We’ve had Mississippi for four weeks now. We are still having plenty of bad moments, but there are plenty of good moments now too. Since I hurt my foot last week (it’s healing fast), I haven’t taken her for a walk but Tom says the walks are sometimes downright pleasant. She’s been going to dog parks regularly and has been doing really well in them. Sometimes she maybe focuses too much attention on one dog, but she’s a fast learner, she’ll figure it out pretty quick I think.
She is still whining and barking like crazy. When I was unable to walk, she barked and barked most of the day, I was so completely miserable. I put on headphones and kept my office door closed. My neighbors said they’d never heard her bark like. Which tests out my theory that she only barks when we are around to hear her. Q: If a Mississippi barks in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does she make a sound? Yesterday I took my computer downstairs and worked in the basement for a while just to get away from her barking and whining. Once I was down there, it stopped, except for the mailman and the UPS guy, which I suppose was kind of good in a way, because I now don’t have to worry about missing the doorbell. See, my glass is definitely half full. It’s been a toss up between trying to train her to stay away from the door, which is were most of her barking happens, or to completely ignore her. She’s pretty persistent so I’m not sure the no action idea is going to work with her. What I’ve been doing is getting her to come sit in my office with me for short periods where I dole out pieces of carrot. She goes nuts for carrots.
Today Mississippi went to doggy day care for the first time. She played a little rough and got a couple corrections from other dogs but other than that, it sounded like things went really well. She seemed very happy when I picked her up and took a long nap afterward. I did notice she was a little protective of her kong and was a little jumpy, but she’s always jumpy. I figure as long as we don’t jump into an every day day care situation she’ll adjust. In the end of June we have to leave her for a whole week. The idea makes my stomach turn. It seems too early in our relationship to be sending her packing for an entire week without us. Still, there’s a month and a half before then so I’m trying not to think about it too much.
Having Mississippi at the day care for 5 hours today was absolutely blissful for me. I left all the bedroom doors open and I could eat on the couch without fearing her nabbing stuff off the coffee table. The house was so quiet and peaceful. I didn’t have to worry about stirring the beast just by refreshing my coffee or going to the bathroom. I think I love doggy daycare, for the both of us. So I hope things continue to go well. I felt sort of bad for the woman working there. She seemed overwhelmed today. They had a crazy all-day barker and a dog that had been sprayed by skunk. She was not a happy camper.
We had our first “group” class last night. It was titled growley dog and I lost the class description but I think it had something to do with keeping your dog from barking, which for us was drilling her non-stop with commands. She doesn’t seem to calm down around other dogs until she actually gets to meet them, and last night the other dog was kept at a distance. I hope that with some more day care and dog parks, she’ll eventually calm down and just see other dogs are nice friends instead of getting all crazy excited. The barking in the middle of the night hasn’t happened for a couple nights and last night she actually opted to sleep in her crate in the living room, instead of at the foot of our bed. She was asleep when we went to bed and didn’t seem interested in joining us like she usually does. I heard her come in, then turn back around and go back to her crate. She also let us sleep til 8 today, making up for yesterday’s 6:30am wake-up whine.
Oh boy, as I type, the afternoon barking has begun. Must be neighborhood walk your dog after work time.
Our trainer asked if things were going better. They are. There are still tears and moments of complete frustration, but I haven’t picked up a whiskey bottle in a while. That sounded worse than it really was. There were only two shots of whiskey over a couple days, and a lot of beer for a couple weeks. Anyway, I was a bit out of my mind. Many of the previous posts were written with tears streaming down my face.
The other thing that’s been hard for us is that we’ve had a pretty calm life for the past nine years. No pets or kids to worry about. Even the houseplants have been easy to care for. Now we have a big (for us) house, a crazy, needy dog, and a vegetable garden plus grass to mow. We have much less time for ‘us’ so when things get frustrating, it feels like we’ve just been ripped off and we want our old lives back. But we don’t really, because we’ve wanted this for so long. Now we have it, we just have to make it work. We used to go to the Panhandle just to sit and watch the dogs. We love doggies and now we have the greatest doggy in the world. She’s just got some Jekyll-Hyde stuff going on. Now ‘us’ is the three of us.
She is so damn cute and wonderful. This week she learned ‘through the legs’ and ‘dance’. She’s a master at bow, don’t even have to give her a hand signal. Wave is down great too, roll over is getting there slowly but surely, and sit from a lay down is happening almost 100% of the time. Turn to the right, turn the the left are happening all the time, with smaller circles from our arms. Jump is super fun and she does it always, ‘come’ is good, she’ll even do it occasionally at the dog park. Just long enough to touch her nose to our hand, then she’s off. She’ll maybe stick around for one sit and a treat. I’m trying to teach her to hide her head but she doesn’t touch her face that much. I’ve thought about putting peanut butter on her face to try and get her to do it. I bet she’d like that, she likes peanut butter. She’s a smarty pants and loves to show off.
Mississippi loves fruits and vegetables. Today I gave her a watermelon rind. She liked it so much I froze the rest for future treats. She’ll eat pretty much anything we give her. She chews on parsley and mint but doesn’t seem to think it’s edible, which is funny considering how much she loves to get her teeth on things like paper, foam rubber, and towels.
I have a herding breed specialist coming over tomorrow. Maybe he can help keep our marriage in tact by helping us with the tantrums. When they are bad, they are oh so bad. Now that she likes to hang out in her crate, I’m going to start closing the door for short intervals. I dream of being able to ask her to go into her crate when the doorbell rings. If I could just get that to happen, and for the barking and whining to cease, life would be so sweet.
So here we are, four weeks in, and I think I see a light at the end of the tunnel. We just have to keep trying to be patient and loving. I think she really loves us, and that is pretty nice. Shes so damn cute, I can’t wait for the day when I get to show her off more without being afraid she’ll jump on and mouth innocent bi standards.