BrianandLibby.com

You may have noticed that I skipped week three. There are very good reasons for that. Posh didn’t fare so well at school last week and I was beginning to lose faith in the power of dog school. Fortunately, my faith was restored last night.

For all of you who were losing sleep wondering, Posh is making great strides with the commands wait, come, leave it, stay, and go to bed. Her main weakness is loose leash walking, which means she has no hope for heeling right now, but that’s ok. I learned a valuable lesson last night - all things are possible with food. If she doesn’t perform the command, I just get better food out of my purse. I have everything from plain old dog food to the ultra indulgent beef jerky-ish stuff (her obvious favorite).

By the end of class she pretty much falls asleep on the floor, which makes me realize how under-exercised she is. I suppose that I am too, so hopefully when the weather improves that will change for both of us. In the meantime, I also learned at school that while Posh may not be the smartest (although she’s definitely pulling mostly A’s and B’s), she is definitely being informally voted cutest, softest and most hilarious (I promise - it’s not just me, everyone in class says so)! Aaaaah, she makes her mom so proud.  

Tonight I brought Posh to her first night of school…as a single parent. Brian couldn’t make it tonight so I was on my own. Here are some highlights:

• Posh still thinks she is twice her size. She tried to bully the big dogs. They are all much more chill than her, and didn’t really fight back. I think that made her think that she was actually somewhat threatening.
• My greatest fear was not realized - she was NOT the worst behaved dog in class. Although she was one of only two to spontaneously bark and disrupt the entire class.
• About 45 minutes into class, she stopped pulling on the leash and laid down. I’m sure it was because she was exhausted, but I like to think that she’s just so superior in intelligence that she was bored by such elemental concepts as “sit” and “stay.” You know, an overachiever, like her mom
• I have rugburn on my hand. Obviously she has not mastered “sit” and “stay” (definitely not stay).
• Posh’s report card would look something like this:
  • Polite greeting - A-
  • Sit - A+
  • Stay - A+
  • Attention - A+
  • Loose Leach Walking - F-

 Looks like we have some work to do after all.

Considering the news of our upcoming arrival, Brian and I decided we really needed to take care of the last addition to our family and get her in line, considering that we anticipate we will be neglecting her once the baby is born. So we signed young Posh up for Smart Dog School in Saratoga. Since we kind of dropped the ball on puppy school, we signed her up for a Foundations class, which I have learned is basically “all the stuff you should have taught your puppy and are dealing with now because you never did before.”

Last night was owner orientation, or parent orientation as I like to call it. It was owners only, no dogs allowed. I quickly caught onto the fact that this was more of a class to train Brian and I than it was to train our dog. We learned about how dogs learn and how badly we mess them up by responding to them the way we do. We learned all the things we have to start and stop doing so we can live in peace with young Posh. 

We also learned that food is the best incentive ever to get our dog to obey us. So I’ve come to the conclusion that in order for us to have a pristinely behaved dog, she is boung to end up overweight. Our only homework was to start using this clicker-trainer, which basically means every time we click she gets a treat. We did a lot of clicking last night.

Next week we bring the dogs along. Our class has nine dogs…two labs, a mastiff, a couple shephard mixes and a terrier…and little Posh. It should be interesting to see how she does with dogs twice her size. Posh is usually quite the aggressor in “social” situations but I’m thinking that might change significantly next week…

Ever since we got Posh my daily struggle is trying to minimize the hours she spends in her crate, which, despite expert advice telling me it is the safest, most humane place to keep her when we’re not around, makes me feel like a horrible human being every time I see her peering out from inside of it. Brian and I had discussed gradually increasing her “area” when we’re not home once the Christmas stuff was down (which was last weekend, thank you very much!). You know…get some of those baby gates and give her a room or two (with nothing in it that she could destroy) to roam around in.

Wednesday morning Brian calls me and informs me that he left her out! He claims that he put her in her crate, went down to drink a cup of coffee, and heard her running down the stairs soon after…the little conartist. We should have named her Houdini! So as a reward of sorts for her escapism (we are going to be horrible parents) he closed all of the bedroom doors, picked up the shoes off the ground and just let her chill for the day. After he told me, I spent the majority of the day envisioning what I might come home to…absolute destruction, or worse…pee on the carpet that I don’t find until later. To say the least, I was intrigued.

Much to my surprise Posh does absolutely nothing when we’re gone from what we can tell. The couple times I’ve been able to spot her laying down when I get home before she runs to me, I’ve found her sleeping on the landing halfway up the staircase, where she goes so she can look out the front window and see us come and go. She hasn’t chewed or peed on anything, and while this obviously frees Posh from the 9+ hours she spends in the crate every day, it also frees me from worrying about whether or not leaving her in there for too long is considered animal cruelty.

It’s only been two days so we’ll see if this lasts. If we remain incident free she will not face an immediate lockdown, but if we do not…I will keep you posted.

Today Brian and I discovered that some classic, timeless games require no explanation, as their concept is innate to even the simplest of beings…more specifically, to Posh. We decided to merge Fetch and Catch and ended up playing Monkey in the Middle with Posh for about a half hour.

It was pretty easy and required no explanation to young Posh. Brian just played fetch with her for a while, then I jumped in and started catching the toy, and the rest is history. She ran back and forth as though she had no idea what was happening next. I started to feel bad, because she ran with such conviction…as though we would miss and she would at last embrace her prize, so I let her catch the toy a few times. As it turns out, I don’t think she cared at all. I’m not sure if dogs smile, but I think she was grinning a little as she enjoyed a favorite pasttime of ours. Good times, good times.

My sister just told me to google Juicy Crittoure and I discovered hundreds of dollars worth of new ways to spoil Posh. Pink cashmere hoodies, heart-shaped dog beds, dog Pawfum, a Princess dog house and, yes, doggie Nail Pawlish (and Nail Pawlish remover). If not so cost prohibitive I would, without reservation, purchase several of these items for young Posh but unfortunately, I wouldn’t even buy myself (or anyone else for that matter) a $95 cashmere hoodie, so I fear that Posh won’t be getting one anytime soon. Besides, we already decided that Posh was only getting one gift this Christmas, which she actually got on Wednesday. Posh got spayed More of a gift to us really, and although we could have spent that money on a cashmere hoodie, nail Pawlish and some Pawfum, I think we made the right choice for the long run. However, if anyone out there is dying to purchase her an elaborate gift, the above photo is of one item actually called the “Posh Pooch Set” complete with dog coif fur conditioner, doggy brush, and dog shampooch.

Everything you’ve heard is true. We put Posh in a Halloween costume for this year’s festivities. Before you pass judgment let me remind you that, first of all, Brian and I don’t have any “real” kids so we are going to be “those wierd people who are obsessed with their dog” for a yet undetermined amount of time until we do have kids. Second, the costume was only 6 dollars.

If you think that is bad, you should have seen the lobster costume we originally bought her. It was heavier and had all these tentacles. As soon as we put it on her, she stood perfectly still for a couple of minutes, only moving to shuffle herself shamingly into a corner and sit staring at the well. I’m thinking she knew how ridiculous she looked. We felt pretty cruel after putting her through this charade 2-3 times, so we took it back. By that point Target had put all of the costumes on sale so I tried out the ladybug, which was still not her favorite thing, but I didn’t feel like the SPCA was coming to rescue her on account of our cruelty either. Hey, she got used to it and all of our trick or treaters loved it. Maybe she’ll be ready for the lobster next year…