Things aren’t going as well as I had hoped.  Over all Lola is still a pretty good dog, and she has definately improved, but she is really used to getting away with stuff and she is constantly trying to push my limits and see if I will catch her in it.  Like jumping and pulling on the leash and “little” stuff like that.  At one point this week I really wanted to get my hands on her previous owners and just strangle them.  It is obvious that she is smart, and that she learns pretty quick, but she does need a firm hand.  Otherwise she will just run all over you and do whatever she wants.  But if someone had taken the time when she was young to teach her she wouldn’t have all these bad habits.

Part of the problem is that it is so cold out that she isn’t able to go outside and play like that first week.  This morning it was in the single digits.  So we’ve pretty much been just going out for potty breaks and a really quick walk at night.

I think I’m going to have to find something to do inside to get all of that energy out.  I’ve heard that training tires them out almost as much as “physical” exercise.  So maybe I need to just do something like that.

I’ve come to the realization that I really need to use treats as rewards more often.  Even though she showed initial response with just a vocal command, she now tends to ignore them if she wants to.  It’s been frustrating because she knows what I want, but she just doesn’t want to do it.  Like she knows how to sit on command, but now she’ll only do it when she wants to or with a reward (although I don’t even have to tell her to sit when it’s time to go outside, she just does it automatically).

So for the time being I think I need to carry treats around and use them every time I want her to do something.  Because until she understands that when I tell her to do something, sit for example, that she needs to do it when I ask, not the tenth time or when I force her to.  Until then I’ll need to bribe her to do it.  And I’ll have to do it every single time.
I can understand some of it, like when we are outside and she doesn’t want to sit on the cold ground or snow.  I get that, and I’m not asking her to put her butt all the way on the ground, but she needs to at least attempt to do what I ask.

Dealing with all of those little things is really tiring.  More mentally tiring then anything physical.  The good thing is that she falls asleep at about 7 or 8 at night, but by that time I’m just totally exhausted from continually telling her “off!” or ”no don’t do that” or “stop pulling!”.

I think in eventually she’ll be a great dog, once she learns that I won’t let her get away with bad behaviour and she gets over all this puppy energy, but until then I think I’ll be pulling my hair out on a daily basis.

 

Sebastian has been doing better.  He still won’t come out by himself when Lola is out, but if I bring him out and put him on the back of the couch (his favorite spot to hang out) then he is fine.  Some times he will even stay out when I take Lola outside rather then making a mad dash for the bedroom right away.  He’s even taken to stretching out and falling asleep on the back of the couch.  So that tells you how relaxed he is, or how trusting he is that I will protect him.  He is still sometimes scared if Lola is running around or doing something active, but he doesn’t run he just watches with wide eyes.

It has now been a full week since I got my dog Lola.  And what a week it has been!  I thought I’d give the over all report on how things have changed, and boy have they ever.

Lola was really good the first two days I had her (saturday and sunday the 15th and 16th), she just slept most of those days.  But starting monday she got really wild.
1 – She already knew how to sit, but that was the only manners she had.  She would also race out of the door every time I opened it.
2 - She would mouth everything in sight.  Me, the leash, carpet edges, my coat, my hair (yikes!) and anything else she could get her mouth on.
3 – She practically ripped my arm out of my socket when we went for a walk.  Every time I would pull her back she would just lunge ahead again, choking herself in the process, which caused her to have coughing fits even when we were just sitting around.
4 - She had to go potty within an hour after she ate or drank something or she would have an accident in the house.  Thankfully I noticed most of the times when she seemed like she had to go, and she only had three accidents.
5 - She would not only just jump up on me, but she would actually lunge for my face.  She would also try to jump on the couch (or try to sneak a paw up on it) whenever she thought I wasn’t looking.

She was constantly doing one naughty thing or another.  She seemed to have more energy then I knew what to do with.  I was exasperated, and I was feeling like I would have months and months, and maybe even years, of pulling-my-hair-out frustration before I would end up with a halfway decent dog.

My cat Sebastian was spending all of his time hidingunder the covers in my bedroom.  He would only come out when Lola was in her crate for the night.  And then he would only walk around in my bedroom.  He was constantly shaking withfear and tended to walk close to the ground.

 

Things have really changed in just one week!
1 – She knows that she has to sit every time I take the leash on or off, before I feed her, and when waiting to cross the street.  Some times I don’t even have to ask anymore.  Like when she sees the leash come out she will instantly go by the door and sit.  She now walks out of the door quietly and stops to give me time to close the door before we go on.
2 – She now knows the phrase “no bites!” and she normally hesitates before trying to nip me or anything else on my person (yay!).  She is getting better about not chewing on things she is not supposed to as well.  She only reaches for the leash a couple times, and most of the time I can stop her with a quick ”no bites!” before she even gets her mouth on it.
3 – Most of our walks are nice quiet affairs.  She will still pull when she sees something like a squirrel, another dog or sometimes a car, but other then that when she starts to pull all I have to do is give the leash a little tug and tell her “no” and she will stop.
4 – She now can go with only going to the bathroom 4 times a day.  6am when I get up, 7:30am before I leave for work, 5pm when I get home, and 10pm before bed.  Some times she asks to go out at around 9 something at night, but I don’t mind that.
5 – She knows the word “off!” really well.  I can now tell her to get off something from across the room and she will do it about 85% of the time.

Lola is well on her way to being my “perfect” dog.  She still has some issues to work on, but some of that is just being a puppy.  She spent most of the weekend sleeping.  And she relegated the bouncing-off-the-walls behaviour to playing outside, and stayed quiet inside.  I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that tunnel is a lot shorter then I thought it was.  If she continues at this rate I will have a perfectly behaved dog by the end of the year!

Sebastian is now getting back to his normal behaviour.  He still stays in the bedroom and bathroom while Lola is out, but he is no longer hiding under the covers.  He and Lola have even gone nose to nose a couple times!  I’m keeping their meeting sessions short and sweet, and I make sure to end them before Sebastian tries to run or Lola gets hyper-excited.  I even have evidence that he is going into the kitchen during the night.  He has this annoying habit of opening the kitchen cabinet doors and I have found them open several days now.  Which means that he has to walk past Lola to get into the kitchen.
I don’t necessarily need them to be best buds, but I would like Sebastian go get comfortable enough with Lola so that he can come out when she is around.

 

So as you can tell we have had lots of progress in the past week.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that things just keep getting better from here!

Lola was much better last night.  She still tried to grab onto the leash on our walk, but would stop when I told her to.  She didn’t spend most of the walk pulling, which was really nice.  I still had to correct her, but she didn’t pull all over the place.

I took her for a 2 block walk (they’re pretty big blocks) and then let her play in the yard for another 15 minutes before we came in.  She was still pretty wired for the first hour or so, but she got sleepy about 8pm and spent the rest of the night in her bed.

She’s still not eating as much as I think she should, especially for a growing pup on the skinny side.  She’s eating about 2 cups a day (1c at each meal), which is about half of the “recommended” amount listed on the bag.  I’m actually putting the whole 2 cups in her bowl at the beginning of the day, and she only eats about half of it.  I’ll talk to the vet about it on friday and see if she has any recommendations.

 

She was pretty good this morning.  She only tried to grab the leash a couple times and would drop it when I told her to.  She was pretty well behaved on her walk this morning.  She still pulled, but not nearly as much, and we had quite a bit of nice loose-leash moments.

The only problem this morning was that she didn’t go potty before I left.  She went when I first got up, but not later after her breakfast.  Which means she has to hold it until I get home.  I’m hoping that she’ll be able to do that.  Although it is totally her fault, because we spent 15 minutes outside in the yard after our walk.  But she just wanted to play, even though I kept telling her to go potty.
So keep your fingers crossed that I don’t come home to a mess tonight.

 

Sebastian was much better last night.  He actually spent most of the night out.  He was still in the bedroom, but he wasn’t hiding.  Lola now knows that he is in there though, and she keeps going to the gate to look in there.  This morning Sebastian stayed out until Lola went to the gate and barked at him.  Then he hid again, but I did pull him out before I left.  I’m hoping that in a few days he’ll come out when Lola is in her crate.  It would be nice to see him great me at the door when I come home.  I’ve missed that.

 

So all around things were better then Monday.  I think it’s pretty good that things are getting better and I’ve only had her a few days.  Lola still needs a lot of training, but I think it shouldn’t take all that long to get the basics down.  I’m hoping to have no leash biting by thanksgiving and no jumping or chewing things she shouldn’t by christmas.

Yesterday was a little bit of a bad day with Lola.  She was just always doing little naughty things, one thing after another.  It didn’t help that I was already tired from a rough night of sleep the night before.

The first thing was that she thinks it’s fun to grab the leash and play tug of war when we are walking.  Every time I got the leash out of her mouth she just grabbed it back up again.  The good thing is with the harness the leash hook is further back on her body, so she can’t just turn her head and grab it, she has to truly turn around to get it.

And when she is excited she jumps up on me.  Which I know is a typical untrained dog thing to do, but it’s still frustrating.  I’ll have to think about how I want to get her to stop doing that.  If I just push her off she thinks it’s a game and lunges right back.  I tried pushing her down until she was laying on the ground and holding her there until she stopped squirming.  That seemed to work ok.

Then she wanted to run around the house like a crazy lady.  Which I kind of understand because it was really cold outside and she didn’t want to run around outside.  So I spent some time throwing toys for her, which was ok.

Then she kept on wanting to jump on the couch.  Which I have decided is off limits for the time being.  I wouldn’t mind her on the couch if she would behave, but I don’t want her jumping around up there.  So I would push her off the couch and say “OFF!” and a few minutes later she would try to sneak back up again.

Then she kept on trying to chew the carpet.  Or the edges of an area rug.  Every time I stopped her she would stop for a few minutes and then start back up again in a different area.

And then she had an accident in the house.  Again, it was kind of my fault, I knew that she had drank alot after we came in from our last potty break, but then I forgot about it.

By the end of the night I was physically and mentally exhausted.  I’m sad to say that I snapped at her a few times.  I was just so tired and I just wanted to have a nice easy night.  But that didn’t happen.

 

This morning was much better.  She was pretty calm and would listen to me when I told her no.  Last night she started whining after I put her in her crate for the night, but after a few minutes she stopped.

I decided (for now at least) to use the term “no bites” whenever I want her to drop what she has in her mouth.  So when she picks up the leash, or if she is chewing on something she shouldn’t be I say “no bites!”.  It worked pretty well this morning.

I’m also working with her on the idea of “mine” and “yours”.  I think that will help with the leash grabbing too.  What I do is take a toy of hers (one that she isn’t playing with at the moment) and call her to me.  I ask her to sit and then show her the toy and say “mine”.  I slowly bring if closer to her and keep saying “mine”.  Every time she reaches for it I pull it out of reach and tell her no, and again say that it is mine.  When it is an inch or two away from her nose and she isn’t reaching for it then I’ll say “yours!” and give it to her.  By teaching her this way she gets used to “mine” and “yours”, and then it will be easier when I start training her to let me take something away from her.  Eventually all I have to do (in theory at least) is say “mine” and she should leave alone or give up whatever she has.

 

Sebastian was better last night.  I bought the Feliway before I went home and plugged it in right away.  He still spent most of the night hiding under my quilt, but one time I went in the bedroom and got him out so he could see Lola, who was waiting at the dog gate a few feet away.  Unlike all the other times he didn’t seem terrified of her, but he didn’t want to be near her either.  He spent most of the night above the covers either on the spare pillow or curled up to me.  Until he went exploring and woke Lola up around 5am.  Then he came running back and hid.  I ment to pull him out before I left, but I forgot.  I’m hoping that he will take the time when Lola is in her crate to come out and explore.

So that’s how everything went since yesterday.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a better night tonight then last night!

The reason I didn’t blog much last week was because I found a puppy!  I went to the humane society on tuesday and totally fell in love.  I thought I would just look, but it didn’t turn out that way. 

So my new puppy, who I’ve named Lola, is a female german shepherd mix with a white chest and four white paws.  She is 7 months old and she is about knee height.  Because she is so small it is obvious that she isn’t full shepherd, but she has to be mixed with something smaller.  I’m thinking beagle maybe?  She totally looks like a shepherd, just smaller.

Like I said I met her on tuesday, I spent about a half an hour with her in one of their “meet and great” rooms and I decided to go home and think about it.  The are closed on wednesday, so I went back on thursday and submitted my application.  She had just been spayed, so she was a little sleepy.  I spent about an hour with her, and most of that time she was curled up on my lap with her head under my arm.  Because she had just been spayed I wasn’t able to take her home until saturday.

But that turned out to be a good thing because I had a lot to do around the house to get ready for her.  I made sure I picked up everything below waist level that she could chew on.  I had to make sure I picked up all of the cat toys that I’m sure she could swallow (or at least try to).  Then I vacuumed really well and washed all of the floors (which I hadn’t done in far to long).  Then I had to get a few last minute things like food and a leash.  I had gotten everything else (like toys and beds) over a year ago, so I was just missing a few things.

Then the big day came on saturday.  My appointment was at 1:15, so that gave me the morning to make sure everything was ready.  Before I left I blocked off my bedroom and bathroom so my cat Sebastian had a “dog-free” zone.  Then I got there and I had to do all the paper work, and then about a half an hour later we were on our way!  She was pretty scared about the car ride.  So she spent most of the ride home with her head on my lap or tucked under my arm.  But I guess I’d rather have that then have her bouncing all over the car.

When I got home I took her out to the yard right away and let her get some energy out before I took her in the house.  I kept the leash on her while she took her first look around the house.  But after that I let her go wherever she wanted.  Which thankfully is wherever I am.  The good thing about that is that I don’t have to worry about what she is doing in another room out of eyesight.

I was surprised how good she is.  She didn’t tear around the house, she played nicely with her toys, and she even knows how to sit!  And she didn’t have an accident in the house.  Part of that was because I was taking her out every hour or so that first day, but it’s a good thing no matter the reason.  She actually spent most of the day sleeping.  She would run around and act crazy when I took her outside, but she was quiet inside the house.

She didn’t eat much supper, I think she is used to having access to food all day long and eating whenever she wants, but after a half an hour I picked the bowl up so that she knows that if she doesn’t eat when the food is given she doesn’t eat at all.
When it came time to go to bed I had to kind of push her into the crate, but once she was in there she quieted down and went to sleep.

Yesterday was pretty good as well.  I was happy to find that she didn’t have an accident in her crate during the night.  I was taking her outside about every two hours and she is very good about doing her business right away and then she’ll come over to me to say that she’s done.  Which is really nice if I just want to run out for a quick potty break and not stand out there for a half an hour.  She did have one accident in the house, but she had just woken up from a really long nap (about 3+ hours I think).  She just got up and peed right outside of the bed.  So I think that was more my fault then hers.  I should have woken her up to take her outside.  But now I know.

I took her for two walks yesterday.  She has really bad leash manners.  She spends most of her time pulling on the leash and then choking because she can’t breathe.  So that’s something I’ll have to work on.  I’m thinking I’ll go to the pet store tonight and try to get a harness for her.  That way I can correct her without worrying about hurting her throat.

She didn’t eat much again yesterday morning, but last night she ate pretty well.  Still less then I think she should eat, but at least she is eating.  I’m thinking (so far at least) that she is eating about 2 cups of dry food a day.  The food bag says she should eat 3-4 cups.  But I can’t force her to eat.  She is on the skinny side, so I’d prefer she eats more, but I guess maybe she knows how much she should eat.

Last night was pretty hard.  She cried several times during the night whenever she heard me moving around.  I think that’s mostly because she can’t see me.  If I told her to be quiet she normally settled down.  I think I’ll leave a radio on during the night and hope that helps.

So over all she’s been pretty good so far.  The only problem has been Sebastian.  He is terrified.  He spent the whole weekend hiding.  When I went to bed last night he curled up to me and just shook.  At one point during the night he must have went to check out the rest of the house, which just happened to wake up Lola, and she got up and started whining and that sent Sebastian flying back into the bedroom.  I’m going to look at getting a product called Feliway which is a pheromone that calms cats.  I’m hoping that will help.  Lola isn’t helping much because every time she sees him she gets all excited, which just terrifies Sebastian and sends him hiding again.  I’m hoping that after a few days he will get better.

So that’s how my first few days with Lola have been!  I’m sure you’ll be hearing lots more in the next couple days.  I’ll try to post a picture of her so that you can see what she looks like.

My cat Sebastian is one of the most trusting cats I have ever met.  Even if he is really scared of something, if I tell him it’s all right he will do his best to face it.
One example:  EDITED (because I thought of a better example )
Sebastian had a surgery about a year and a half ago.  He had a long line of stitches (over 6 inches!) in a very sensitive area.  For 3 weeks I had to clean it twice a day with hydrogen peroxide and then put on a salve.  Needless to say Sebastian didn’t like when I put the peroxide on that raw skin (then again neither would I).  And the first couple days he really fought me about it.  But then I took a different tact.  Rather then trying to pin him down, at the start of each session I took him on my lap and explained to him that this was the only way to make his big owie better.  I kept telling him that momma loves him, and that I would never do anything to hurt him unless it was absolutely necessary, and that if he trusted me I could make his owie would go away.  I’m sure he didn’t understand all of what I said, but he does know the phrases “big owie”, “all better” and “trust momma” and when you put them together they get the point across.  Once I started doing that he would lay down on the floor in front of me and let me clean him with out struggling, I didn’t even have to hold him.  I’m not saying he liked it, but he let me do it because he trusted me.  The trust we grew during those weeks has made it possible for me to do just about anything to him or around him, I just need to say “trust momma” and he’ll do anything I ask of him.

Now for my current problem (frustration?):
Sebastian has developed a sudden fear of my bed.  He has always slept with me, and when he is scared he always hides under the covers.  The bed is his safety zone.  It always has been.
But now for some unknown reason he won’t come on the bed.  He isn’t even all that comfortable being in my bedroom.  He’ll come in if I coax him, but as soon as I stop actively petting him and telling him that everything is fine, then he’ll high tail it out of there.

He was fine on sunday (when he woke me up at 4:30 [AM!] with a mouse he caught), but something happened sometime on sunday, and he didn’t come to bed that night.
The only thing I can think of is that the guy who mows my lawn came on sunday afternoon, and that is what scared him.  He is always scared of the lawn mower, but recently he has been really brave and has stayed out rather then hiding.  But on sunday he hid.  I didn’t think much about it (he only started staying out about 2 months ago), and he came out, like usual, about 15 minutes after they were gone.  I’ve tried really hard to think if there was anything unusual about him when he came out, but as hard as I’ve tried I haven’t been able to remember anything strange.

It took me 15 minutes to get him to come into the room last night.  I sat on the edge of the bed and petted him for a while, but as soon as I put my feet under the covers he left and didn’t come back.

This morning I did a little bribing.  He loves it when I read.  He sees a book come out and he runs over so he can cuddle up to me while I read.  So this morning I get my book out and sat on the bed.  It took him a few minutes, but he came in the room.  Then he paced around on the floor, whining because he wanted to be with me, but he didn’t want to be on the bed.  After about 15 minutes, much to my surprise, he jumped on the bed.  But he was only there for a few seconds before his fear took over and he jumped down and retreated to the doorway.

I kept telling him that he was being a very silly kitty.  Every time I called him silly he would look at me and blink his eyes.  Which is universal kitty-talk for YES.  So he knows he’s being silly.  But he’s still scared.

He has always been a scared of unfamiliar and new things.  So I am used to dealing with that.  If I see that he is scared of something I’ll slow down and let him sniff it and tell him that it is alright.  And like I said, he is supper trusting, so most of the time his trust in me is bigger then his fear.  But this time his fear is big.  And I’m at a loss to figure out why.

I know that eventually he will be fine.  The fact that he came on the bed, even if it was just for a few moments, was proof of that.  It may take a week or so, but he’ll get there.  I’ll just have to take it one step at a time.

The reason that he and I work so well is that I am always aware of him.  No matter what I’m doing, part of my brain is always keeping an eye on him (and all my animals for that matter).  So I know the instant he is afraid of something.  And I also take active steps to avoid him getting scared in the first place.  Like if I’m about to make a loud sound I’ll say the word “noise!” first.  Then he knows it’s coming and he doesn’t have a problem with it.  And if something does scare him I just tell him that everything is fine, and to trust that his momma.  And then he relaxes enough to investigate whatever scared him.
If he wasn’t so trusting, and if I wasn’t so patient and understanding, I think he would be constantly hiding in fear.

So the next couple days will be spent trying to reassure him that the bed is in no way scary.  I think I’ll try reading in bed again tonight.  Maybe that will help.  Keep your fingers crossed!

My cat Sebastian caught another mouse this morning.
I wonder if mice are really active at 4:30-5:00 in the morning?  That or maybe Sebastian is active around that time?  He normally either catches them at night (after dark, but before I go to bed), or right about 5am.

It was another young one so I, yet again, woke up to that wonderful high pitched squeaking noise (more of a screeching really).

Sebastian has this habit, when he gets tired of chasing the mouse he will lay on top of them.  It normally works really well, but this morning he didn’t notice that when he put the mouse down it scurried away before he actually laid down on it.  So I’m telling him to get it, and he’s looking at me like I’m crazy (“mom, I already have it!”).  Until I actually pick him up and he finds out that there is no mouse under him.  He started frantically looking around the living room (I don’t know why he insists on bringing them into the living room, there is so much stuff for them to run under!).  So he’s crying and pacing around trying to find it.  Well I had seen where it went, so I started moving the stuff in front of that.  Thankfully if I ask Sebastian to come over by me and look, he will.  So I told him I found the mousie and he glued himself to my side.  I finally got back to where the mouse was, but I think it was so scared that it didn’t move.  Until I accidentally dropped something, and then it went off running.  Thankfully (again!) Sebastian quickly dove after it, and with seconds he had cought it.  I swear that cat is one awesome mouser!  And he is fully declawed too!

So then I picked it up and went to go throw it (more like place it down gently) outside.  But Sebastian didn’t see me pick it up, so he started searching for it again.  I had to actually show him that I had the mouse.  Well then he wanted to follow me to the door (he normally keeps clear of the outside doors).  So I grabbed his collar and opened the door (that’s actually hard to do when you have a mouse in one hand, and are bent over holding a cat’s collar in the other) and placed the mouse outside.  Now most mice will run as soon as their little feet hit the ground, but this one just laid there.  So I let Sebastian stay there and watch him for a few seconds.  But then, when the mouse still was just laying there, I pulled Sebasitan back and closed the door.

Now, of course, I am fully awake and don’t feel like going back to sleep.  So I stayed up and read again.  I like how much reading I’m getting done, but I would much prefer to get that extra hour and a half of sleep.

It looks like this day is going to be FUN!!!!!!!!!

I woke up this morning to a strange squeaking noise.  Instantly I knew what it was, my cat Sebastian had caught a mouse.  Normally most mice will play dead and stay quiet when he catches them, but the young ones don’t know to do that.  So this one (a very small baby) was squeaking away!

Sebastian is quite good at catching mice.  He thinks it’s great fun.  I think if I was ever able to block off wherever they are getting in he would be very disappointed.

He is very good about putting them down if I ask him to (he wasn’t in the beginning, he was very possessive, but now he will drop it whenever I ask him to!).  The only problem is that this one kept running once he dropped it (again, still hadn’t learned to play dead).  So I’d ask him to drop it so I can pick it up, only to have it run right for me.  Sebastian would then chase it, and we’d start all over.

Now I have no problem with mice.  I used to have hamsters, and I don’t see much of a difference.  But when they run right for my feet I normally end up screaming and jumping out of the way.  I don’t know why.  The logical side of my brain has no problem with them, but when they are running at me….

So eventually one time when he dropped the mouse it ran up to a pet bed (but thankfully didn’t run under it), decided that snuggling up to it meant that we couldn’t see him, and I was able to pick it up.  I normally then put it in some kind of container and take it to a field several miles away, but this was 4:30 in the morning, and I didn’t feel like getting dressed just to take this mouse out.  So I ended up just putting it right outside my door.
I think that doing this ever once and a while might be a good thing.  That way the mouse can go back to all his mice buddies and tell them that this terrible cat lives in that little white house over there, and they better all stay away.

So after all that excitement I decided I didn’t quite feel like going back to sleep.  So I decided to stay up and read.  Sebastian tends to stay in the kitchen (where the mice are) after he catches one, but once he saw me carrying my book to the bedroom he quickly followed me.  Sebastian LOVES IT when I read.  He sees a book come out and he gets all excited!  So we had some nice cuddles while I read, but every once and a while he would leave to go check out the kitchen, and then come back for more cuddles.

Combining the fact that I stayed up a little bit late last night, and getting woken up at 4:30 this morning, I am very tired today.  All I want to do is sleep…..