Neutering, comfy cones, and Halloween

We got Ace neutered a week ago today- November 1- and he's getting his stitches removed Thursday. Just in time for our trip to Vegas! We're having the pups stay at the PetSmart PetsHotel and they're going to do Doggie Day Camp for two days as well. I upgraded his neuter to laser surgery- which has a faster recovery time and there's less pain and swelling too. I also got him a Comfy Cone- which is a cushion-y fabric cone instead of one of those awful plastic cones.

Ace in his comfy cone:

Here is the link to the website describing the comfy cone. http://www.allfourpaws.com/the_comfy_cone.php You can't buy it on this website however. But you can buy it on Amazon and I'm sure a bunch of other websites as well.

I plan to get Harley spayed at the same vet- which isn't our usual vet. Our normal vet couldn't get Ace in for a neutering for an entire month! So we took him to a different one- El Toro Animal Hospital- which I just loved! It reminded me of my vet back in Virginia. It had a cozy, small-town feel with lots of cute knick-knacks and a little boutique and a cat sleeping on top of the computer- just like my vet back in Rappahannock! :) Also, El Toro has the laser surgery and my regular vet does not. Well, anyway, I plan to have Harley spayed there too and then we can use the comfy cone on her as well! We also got Ace microchipped, which reminds me, I still have to register his microchip to get him in the system.

I got the dogs Halloween costumes just for fun. We didn't have anywhere to take them, but I just wanted to take some pictures. :P I got the costumes super cheap on Halloween day- I think something like $3.50 each. I got a lady bug costume for Harley and a bumble bee costume for Ace. Not as cute as the frog prince and princess costumes I wanted but still pretty adorable.

This pic isn't great, you can't really see the majority of the costume but I think it's still pretty cute. :)

Trying my best to keep up with the posts!! Sometimes it's just hard to think of something to write! Bloggers Block. :P
Well, hopefully I'll have more soon!
Thanks for pawsing
L

Saturday's surprise classes, kids' activities, and oblivious people

So yesterday was much crazier than I anticipated. I thought the trainer whose classes I'd covered Tuesday and Thursday would be back but when I got into work the other trainer began telling me what time K's classes were. Very confused, I asked her if K was coming in. To make a long story a bit shorter, the manager was under the impression that I knew I was covering her classes on Saturday when in fact, I was not... so I had scheduled a makeup session for one of K's students for 10:00 and K also had a class that I was supposed to cover at 10:00. And one of the students in the class had missed the two previous weeks so they were behind the rest of the class... So thank goodness S was there to cover the class while I handled the makeup - I had the student from the class who'd missed the two weeks come to the makeup with me and I taught both pet parents the curriculum they'd missed. And though makeups are only supposed to be about 15 minutes long, because there were two of them and because one of them had missed two weeks, it ended up being almost an hour. Then I just spent the rest of the day trying to sell classes, rescheduling classes and waiting to see if anyone would show up for the new dog orientation. But the manager was incredibly grateful that I stepped up to the plate and covered the other trainer's classes even though it was spur of the moment. I was fine with doing it. I love teaching classes- I can't wait for my own to start! Though I have to admit, I wish I was getting part of the commission for it... :P

Well to steal my area trainer's idea, I plan to print out some coloring pages for kids to do if they get antsy when they're in class. So I looked up dog-related coloring pages and found a couple okay ones, and then I found activity pages from the AKC about dog agility, safety, training, etc. Like crossword puzzles, find the hidden picture pages, fill in the blanks, etc. I bought two boxes of crayons (24 each) to take to work with me when I go in on Tuesday.

http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/agility_matching.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/bailey_goes_home.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/CanineCrossword.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/canine_words.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/grooming_crossword.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/hidden_picture.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/safety_scramble.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/tail_tales.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/where_breed_come_from.pdf


I just remembered something that happened when I was training with the area trainer. I was with her and the other trainer (which was strange that the three of us would be at the same place at a time) talking to a man looking at dog food, I believe. I'm not sure how he got onto the topic, but somehow he strayed from talking about dog nutrition or whatever to bashing us and our coworkers. To make a long story short (again), he rambled on and on and on basically about how we were not going to make anything of ourselves or become successful working there and we should quit and go to school to get a degree because he is getting his MBA and is very wealthy and successful, blah blah blah... He mostly was talking to the area trainer the entire time - well, she was the only one interjecting and answering him - but oh how I wanted to interrupt to tell him that I do have a degree, and in Psychology no less, and I plan to get another degree (or two!) somewhere in the near future. I kind of have to have money first though. Well he was just completely oblivious to our reactions and terrible at reading body language- the area trainer tried to tell him she needed to go about a thousand times (gross overstatement of course, but you get the idea) and he kept saying "but one more thing!" and I'm pretty sure the three of us were showing how offended we were in not so subtle ways.  Not in rude ways... but generally I think it is very hard for a person to completely hide when they are hurt, or offended, upset, or angry and so though we did not intend it, I'm sure we showed it.

I just finished watching Julie & Julia which is what inspired me to write a blog in the first place. So it's taken me about two hours to write this post because I basically have only written during the commercials. Haha.

Oh just remembered that today I went to Borders- they're having the 50-70% off closing sale. So sad that they're going out of business, but it's great on my wallet. I bought two more books for my dog-related library. I got From Baghdad With Love and AKC's Citizen Canine. As well as a bunch of other books that I'll read in a year... when I have free time. Lol. Certainly don't have very much now.

Well... unless I think of something else to add to this post in the next minute, this concludes this post. :)
Until tomorrow - Harley starts class tomorrow night!

Training classes and puppies as cats

Today I taught some more classes- again, covering for another trainer. I taught a week 2 Puppy class and a week 4 Beginner class and then had a personal training camp in the hotel. First, I'm not going to bash the other trainer, but I'm just confused as to what the pet parents have been taught so far. There are certain behaviors that they should've known by now and they told me that they hadn't learned some of them or had no idea what I was talking about. So, for example, in my second class of the night, they were already supposed to have been taught drop it, leave it, and down. And one pet parent said that they did not do drop it and only briefly covered down which means that the only thing left that they were supposed to learn that week was leave it. And that does not take an hour to teach. So what the heck else were they taught that day?

Anyways... So I kind of had to squeeze a lot into an hour for that class covering things they should've already known so that we could get on to the next things. And one of the pet parents that had missed the previous week specifically asked if they could schedule a makeup session with me. So I scheduled to meet with them on Saturday first thing when I come into work. I'm not sure if that's really right but I don't know when the other trainer will be back and they wanted to get the makeup in before next week's class, and I felt bad that the trainer had not scheduled the makeup with them before she left for this week.

Another whoops for the night- after my first class ended, one of the hotel managers told me that there was a personal training camp that did not get done and the dog had already checked out. And that was the third personal training camp for that pet parent that a trainer did not do. Now, no one had ever told me how to tell if I had training camps scheduled, no one told me when I came in to work that day, and I kind of figured I wouldn't be doing training camps for a while since I just started training. So it's partly my fault- since you know what happens when you assume. (You make an ass out of u and me). I felt so bad and I really hope that the pet parent schedules another training camp that someone will actually do. 

There was a second training camp scheduled- and I did do that one. It was a cute little Boston Terrier mix- brindle with floppy ears and a bit bigger than a standard Boston. He had the sweetest, goofiest personality. He was also one of the most toy motivated dogs I've seen. He actually preferred a toy to treats sometimes and would work to play with the toy. Apparently he's had issues in the past with automatically rolling over when someone asks him to lie down. This is a problem I had with Harley too.  This happens when you create a pattern- if every time you ask your dog to lie down you then ask him to roll over, eventually they're just going to roll over when you ask him to lie down because they're anticipating that that's what you will ask for next. Not once today when I asked him to lie down did he roll over! He did roll over at other times, but never immediately following the cue "down."

Something I want to mention that I find incredibly odd is a behavior that Ace does. I've noticed that (usually at night) he will go to a specific toy, put his mouth around it and then just sit there like that for a while. I'm not sure if he's sucking on it or very subtly licking it or nibbling on it, but sometimes he also wiggles his toes and curls his paw up kind of like cats do when they knead. So I googled this behavior and apparently dogs do knead like cats in rare occasions. I read conflicting descriptions however- one resource said that puppies will grow out of it and the other said that they never grow out of it. I have yet to see any harm in Ace doing this so I see no reason to stop him because it calms him down and he does not do it obsessively. 

Off work tomorrow- so hopefully I can get a lot of reading in! Another of the books came in- High Energy Dogs. I'm really looking forward to reading this one since I have a Lab and an Aussie- two very high energy breeds! haha.

Well, night y'all. :)