I Found It!

I’ve been searching for just the right thing to carry all the stuff I want to take when I’m out walking my clients. I’ve tried backpacks, fanny packs (the big hiking kind), and over-the-shoulder bags. Nothing has been quite right. Backpacks don’t work for me, because I need easy access to certain supplies, like poop bags. The fanny pack is too small for everything I want to carry, and everything gets jumbled up in it, making it difficult to get what I need when I need it. I found a shoulder bag put too much strain on my shoulder and I was always adjusting it.

So, I've been on the hunt for something to carry all the above stuff in. I came across a link to a site that sells a dog walking jacket. The jacket looked really nice, but it would be too warm for So Cal and it was $250, which is way more than I am willing to spend.

However, it gave me an idea… a fishing vest. So I went to Big 5 and looked at the vests. I decided to buy one and check it out. The vest I got is lightweight, which will be good during the summer. During cool weather I can wear it over a jacket. It’s machine washable, which is important because it will get muddy paw prints on it. Another plus with the vest, it keeps those muddy paw prints off of my shirts. The vest has 26 pockets, not that I need that many, some with Velcro flaps and others zippered. I was able to get all my stuff in it, distribute the weight and wear it comfortably. It might look dorky, but I don't care! I think it’s going to be the answer to my dog walking needs.

It also serves as an ad hoc Halloween costume, as long as you have a cute dog in a lobster costume too.

You may be wondering what I carry with me on my dog walking tours. The following is a list of the items I like to have with me, and why:

Extra leashes: In case a leash breaks, or for the occasional “stray” dog I find. It's handy to have a leash to attach to their collar, or make into a slip if the aren't wearing one. They're mostly for clients who only have retractable leashes… I don’t use them. Want to know why? See my blog: Retractable Leashes Should Be Banned!

Belt: I attach a couple carabineers to it. It’s a handy way to clip leashes to me when I need to have my hands free. For instance, poop pick-ups are way easier if you can use both hands for the bags.

Carabineers: See above.

Poop Bags: For obvious reasons! LOL!

Bag to put used poop bags in: I clip it to a carabineer attached to the vest. That way, I don’t have to hold bags of poop and leashes in my hands. BTW, I use cloth lunch bag I got from Subway, so I’m not throwing way plastic within plastic, and it's washable.

Treats and Clicker: Because I love to train my clients. Plus having treats to toss at an unleashed, and unhappy dog, can make for a great distraction from my clients.

Direct Stop: A citronella-based dog repellant, it comes in a container like pepper spray. I think it would probably work on people too.

Umbrella: Provides protection from rain, sun, and the occasional scary dog. Sometimes opening an umbrella in a dogs face will frighten it away; but, if that doesn’t work, it can also be used as a visual barrier or even a weapon.

Squeaky Ball: In case we feel the need to play fetch.

Water and Portable water bowl: I always carry water for the dogs and myself, but they’re the only ones who drink from the bowl… LOL!

First Aid Kit: For the dogs and me, so far I’m the only one to use it. Thank God!!

Small towel: Because dogs drool, get wet and dirty.

Giant Carabineer: I sometimes use it to clip leashes together when I’m walking multiple dogs.

Flashlight: Sometimes I have to walk dogs, or enter homes in the dark. I found a really small LED flashlight that provides enough light and fits in one of the smaller pockets.

Keys: For obvious reasons.

ID/Wallet: I don’t want to leave it in my car.

Hat: It keeps the sun out of my face.

Phone: Because I might get lost and need to find myself. Thank God for GPS.

Flip Camera: To record the cute things my clients do. Their parents love to see my videos.

Lip Balm: My lips are always chapped.

Eye Drops: To wash out the dirt the dogs kick up and also my cat’s hair.

Hand sanitizer: Because poop happens and I can’t always wash my hands right away.

Wet wipes: Ditto

Lens Cleaning Wipes: Because dogs are always licking my glasses.

Sunscreen: I’m out in the sun a lot, and I’m my pale skin gets sunburned easily. Also I tend to forget it until I’m actually outside.

Rain slicker: For those rainy days, and it can be used to sit on.

Sweet Tarts: Just because I really love them!

Eureka! I found it!

A Little Purple Blast From The Past

Yesterday, Jesse and I took a client to Lindo Lakes for a walk. We walked around the lake, and she and Jesse flushed the ducks into the water (big bird dogs), they stayed away from the geese (smart dogs, especially since they have a bunch of goslings right now), and they still can't figure out how the squirrels just disappear (that going to ground thing is beyond them, guess they're not terriers... LOL).

We also made a quick cruise through the farmer's market, one reason we went there was so I could to stop by the Indian food stand and get some veggie samosas and yogurt mint dip for dinner. Dogs aren't allowed in the market, but half the people bring them anyway and no one seems to care. You gotta love Lakeside. So I got my Indian food, and then I rediscovered part of my childhood...

One stand was selling mulberries; I haven't tasted them since I was a kid. As soon as I popped it in my mouth a wealth of memories rushed into my mind. It was like a sweet little purple password that suddenly opened memory storage, which hadn’t been accessed for a long time. It tasted just the way I remembered when I was young, and there were mulberry trees next to our house. Back then I must have consumed my weight in them every spring and early summer. They were then and still are one of my favorite foods.

My friends would come over and we’d pick buckets of berries. We would have purple hands for days, but it was worth it for the pies, cobblers and jams mom would make with them. Of course, we ate almost as many as we picked.

I loved to climb those trees and just hang out up there. Sometimes one or two of my cats would join me in there, especially if I’d brought a sandwich with me. We would share the sandwich and snuggle up there. I would hide in the trees, and watch the world pass by below. Occasionally, I would play tricks on people, when someone walked by, I would quietly say, “Hi there,” and watch them look all around to find the source of the voice. Unless I made another noise, most people never thought to look up. They would look around (some people would say something like, “Who’s there”), and then walk on, probably wondering if they were losing their minds.

One of my favorite past times was to read in the mulberry trees. I would wrap a blanket around my current book, toss it into the tree and climb up after. I would find my comfy Y branch and use the blanket for padding. Then, for hours, I would sit there, eating mulberries, and losing myself in a book. I would do that all year long, but when the mulberries were ripe, it was tree reading nirvana. I wonder how many purple fingerprints I left on the pages.

Of course, the birds loved them too. Back then we didn't have a clothes dryer, so we hung our clothes out on a line. The birds would sit in the trees, eat mulberries and then fly over and drop purple poop and berries all over mom's freshly washed laundry. Mulberry juice, even when processed through birds, makes a purple dye. A permanent purple dye, the sheets, towels, mom’s nursing uniforms, and the rest of our clothes often ended up with purple blotches all over them. We started hanging the laundry up in the garage, during mulberry season.

The berries also dropped everywhere; the soles of my feet were purple all summer, of course more than once I left purple footprints across the floors. Since the tree overhung the driveway, the berries and bird poop ended up all over the car. Mom said she hated those trees because they were so messy, but she loved to eat those mulberries too.

Once, when I was in trouble for having a bad report card, I tried to hide from mom in a tree. I sat up there and watched her walk around, calling me, and getting madder by the moment. My goal was to avoid punishment (a spanking) as long as possible. I thought I’d hide until she got over being mad. Then I would come home and pretend I had been off playing in the fort and didn’t hear her calling me. (The fort was a large shipping crate one of the neighbor kids found. We hauled it into a field and turned it into the fort).

Anyway, that was my plan, but after what seemed like hours, I came to realize it was a really bad plan. Besides, starting to really need to go to the bathroom, I could tell mom wasn’t “getting over it.” In fact, she was getting angrier because she was getting worried. Since I was up a tree, I didn’t know she’d called all the neighbors, checked the fort and my other favorite playing places. Even back then, when life seemed so safe, bad things did happen to little kids. I was about to give up, climb down and face the music, when mom came out with her secret weapon, our dog Snoopy. Being a dachshund, it didn’t take him long to sniff out my tree. When mom looked up and saw me… a look of total relief came over her face, but it was quickly followed by one of sheer anger when she realized I’d been there all along. I won’t tell you what happened next; let’s just say I never hid from her again, at least not in a tree.

BTW, the above story is a great example of why it’s not a good idea to punish your dog, or anyone for that matter. Punishment usually doesn’t work, the dog may stop doing that behavior at that moment, but he’ll often do it again later. So the dog doesn’t learn not to get in the trash, he just learns not to do it when you’re around. As a young human, with opposable thumbs and a partially formed frontal lobe, I understood why I was in trouble. However, unless you catch them in the act, and maybe not even then, animals don’t get why you’re mad. They just know you’re mad. I went out of my way to avoid the punishment, but I got it anyway, in spades. However, while that spanking may have taught me not to hide from mom in trees, it also taught me to be afraid of her. What it didn’t do was teach me how to spell, which is why I got the bad report card in the first place.

For more information about punishment, positive reinforcement, dogs and people read: Don't Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training, Karen Pryor. Bantam Books.

I also recommend: Chill Out Fido! How to Calm Your Dog, Nan Kené Arthur. Dogwise Publishing

For more great books, check out our Resources Page at: http://pawsitivepawsabilities.com/Resources.html

Poop Fight

This is just a rant and a semi-funny story.

Let me start by saying, if you own or walk a dog… it’s your responsibility to pick up after him or her!!! Not doing so is just plain rude. I find it so annoying when people don’t clean up after their dogs, which happens a lot in my complex. Many people seem to bring their dogs over to our complex to walk their dogs, and then leave their droppings behind. I’m not sure why that is, other than they think our landscapers will take care of it.

A couple weeks ago, I was walking Jesse around our complex. There was a young woman walking her yellow lab down the street ahead of us. It looked like she was dressed for work. She was wearing a very cute pale grey suit and matching shoes. The dog stopped to poop. I knew that when he finished, she’d walk away without picking it up. I’ve seen her do this several times and it irritates me. It’s especially annoying because she walks her dog across the street from her complex, to let him poop on our lawns. They have grass over there too!

Anyway, while her dog was dumping a big load on the grass, I had time to approach her and I was about four feet away when he finished and they started to leave. Even though I was annoyed, I made sure to be very polite. I said, “Excuse me. Please pick up after your dog, here’s a poop bag.” Then I held out a bag.

She turned around, looked me up and down, and said, “F*** You! I’m in a hurry.” Then she started walking away again.

Not so politely, I said, “Pick up your dog’s shit! I’m sick of you bringing your dog over here to shit on my lawn and then leaving it for me to clean it up!”

She said, “F*** You, bitch! It’s not your lawn and the landscapers clean it up anyway. You want it picked up… do it yourself.”

Then I was totally pissed. First of all, it is my lawn; I’m a homeowner here. Yes, our landscapers are forced to clean up her dog’s poop, but that’s not what we pay them to do and it’s not fair for them to have to do it. I know it’s not pleasant to pick up poop; I do it several times a day and I often do pick up her dog’s poop myself. When I’m picking up after Jesse, I grab those poops that other people were too rude and lazy to get themselves.

She told me to pick it up myself, so I did. I quickly opened the bag, reached down, picked up the poop and pulled the bag back around the poop. Then I threw it at her. I threw it hard and amazingly accurately, and hit her square in her back. It made a nice squishy, splat sound when it hit, then it dropped to the ground and a little poop tumbled out.

She whirled around, looked down and saw the open poop bag. She looked up at me with this look of total confusion. To be honest, as soon as the bag hit her, I thought I’d probably bought myself a big fight. I half expected her to attack me; she’d had such a nasty attitude. Of course, that didn’t occur to me while I was throwing poop at her, I was too angry!

Instead, she almost started to cry. Then she hurried away, contorting herself to see her own back and wailing, “Oh my God, is there dog shit on me? What am I going to do, I don’t have time to change. Oh my God, what am I going to do?” I told her she didn’t have any poop on her, but she wouldn’t listen or couldn’t hear me. She just hurried away, muttering to herself.

I know it was wrong and childish for me to throw the poop at her. I shouldn’t have lost my temper and reacted in blind rage. It’s really not like me to lose it like that and I do feel bad about it. I still plan to apologize to her the next time I can, but I haven’t seen her since… until this morning.

Jesse and I were out for his morning potty walk. I saw the woman and her dog walking down the street away from us. They were too far away and walking too fast for us to catch up, so I will apologize to her the next time I’m able to, she can’t avoid me forever.

However, I did notice she was walking with her arm extended out to her side. In her hand dangled a full poop bag.

Making Progress!

In a previous blog called, Learning Painful Lessons, I wrote about being injured while walking a big, strong and reactive dog. I talked about some changes I made walking him, to make it better for both of us and teach him how to walk on a loose leash.

That incident took place two weeks ago. Saturday night I had another overnight with them, so I had the chance to work with the dogs again. Here’s what happened:

I got down the leashes and harnesses and, because the dogs were going crazy, I dropped them on the ground and walked away. Since we've practiced this before, after a few minutes, they remembered I wouldn’t leash them until they’re sitting calmly, well pretty calmly J I’m also teaching them to sit and wait for me to open the door and ask them out. I put the easy walk harness I brought on my large friend, Buddy (his owner walks him on a prong collar, which I refuse to use). I also put Peanut’s harness on her. I left Buddy in the yard and took Peanut for a walk first.

At this point, I will only walk one dog at a time for several reasons, but most of all because I want to be able to concentrate on each dogs needs and abilities separately. If I walk them together, no learning will take place because they’ll revert to their old habits of pulling, fence fighting, and being totally reactive to every sight or sound. I’ll revert back to being dragged down the street from one tree, plant, fence fight, etc., to the next. I’m over that, since it looks like I’m going to be spending a lot of time with these dogs, I want to be able to have pleasant walks with them. Besides, it’s just easier to control one reactive dog at a time! My goal is to be able to walk them together, but there’s a lot of work to be done first!

Peanut and I practiced loose leash walking, and she did very well... she was very focused on me, and the task at hand: Being reinforced with Ziwi Peak, lots of praise, and being able to sniff around, for walking close to me. Peanut and I walked, on a loose leash (for the most part) from one end of the street to their other end several times. She was totally into the training. She didn't even start to react when we went by “the barking fence,” she just glanced over and then looked back to me!!! We started out walking across the street from it and by the time we were done, we were about ten feet away!

I’ll bet you’re wondering, “What the ___ is the barking fence?” Their street is a double cul-de-sac, with a road feeding it, like a T. At their corner, there’s what I call, “the barking fence.” It’s a six-foot wooden fence, behind it there are always two or three large, barking, fence fighting dogs. Buddy and Peanut have a strong history of fence fighting there; therefore they get very aroused when they get close to “the barking fence.”

When Peanut got tired and wanted to go home, I took her inside to relax and think about what we had just done. Then I took Buddy out, after a little practice in the backyard. Buddy loses his mind and hearing when he goes through the front door. He needs way more work in non-distracting areas, which we’re also working on. I’d like to spend all our walking time just getting it together in the backyard first. However, the owner really wants him to have a “walk,” so I’m sort of doing a crash course with him.

We started out walking up and down in front of the house. When he was walking next to me, I reinforced it by letting him have a lick of Turkey baby food from the jar (that is a very highly prized reward for most dogs). When he got to the end of the leash, I stopped moving forward and gave him a few seconds to come back to me. Then we moved forward again, and when we passed the point where he had started pulling, I gave him a lick from the jar. If he didn't come back to me within a couple seconds, I turned and went the opposite way. Pretty soon he was walking, on a loose leash with me. Then I upped the anti and walked him (in the middle of the street) a few feet by the barking dog fence. I was able to keep him with me, even though the dogs were behind the fence having a barking fit. If he wanted to go sniff and pee on something, I would take him there, but only if he wasn't pulling. After about 20 minutes of walking up and down the street (but never completely past the barking dog fence and at least 15 feet away from it), Buddy was tired and decided to go home on his own.

All in all, they both had a nice, exercising walk (mentally and physically), and were very relaxed when they got home.