(Not) Pleased To Meet You

When you first meet someone, you're (hopefully) very excited and/or pleased to meet that person.  Whether it's a new family member, a first date, a first day at a new job, a friendly face at a party, or any other social setting, meeting someone new is fun and exciting!  For the most part, you're quite certain whether or not meeting a new person is going to be a positive experience (exceptions would be when that first 'meeting' is someone knocking at your door trying to sell you something or when someone tries to rob you or when you meet your husband's/wife's/boyfriend's/girlfriend's significant other (yikes!)), but even in those bad situations, you have a good handle beforehand of whether or not the experience is certain to be positive or negative.

With canines, the certainty of a new meeting going well is everything but certain.  Even though we're lovable, huggable, extremely cute companions to you, your family, and your friends, we are still animals and that needs to be kept in mind when introducing us to unfamiliar humans as even more importantly, when introducing us to unfamiliar fellow canines (and even worse, unfamiliar cats).

You see, many of our canine ancestors were either bred or trained to be guards or protectors of our pack members (that includes humans, who dogs consider a part of their pack) and territories (the dog's residence, whether that is inside the home or the perimeter of the property).  With this in mind, you can probably figure out that even though we want to be friends with everyone, there is a chance that we can't be just because generations of breeding and training has instilled in our inner wiring that protection/guarding is our job, so there is a possibility that confrontation is just second nature to us.
We're not trying to scare you away from wanting to own a dog or to try to befriend a dog, we are just trying to educate you in hopes of preventing any sort of accident due to not taking these points into consideration.  When you think about dogs that may have issues in a social setting, also keep in mind that just because a dog is friendly with humans doesn't mean that it will be friendly with other dogs (and vice versa).  Some dogs are great around all humans and all dogs.  Some dogs struggle to interact with other dogs.  Some dogs are great around certain dogs, but not strange dogs,.  And some dogs are great around some humans, but not unfamiliar humans.  This doesn't mean that the dog is a 'bad dog', it just means that for some reason, this specific dog just has it's own reasons for reacting as it does.

How do you prevent an 'incident' between your dog and a human and/or other dog?  You prevent incidents by being responsible dog owners and taking every measure necessary to ensure that the interaction between your dog and another person/dog is comfortable/the least bit stressful in the beginning introduction.  If you're trying to introduce your dog to an excitable dog or an excitable child, maybe wait until that dog or that child has calmed down before continuing with the introduction.  If you're trying to introduce your dog to an unfamiliar setting (a new dog park, a home the dog has never been in, etc.), try to introduce the dog to that settle with the least bit of distractions possible (early morning when few folks are at the park and/or when the unfamiliar home is empty/quiet).

For a 'real-world' example, we're going to our owner's Mom's house today to hang out and what our owner does to prevent any sort of issues with his Mom's dogs are to take us in the house and let us sniff around for a second and then go outside and sniff around before they let his Mom's dogs out to play with us.  This way, every dog has a chance to settle in for a few minutes knowing that we've arrived to visit instead of just opening the front door and having chaos ensue with four big, excited dogs greeting each other instantly.

We hope our comments help you if you have struggled with canine interactions in the past and/or are concerned about interactions in the future with your dog and other people/dogs.  As always, if you have any questions or comments, please post them and we can address them because as you know, we're very intelligent canines and there is really not any question that you could come up with that we cannot answer in a satisfactory manner.

Now go out and enjoy the day!!

Punching the Time Clock

Earlier today, someone asked our owner if we sleep all day.  As we sat there thinking of whether this person deserved our attention or not (or course they deserve our attention), we also thought about whether this was a valid question or just a sarcastic jab at our energy level, we started wondering how do we really spend our days???

After about ten minutes or serious, deep thought, here is a percentage breakdown with we came up with:

50% sleeping
20% begging for food/eating
20% working (home security/personal security/canine duty (sniffing trees,flowers,etc))
10% exercising

Usually, from about 6-7am (depending on when we get up) until about 9am, we take care of the exercising and begging for food/eating, but that time is also usually mixed in with some work (either indoors from a window sill or outdoors in our yard/a neighbor's yard). 

From 9am until 4-5pm, we usually get most of our sleeping in.  To be fair, our owner says that we spend a percentage of this time begging for his lunch and/or working (usually, this is where we take care of the indoor home security (mailman, garbage man, people on the sidewalk, squirrels, etc). 

From 5pm until about 6-7pm, we either are begging/eating or exercising (depending on whether or not we were exercised in the AM).  On a good day, the exercise is combined with a car ride (YES!!), but those are definitely not an 'everyday' occurance.

From 7pm until 10pm, we mix in naps with a little bit of home security.  Then from 10pm until 6-7am, we're in a complete slumber as we take advantage of the dark, cool room to get our REM sleep in for the night.

Not a bad life, huh?  Included in this post is a pic of us caught in one our daily acts.  We hope you enjoy!

Poker Face

In our last post, we told you how much we like 'gold' treats.  Yesterday, we decided that we like gold treats so much that we went ahead and helped ourselves to a few.  I'm sure you're just sitting in your seat in anticipation waiting for the story, so here it is.

One of our owners decided to cook up some chicken breasts yesterday afternoon.  To be exact, he grilled up 1.65 pounds of chicken breasts.  The whole time he cooked the chicken, we made it known to him that we were definitely available if and when he needed a taste tester.  Being the self-centered guy that he is, he had the audacity to taste the chicken himself without giving us any!  The nerve of that guy!

After the chicken was cooked, our owner took the chicken off the grill and put it on a plate to cool down.  Before he cooked the chicken, he cut it up into small chunks (so he could shake them up in wing sauce and have homemade boneless chicken bites....mmmmmm!!)  As the chicken cooled, our owner decided to go outside and take care of a few chores, which took about 10 minutes.  10 minutes is plenty of time for us to take care of something we're interested in.

As our owner worked outside, he wondered to himself why his two loyal canines were not at their usual post (back bedroom window with a full view of the woods and driveway behind the house where the could clearly see their owner).  Giving us loyal companions the benefit of the doubt, our owner decided that we were just taking it easy in the living room.  WRONG!

Upon entering the kitchen, our owner noticed that his plate of chicken had disappeared (well, the plate was still there, but no chicken was present).  As he turned around, no one was to be found, so our owner went into the living room where both of us looked at him with our best poker faces.  We didn't blink, we didn't move, we didn't wag our tails, we didn't open our mouths.....we just sat their looking straight ahead at him.

To give him credit, our owner didn't react negatively at all and instead just said to us, "whichever one of you it was, nice magic trick in making the chicken disappear."  Now, our owner's Grandpa used to call Rocky "the bandit" because Rocky had the knack of taking things he wasn't supposed to and making a game out of trying to recover the lost items.  But with the calm, cool, and collected way that we both played our hands (card hands...it's a metaphor because we don't have real hands, we have paws), our owner has no idea whatsoever as to who ate that chicken and that's the way we like it.

P.S.....the chicken was delicious!!!

Treat Time!

As loyal followers of the Toes N' Tails gang, we're quite certain that you spoil your dogs just as much as we're spoiled by our owners (we take that back...I doubt there is a dog on this planet that lives the life of luxury that we enjoy).  And as spoiled dogs, you probably give you dogs treats every now and then as a token of your affection for your canine companion.

However, do you know that depending on how you give your dog treats, he may actually be taking your genorosity for granted?  Yes, that is correct....your loyal dog may be turning into a dog with a sense of entitlement just because of treat time.  How can you prevent your dog from turning into a furry version of Paris Hilton?  It's actually quite easy!

When you provide a treat for your dog, you should ensure that your dog is always 'doing something' to deserve the treat (regardless of whether that treat is a milk-bone, a carrot stick, a piece of hot dog, or whatever kind of treat you have for the dog).  We at the Toes N Tails gang call this 'working for prize' and once you start consistently practicing this with your canine, you should have a more obedient dog on your hands.

For beginners, you should always make your dog sit for any treat or desired action (going out for a walk, going for a ride in the car, etc).  Even us (extremely attractive canines) have to sit for our treats.  We sit for biscuits, we sit for pieces of turkey, we sit for 'beggin strips' (which our owner really thinks are the exact same thing as the beef jerky that humans consume).

Once you have 'sit' down (get the pun there..."sit down"), you should move on to more advanced tricks.  A few suggestions would be 'stay' and 'come' and 'down' and 'speak' and any other tricks that you can think of.  If you're concerned that some tricks may be tougher for your dog to master than others, you are probably correct.  Speaking for ourselves, we have issues with 'stay' and 'down' most of the time, but we are really good at 'come' and 'speak' (speak is something we do regardless of whether there is a prize involved or not). 

For the tougher exercises, you can substitute more desired 'prizes' for your dog (such as hot dog pieces or chicken breast pieces or any type of meat (plain meat, we want to add....do not include any sauce/condiment on the meat treats) as these more desired treats give the dog a little extra incentive to work harder for the end result.  Just from experience, Rocky (white stripe on his face) is a little more motivated to get down and stay down where there is a piece of beef in front of him instead of a carrot stick or milk-bone.  When teaching Desi and Rocky to 'come' to us, it was pretty much a lost cause until we started using pieces of chicken breast, so if you think your dog just isn't 'trainable' when it comes to tricks and commands, try out our suggestions before throwing in the towel.  You'll be surprised at how much food motivates a canine.

When you refer to these different levels of treats, you can classify them as 'bronze' or 'silver' or 'gold' treats (just like the Olympic medals...like the ones our favorite skier Julia Mancuso won in Vancouver).  Bronze treats are your standard dog biscuit/milk-bone, Silver treats are beggin' strips/snausages/human crackers/carrot sticks/celery/apple pieces, and Gold treats are pieces of steak/hot dog/chicken/turkey.

Are you clear on all of our instructions/suggestions?  We hope so!  If not, let us know and we can answer any questions you may have.  In the meantime, get to work on getting your dogs to work!!

The Fly

Now that the weather is getting warmer, we are noticing more and more intruders around our yard (you've heard all about the cat and the squirrel).  Last night, we encountered a creature that had the nerve to come into OUR house and torment us.  This creature took pleasure in teasing us for at least 2 hours and by the end of the 2 hours, we were completely baffled.  Who is this creature we speak of?  The fly.

Around 7pm, we noticed this fly in our owners bedroom.  The fly was buzzing around our favorite spot in the bedroom, which is the back window (where we station ourselves for guard duty in search of possible intruders/trespassers).  To our owners, the fly just seemed like it was trying to get back outside (it keep running into the screen), but to us (handsome & beautiful canines), this fly was just trying to mess with our heads.

How did we react to the fly teasing us?  By attacking it of course.  For 2 full hours, we chased the fly all over the bedroom and even through the house (he went in the living room a few times).  We barked at the fly, we jumped at the fly, we chomped at the fly (this was our owners favorite as Rocky's lips made a noise every single time he tried to 'chomp' down on the fly), and we chased the fly (on hardwood floors, this wasn't easy).

Unfortunately, we're here to tell you that we were unsuccessful in catching the fly.  After giving 110% in our chase, we became tired (or bored) after so many close calls that we finally said the heck with the fly and we curled up for our nightly slumber.  With the experience we gained during our first attempt at catching the fly, we're pretty certain that the next time that fly has the nerve to come into our house, he will regret it.

Permanent Fur Coats

Do you notice the four beautiful canines in the profile pic?  Do you notice what they have in common?  What all four dogs have in common are that they all have fur coats and they all have their tongues hanging out.  What does this mean to you non-canines who may be reading this blog?  This means that we were in a situation where we were trying to cool down.

Depending on the breed and type of canine, we can get very hot very quickly.  With thick fur coats that cannot be removed (maybe shaved/trimmed down, but not removed) coupled with the fact that dogs have a higher normal body temperature, the need to cool off may arise at a much faster pace than our human counterparts.  Our tongues hang out because that is how we sweat/cool down instead of through the skin like human beings cool their bodies.

Why is bringing up our body temperature/cooling techniques important today?  Because depending on where you reside, the temperature may be steadily increasing to the point of where it becomes uncomfortable for a canine.  Whether it's running, walking, working, or just sitting around the house, temperatures over 75 degrees can make life for a dog a little hot around their collar.  If the dog has a dark/black coat (such as Desi and Rocky), the sun attracts more heat to the dog's coat, causing body temperatures to rise.

How can you fix this as responsible dog owners?  The answer is simple.  Just make sure you leave fresh water out for your dog at all times, whether it's in the house or outside in a shaded area.  If your dog stays outside for an extended period of time, make sure they have plenty of shade to rest and relax under.  If you're really looking to please your dog, you can cool them off before/during/after long walks by pouring water on their coats (our owners turn on the outside faucet and use running water to cool us off....just don't turn the sprayer on 'full' or 'high' or 'blast' because that scares us....'mist' or 'shower' works just fine).

A few other treats for your dog during hot days include ice cubes (some dogs really love them, some dogs hate them) as well as Frosty Paws frozen dogs treats (we've never seen a dog who didn't like these treats!)

All of these options are fine choices and no matter how you choose to cool your dog down, just do something to make sure they stay cool.  Your dog will be thankful and will really think that it's 'cool' that you're such a great owner for watching out for them!

Hitting the Wall

As some of you know, we get exercised pretty regularly.  However, during the winter months, one of our owners (the one who runs us most often) came down with some sort of virus/chest cold that knocked him out of commission for a few weeks.  In addition, that same owner has been really busy during the Spring, so we haven't been able to exercise as much as we would like in the past month or so.  What does this mean to the Toes N Tails gang?  It means that our endurance level has taken a hit.

Desi (all black) doesn't seem to be affected by the lack of recent training as she is still quite spry during our runs.  Whether 1 mile or 10, Desi is strong throughout the run.  However, Rocky (stripe on his face), is a totally different story.  Rocky has hit the wall big-time.  During our past 3 runs, Rocky has struggled to finish each time and during our last long run (Saturday afternoon at Sharon Woods), Rocky basically said the heck with running around mile marker 4.5 (our course for the day was around 7.25 total miles).  What did this mean for all parties involved?  It meant that Desi and her owner had to continually stop as Rocky slowed down (or stopped) to catch his breath/smell the flowers/water the flowers.  We at the Toes N Tails gang can understand a pit stop or two, but Rocky has turned the runs into basically a 'stop at every exit and check things out' routine.

After some rest, some coaching, and a little encouragement, Rocky was able (barely) to finish the course as he dragged himself across the finish line behind his owner and Desi, who led the way.  After the run, Rocky guzzled a couple of bottles of water (placed in a bowl of course...Rocky can't drink from a water bottle) and was ready for the ride home (with the windows down to cool him down).

Once Rocky made it home, he took a few more drinks from his water dish, waited for his chow to be made, scarfed down his food, and then went and laid down for a nap.  I don't think anyone saw Rocky's eyeballs for the rest of the night as he was crashed out.

Looking ahead, we hope to get our endurance levels back to where they were around Christmas time (we ran 12.5 miles in Toledo one morning) before the hotter Summer days arrive.  Wish us luck as we turn it up a notch these next few weeks!