Mush!

Nate, looking sexy as ever!

Well, we finally caved and bought a nice pulling set up. Dalton has a new pulling harness, a new rope with some spring in it, and a sled. We've gone up Millcreek Canyon a few times this week, and Dalton has been loving it! He knows "easy" when we need him to slow down, and "leave it" when we pass other dogs. This time we let Dalton run and play on the way up and Nate had the lovely task of pulling up the sled, and carrying his skis. They way down was worth it though! Dalton pulled me most of the way, and Nate skied down next to us.

Shame!

Hello everyone! (All 5 of you that is)

The last couple days I have been obsessed with checking the website http://dog-shaming.com/. I find it highly amusing, and I like seeing the evidence that my dog is not the only naughty one out there. As I was browsing yesterday, I thought to myself “Man, I need to get one of Dalton up there. Too bad he’s been so good lately.” It was a non-daycare day, so when I got home, the first thing I did was put down my pile of stuff, grab the leash, and take Dalton outside to go potty. I am rarely coherent this soon after work, so I didn’t notice that anything was amiss.

What did I find when I came inside? Well, I found this:

This is the photo that I sent in to dog shaming. I walked in the door, and noticed that our rug was MIA, until I looked over by the kitchen. There was fluff and the rubber backing, and little particles of stuffing everywhere. It was actually sort of surprising. Generally Dalton isn’t destructive, and the things he has chewed have been either a strange texture (he favors rubbery things) or they’ve been left on the couch, because anything on the couch is apparently fair game.

Anyway, hopefully I don’t have the opportunity to submit many more photos to dog shaming. I have a feeling I will be a frequent visitor to the site though. You can’t tell me, as a dog owner (if you are one) that you don’t giggle a little when you scroll through. And if you didn’t giggle, perhaps you shouldn’t be such a weirdo cat person….

Skateboard

I have decided that if you are going to have a husky, you should also have a skateboard. Nate has a few of them, and we use them to exercise Dalton at least once a week. Lately we’ve been using a skate without the wheels and trucks for Dalton to practice pulling. I will post pictures later, but Nate, as always came up with the idea. He glued an old rug to the bottom to minimize noise, put and eye bolt at the top for the string which we attach to his harness. Right now we have a small weight on the back to keep it from bouncing all over the place, and on a straighter path. Plus, if it helps tire him out a bit more, I won’t complain.

2 Hours

Remote

PS3 Controller

This is what happens when you leave your husky alone for 2 hours. We now know not to leave anything important within reach......

Attention. Pay attention. Pay attention to ME.

I am always surprised at the ways Dalton will try to get our attention. Yesterday I picked him up from daycare, started cooking, and he passed out in the middle of the kitchen floor. (Thanks buddy) When Nate arrived home, Dalton slowly got up, did his combination of a stretch/wooo/growl and went to get pets. When dinner was ready, and we sat down to eat, (on the couch, because were classy) and he immediately started scratching at the couch, wooing at us, and trying his darndest to get attention. Mind you, he did this all while lying down, because he was too tired to get up. Turns out resting our foot on him while we ate was all he needed.

A few days ago, I was folding laundry in our room, when Dalton sauntered in. Our bed is a platform bed (very low to the ground) so Dalton can easily get on it if he wanted to. Well, someone didn’t feel like I noticed his presence, so he plopped his dirty paws and fanny right on the edge of the bed, just to make sure I was paying attention. I wish there was a way I could illustrate to you how he does this. He thinks he’s very sneaky.

Then there is Saturday mornings. He’s figured out that we generally sleep in, and he’s pretty good about leaving us alone, but some mornings he decides that we are not allowed to sleep unless someone is touching him. First he will walk into the room, and I swear that he makes sure to click his nails extra loud on the hardwood, and woooooooo so we know he’s coming. Then, he will come to my side of the bed (ALWAYS) and lick whatever is not hidden under the covers. (sometimes this is a foot, hand, elbow, face, or on occasion, my rear end.) If I bury myself  in the blanket, he’ll usually go to Nate’s side and do the same. Eventually we learned to have him lay by the bed, scratch his head for a moment, and he’d usually be satisfied and doze off. Sometimes though, he’ll go back and forth between us till one of us gets up and heads into the living room. Then, as soon as we sit on the couch, he’ll fall asleep on the floor…… like a dick.

Trusting your husky...

Trust can be a difficult thing for husky owners to have in their dogs. Huskies have a propensity to run if not safely confined or on a leash. They are smart, and therefore get bored easily. I read a book once that said “if you don’t give your Sibe a job, they will become self employed” usually they become home decorators, gardeners, or re-modelers, much to their owners dismay. Huskies are also anxiety prone, they can howl and woo for hours with no regard to nearby neighbors.

Lately we have been trying to trust D a bit more each week. Were diligent about not giving him opportunities to get in trouble, and he’s done fairly well with each chance we give him. The most recent Endeavor is letting him wander at night and sleep wherever he wants instead of kenneling him. He’s old enough now that he can make it through the night, and he understands our bedtime routines so he’ll relax when he knows were going to bed soon. Over all, he’s done fantastic! The first few nights, worrier that I am, I think I was subconsciously listening all night for noises that would indicate destruction, but he didn’t eat/destroy anything. Hurray!

We do have a problem in the evening sometimes though when we go out. I realized a few weekends ago when we took the fun bus to Wendover, that it would be his first time left alone over night. Well, lo and behold, he whined and howled until 2am (we left at 7pm). I feel terrible not only for our neighbors (let’s just say our cookie budget was high that week) but for Dalton too. I think this is something that we’re going to have to work on, but I can’t justify doing it at the expense of our neighbors sleep. Ideas? Anyone, anyone? No…. Me neither.

There are times when I think Dalton is going to do great, and he does, then there are times when he gets a wild hair up his ass, and drives me insane with the things he does.

Off leash training is another area we struggle with. We did some training with a 50’ lead for a long time, and he did really well until he hit adolescence. My worry is whether or not to keep working on it with the lead, or to cease and desist until he’s mellowed out a bit. I feel like this is going to be ongoing, and we may discover that he’ll always be an on-leash dog (I am talking hiking, memory grove, emigration canyon, not ‘round the neighborhood stuff.) I do have hope though; I’ve run into more people whose huskies do great off leash than people whose dogs don’t.

I wonder too if we will always have to confine him somehow so he doesn’t redecorate our apartment. When we moved into the last place, Nate got all new furniture for his “bachelor” pad. The last thing we want is to come home and have $4,000 worth of furniture destroyed. We’d really love to be able to let him have the whole living room when were gone, especially since he hates feeling “confined” (even though he has half the room already) but, I also can’t afford to replace all the furniture, and I don’t feel bad since he’s not actually hurting for space.

All in good time I suppose….

Helicopter parenting-onions.

I never realized how many human foods are toxic to dogs. Over the weekend while we were house sitting for Nate’s sister again, the dogs got into the pantry, and we woke up to onion skins all over the kitchen. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but a few weeks ago, a friend of ours mentioned that onions are super bad for your pup. Being the worrier that I am, I immediately got online and looked up exactly HOW bad onions are. It turns out, especially in larger quantities, onions can attack red blood cells and cause anemia. The effects are slow to show up, and sometimes you notice too late. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, disinterest in food, and can cause death if it goes untreated.

My first reaction was to freak out, naturally. I called Nate’s sister to see if she remembered having any onions in the first place, no answer. My second call was to the vet to gauge the seriousness. Articles online have a propensity to go right to the extreme and make me more worried than necessary. The vets recommendation was bring them in right away to induce vomiting to see if they can analyze the vomit and find any onions in their system (the sooner you do this the better.) The second route they would take is to do a blood test to check the red blood cells. Neither of these options inspired me to be less worried.

Eventually we heard back from Nate’s sister. She could only recall having 1 onion, if any at all. She also mentioned that if they had found an onion, they probably wouldn’t have eaten the whole thing, but played with it, meaning we still would have found at least part of the onion. I started to calm at this point, realizing that only 2 out of the 3 dogs would probably eat the onion, and only because they thought that the other dog would find it appealing. I had almost completely calmed at this point, and we decided to wait it out and see how they acted the rest of the day.

The dogs seemed fine the rest of Saturday and Sunday, but I can’t help but still worry about our goofy dog. It doesn’t help that when I let him out after the onion fiasco, I caught him with his nose in a fertilizer bag. I caught him early enough that he didn’t eat any, but still. I swear sometimes he does the dumbest things. But then again, dogs can’t exactly read warning labels. I am sure he is fine, but then again, I am the worrier, so I get to continue running through all the terrible scenarios in my head…..

 I was thinking about it yesterday though and as a kid, our dog would get into all sorts of crazy things. He ate a whole raw turkey once, Christmas ornaments, miscellaneous vegetables out of our garden, cat poop, and many other things he shouldn’t. But this dog lived until a ripe old age of 12, which for a bigger dog (80lbs) is really good. It makes me wonder if, similar to how people are with their kids now, if we worry too much, and try so hard to protect our pets/kids that we almost make it worse. I also wonder if, with age, we start realizing that things aren’t as dire as we make them feel in our head. I am sure that if my mother had been in the same situation with the onions, she would have started worrying if there was any sign of a problem, instead of going from 0-frantic in less than 60 seconds.

 Perhaps with time I will be less of a “helicopter parent” and learn that our dog is going to eat weird shit his whole life, and most of the time he’ll probably rid himself of it from one end or the other and be fine. Until then, I will continue stalking http://www.itsahuskything.com/ to find out what other freaks like me are spazzing out about.