As of today, we’ve had Mississippi exactly two weeks. This picture is proof she’s calming down a little. A week ago it probably would have been impossible to take a photo of her sitting quietly outside. Usually outside means crazy time. I think training her to sit at all the corners has really helped get her focused on us a little bit when outside.
I’ve been having a much better time lately. Friday, I was actually happy by the time Tom got home, instead of being a big, tearful mess. What a relief. I’m going to try very hard this week to stay happy every day. No more tears. Britney was right, working in the same room as Mississippi doesn’t work. If she sees me, she wants attention. If I don’t give her attention, she starts to eat the house. So I’m just going to lock myself in the office and she can have the living room. I feel pretty lucky that we don’t have furniture that is very dear to us. We are still as diligent as we can be about keeping things in one piece, but if she destroys stuff, it’s not the end of the world. Still someday it sure would be nice to get a new couch. I wouldn’t dream of bringing a new couch into that place the way things are right now.
The random barking is getting worse. She barks throughout the day and in the middle of the night. Just when we start to fall asleep and are all comfy and quiet, she’ll start barking and it scares the living daylights out of us. We tried to keep the bedroom door open one night but she sat by the side door and barked like crazy. We gave her a few minutes but she didn’t seem like she was going to stop and I’m sure our neighbors were hating us. So we had to bring her back into the bedroom with us and close the door. The barking really does seem random. Sometimes there is something there, sometimes she just randomly gives out little half barks. Sometimes it seems like she barks in her sleep. We have been trying to ignore the barking. So far she doesn’t seem to care what we think (or don’t think) of her barking.
She’s gotten used to her BeBop harness. She puts her nose right through it and sits semi-calmly while I put it on her. She walks with a loose leash most of the time with the harness. I still have to say “come on, let’s go” to get her to stop sniffing and keep walking. Sometimes she plants her feet flat on the ground and refuses to go forward until she’s gotten a good solid sniff at stuff. I try to humor her every few sniffs so she gets to have her own doggy fun. It’s always a guessing game on how much freedom I should be giving her on walks. As long as it seems like she’s improving, I’m ok with her getting in some sniffing. I encouraged Tom to try the harness because he was complaining about the pain too. He came back from his first walk with her on the harness and swore she was a different dog.
She’s getting much better at ‘stay’ and she is really good at ‘bow’ now. She’s still not great at ‘down’ and gets a little confused with ‘down’ and ‘bow’. She comes when we call her, unless there’s something more interesting. So I’m still not comfortable with the idea of taking her off leash. I think we have a ways to go before that.
I think our dog has OCD when it comes to other dogs. When the dogs are out next door, which is pretty much always, she obsesses over them. She will keep going over to the fence no matter how we try to entertain her. She does give us bits of attention in between her fence visits but yeah, the dogs are pretty exciting to her still. It’s always the same story. She runs to the fence and starts whimpering. The dogs bark and bark. At one point she stuck her paw through the fence yesterday and Benji bit it, causing her to go into a crazy barking rage. Serves her right, sticking her paw in someone else’s yard. So we continue to try and play and practice our commands with the distractions. I suppose it’s a good exercise for her and us, to see if she’ll come even when tempted by other creatures.
The sun is out in force and Mississippi is shedding like crazy. Tom swept on Saturday and I swept this morning. I scooped up a huge fur ball. I scratched her back leg this morning and tons of hair came out. Looks like undercoat. So I guess I need to get one of those undercoat brushes. It’s been a challenge brushing her with her regular brush. Even if I pet her for a while and sneak the brush in while she’s looking the other way, she catches on and she thinks the brush is for chewing. I can’t get her to sit calmly if she’s knows it’s around.
I took a break from Mississippi and went to a class at OCAC on paper sculptures. I’ll post more about the class but having a break felt so nice. I actually almost forgot I had a devil dog at home. It wasn’t until I called Tom on the way home and heard her barking on the phone that I’d remembered that yes, our lives are forever changed. Tom has really worked hard this weekend at giving me a little time to feel like a normal human. Facing the week was much easier after having some me time. Yesterday we went wine tasting with Dave and Christy. By the end of the day, we felt so incredibly guilty for leaving her behind all day. I wish we could take her to more places. Still we got home, walked her and played with her, played with her some more, walked her one more time, and she still wans’t satisfied, so Tom and I snuck down to the basement and I had a guitar lesson. Felt nice to have some time alone with Tom in our house.
Today I’m working at a cafe for a while. There’s a woman here with a rescue dog and she said she almost gave her dog back. She recommended seeing a free dog behaviorist at the OHS. I tried last week but they guy they referred me to has laryngitis. I’m going to try calling him again today. Maybe he’s better now but lost my message. If not, I’ll try the OHS again and see if they can refer me to someone else. Seeing this dog sit quietly next to this woman gives me great hope. She said that right at the two week point was when she wanted to give her dog back.
Tonight is week two of our private training. Wonder what we’ll cover tonight. Mississippi won’t get into her crate at all. I’ll ask the trainer about that and I may end up taking the crate back. It’s huge and cost a lot of money. She obviously has bad associations with crates so I dn’t know if it will ever help her. I also have some questions about the barking and the mouthiness. Sometimes when we try to practice ‘come’ while she’s excited, she’ll use her whole mouth to touch out hand, not just her nose. Her teeth are sharp.
Anyway, we’re doing a little better. Still wondering if this was such a good idea but hoping that a year from now, we’ll look back on this time and know it was all worth it. Can’t wait til we can take her to the ocean. She seems to love water. That will be the day we’ll know it was all worth it.