I am completely covered in dog fur. Between my clothes and the floor, there may be enough here to create another small lap dog if I use some duct tape and Gorilla Glue. Cats definitely shed, but not like this. I try to brush G with a grooming tool that got 5 stars on Amazon. He’s not having it at all. I know he hates it because as soon as I give him a gentle swipe with the brush, this attention-loving hound actually glares at me as if to say, “Oh, no, you didn’t…” before moving as far across the room from me as he can.
The barking at night has completely stopped. He’s still pretty restless, which wakes me up from time to time, but at least I’m now getting closer to 5-6 hours of sleep. It will be interesting to see if all his movement will be less noticeable to me once he’s in a dog bed versus the crate. I had the soothing sounds of a rainstorm playing all night, and I feel like that helped somewhat for me.
Yesterday, we were having major issues with the long lead line for bathroom breaks. G just would not go at all when we had him on it. After the 6th attempt within 12 hours and absolutely nothing happening, I text Connie in a panic. She responds to go ahead and let him go off-leash as we had before and perhaps try adding more length to the lead line for the following day. Turns out that when we were taking him out before, we were supposed to take him to one exact spot to do his business while holding the leash so that he would learn the precise area where he was supposed to go. But the guys had given him the freedom to wander around a very small section of our back yard, and so that was what G had gotten used to. None of us had remembered these instructions, and now we’re not sure how things will go once we add more length to the lead line. Rules are rules, but sh*t happens, and I would prefer it not to be in my house.
Indoor exercise has now been moved to the basement, where there is a lot of space for him to run full out without crashing into something. I have a chair lift that rides along the wall of the stairs so that I can go up and down as needed. It’s a great way to practice the “Stay” command, too, as G needs to wait for me to get to the top or the bottom before he is allowed to follow.
I had expected he would require a 30-minute workout or something. (Where I derived that number is anyone’s guess.) With full-on running and jumping to chase the ball, he’s pretty tired after about ten, maybe fifteen minutes tops. Connie says that’s totally normal. She explains that when large dogs walk with their owners on leash, they’re not necessarily getting a hard workout because they’re going at your pace, so they can easily go on a 45-minute walk without tiring. Retrieving balls requires sprinting and jumping, which gets their heart pumping faster, so they can only do this for so long.
Seeing him run and hop around has become the highlight of my day. There’s such a look of pure joy on his face when he goes after the ball. Even when I bean him in the head with the ball accidentally (which has happened more times than I care to admit), he is unfazed and is still so happy to go running after it. I realize that there is a lesson here.
It really makes me think about and appreciate how truly in the moment dogs are. Have you ever had a really bad day at work and then just let it affect the rest of your time with your family? Or been so pissed off about something that you let it impact the rest of an experience that you should be enjoying? I certainly have. Dogs don’t dwell endlessly on a negative moment. When it’s time to have fun, they just let go.
I want to try doing that too.
The Pick-Up Artist 