Long Overdue Post 3: Sadie's (Not Even Close to) Wordless Wednesday

Sadie's Come Hither Pose

In December, we had Sadie's annual vet visit and she, as always, excelled.  That bump I've been monitoring?  A worry-free wart.  Teeth?  Exceptional for a seven year old.  Fearful behavior?  Ha!  This girl charmed everyone's pants off and was nothing but happy to be checked over.  That pudge?  Umm...yeah, we gotta do something about that.

It's official.  Sadie's gained back her 5 pound pudge.  I think this makes it the third time we've had to slim her down and I knew it was coming.  She is looking pretty svelte in that photo though, right?  I think we might have already shaved off a couple pounds this last month just by switching her back to a grain-free diet and cutting about 1/8 cup off her daily meals.  I hate for my girl to suffer on a diet by herself so I've resolved this New Year to lose a few pounds myself.  She's a lot cuter being hungry, grumpy girl than I am!

We decided to start her on glucosamine this winter too.  I'm happy to report that the girl who struggled to get out of bed before 8 is usually up and about with the Hurley monster well before 7.   Except on weekends.  Not so happy about that.  This middle-aged lady just needed a little extra help with her creaky bones. Her energy level is up and she has even forsaken her super comfy bed for a wee blanket on the floor to be closer to Mom & Dad.   That's more like my girl!

This year marked the first I started to talk to our vet about senior care and though she's still a year away from me being ready to call her an Elder-bull, she's started to slow down.  Which suits me just fine 'cause she's now going at my pace.  I think they call these the Golden Years. :)

How My Pit Bull Changed My Life

Tomorrow is National Pit Bull Awareness Day and in honor of pit bull type dogs everywhere, here is the story of my Sadie and her impact on my life.  A celebration of the bond between girl and dog and how my pit bull mix changed my life.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might have picked up on a few details about my life.  I own a pet store in Portland, OR.  I have 3 dogs, who are my life, and one of them is a pit bull mix.

What you might not have gleaned from my stories & posts is how I got to be where I am.  You see, I wasn't always this dog-crazy person.  While I did have dogs throughout my life, before Sadie & Maggie I knew nothing about training, behavior, or nutrition.  I watched The Dog Whisperer, thought he was a fantastic trainer, and believed Iams to be a high quality pet food.  A lot has changed since those days!

We got Sadie from a family who needed to rehome her.  It was because they were moving, they said, their new apartment had weight restrictions.  These were also the people who advertised her as "Free Lab Mix to Good Home".  Their ad did not mention the pit bull part of her breed heritage.  It also did not mention the behavior problems that quickly arose once we took her home.  I do not resent nor judge them for how Sadie came to be with us; she is the one of the best things to happen to me and for that, I will always be grateful to fate for bringing together a family who needed someone like me to help a dog like her.

Sadie was a fearful dog.  She is the most sensitive soul I have ever met, canine, human or otherwise.  Sadie feels deeply.  She is intense.  She is also the most loving creature.  She is more than just one of my beloved pets. She is my heart dog and she is the driving force behind the person I have come to be.  And she wouldn't have been any of those things without also being a pit bull type dog.

From the moment I first saw the fear in Sadie's eyes, I knew we were meant to be.  I saw this dog who didn't know how to deal with the big, scary world and behind that fear, I saw an intense need to love and be loved.  Ask any pit bull owner and they will tell you the same thing : pit bulls love love.  They exist to please and to receive affection.  Her fear is not a typical pit bull characteristic, especially because it was people who scared her most.  But it is one characteristic that speaks to her as an individual; she was a product of her early life experiences, her breed heritage and her individual genetics.  And if there's one thing I would like to shout from the mountaintops, it is the wish that we could stop seeing pit bull type dogs as stereotypes and start seeing them as individual dogs with individual strengths & weaknesses. 

It took us years to help Sadie overcome her fears.  It took us months to even begin to get a clue on how to best deal with her challenges.   I am happy to say that she is no longer a fearful dog.  The gal who once would snap at every new person she met now seeks attention from strangers.  I never thought that she would be an ambassador for her breed but with each day, I continue to see a happy, well-adjusted girl who has left her fearful past behind her and I gain confidence in our ability to become a human-dog team who is capable of showing the world how wonderful pit bull type dogs can be.  She even spent her first day in the shop with me last week and was, dare I say, a better shop dog than Hurley!

Sadie changed my life by making me realize how fulfilling working with and for dogs is.  I consider her rehabilitation to be one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.  She inspired me to volunteer at our local Humane Society.  She showed me how dangerous punishment based training methods could be and led me to learn more about dog behavior and to embrace positive training methods.  She also showed me that it's not just about treats or clickers but about forming that relationship with your dog where a simple look or quiet no can achieve more than any jerk of the leash ever could.  And through all that, I started to become the person I am today - a proud pet professional whose mission is to give back, to foster a community of responsible dog owners and to share my knowledge and experiences to help others who may be going through similar challenges with their dogs.  One of the other greatest accomplishments of my life has been opening my business - and without Sadie, I don't know if that dream would ever have dared to be dreamed.

I am not alone.  I am surrounded by a community of pet bloggers who are inspired by the dogs who have made an impact on their lives.   I think by the time you get so dog-gone dog crazy that you become a pet blogger, you are already well into the realm of being a responsible pet owner but in the real world, it's often the pit bull owners that are the best, the most responsible, the ones who "get" canine behavior.  Pit Bull Awareness Day, to me, is not just about celebrating the dogs but also about shining the light on responsible Pit Bull owners.  I am one of them and we are the majority. 

Waiting

Waiting patiently...

Am I The Only Dog Parent Who...

Am I the only dog parent who expects a higher understanding of action/consequence than is possible from her dogs? One who totally understands they're probably not going to get what I'm trying to lay out for them but doesn't care?

Let me set the scene.

I had chopped up some zucchini from my garden-with-a-squash-problem and realized, though I do love me some beer battered fried zucchini, that 2 whole large zucchinis' worth was probably a bit too much for me and the Hubster.

So I chop 'em up further for an impromptu, let's practice 3-dogs-taking-turns-with-commands training session.  I zucchini'd each of them for sitting in turn.  Then I zucchini'd Sadie for a high five (Hurley & Maggie also offered one up).  Then Hurley (got another high five offered from Sadie & Maggie - 3 dog training is going so well).  By the time it was Maggie's turn, she was pretty excited and her high five knocked half of the zucchini from my hand.

Hurley & Maggie hoovered the floor.  Sadie just maintained her sit & looked at me for permission (I had been telling the two who weren't supposed to be high five'ing to stay).  That's my girl!  So I slowly fed her every remaining zucchini in my hand as Hurley and Maggie watched. She got about twice as many the other two stole from the floor.  I actually said to them "Look at Sadie getting all the rest of the treats because she's good."  I did not add "neener, neener, neener" and for that I am proud. 

Am I the only dog parent who does this?   While it was powerful for Sadie as she was amply rewarded for her behavior, Maggie & Hurley were also rewarded by the food they scarfed up.  Probably more rewarded than they felt punished by not getting the rest of the zucchini.  I mean, it is only zucchini after all.  I don't think Hurley even drooled over it.

Am I the only pet parent who does this?  In the moment, my sole (and snarky) purpose to teach Maggie & Hurley a lesson but it was Sadie who got the most out of it (unintentionally).

I really hope they learned their lesson. Seriously.

And this girl?

She's Awesome!

The Great Pool Experiment

One of the things I was most looking forward to on our recent vacation was introducing the dogs to the pool.   I had predicted that Sadie would be the first in, last out and would fully embrace the pool with little hesitation.  I predicted that Maggie would struggle with the pool at first and not want to go in, but that her desire to fetch her ball would trump any uncertainty and she would gladly jump in.  I had no idea what to think about Hurley.  Would he show his Hurley Badger Don't Care personality and not let the deeper water bother him?  Or would he refuse to go in at all costs?

Here's how they did.

I love Sadie.  She's my sweet, wants to please type of girl.  Smart, she is not.  She loved the pool.  She just couldn't figure out how to get in or out by herself.  It started with the Hubster "helping" her in.  And by helping, he pretty much picked up and tossed.  She loved it!

Round in circles she swam.  We soon realized that she had no idea how to get out of the pool.  Thankfully, Maggie was there to show her the way.

Then she couldn't figure out how to get back in.  Round the pool she ran.  Bark, whine, crazy Sadie sounds?  Check.  Then she came up next to me, put her front paws in and looked back at me with an expression that definitely was asking "Please?"  I obliged and pushed her in with a laugh.  And for Sadie, that is apparently how to get into the pool.  Ask Mom or Dad for a little help. We tried and tried to encourage her to get in on her own but she was having none of it.  So pushed into the pool she was for the rest of the day.

Maggie was pretty predictable.  All it took was a ball.  She did take a little bit of time to warm up to the whole jumping in thing but quickly embraced the dive.

And Hurley?

Hurley Badger Don't Swim.  The Hubster was able to get ahold of him once to toss him in and after that, forgettaboutit.  He kept his distance from both of us (c'mon Hurley!  Mom didn't do anything except take pictures!) and would have nothing to do with it.

For the record, I would not advocate tossing your dogs into a pool to introduce them to it.  We knew Sadie's love of water and Maggie's love of ball would set us up for success with the pool so the tossing was mostly for our amusement. Hurley was never meant to be a swimmer - getting him in the pool that one time showed me that if he ever falls in somewhere, he can figure out how to swim and that was my only goal with the pool and Hurley.   

Vacationing with the Dawgs

Last week, the Hubster and I celebrated our anniversary with an Anniversi-cation (n. a vacation occurring around/on one's anniversary).  We rented a cabin on the Southern Oregon Coast and spent a few days exploring the beautiful coast line and the Redwoods.  It was a perfect few days away from Portland.  And we brought the dogs.

You may think I'm craisins for taking my rambunctious trio on a vacation including an 8-hour road trip. There were moments when I agreed with you.

But overall, we had a great trip with few issues.  Here are the keys to taking a wild pack o' dogs on vacation:

1.  Plan a stop to tire them out shortly into the roadtrip.  Don't stress it when the dogs are terribly behaved at the first stop.  Even if it elicits this expression from the Hubster.

This photo cracks me up.  And he only half-meant that expression.

Our dogs know that when we all pile into the car, they are about to have the time of their lives.  I'm happy to say that Maggie & Sadie seem to be calming down a bit in terms of their excitability.  Sadie actually sat and paid attention to me before I took her harness off and let her run free on the beach.  Hurley was a jerk an overly rambunctious teenage dog and developed an awesome new habit of barking out of control upon exiting the Jeep just for this road trip.  

In every picture I took, Hurley is at the back of the pack.  You are all welcome to make fun of the slow poke who can't keep up with his middle aged sisters.  He deserves it.

But that's OK - we won't ever see the 30 or so people on the beach who witnessed our dogs completely melting down on the walk to and from the parking lot.  Ever.  That's a good thing.  But our mission was accomplished and they were calmer the rest of the drive.

2.  Bring something to calm your dogs down while in the car.  Hurley does not like long car rides. Actually, I think he would be perfectly OK if he could sit in my lap the entire way but that's not gonna happen.  So I brought along an herbal calming remedy to help with the constant whining and drooling.  I also made him a little bed on top of our suitcase so he could be more at our level and able to rest his head in between our seats.  All in all, he did a fantastic job tolerating the long car ride.  Sadie & Maggie are great in the car and don't need any extra help chilling out.  Though Sadie does has this magical ability to get her seat belt attachment to her harness and a leash entwined about a bazillion times.  It's quite impressive.

3.  Rent an uber dog-friendly place.  If we had been hoteling it, we would never have considered taking all 3 of them.  The potty breaks, the worrying that they would bark and disturb neighbors?  No thank you!  Instead, we rented a dog-friendly cabin with a large fenced yard.  The dogs loved an extra large yard to romp in and had fun exploring the cabin.  We took 2 kennels to keep them in during the day when we took excursions that not all 3 went on.

4.  Give yourself a break and don't try and take the entire pack everywhere.  We decided before we left that our day trips would include only one dog.  Though there was lengthy debate on whether or not Hurley could be trusted not to bust out his kennel and destroy the cabin, ultimately we decided that it was Maggie & Sadie's turn to have some special time with us.  Sadie accompanied us on our trip to tour the Redwoods.

While Sadie enjoyed her day trip with us, I'm pretty sure she missed her sister.  Either that or she was bored with being in the car most the day. 

The next day we took Maggie on a short hike, some fetch at a Secret Beach (actual name of the place) and a tour of the highlights of the Oregon Coast right where we were staying. 

I don't think she missed either Sadie or Hurley - fetch is apparently more fun without all the tackling.

5.  Bring Vacation Bullies, Chews and Bones.  Besides just being a nice treat to make vacation even more enjoyable, these can be instrumental in calming your dogs down when you leave them in the car to take a picture at that gorgeous viewpoint (our dogs are barkers when we leave the car) or to give them right before you leave them in their kennels at a new place.  Hurley is the one most likely to freak out about being left in a new place and the special treats really helped distract him when we left him at the cabin.

6. Vacation is for breaking routines & rules.  Since we don't allow dogs on the couches at home, I immediately allowed them this luxury at the cabin.  It is vacation after all and that means some special rule breaking.

Hurley loved the new rule until he realized that it meant being our foot rest. 

7.  Take at least one picture of the 3 of them sitting nicely.  It surprisingly took us one try to get this picture.  And Hurley popped up the second the shutter snapped.  But they did it!  All three of them stopped romping for one second and humored the Mama. 

8.  Appreciate the ways in which vacation challenges you and your dogs.  We definitely learned where we need to pick it up in terms of training.  Hurley & Sadie need more practice exiting the vehicle calmly and all three need a Settle Down type command to remind them to keep calm during exciting adventures.  Our biggest challenge is their behavior as a pack - individually, they are awesome - but when Hurley's egging on the other two to get excited and not pay attention to us, it gets challenging. 

Hurley had to literally be put to bed like a baby by the Hubster on the first night.  We put them in the kennels at night so that they would be accustomed to being in them at the cabin when we had to leave them behind during the day.  This very much disturbed Hurley who cried and cried.  The Hubster had to tuck him in and sit by his kennel until he fell asleep the first night.  Dude is such a baby! 

One of the things I took away from this, our first real vacation with the dogs, is that they do not understand vacation.  The second day, when we took them to a beach close to the cabin, they were all remarkably calm in the car.  We realized they thought we were going home.  When we did get in the car to go home, they were all jacked up, thinking our vacation was just going to get even more awesome.  Vacation is confusing to dogs and though ours had a great time, I was sensitive to the ways in which it was also stressful for them.  We don't take awesome road trips encountering beach after beach and stay in a cool cabin with a pool and deer who run along the fence every day.  Maybe we should.

Cutest Things: Sadie's Snout

My dogs are pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself.  But sometimes they do things that are just the cutest and I have to share.

I love Sadie's snout.  It is the perfect length for bestowing kisses.

I think your snout is delicious too, Sadie!

Sadie does the cutest thing.  As I bend down to give her a kiss, she gently raises and extends her snout at perfect kissing height. Sometimes, she sneaks me a kiss after I've given her a smooch.  Sometimes, she just lifts her snout a little higher as if to say "one more, Mom?". 

It's the cutest thing.

Monday Fun Day: Sunset Beach

The Hubster and I recently loaded up his Jeep for a trip to Sunset Beach, just north of Seaside, OR.  We love this spot because we can drive out onto the beach and find a nice open spot before unleashing our demons our much beloved and always perfectly behaved pooches.

Who you talking 'bout, Willis?

This was the first trip we have made with all 3 dogs in the back of the Hubster's Wrangler with the top off.  Because I'm a worry-wart, we have a system by which we attach each dog via a harness and by leash & collar.  The harness is either connected to a zip-line at the top of the Jeep or via belt buckles on the floor.  This is the primary attachment and the leash attached to collar and frame of Jeep is our backup system in case the harness fails, or with Sadie, in case she sees water, we are at a stop and she jumps out wriggling out of the harness (yes, it's happened which is why we have the two attachment system).

Jumping Waves

I was super happy with how the dogs did.  An hour and a half drive is a long way and they were stellar.  Well, except for whomever decided to poop in the back of the Jeep 10 minutes before we arrived at our destination.  That was not so stellar. 

It wasn't me, Mom.  I swear!

But after cleaning up the Jeep, I had one of these:

And found one of these:

And all was right in the world again.

As always, the dogs had a great time at the beach.  And spent the next couple days completely tuckered out.  Thanks, Beach!

A Weekend in the Woods

We spent the past weekend in the Mt Hood National Forest doing some serious car camping.  The forecast was all gloom & doom with temps barely surpassing 60 and rain, rain and more rain.  Y'know, the usual Pacific Northwest forecast.  Oh, and it was our very first camping trip with all 3 dogs.

The stream next to our spot.  It was pretty fast especially to the right of this picture but Sadie heeded my first few requests for her not to go too far and then was great not venturing far the rest of the weekend.  (Pardon the smugdy spot in the middle of this and every subsequent photo.  Girl needs to clean her lens!)

Despite the forecast and some serious misbehavior on the part of the dogs, we had a great time.  We drove out on the South side of Mt Hood to the small Forest Roads in the National Forest.  There are tons of roadside campsites that are perfect for car camping with a wild pack o' dogs my three wonderfully behaved pooches.

Looking angelic huddling underneath the EZ Up and out of the rain.  Don't be fooled.

The drive out to our regular spot is one of the most beautiful drives in Oregon and that's saying a heck of a lot.  Of course, I didn't have the foresight to take one darn picture of the drive so you'll just have to trust me on that one.  And if you're ever in our neck of the woods, we highly recommend taking Highway 224 past Estacada.  You won't be disappointed.

I hope this adorable picture of Sadie will make up for no pictures of the drive.

One of the things that I love most about where we generally go camping is the freedom our dogs have.  They don't have to be tethered as we would have to do at a campground.  There's almost always a stream next to our spot and it's easy to find a spot that is sufficiently far away from the road so that I'm not too* worried about them and the road. 

Looks cute and sedate, right?  Looks can be deceiving.

The freedom they had, that is.  Hurley, who heretofore has rarely influenced his sisters to be truly bad, was the king of bad influence.  You see, 60 degrees, rain and the Great Outdoors is apparently Hurley's kind o' camping trip.  To say he was invigorated would be an understatement; his rambunctiousness reached a really special level this weekend.  We evidently camped a bit too early in the season; a bit too early, that is, if you don't want to camp surrounded by a fish graveyard.  Yup, we were apparently in a prime spawning area and though the fish had returned down river, the bones left by birds of prey and possibly bear were still in abundance.  And Hurley was in heaven.  Keep away with a fish skeleton is just about the most awesome type of keep away, he would like me to let everyone know.  So we spent most of the weekend figuring out new ways to steal fish backbones from the Hurley man.  To be honest, I had fun out-tricking him.  :) 

Fish Skeleton.  My nemesis.

The fish issue wasn't the only source of Hurley's fun.  Our last morning, he had an epic case of the zoomies and decided to lead his sisters on a merry chase.  One in which they didn't respond to our calls.  After a half hour of near panic, we found them a half mile away.  Yup, new camping rule.  Tethers.  We've never had a problem with Sadie & Maggie.  If they're out of my direct line of sight, they respond to calls within 30 seconds.  Always.  And I'm religious about them checking in with me every 5 minutes.  Now with Hurley, we'll need to keep 2 of the 3 tethered at all times, if not all 3.  I'm kinda bummed that Sadie & Maggie won't have the freedom they normally do but nothing's worth the feeling of thinking, for any amount of time, that they might be lost.   

No one's enthused about the new rule.

Not even Sadie, who is happy 99% of the time.

Actually, I think Maggie was relieved with the tethering.  She was most harrassed by the Hurley Monster this weekend.

Oh wait.  Never mind.  They found a new way to torment Maggie.  Tug on her tether rope.  Endless trouble, I tell you!

Other than that, our camping trip was a relaxing few days in one of our favorite spots.  And we camped for the first time in our super duper ginormous new tent, which I love!  Despite having all the room we could want, I was happily snuggled by 2 dogs on one side, the other as my pillow and the Hubster by my side.  What more could a girl want?

A gratuitous 'Sadie's my pretty girl' photo

Getting her revenge.  That's what more a girl could want.

I promise never to be bad again.  I promise.  Can I please get out of this tub now?

On Being a Worry Wart Doggie Mom

Hi, my name is Sarah and I Worry.

Thankfully, I'm not the only one!  

I like to blame my excessive worry wart nature on maternal instincts.  I take care of those around me and therefore, I worry about their well-being.  Or so I tell myself to keep myself from worrying about the fact that I worry too much.


So what am I worrying about these days?  Mountain Streams (you may call them Bubbling Brooks).  Seriously.

I've already blogged about how Sadie is craisins about water.  I don't think I've shared the pre-blog adventure of almost losing Sadie because of her obsession with water.

A couple years ago, we went camping with friends and near the campsite, was a mountain stream, perfect for getting our feet wet and for the dogs to enjoy a good romp.  There was a steep embankment so we let the dogs off leash to go before us rather than potentially be pulled the 10 feet or so down to the stream.

Sadie tears off, leaps into the water, and by the time we got down to the stream/river's edge, she had already been swept 50 yards or so downstream.  It was early summer and these "streams" are the beginnings of some of Oregon's biggest rivers, full of runoff from the snow melting at this time of year.  I have never seen such a look of panic on my baby's face.  She was trying so hard to swim back towards me but the current kept pushing her farther downstream.

Luckily, one of our friends raced down the bank and was able to coax her to swim directly towards shore instead of struggling to get back upstream to me.  Though shaken up and left with a sprained tail, she was otherwise fine and harbors no ill will towards water or streams. 

This weekend, we are going camping in the same area.  There will be lots of mountain streams, full of runoff, on their way to becoming large rivers.  Sadie will swim in them.  She will be fine.  The Hubster will pick a campsite that's near a smaller, less rapid, stream.  I need to stop worrying.  But I will check out every stream we come across before allowing Sadie to leap into the water!

Don't worry, Mom.  I promise to be good!

Monday Fun Day: Coastal Hiking

Sadie and I recently drove out to the Coastal Range here in Oregon for a nice day hike for our Monday Fun Day adventure.  It was breaking 80 degrees in Portland and man, we just had to escape the heat!  (yes, I'm being sarcastic)

We decided to tackle Saddle Mountain, the highest peak en route to the Coast from Portland.  One review of the trail mentioned hurricane fencing used as trail maintenance in the latter half of the trail, which may not be good for dog paws, but I decided to risk it anyway.

 

Sadie approved and off we went!  The trail was a little more difficult than I had thought, or rather first hike of the season, I'm a little more out of shape than I realized.  But Sadie was very patient with my frequent stops to catch our breath and have a sip of water.


As we got up to the fencing as trail portion, out of shape Mom was huffing & puffing and decided to use Sadie's gentle paws as a reason to be OK with only doing half the hike Sadie decided she had better things to do.

The Summit we never reached...

So back down the mountain we headed and spent the rest of our afternoon at Cannon Beach.  And guess what?  No Sadie Water Crazies!  At all.  She didn't start whining once she smelled the ocean air.  She didn't pull when we parked the car and walked towards the beach.  Hell, she even walked excitedly but relatively calmly (for her) down the beach until we got to a less populated section where she could run.

And run she did!

Seeing her not get so crazy around the waves was totally worth a little bit o' shame regarding the unfinished hike.  I'm glad we took the time to reward her with a beach visit; would've been a shame to be just a few minutes away and not get to see her zoomies in the waves. 

Happy Memorial Day! May it be filled with sunshine, waves, BBQ and a wee bit of zoomies.