"Tail" of Mass Destruction

Unfortunately, living in the 21^st century does not automatically free from technological issues. Hence the reason why I have not been able to post anything in awhile. But here I am and ready to get to the topic at hand! Or rather tail maybe…

It has been a really long time since I have had a dog with a long tail. My two dogs who preceded Missy both had docked tails so I never had to worry about stepping on them or worry about their tails getting snarled and messy. Apparently that was also one less appendage to cause household destruction.

See, Missy has a long, wavy, beautiful tail. It is like a pendulum that hypnotizes the mind when she is happy. Swish, swish, back and forth, back and forth, so pretty!…hem hem. Anyway.

Personal Image

The result of this long and wavy (did I mention hairy?) tail is that it has the extreme tendency to knock things over. A lot. Left an empty soda can on the coffee table? Not anymore, because Missy’s tail knocked it off. Left some loose leaf paper lying around? Prepare for a paper trail because the velocity of her tail wind (pun intended) blew them away. I call it---dum dum da!---the Tail of Mass Destruction. Ok, it does not cause total destruction, merely small mishaps, but I think it is so cool that her tail has a name.

Of course the wagging goes into hyper drive when she gets excited, most often when she sees me getting ready to go outside. Since we seem to have skipped November and December and gone straight to January in terms of the wretchedly cold and snowy weather it takes me about five minutes to bundle up in my barn gear to feed the horses.

Missy runs through the kitchen and waits, not very patiently, while I get dressed and her tail hits everything. Thump, thump against the wall. Swish, swish against the hanging coats. Clunk, clunk…wait, why the clunk? Resting on a low sill in the wall under the hanging coats resides some miscellaneous items, most notably a conch shell from somewhere and a short piece of PVC pipe. I did call them “miscellaneous” items after all.

I would guess that 99% of the times I take her outside through the kitchen door with me Missy’s tail manages to knock those darn things of the shelf, leaving me to constantly pick them up. Or not, depending on how lazy I am. But since I go out more than once a day, that provides plenty of chances for her to knock them on the floor.  

Since not wagging her tail is not an option, here are a couple of solutions I have come up to prevent Missy from causing chaos:

1.      This one is brilliant: Put lightweight items where her tail cannot reach!

2.      This one is pretty cool too: Let her outside before I get ready so she does not have time to knock anything over.

3.      Ok, number 3 is great from a training standpoint and it is something Missy and I practice on a daily basis anyway. That is the “wait” command.

“Wait” works for a variety of scenarios, such “wait” to take the biscuit, or “wait” to go through the door. I trained her with the verbal command as well as a hand signal similar to the human sign for “stop.” I just put my hand out, flat with the palm up in front of my chest where she can see it. I then release when I am ready and surprisingly she does better waiting for me to let her take a biscuit than she is waiting to go through a door. Maybe she sees it as a game or reward because there is food involved for the former.

Often times if I am going out for a quick jaunt in the yard I will make her wait in the doorway and make her follow me outside, instead of preceding me, but getting bundled into snow gear and making sure she follows my command can be taxing, especially when I have to run down the stairs to grab my muck-boots. 

Regardless of which option I choose to use on a continuous basis I think they all have one thing in common. The fallen items are really my fault because I leave them within tail reach, or do not enable the “wait” rule.  So every time I say “Missy, you darn dog,” I really mean “Heather, why did you leave that in that spot?”

Do you have a “tail” of mass destruction? Or something you left where you shouldn’t for your dog to snatch? I would love to compare stories. Happy tails!

Personal Sketch

New Adoption Trend?

Image Source: petsinc

Have you ever adopted a dog from an animal shelter? Or did you buy one at a pet store? I’m a shelter shopper myself, for lack of a better term. Two of the three dogs I’ve had come from a shelter, the other I got from a local person in the area.

Missy of course, is one of the two I adopted from a shelter, and I do not regret it. As I type this she keeps putting her nose under my mouse hand, trying to flip my hand in the air. Perhaps it’s her way of advocating for shelter dogs too.

Sure, Missy was in the shelter for a couple years, but she had a group of workers there who would not give up on her. When shelter life wasn’t quite working for her, a volunteer fostered her so she could relax in a quieter atmosphere.

Come adoption day, Missy’s foster mom gave a write-up of sorts about Missy and her quirks. The write-up really demonstrated to me how much Missy’s foster mom cared about her.

When I had some concerns about Missy’s behavior the first week I had her I called her foster mom a couple times with questions and we spent about 30 minutes talking about Missy.

Anyway, I read an article from the Humane Society that tickled my brain about shelters and pet stores. Compared to most of the negative reviews I’ve read concerning pet stores this one really intrigued me, and I’m not sure if it’s in a good way.

In the article, rescue puppies were sent to a Pet Plus Natural, a pet store. Yep, a pet store would then adopt out shelter dogs. The purported objective of this mission is to convert “puppy mill” pet stores to stores that would sell shelter puppies instead.

The amazing fact about this experiment? All of the puppies sent to the store were adopted within two weeks. Some dogs, like Missy, spend years in a shelter before anyone adopts them. Even if all of the dogs in the article were puppies I wonder what inspired people to flock to this store or others like this one to adopt instead of going to their local shelter?

Grant it, as long as each one goes to a safe forever home I should be happy but I always feel there are strings attached to every seemingly “good” story. Such as:

-will people still want to adopt dogs from actual shelters?

-who is in the better environment: pups in pet stores or pups/dogs in shelters?

Admittedly I am a chronic skeptic, so I usually end up with lots of questions after I read something like this. I am just focusing too much on the negative here?

Personally, from my experience adopting Missy, I would totally adopt or recommend adoption from that shelter because of how helpful and caring the staff during and even after her adoption process.

In order to answer these questions I’ll need to do a lot more research on the subject. I try to report back on my findings if anyone wants to know more.

Also, I set up a poll in relation to adoption, so feel free to participate. 

'Miss'demeanor Mondays

Have I mentioned Missy’s nickname yet? Well, one of them anyway. I sometimes like to joke that Missy is actually short for “misdemeanor” because of all the trouble she gets into. Hence, the inspiration for ‘Miss’demeanor Mondays.  I know today is not actually Monday, but why wait, right?

Monday seems like the perfect catch-up day for all things ‘Miss’demeanor related as many good stories seem to happen over the weekend. Any other day I might mention general happenings with Missy but I’ll reserve Mondays for very special events. For example, what did she knock over this time? Oops, she scratched me again, or my personal favorite: what on earth did she roll in? 

Image source: personal photo

This ‘Miss’demeanor concerns none of the above, as it involves thievery on her part. Sunday was gorgeous, and I could not resist a ride on my horse, Legacy. We had a great ride and Missy followed me when I hooked the hose up so I could hose off Legacy. She plays babysitter to me whenever I work with my horses.

I passed one of my tomato plants after I hooked the hose up and a bright red globe caught my eye. Man, that was a gorgeous, ripe tomato and not a blemish to be seen. I picked it and set it next to the fence so I could remember to grab it. I finished Legacy’s cool down and re-entered the yard.

Wait. Where’s my tomato?   

“Missy! You darn dog!”

Yeah, she took my tomato!

Across the yard her furry ears drooped and her head went down, and I spotted my tomato in her mouth. I marched over, put my hand down and said, “drop it.”

All that “drop it” training came in handy. Either that or she knew she did something bad because she let it gently drop into my outstretched palm.

Lesson one for the day: No more leaving vegetables in Missy range, even though she normally does not mess with garden vegetables.

Veterinarians are constantly discovering what is and what isn’t harmful to dogs. After this incident I did some research about harmful plants to dogs and found a recent article about an alarming number of such plants.

To my surprise, the tomato leaf, not the fruit itself, made the list so I caught a break there, but it really hits home about how careful we pet owners need to be when it comes to what our pets come into contact with and that we need to keep abreast of what’s toxic.

The blog “Dog Star Daily's” #1 tip for saving on vet bills is household safety, so here is a money saving incentive for being extra careful.

Lesson two: teach your dog “drop it” as soon as possible. This comes in handy whether you’re playing fetch or the dog picks something up that is potentially harmful. Teaching “drop it” took Missy some time to learn but as one reader commented in “About this Blog”, patience is the key to a well behaved pet, but this command is more than just a neat trick, it could potentially save your dog.

Have you ever had a dog destroy something of yours? I’d love to hear about your pet’s ‘Miss’demeanors.

In case you wondered about the fate of the tomato. It was a fatal incident. 

 

Image source: vectortoons