It is hard to believe that just a little over a year ago I had no dogs, and was known as the cat lady — the person who you went to with your cat questions — and had 3 cats. I hadn’t had dogs in 30 years, actually, and had never actually trained one.

Now I have a Canine Good Citizen in Chester. Yes, he passed his CGC, first time, with flying colors. We did it because I think Chester will make a good therapy dog, and this is one of the first steps toward that goal.

You can read what the ten parts of the test are at the above link under “Training/Testing”. The whole test is sequential, starting with accepting a friendly stranger and ending with the 3 minute separation; it all takes about 10 minutes tops.

I had heard that a lot of dogs fail because of the 3 minute separation, but obviously we did okay with it. Pretty good for a dog that has had two training classes at Petsmart. We had practiced stays with me out of sight in the intermediate course, and I practiced with him a few times at home.

I did a search for CGC tests, and found out they were giving this one, just a couple of weeks ago. Chester hadn’t taken any training classes in months because of his knee, although we continue to train every day. So I practiced various parts, just in short bursts every day.

I thought the sit for a friendly stranger might trip us up. One of the tricks I’ve taught Chester is high five, other five (high five with the other paw), then give me 10, where he stands up & puts both paws in your hands (which is really cute). But now when you tell him to sit-stay and bend over him, he thinks you want a gimme 10! He’s not really jumping up . . .

Chester came into our home just about a year ago today. He is just 14 months old, which is somewhat young to pass your CGC. I really do think he’ll be an awesome therapy dog.

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We’ve been having a rather rough time of it with Chester lately. We had the return of diarrhea & frequent poops, which required me getting up at all hours of the night to take him out, and both of us losing a lot of sleep.

Then he decided that he liked using me as his personal ferry service, and began requesting to go outside — when it seemed clear he didn’t really need to go. If I bring him out and put him by the back door and he frantically jumps up, I know he needs to go out.

On the other hand, if he starts running around the house (as he did one morning at 1 am), I know he just wants attention. I decided he could sleep in his crate for a few nights after that, which he did with no incident.

When he got bed priveleges again, and started to paw at me in the wee hours, I decided to put him in his crate. Which was fine for a couple of nights. Yesterday, however, he was restless and pawing at me, so I put him in his crate. Unfortunately, when I came to get him — early, even, as my husband had left early that morning on a business trip and our daycare person was coming down early to pick them up — I found him whimpering. It turned out he’d pee’d in his crate. And when I took him out, he pee’d again.

Yet I had a sense that he doesn’t have an infection. While he does pee a lot, he doesn’t strain and he can go through most of the night. I’m not really sure what the problem is. I felt badly, obviously, as he really needed to go this time — but how am I supposed to tell?

Last night, when they came home from daycare, she said Lola had pee’d before they left. I took them out at 8:30 pm, and they both pee’d, after which we went to bed. This was the first time it was just me, with Chester uncrated while I did my nightly chores. He mostly just followed me around the house.

Around 11 pm, I heard Lola circling in her crate. Very unusual. Chester seemed restless, too, so I took them out (I thought it was much later in the night when I first heard them). I was very surprised when they both pee’d again.

Then early in the morning, Chester began to get restless again. He sat up several times, and was licking my arm. Turned out it was 5 am, about the time I normally get up (but until the last week, he’s never needed to go out then outside of when he was a little puppy). Since I had to get up anyway, I took him out.

Only this time, for the very first time at night, I just let him go out on his own. It was quite a bit cooler last night. He did, indeed, run right out, do his business, and come right back. What a good boy! I found out later that he’d pooped. I really don’t know what’s going on with this dog.

I really am a big fan of being there when they go potty, especially when you’re housetraining them. How are you going to know if they’re having problems if you don’t see what they’re doing? And if they’re not housetrained, and you’re not there to praise them, it’s only going to take them longer to get housetrained.

Chester is housetrained, though, outside of this recent spat of needing to go out at all hours of the night. I was tired, and it was cold, so I decided he could go out on his own. I was happy that he proved me right.

Technorati Tags: crate, housetraining

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Lola is settling in. I thought the honeymoon period lasts just 2 weeks, but it seem for Lola it was more like 2 months.

After the first month, she began to growl and act up when she saw other dogs while on leash — sometimes. My solution, so far, has been to have her do a sit stay and watch me, hopefully trying to get her before she goes ballistic — although sometimes there’s little warning.

One person suggested that a down stay would be even better, as it’s a less dominant stance, but alas, she doesn’t have a down stay yet. I can’t get her to down on cue, yet, which is puzzling, since she learned most cues relatively quickly. It’s not that she’s balking; it just seems she still doesn’t understand what I’m asking for.

Another person said they went through a very similar situation with their rescue dog, who was 21 months when they got him. They did what we’re doing, but in addition, also make a sound to try to distract him before he’s out of his comfort zone, so I’ve incorporated that, too. They said it took about a month, but he’s now mostly over the behavior.

Lola actually seems to be getting worse instead of better, but I’m hoping that it’s what’s called an extinction burst — or perhaps she’s still just trying to test her boundaries.

Further proof that she’s settling in: my husband discovered the ends of his shoelaces had been chewed off his sneakers. Since Chester has never done this, we’re assuming it was Lola — although she doesn’t get a whole lot of freedom, so it’s puzzling when she’s managed to do this.

Today I was letting her roam around, after she’d gone outside, when I heard some odd noises. I went to investigate, and in trotted Lola, with the aforementioned sneaker in her mouth. She’s been here 2 1/2 months, and never even looked at a shoe before! 5 minutes later she came in with one of my shoes. We often have to switch outside shoes for inside shoes when it’s wet outside or dewy, so we do have a variety of shoes out by the back door.

Finally, she’s also begun to dig holes outside. Pretty deep ones, too.

Even though Lola is 1 year old and Chester is 14 months, maturity-wise, Lola reminds me strongly of Chester as a little puppy. Chester did many of the same things: he dug holes, he would drag my shoes around (but luckily didn’t eat them).

However, while Lola can occasionally get mouth, she is not the piranha dog Chester was as a puppy. She is much, much better in her crate than he ever was (or probably will be), even occasionally going in for a nap all on her own. And while she sometimes won’t settle down during the day, she’s pretty good about relaxing at night now — assuming she got enough exercise during the day.

I still believe, that given time, she’ll become just as excellent a dog as Chester has become.

Technorati Tags: honeymoon period, on leash, sit stay, down stay

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Today was one of those days that started out bad, and then got worse.

Chester had another bout with diarrhea a couple of weeks ago, and I decided to take him to my holistic vet, as a followup. She gave him a chiropractic adjustment and a couple of supplements, which seem to be helping.

However, he’s started to vomit bile at about 4 am on a fairly frequent basis. This usually means they have an empty stomach. And he’s continued to wake me, occasionally, in the middle of the night to poop. We haven’t had much sleep in the last couple of weeks.

We’ve started to give him a snack right before bed, so that he has something in his stomach, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.

Last night he woke me at 3 am to go out and poop. Then again at 4:30 am to vomit . . . twice. Then when I took them out after breakfast, Lola didn’t pee.

That, in and of itself, isn’t unusual. So after a while I will take her in , crate her, and take her back out in about 20 minutes or so. Only she was circling and whining so much I was afraid she really had to go, so I didn’t wait that long — but no go.

By 9:30 there was still nothing in the bathroom department. I needed to go vote and food shopping, but since at one point she’d actually been taught to go in her crate, I’ve tried really hard to make sure she doesn’t need to go when she’s in the crate. And so far, outside of the first week, she never has.

I was also getting frustrated. And very, very tired. I slapped our shed in frustration. Poor Lola is very, very sensitive, and I really scared her. It makes you feel about an inch high, that you’ve scared your dog so badly — despite not yelling at them or even touching them — that they’ll slink down when they approach you.

In the meantime, I’d had to pick up Gizmo to get him out of the office, and he gave me a pretty good scratch on my stomach (this was right before I lost it with Lola).

Finally, I decided to go. I gave them each a bully stick (which Lola happily took) & crated them.

The good news is that I was able to go vote, get gas, do my food shopping, and still come home to clean, dry crates. Chester has made such huge strides with his separation anxiety issues, and I can finally almost have a life again. I was gone almost 2 hours.

By the time I got home, Lola was glad to see me and had forgotten that I can be a big, huge, scary monster sometimes.

Technorati Tags: diarrhea, holistic vet, chiropractic adjustment, vomit bile, crated, separation anxiety

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About a month ago, we started to let Chester sleep in bed with us. He has been with us almost a year now.

Chester has passed most of the tests: except on the rare occasion the boys are acting up, he stays on the bed all night (which is good, since he can’t get up on the bed without assistance).

He has managed to wake me up the few times he’s been sick & needed to go in the middle of the night. Not that I really appreciate this, mind you, but far better for him to wake me than to jump off the bed & do his business on the floor.

He hasn’t jumped off the bed in the mornings when Gizmo comes in, and generally makes some noise while trying to get me up — even the time or two Gizmo jumped on the bed, found Chester there, and had a hissy fit.

Last night was almost the final test: Simba came to bed with us. Simba didn’t hiss at Chester, and Chester just stayed curled up next to me, while Simba curled up next to me further down — and they remained that way the rest of the night.

Even Gizmo came to bed with me last night, which he hasn’t done pretty much since we got Chester. He left when Chester came to bed, and it remains to be seen whether or not he tries it again tonight.

It would make me very happy to have all of them on the bed with us. I’m sure we’ll have the three of them (Chester, Lola, and Simba) on there someday, but I despair a bit of ever getting Gizmo to calm down about the dogs.

Some days four animals really do seem like four too many. I hate that Gizmo is unhappy, and hate even more the fact that I’ve made him unhappy. At least he mostly tolerates the dogs, and I’m sure as the years go by and they settle down, he’ll calm down more and more about them.

I always thought I’d foster, but I doubt that I ever will as long as we have Gizmo. It’s too hard on him. It’s too bad, really, because I think Simba would take it in stride, as he does everything else.

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