Well, today was quite the day.
I work every Saturday at the bank. It's a permanent shift. In the summer, I also work a lot of shifts during the week. Early this summer, I told my boss that I didn't want to work any extra shifts last week (I knew I would be needing a break from work by that point). I assumed I would still be working my regular shift on Saturday - today. Silly me.
So, I show up at work, only to be told that I wasn't scheduled to work that day. Not only was I not scheduled to work, but I had actually used one of my two vacation days to take the day off. Fantastic. Oh well, miscommunications happen, I suppose.
I went back home, and finished watching part of the Olympic equestrian competition. I figured that going back to bed after getting ready for work would be a waste, so I headed to the dog park with my two dogs.
A little bit of background: I have to admit, my big dog is a little bit spoiled. He's always worked himself into a frenzy when we go to meet other dogs. When he was little, it was easier to let him pull at the leash. Now that he's in excess of 80lbs, we've decided we need to train him. No need to flame me - I know how dumb it was to let things get this bad. I've been working on it for a couple of weeks, on and off, and he's getting better.
So I make him "heel" into the dog park. If he gets too far ahead I call him back, and we walk backwards a couple of steps. Sometimes I mix things up and turn circles towards him as he heels, to make sure he's being responsive (I always do a refresher course at home before we leave, just as a tune up). When we get to the gate he has to sit and stay until after I walk in. After I call him in he has to sit with me until I unleash him and tell him "Ok". This particular trip he was being a little rowdier than normal... I had to snap the leash a couple of times to get his attention.
After I fetched Jack from the car (I brought them in one at a time), some random guy walked up to me and told me he thought Remington was beautiful. Not to brag, but we get that a lot - he's a hunk. I said thank you, and looked around for his dog. I always try to reciprocate compliments. I couldn't see one close by - I figured it must have wandered off. THEN - random guy goes on to ask me if he could give me some training tips. He made some good points - don't use your dog's name to scold them or to get their attention when they're being bad, because they'll associate it with negative behaviour.
Then he went on to tell me that when I wanted my dog's attention all I had to do was "bite" them (with a light pinch and twist of the fingers) like the mother dog would. Sorry buddy - when my dog is straining after his buddies he doesn't notice much of anything, much less a light poke. The only thing that seems effective is passively stopping him from getting what he wants until he can control his impulses. When he can listen and walk beside me, we move towards the prize. If he's being a jerk, we do circles and move away. But no, apparently what I was doing is wrong. I'm supposed to hand-bite him. At one point he mentioned that he had been training dogs and horses for years - what do you want to bet he's a natural horsemanship junkie?
He couldn't pass up giving me a demonstration. Next time my dog came back to check in that all was well, random guy catches him by the collar and tells him to sit. Ok, maybe it's my fault, but I don't ask anything of him at the dog park. He needs to listen to me on the way in and out, but as long as he comes when he's called I don't mess with him in the park. He thought the guy was kidding, so he tried to walk away. I got lesson #2: Don't use a verbal correction, make a PSSSHT noise instead. After having random guy tugging on his collar and telling him to sit for a minute, and make PSSSHT noises at him when he tried to leave, Remy finally sat (I should add, this guy wasn't tugging hard or hurting my dog at all - no way I would deal with that so calmly).
The part that really ticked me off - My dogs are taught that "sit" means put your bum on the floor. That's it. Unless I tell them "stay", they can get up and leave whenever they want. Well, random guy seemed to think that "sit" should mean the dog sits there until he is allowed to leave. He kept PSSSHTing at Remington whenever he tried to leave, even though as far as Remy knew, he wasn't being told to stay put. It irked me that the guy couldn't fathom that my dog might not know commands the way he teaches his own dogs. He just assumed that Remy was ill mannered, and not confused.
Speaking of his own dogs... yeah. Pretty sure he didn't have one. I stood there for a while while he lectured me, and I didn't see any dog that didn't clearly belong to someone else in the park. Once I realized that he was dogless, I figured he was going to try and sell me obedience training. He never did, though - I guess he's just crazy and lonely. I finally got away when Remy took a dump and I had to go clean it up. Next time I walked past, he was teaching some lady with a Lab puppy how to hand-bite her dog.
I also fell off the shopping wagon again today. I finally get my Mastercard paid off (yippee! It's been my bane since last Christmas), and for some reason I feel the need to go run it up again. I did manage to stay away from shoes and handbags, though.
I work every Saturday at the bank. It's a permanent shift. In the summer, I also work a lot of shifts during the week. Early this summer, I told my boss that I didn't want to work any extra shifts last week (I knew I would be needing a break from work by that point). I assumed I would still be working my regular shift on Saturday - today. Silly me.
So, I show up at work, only to be told that I wasn't scheduled to work that day. Not only was I not scheduled to work, but I had actually used one of my two vacation days to take the day off. Fantastic. Oh well, miscommunications happen, I suppose.
I went back home, and finished watching part of the Olympic equestrian competition. I figured that going back to bed after getting ready for work would be a waste, so I headed to the dog park with my two dogs.
A little bit of background: I have to admit, my big dog is a little bit spoiled. He's always worked himself into a frenzy when we go to meet other dogs. When he was little, it was easier to let him pull at the leash. Now that he's in excess of 80lbs, we've decided we need to train him. No need to flame me - I know how dumb it was to let things get this bad. I've been working on it for a couple of weeks, on and off, and he's getting better.
So I make him "heel" into the dog park. If he gets too far ahead I call him back, and we walk backwards a couple of steps. Sometimes I mix things up and turn circles towards him as he heels, to make sure he's being responsive (I always do a refresher course at home before we leave, just as a tune up). When we get to the gate he has to sit and stay until after I walk in. After I call him in he has to sit with me until I unleash him and tell him "Ok". This particular trip he was being a little rowdier than normal... I had to snap the leash a couple of times to get his attention.
After I fetched Jack from the car (I brought them in one at a time), some random guy walked up to me and told me he thought Remington was beautiful. Not to brag, but we get that a lot - he's a hunk. I said thank you, and looked around for his dog. I always try to reciprocate compliments. I couldn't see one close by - I figured it must have wandered off. THEN - random guy goes on to ask me if he could give me some training tips. He made some good points - don't use your dog's name to scold them or to get their attention when they're being bad, because they'll associate it with negative behaviour.
Then he went on to tell me that when I wanted my dog's attention all I had to do was "bite" them (with a light pinch and twist of the fingers) like the mother dog would. Sorry buddy - when my dog is straining after his buddies he doesn't notice much of anything, much less a light poke. The only thing that seems effective is passively stopping him from getting what he wants until he can control his impulses. When he can listen and walk beside me, we move towards the prize. If he's being a jerk, we do circles and move away. But no, apparently what I was doing is wrong. I'm supposed to hand-bite him. At one point he mentioned that he had been training dogs and horses for years - what do you want to bet he's a natural horsemanship junkie?
He couldn't pass up giving me a demonstration. Next time my dog came back to check in that all was well, random guy catches him by the collar and tells him to sit. Ok, maybe it's my fault, but I don't ask anything of him at the dog park. He needs to listen to me on the way in and out, but as long as he comes when he's called I don't mess with him in the park. He thought the guy was kidding, so he tried to walk away. I got lesson #2: Don't use a verbal correction, make a PSSSHT noise instead. After having random guy tugging on his collar and telling him to sit for a minute, and make PSSSHT noises at him when he tried to leave, Remy finally sat (I should add, this guy wasn't tugging hard or hurting my dog at all - no way I would deal with that so calmly).
The part that really ticked me off - My dogs are taught that "sit" means put your bum on the floor. That's it. Unless I tell them "stay", they can get up and leave whenever they want. Well, random guy seemed to think that "sit" should mean the dog sits there until he is allowed to leave. He kept PSSSHTing at Remington whenever he tried to leave, even though as far as Remy knew, he wasn't being told to stay put. It irked me that the guy couldn't fathom that my dog might not know commands the way he teaches his own dogs. He just assumed that Remy was ill mannered, and not confused.
Speaking of his own dogs... yeah. Pretty sure he didn't have one. I stood there for a while while he lectured me, and I didn't see any dog that didn't clearly belong to someone else in the park. Once I realized that he was dogless, I figured he was going to try and sell me obedience training. He never did, though - I guess he's just crazy and lonely. I finally got away when Remy took a dump and I had to go clean it up. Next time I walked past, he was teaching some lady with a Lab puppy how to hand-bite her dog.
I also fell off the shopping wagon again today. I finally get my Mastercard paid off (yippee! It's been my bane since last Christmas), and for some reason I feel the need to go run it up again. I did manage to stay away from shoes and handbags, though.
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