The Dish by Darcy

Come one, come all! We’ve just added beautiful breed calendars. See them in New at SitStay at www.sitstay.com

Please pass it on to everybody you know and every blog and every discussion board that you can. Tell your church, your groups, your office pals. Tell your dog lovers! Let’s see if we can get enough orders out there to mess up the guys in the warehouse. It doesn’t happen often. Those guys are good!

[Order some treats and toys, too, to help justify that silly shipping cost we have to add. They'll make great stocking stuffers!]

Time to shop for Christmas! Every year we give each of our employees a calendar. At the end of the year, we all go some place very nice and have dinner together. The first calendar starts with the person who has been with us the longest. If they don’t want that one, they pass it to the person who has been here next longest, and on and on until everyone has a calendar. It can get pretty crazy, back and forth and over the table. We wind up laughing and having a marvelous time. I love the people who work here!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your business. I appreciate it very, very much.

Darcie

Hi Darcie, I have a 16 month old Lab Chow mix that is very timid around children but if the child starts running my dog will start chasing him/her and bark and try to playfully nip at them. I know she is playing as she will do the same thing with me (I try to correct her when she does this with me). Any suggestions how I may be able to curb this behavior? Jeff

Dear Jeff,

When I have a mixed breed dog, I look at the temperament and characteristics of both breeds to try to determine the best way to train. I’ve never had a Chow so I won’t be a whole lot of help for you. I’ll give you what I can.

If she was a herding dog, I’d say that’s what herding dogs do and you can easily change the behavior. My girl Dancer chased the neighbor boy over the fence. Well, he went for the top of the fence and she grabbed his shoe. I was on her side about that, he was throwing rocks at her. I talked to his Mom and we all worked together, Mom, the boy, Dancer and me. He stopped teasing her, she stopped chasing him over the fence.

I do worry about your dog being timid. That runs up a few red flags for me, no matter what the breed. Timid often translates to “fear” and that can be bad. Fear can turn into all things bad like aggression. A Lab and a Chow are pretty good sized breeds with a lot of muscle. Even in play, they could hurt somebody pretty easily. The chasing and nipping can easily turn into someone getting hurt.

If she was mine, she would be on a leash and would not get to chase children or anyone. I would immediately start positive training with her. Some people think that positive training means food and it can indeed include food. Positive training means no force: no hitting, jerking, spanking, yelling, choking. If you do those things with your Chow mix, she’ll probably shut down or get worse. Positive training is getting your dog to agree to work with you.

I’ve never had a Chow, I understand they are a strong willed breed but even if that’s true, it doesn’t have to be all bad. It does mean that you and each member of your family will need to train her and she will have to obey each person at the drop of a hat.

My very best advice for you is to find a good positive trainer to teach you and your children how to handle the dog. That said, here we go…

Teach her “off”. Start with a bite of food. Tell her off, she leaves it, give it to her. Make a fist, show it to her gently, say “off”. The instant she ignores or moves away from your fist, praise her. “Off” simply means “do not put your mouth on this.” When she’s doing good with off for the whole family, then take a few running steps, if she starts to put her mouth on you, tell her “off”, when she does, praise. It’s the best training not to nip that I have ever found.

I would put her on a leash and teach her a very solid “sit”. No matter who says sit, she does it. Whether she’s at a dead run or standing still. “Sit” cures a lot of ills. Meaning, you can’t run and nip if you’re sitting.

She needs a drop dead recall. Meaning, if she has started to chase, anyone can call “Judy Come!” and she turns to come running.

I hope that you can find someone quickly to help you. Don’t let them use a shock or metal collar, you’ll see things get much worse if you do that.

You might consider that she is a full grown dog now. Some trainers will tell you that you have a lot of time left to train her, others will tell you that you are out of time. Some will say that you need to find her a new home, others will say that she needs to be put down, some will say, hang in there and see how it goes before you make a decision.

I say, find a good positive trainer and give her a chance to be your good dog. She hasn’t bitten yet, nipping comes in a close second, but you would have told me if she’d taken skin with a nip. Right?

Take her for morning and evening walks, good long walks, this will help more than anything else you can do. She must be either beside you or behind you on these walks and on a loose leash.

Lots of obedience training, positive only, please. Make it fun. You might consider agility, too. Turn her energy into a game that won’t hurt anybody.

And manage that movement. She can’t chase and nip if you have her on a sit stay and on a leash. Good Girl! for not chasing.

Dogs love to chase and play and if all goes well with the training, she’ll get to do that, too. One last piece of advice if the “off” doesn’t work quickly…it should but if it doesn’t…get her turned on to an Orbee Ball, Zisc Frisbee, or a soft toy (you’ll find them all at SitStay.com). If she has something in her mouth, she’s less likely to bite.

I wish I was there, I’d love to meet her. I have Lab mixes, too.

Darcie

It was a beautiful evening last night, calm and just warm enough. The dogs were every size and shape and age, beautiful and funny. I’d met some of them before, including Mr. Lincoln, a great big black Great Dane. There were birds and cats, a great long white boa named Butters who hung around the neck of whoever was brave enough to hold him. I’d stooped down to get something and when I stood back up and turned around, there was Butters inches from my face, looking right at me. Oh, my gosh. A snake! And a few other reptiles, too, one with a missing tail. All being petted and loved. All gathered together in the church yard for a blessing.

The giggles got the best of me as I watched the “telegraph” bush. Every male dog who lifted a leg marked it, every other dog sniffed it. Who’s who of the gathering was decided with a nose  and every once in a while, a full face plant into the bush to get a really big whiff of who was there.

The service started and was interrupted. Two late comer dogs, one staring hard into the crowd, started one dog barking. The late comer barked back. Another joined in and then all the dogs were barking, most of them for the sheer joy of barking. I had free treats for everybody so I ran to give some to the late comers, hoping to help turn their minds to a better place. Hush, said their people, treat. It worked. All of the dogs settled down and the service continued.

The people were wonderful. Some of them knew me and we hugged and chatted. Zoe told me that she’d retired from the school that Bruno (1993-2007)  and I used to go to. He and I were privileged to work with those kids, they loved him so much. I remember the hugs and the laughter in those afternoons. A beautiful lady from the old neighborhood was there, too. We hugged and she thanked me again for working with her wild and barking dog all those years ago. She said she was fostering the Golden that was with her last night. What a beautiful boy. Some people were new to me and we laughed and talked about new dogs and dogs already passed on from us. We talked about cats and their rescue needs. Most of the dogs at the service were rescues who are hoping for a new home. It took everything I had in me not to say, here, I’ll just take them all. I love dogs. I love people. I love people best who love dogs. Isn’t that the way with all of us?

As I drove home, I thought about all the nice things we said to each other, the hugs, the laughter, the history, and the animals. The appreciation was real and good.

I live my life to serve the very best that I can and I see others who give everything they have in the service that they choose. In my life sometimes, just like in yours, there is a quick disturbance like there was last night. It’s a tiny ripple of unrest, maybe a word spoken harshly in judgement about me or my work, my writing or what I do for a living. Or maybe it’s just someone needing attention without knowing how to ask for what they need, usually that comes as slings and arrows without explanation. When these things happen, I count my blessings out loud and know that I’ll keep my faith, I’ll keep my head square on my shoulders and my life will go on to get even better. And just like last night, one barking dog made a ruckus, it made no sense so was smiled at and dismissed, and everybody went on with their life to continue to do good. Just as it should be.

I slept like a baby.

[If you have the money, the time, the space and the love. Please rescue. Thank you. http://rescue.sitstay.com ]