Pelicans and Sandpipers along with two or three species of gulls. And then the dolphins pretend they are birds, leaping out of the water.

When Guinny and I finally were on our way back down the beach towards home, we encountered a 10 year old German Shepherd. He didn’t have Guinness’s energy, but he was happy to meet a friend. The two of them frolicked on the sand, then Copper led Guinness into the lake. That was the first time that I have released the leash and allowed him freedom in the water. I knew he would not run or swim away from Copper. He has not had the opportunity to get out in the lake far enough yet to need to swim. I look forward to that day, but with trepidation! What if he swims away from me too far? I would prefer him to experience that with a dog friend who will bring him back to shore.

The Hooligan

While Mommy was cleaning up the side yard today, Guinness found another way to escape from the yard. Once Guinness started trying to venture from the yard when a puppy, I set up the plastic chickenwire fence at the front to keep him from running away. But there was a gap where he could escape under the bushes and jump off the wall. I filled the gap with a window screen wedged in the branches of the bushes. This past spring, when the leaves grew on the current bushes, I thought that Guinness had grown too big to fit through that opening, and, besides, the leaves hid the fact that there was an escape route there. We were fine all summer. Now that the leaves are gone, Guinness has been investigating this weak spot. I knew that he could push his body through there if he tried hard enough. Well, today while I was pooper scooping, he did it! I didn’t see it happen, but he was in front of the wall, looking rather dazed. His leash was caught on a corner of the concrete wall, keeping him from running away. When I called him to “come,” he jumped back up the wall and I guided him back through the branches. Then I promptly pulled a screen out of the garage and wedged it into the bushes again. Not very pretty in our front yard, but quite utilitarian.


After our walk and before jumping in the shower, I wrapped a gift for Christine and hot glued a stem of holly on the gift ("Dogs Never Lie About Love" by Masson). I placed it in the center of the dining room table so that Guinness would leave it alone. I also placed a bag of treats for Sasha beside the gift. Then I foolishly told Guinness that Sasha and Christine were coming. He went beserk!!! He ran to the window looking for them at the front door, barked at me, ran to the deck door, then back to the kitchen window. He was ecstatic and could not understand that “wait” meant two more hours.

While showering, Guinness did not lie at my shower door, so I wondered what he was up to. You probably think that he reached the bag of treats and ate them. Nope! He left the treats untouched on the table. Guess again! He ate most of the holly stem, leaving the gift otherwise unscathed. It might not have been "cute" if he had left teeth marks in the book! ha!


That placed him in timeout.



The appointed time finally arrived with a canine and a human guest at the door. Talk about excited! Guinness’s spirit and body were unrestrained! Once I was able to pull him away from the doorway so that they could enter, he jumped and jumped (Christine came prepared wearing “dog clothes.”). Then, unbridled, he raced in a circle through the hallway, living room, dining room, and kitchen a couple of times. Sasha tried to tell him off, but it didn’t faze Guinness. By the time Guinness finally calmed down a bit, Christine and I were both out of breath! We were able to sit sedately sipping our eggnog lattes and munching on Christmas treats while keeping Guinness pacified with carrots. Unfortunately, we have caved in to feeding Guinness occasional goodies to keep him well behaved while we eat. Of course, Sasha, with perfect manners, rested politely on his mother’s lap the whole time.





After moving to the living room, we heard Sasha making ferocious sounds. Then we saw Sasha attacking Guinness. Hurray! Sasha is learning that he can tell this boisterous creature to back off. After Sasha had nestled on Christine’s lap on the sofa for a while, he slid off, leaving Guinness the opportunity of climbing up on her lap. It was more important to get him off her than to capture that scene with my camera.

Disappointment

All summer, while neighbors might be in the backyards, we had to hold Guinness on a leash or he would run down the stairs to the driveway to greet someone exuberantly (and unwantedly). Now that winter is approaching, no one is outside. And he has been good about staying in our yard even if he sees a squirrel. For the past month, we take him outside with no leash. What a relief that is! However, four times now in the past few days, he has escaped the yard when I am not watching. The first time he did it, I could not find him anywhere! He was no where in sight in the back or in the front, and, he did not respond to, “Come,” “Treats!” his name, or his song. That first time, I was beginning to panic as several minutes went by before I saw movement on a neighbor’s deck. Ugh! We are back to attaching a leash, but, after three more escapes, we (oops! That should be “I” as Grant has not had this problem.) cannot let our eyes stray from him.

This morning, he was begging for a walk. In spite of the drizzle, I was willing to take him around the neighborhood streets where he would have no freedom and not get muddy. We got ourselves ready in the garage, then I suggested that he go potty in our yard first. Well, he went #1 and #2, so I had to clean it up. Yep! When I turned around, he was gone and on a deck that has a Christmas tree two doors down. He absolutely made no response to my calls to him. When I marched up on the deck, he hid under the tree, then tried to run past me. He got a BIG scolding and was sent to his crate for a long timeout. Mommy was mad!

The Beach

Today was in the upper 40’s with bright sunshine. It was a day to walk the beach! About a week ago, when the sand was frozen and ice was building at the edge of the lake, I took Guinny for his third foray on the beach. That was the first time we had walked the length of the beach. I kept him on a long lead (a better quality one than the one from the dollar store that broke as soon as his paws hit the sand), and he did great. Today, after a couple of minutes on the beach, Guinness came racing back to me and jumped on me to say, “Thank you, thank you, Mommy for bringing me here again!” It was so sweet! The ice and snow had melted at the edge of the lake, so I let him get his feet wet. He was ecstatic, leaping through the water. Since he was on a lead, he could not go out deep enough to swim. When on the sand, he pranced and bounced or strutted with the gait of a Tennessee Walker. He was definitely a happy boy! Canada Geese, Mallard Ducks, some seagulls, and a few Trumpeter Swans which winter in this area, were all along the edge of the lake and scurried away as we approached. Since it was a nice day, there was a smattering of people roaming the beach as well as a few dogs. We walked all the way to the pier lining the channel into the bay. As is usual in winter, that narrow stretch of deep water was full of Oldsquaw Scoters. Since they were disturbed by Guinness’s presence, I turned around half way down the pier. Guinness pled, “Do we have to go home?” He wanted to keep going. But back we went. On the return down the beach, two dogs the size of Guinness were off leash with their master, so, when Guinny pulled to meet them, I allowed the loop to slip off my wrist. They had a couple minutes of playful frenzy. The other master picked up Guinness’s leash and was shocked at how strong he is. He said, “You have your hands full! This is one powerful dog!” Yep. I’m well aware of that. Actually, if I had not released the leash, he easily could drag me face down through the sand.

I must say that there was a smile pasted on my face for the entire walk. I love it as much as Guinness does, plus I was amused to watch how fascinated he is with the beach. The regret crossed my mind again that I wish Hershey had been well enough long enough to have taught Guinness how to behave on the beach without a leash.

Still loves Santa!

Santa has lasted for a full week! Guinness has been so cute with him that I have taken several photos.

Santa

This afternoon, we went to PetsMart to have Guinness’s picture taken with Santa. He LOVES everyone and everything! The only times he has exhibited fear are when he sees inanimate objects such as my large Halloween scrarecrow in the front yard. Well, he did NOT like Santa! He would not go near him, though he did accept treats with trepidation from him. We could not get him to sit close enough to Santa for a photo, though, I must say, Santa himself was not very cooperative. He may as well have been an inanimate object! So I had to get in on the act in order to have the pre-paid picture taken.

















Guinness spent Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning at his pet hotel. As usual, they gave us a stuffed toy for him as we left. We usually hide their presents to give to a friend’s dog, as he is an aggressive chewer and they are destroyed within 10 minutes. Grant must have set this one down within Guinness’s reach because I found him prancing around with the cellophane wrapped package. I decided to let him have his fun. To my surprise, once he had it open, he was gentle with the stuffed toy! It has now lasted for 5 hours and promises to last even longer!

Oh, my...

I did not sleep well last night and stayed up reading quite a while, thus I slept in late this morning. Grant was up early and gone, as usual. At 9:30, Guinness woke me up. Then he ran off to the lower level. I went down to see what was so exciting down there. While I was away this past week, Grant indulged in a gift to himself – a black suede, wide-brimmed Tilley hat which was still in its large box on the sofa downstairs. The box was tipped over and empty. From near the laundry room, Guinness dashed past me, hat in mouth, and whizzed upstairs. At first, even with a treat in my hand, he would not let me catch him. When I finally had the hat, I told him, “Go get in your crate.” He raced around the main level a couple of times, then ran to his crate. The hat is destroyed, of course. He had had at least an hour or two to work on it. I went downstairs to assess any other damage. Grant had purchased a hefty suede brush to care for his hat. Guinness had enjoyed the wooden handle tremendously. Wood chips, bristles, and pieces of black suede were all over the floor. I pondered how to break the news to Grant. I waited until he called me. After I finished the story, Grant jovially said, “No problem! It’s insured.”

“What?!”

“They told me that the hat is fully insured for one year whether is it stolen, run over by a car, or falls apart. After the first year, it is insured for 50% of its value.”

So I cleaned up the mess downstairs, ran the vacuum, and let Guinness out of his crate. As I donned clothing to take him outside on this cold, rainy day, Guinness attempted to steal my shoe. Upon returning inside, I heard him prancing around the dining room. He had grabbed a plastic container out of the kitchen sink.

Comprehension

You remember my story about “Leave It” in the last post two days ago. Well, he shocked us with his comprehension skills again today!

Grant is usually up before I am, and often tells Guinness to go upstairs and wake me up around 7. This morning, he jumped on the bed and rooted his nose under my head to get me up. When I came downstairs, Grant was in the shower. I stood in front of the TV watching the news with Guinness sitting staring at me. After a while, he started barking in a high pitched voice and jumping at me. I figured he needed to go potty, so we went outside. He refused to leave the patio. That was not his problem. Surely, he had already had his breakfast, but I went to Grant’s shower to ask. “Yes, he has had breakfast and gone potty #1 and #2.”

So I asked, “Then why is he barking and jumping at me.”

“Well, I told him to go wake Mommy up and have her make me a coffee. He wants you to make the coffee.”

Next-to-the-last Advanced Class

We “discovered” when tested a couple of weeks ago that Guinness heels off leash! Tonight, we perfectly walked the length of the store twice “off leash” (actually a long leash was attached to him just in case). In real life, distractions would ruin his concentration, but, while on an exercise in class, he is focused on his task. Next we were directed to walk in and out of every aisle in the store, stopping at signs to do what was posted such as sit/down/sit, watch me, get on your bed, fast/slow, etc. The dog was on leash, but the master was also holding a spoon with a tennis ball thus we could only correct verbally. If the tennis ball fell, we had to go back to the beginning. We did the entire course in one loop!

Again, we did the “Leave it” routine. This time, the master left the dog sitting at one end of an aisle and walked to the other end. You were to call your dog to “Come” with a treat halfway down the aisle. There is no way that Guinness is going to avoid a treat. So, while walking away from him, I stopped at the treat, pointed it out, and said, “See this treat? You can’t have it. Mommy will give you treats at the end. You have to leave this treat here!” And he did! He understood me! As he approached the treat, he slowed down, looked askance at it, skirted around it with measured steps, then came straight to me for my treats. In fact, he did that twice. Then the teacher wanted us to do it one more time… Oh, well, you can’t win them all.

Email round-about: Quotes for Dog Lovers

This has come to me a couple of times lately. It is clever, and the blog is a good place to remember where I filed it!

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.-Anonymous
Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.-Ann Landers
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went..-Will Rogers
There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.-Ben Williams
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.-Josh Billings
The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.-Andy Rooney
We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare.And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made.-M. Acklam
Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people,who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.-Sigmund Freud
I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.-Rita Rudner
A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.-Robert Benchley
Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.-Franklin P. Jones
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.-James Thurber
If your dog is fat, you aren't getting enough exercise.-Unknown
My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can.That's almost $21.00 in dog money.-Joe Weinstein
Ever consider what our dogs must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul, chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!-Anne Tyler
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.-Robert A. Heinlein
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you;that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.-Mark Twain
You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'Wow, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'-Dave Barry
Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.-Roger Caras
If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocketand then give him only two of them.-Phil Pastoret
My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am.-Norm Wright

Book Review: Cesar's Way

Millan, Cesar, with Melissa Jo Peltier. Cesar’s Way: the natural, everyday guide to understanding and correcting common dog problems. NewYork: Harmony Books, 2006.

I hoped that Cesar’s book would assist me in reaching our obedience goals as my current dog, a chocolate lab named Guinness, is a challenge to train. Since Cesar is a dog whisperer, I also hoped to learn how to read my dog – why his hackles go up, what do ear and tail positions mean, what is safe play and what is not safe play, what do growls during play mean, etc.

Cesar became a dog expert by watching the dogs on his grandfather’s farm as a child in Mexico, noting how they interact, deciphering their language, and learning to gain control. He came to America with the dream of training dogs for movies. He crossed the border into San Diego where he was shocked to discover that many dogs in America are “unbalanced.” The reason he found American dogs to be unbalanced is because Americans coddle their dogs, not allowing them to be natural. He contends that dogs need pack leaders, not buddies. This discovery led him to opening the Dog Psychology Center in LA where he became famous as a handler/trainer of aggressive, difficult dogs – particularly rottweilers, shepherds, and pit bulls. His success brought him television fame with the program Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan on the National Geographic Channel demonstrating how to manage dogs. He is renowned for rehabilitating dogs on death row.

His basic premise for dog owners is to walk your dog for two hour walks every morning and one hour every afternoon. Cesar cited pets of homeless people as examples of well-balanced dogs who follow their pack leaders because they have sufficient daily exercise. There are not many productive humans who have the time to give their dogs that much activity.

This book is not for the happy dog that requires some obedience training, but for problem dogs, though he never says that. He promotes his methods should be followed for all dogs. I disagree. He writes about fixations being "wasted energy," and that a dog needs to use up their energy in long walks rather than in "fixations." He writes, "Another kind of fixation is when a dog obsesses or fixates on a toy or activity. Ever meet a dog who goes insane over a tennis ball, begging you to throw the ball again and again and again until you want to pull your hair out? Many owners think they can substitute taking a dog out to play fetch for giving him regular walks. That doesn't work. Yes, it's exercise, but not the kind of primal activity that migrating with a pack leader provides. ... Playing catch is excitement; a walk is calm submission. If an owner skips the walk and just plays with the dog, the dog will have to use that playtime as the only way to totally drain her energy. The dog is being given that activity while her mind is anxious and excited. She'll play until he drops, which will be long after the owner does. At the same time, she'll go into the kind of high gear she would never reach naturally." Then he goes on to say, "The problem is, owners often see fixations as 'cute' or 'funny.' Or they describe them as love, 'She just loves that Frisbee!' 'He just adores playing with that ball' That's not a healthy kind of love. A fixation is just like an addiction in a human, and can be just as dangerous."

He may understand aggressive dogs, but he does not understand a lab. Retrieving is what a Labrador Retreiver was bred to do. It is their passion. He says that dogs need jobs yet neglects to recognize that retrieving is a job.

He advocates that owners must be “calm assertive” to have a “balanced” pet, but he never adequately describes what a calm assertive demeanor is. I would not describe myself as a calm assertive person nor do I think that I am capable of becoming one or even want to. He infers that a person who is not calm assertive cannot be a good dog owner.

He defines energy as the language which dogs understand. They detect the energy that a being, animal or human, emits and responds to that energy. That is an amazing and incontrovertible discovery. It explains how dogs are able to sense when someone is afraid of them. Yet I, a mere human, cannot read the energy of others or of dogs. Does this again mean that I should not own a dog?

Another point he makes is that, in nature, there are very few dominant, pack-leader dogs. While in America, he says, many if not a majority of dogs take on the role of pack leader out of necessity. It is only those natural few who should "strut around with his tail up and chest forward projecting dominant energy to the others." Everyone remarks on the gait of Guinness while heeling: he prances, head high, tail up, literally bouncing with each step. At those moments, he is behaving perfectly – walking at my pace beside me. I cannot be convinced that he sees himself as the pack leader while walking with a spring in his step as he happily heels at my side. It is when he is forging ahead in a position similar to a Pointer that he is trying to usurp my leadership role.

Cesar’s indicators that your dog is the dominate member of your family include:
1. he jumps on you when you come home from work.
2. he dashes through doorways before you.
3. he awakens you at 6 AM to go potty.
If these are true, we have never been the leader of the pack for any of our dogs. I disagree that these are signs of the leader. Obeying commands and allowing objects to be removed from the mouth are greater indicators of who is the leader. Cesar declares that pack members should not roam on a walk but stay behind the leader. Allowing your dog to roam on a long lead should only be done for ten minutes after having heeled for half an hour. Again I disagree. The whole purpose of the walk is for their enjoyment. Dogs need to exercise their strong sense of smell. I contend that they get more exercise by running around on a long lead than by heeling at my pace.

Something which Cesar said that I totally agree with is – do not play tug with your dog as that instills aggression. We have never played tug with our dogs as someone told us that years ago, though, our dogs have played tug between themselves. A local, well-known, expensive school taught Guinness to play tug. The owner was encouraged to place a favorite toy in the dog’s mouth while pulling on it and dancing around saying in a sing-song voice, "Playtime, playtime, playtime." The exercise ended with an assertive "Settle," and the dog was to stop playing and sit. Guinness now wants to play tug. He brings a toy to me wanting to have "playtime," but I refuse the game as it does bring out some aggression.

The author contradicts himself. In the first half of the book, he says that dogs do not have the capacity to love. One of my favorite dog books is Masson’s Dogs Never Lie about Love in which he writes of several emotions expressed by canines along with examples. I am convinced of a dog’s ability to express emotions, especially love. In the second half, Cesar, with no explanation for his discrepancy, states that dogs do love.

His book is annoying with his continual telling, not showing. By the end of the book, you do not know what a calm assertive person really is except that Oprah is one, though she has problem dogs. Another activity he recommends, if you cannot give your dog sufficient walks every day, is to teach your dog to run on a treadmill. But he does not explain how to do that except to hire a professional trainer. He advocates that all humans in the household should be perceived by the dog as the pack leader including infants. How does that happen? Over and over, he tells what he does, but never describes the process so that the reader can learn. This book is an obvious marketing tool for his business.

Many people will read Cesar’s Way because the author is a famous Dog Whisperer with a television show. Though I have never seen his show, I am sure he comes across as a miracle worker. But his methods are not applicable to the average, well-adjusted pet. He does give some concrete suggestions for working with aggressive dogs or dogs with phobias. I would recommend this book only to those who have dangerous, difficult dogs.

Miracles do happen

We are noticing continued improvement in Guinness’s behavior. Yay!

• Today, I got out the Christmas candles and placed them in each window of the house. Guinness was very curious, but he did not try to grab anything or get in the way.
• For more than a week, while it is dark mornings and evenings, we take him out to the side yard for potty time with NO leash! And he does not run away! Even the one time that he did run down to the driveway chasing a squirrel, he came when called!
• For the past many weeks while on our walks on the nearby bike path, when we reach the ball diamond/soccer field area, I test his coming on command which has steadily improved. If there are no people or dogs around at that point, I drop his leash allowing him freedom, and test his recall. He is doing great! Sometimes he is allowed to play in that area with another friendly dog. Last week, he was running in circles with an Old English Sheep Dog which has no obedience training. Their circles were getting wider and wider, taking them around spruce trees where we could not see them. I called Guinness to come. It took a few times, but he eventually obeyed, and the other owner was able to snap her leash on her dog!
• Neighbor Christine and toy poodle, Sasha, came over for tea recently. Sasha was devastated when overactive Guinness moved to the neighborhood. One and a half years later, he is beginning to tolerate Guinness’s presence, so this was the first time in a very long time that he came to our house for a visit. Christine came in her “doggie clothes” (rather than her normal designer wear) to help me teach Guinness to calm down when guests arrive. Both Guinness and Sasha behaved quite well. Guinness needs a little more practice, so we plan to do this more often for working on our social skills. Sasha has two kitty cats, so Guinness is not invited for tea at their house.

Too bad there is no picture!

When Grant got into the car after work today, we leaned towards each other for a hello kiss. Guinness was in the back seat and simultaneously licked my cheek! What a lover.

One year, 6 mos., and 4 days

My handsome boy! But he isn't smiling in these pix. He would rather be chasing bunnies than posing.

Shocking!

Tonight, one of our exercises was to have our dog heel beside us while the teacher held a long lead. I told Guinness, “Let’s go,” and took off, reminding him “side” a few times as we walked down an aisle. He heeled perfectly – even better than when I have a leash on him!

One of our weekly exercises is to put the dog on a sit/stay with a treat in front of him, then call the dog to come and "leave it." This is futile with Guinness, so the teacher kneels on the floor and covers the treat with her hand at the last second. This week, instead of making a beeline to me, he walked around behind the teacher, making a circuitous route to me. I think he thought – “If I trick her, I can grab the treat.” The humans went into hysterics.