After a frustrating morning of arguing over who’s boss, I gave Mississippi a bath. She struggled a little getting in but once in, she was very well behaved. Giving her a bath gives me great joy. I feel like I have some control over her and in a sick way, I enjoy that she probably doesn’t like it very much. Today I gave her a bath by myself. I wanted to see if it was even possible. Last bath time Tom and I both bathed her. I gave her a carrot and after she got out of the bath and she very calmly ate her carrot while I dried her off. She got a nice, big kong afterward. Now she’s yummy smelling. Our dinner guests will love molesting her tonight.
I took the night off last night to spend some time with my friend Mo. She’s 7 months pregnant with a 4 year old, a 3 year old and two pugs. When you ring her doorbell, all hell breaks loose. It felt kind of nice watching someone else’s chaos for once, and assuring myself that 1 dog is easy comparatively. Just because her children speak English doesn’t mean things run any more smoothly. Mo’s having a hard time right now but she has a good perspective. She knows there are good times and bad and that you just have to ride out the storm. It’s hard to keep your eye on the horizon sometimes but as long as you know it’s there, I think you can make it through the struggles. I told her having this dog made me afraid of procreation. She assured me that although it might look totally insane, she wouldn’t change her life for anything.
Mississippi took a nap in her crate today all by herself. She’s been going in pretty regularly so today i moved it into her favorite spot and put her bed inside it. Such a relief to see that at least some things are moving forward. She’s been a pretty bad brat lately.
Mississippi is very good at laying down now and today was rolling over onto her back with little coaxing. She’s got “look at me” down pretty good as long as there aren’t more exciting things to look at. She gets an A for her bowing skills. Turn to the left, turn to the right, happen without having to lead her much. She’s still having trouble sitting from a down and to her stand means jump on me. I’m trying to train her to speak but she seems to be having trouble believing that I’m rewarding her for barking. I’m pretty sure it’s how she got her former owners to let her out. The probably had the philosophy of “just open the door and make that terrible noise go away!” I feel it often. Mississippi is getting really good at wave now and knows the difference between that and shake. I was doing some agility training with her and she jumped over the second rung without hesitation. Last time I worked with her, she was very reluctant to jump over the second rung. There was less of her running around the jump. I think she’s starting to understand that jumping over the bar gets treats but running around it gets nothing.
We got the book Click for Joy the other day and have been reading through it. Mississippi actually let us read in bed the other night. Usually if the lights are on in the bedroom, she’s making mischief. We have to turn off the lights to get her to sleep.
Some nights she barks in the middle of the night, some nights there’s nothing. Hoping it eventually just peters off. Our room is so loud when she barks. It feels like the walls are shaking. She’s still driving us totally insane but we’re doing what we can. Our trainer comes tomorrow to help with the next step in crate training and a behaviorist from the OHS is coming by next week to help me with some of her most frustrating issues. I think she might soon be ready for group class and I am thinking of taking her for an interview at the doggy day care down the street to see if she’s ready for that. As soon as I can stand the idea of leaving her over night, I’m taking Tom to the coast for a quiet night at a B&B. Ahhhhhh. Sounds so amazing.
We have a very short area rug that is like velcro with her dog hair. We can’t vacuum it, the hair sticks like glue. I’ve been running my shoes along it to pick up the hair but the other day I found the prefect tool. It’s a long handled deck scrubber. The bristles are very stiff so it’s basically like a stiff hair brush for our rug. Works wonders. I’m not ashamed of having guests over tonight.