The girl on the phone wouldn't leave me alone

OMG it’s been so long since I last wrote one of these things! I don’t know where time goes. As I said in my reply to my last post, I seem to spend hours on the internet but rarely get near B’net and don’t get round to blogging. I suppose there is an upside to that, in that I used to blog when I was stressed and depressed, and now don’t feel the need to. Must be a sign that I’m in a much better place from a mental point of view.

So, let’s see. What’s been going on?

Apologies to those of you who’ve seen all of this on Facebook or Twitter btw.

Anyway, firstly I’ve got two poorly dogs. Jez went down with Kennel Cough (doggie bronchitis) last week and was quite ill with it. The vet said Staffies get it badly due to the shape of their chest cavities or something, and there is a danger of it turning to pneumonia. It took about 3 days for her temperature to come down and she was really out of sorts. She’s much better now though and finished her antibiotics this morning. And she’s back having walks – well, mostly only one walk a day at the moment. But now Max has got it. He started coughing last night. He’s nowhere near as bad as Jez though, apart from the fact he managed to projectile vomit all over my bed this morning! So I’ve just taken him to the vet and picked up more antibiotics.

Me, I’ve gone all geeky and got myself a G3 iPhone. I’m really pleased with it except that it’s worse at syncing with the PC that my old IPaq was. And itunes even makes Sony’s Sonic Stage look robust and sophisticated (I’m not impressed). But I can tweet from the phone as I have unlimited internet access on the contract I’m on (although at home it picks up our wireless network). I also have 10 hours of calls a month, but no way will I use even a quarter of that – not only do I have very few people to phone but I never call anyway. I think I caught phone phobia off my father.

And I’ve discovered AudioBoos. For those of you who don’t know of them, the site allows you to make short recordings of up to 5 minutes on your phone and publish them. I Boo when I’m out walking. So if you want to listen to a few WalkingBoos, here are the links.

18 May

19 May

20 May

20May 2

22 May

23 May

24 May

25May

26 May

Let me see, what else is there. Oh yes, Chris has joined Facebook, so I keep joking saying I’ll have to watch what I say in future. And I entered a comp. Duncan ran on Twitter to win a signed Moon – poster. You had to write a poem about a geeky pastime. I didn’t win but I did get an honourable mention.

Finally we’ve (well, mainly I’ve) been decorating the kitchen (AGAIN). We had the tiles replaced and that meant we had to redecorate. It’s a pale shade of pink now: a bit paler than I wanted, but Chris insisted the colour I chose for the cupboard doors was too dark.

There, I think that will do for now. If I think of anything else I can always add it.

Oh – I new there was something else. I got some doggie clippers and gave Max a haircut yesterday. It didn’t go too badly, although Chris is blaming the fact he’s got a cough on the haircut – says I sapped all of his strength – LOL! Here’s a couple of before and after photos.

What in the world can you do?

What I can’t understand is why, after all the time and effort, it turns out that we – or should I say I? –are absolutely crap when it comes to dog training. You watch all these programmes on TV and they make it look so effortless. Any fool can do it – can’t they? I know all the theory. I’ve read the books, I’ve researched the internet, and I’ve watched the programmes – hours of them. And then I get my dogs and it all goes hopelessly wrong. You see, it turns out neither of them have read the books, done any research, or watched the TV programmes. So they don’t know how they are supposed to behave. In fact, they don’t behave anything like those dogs you see and read about at all.

The reason for this outburst is Jez. Well, mainly Jez. She’s decided she is definitely not coming back to us, unless it’s under her terms, i.e. normally when he’s worn out or bored with sniffing around. And worse, yesterday Chris took her over the Heath (to test whether she won’t come back to me over the Heath or whether she just won’t come back) and she ran off. Chris lost her while she decided she was going to explore the local housing estate. I got a panic phone call while I was in the middle of painting the kitchen.

Obviously we did get her back, but we really don’t know what to do about her. And her trainer seems to have run out of ideas. So since then I’ve had her on the lead. I’m trying to do recall training with her on the extendable lead. But I’ve tried this before and it hasn’t worked yet, so I don’t know what makes me think it will work this time. You know, if you keep doing the same thing, you get the same results. Trouble is, I don’t know what else to do.

And, of course, everyone you meet is an expert. They all know exactly what you should do, having watched TV or tried something that worked for them, or having known someone who knew someone who had a dog that it worked for. But of course, their dogs aren’t Jez. She is a law all unto herself.

Worse still, Max seems to be catching her bad habits. At the moment though, I’m putting it down to his age (terrible teens for a dog) and gaining more confidence. I just keep plugging away at him. He should settle down better.

And what’s worse virtually everyone I see has their dog quietly trotting out there side, doing what they’re told. Everyone except me. If my two are off lead they are about 20-30m ahead of me (but rarely together), and if they’re on lead at least one of them is pulling like mad. Sometimes both of them are – normally in different directions. My shoulder, far from getting better is getting worse. And my left glute is really painful again – which I’m pretty certain is from the dogs pulling.

So all in all feel like a complete and total failure. My Dad says I should give them a good thump - but I refuse to do that. I do get really upset about it though, and often it keeps me awake at night. I don’t know what to do, or where to turn for help that isn’t going to cost me a fortune. And the bit that really upsets me? These behaviourists say you have to make yourself interesting to your dogs. And just how am I supposed to do that? Once again, I’ve tried it all. I’ve even laid flat on my back in the middle of the woods. But in the end, to know that your dog would rather be doing anything other than to be with you really hurts.