Sandra Dodd

WHOA!!!!!
Please don't chit chat on this list. Lists of ideas are great.
Quoting two full posts isn't. Saying "ooh golly that looks fun"
isn't good.

If we had twelve people on the list we could all talk about what our
dogs are doing and what's for dinner, but PLEASE stay to topic, make
your posts useful to lots of people, and don't forget there are way
over 1000 readers.

Sandra

Angela Shaw

<If we had twelve people on the list we could all talk about what our
dogs are doing >

Speaking of dogs. <grin> I don't post often these days but this spring I
posted on a topic about a child wanting a dog when the parent wasn't ready
yet. I was against getting a dog until the whole family was committed
because you are dealing with an animal's life and there are so many dogs
that are neglected because it was more work than a family expected. I still
stand by all that I said about it being a family decision because it's a
huge decision that affects the whole family and ultimately a dog's life.
Anyway.

It was shortly after that post that my husband decided that he was once
again ready to have a dog in the family. I had been ready for a while but I
needed it to be a family decision. It had been 9 years since we had had a
dog. We now have a lovely puppy named Archie. We got him June 1st. He is
a black lab and he is a LOT of work but we all pitch together to care for
him and because everyone agreed and was willing and everyone loves him, he
gets all the care he deserves. I walk him every morning. The kids walk him
periodically. The kids or I play ball with him whenever he gets wound up.
And we all enjoy his snuggles and loving. My husband enjoys him too and he
will feel safer leaving us home alone when he travels for work (which he
does a lot) as soon as he is fully grown. (And my don't they grown fast!)

I am so glad we said yes but I am also very glad we waited until it was the
right time for our family. We have 2 horses, 2 rabbits, 2 cats, and now a
dog. I love all of our animals but there is just something special about a
dog because they want to be with you so much. We are his pack. :-) We are
avid Dog Whisperer watchers and we have learned so much about dog psychology
that we didn't know back when we had our last dog. It's been a fun journey.



Angela Shaw

Game-enthusiast@...



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Gold Standard

>>I was against getting a dog until the whole family was committed
because you are dealing with an animal's life and there are so many dogs
that are neglected because it was more work than a family expected. I still
stand by all that I said about it being a family decision because it's a
huge decision that affects the whole family and ultimately a dog's life.<<

Just wondering...what happens if one of the children doesn't do anything to
take care of the dog? Or numerous don't?

I remember your original post about this issue months ago, and as I recall,
you wanted agreement that everyone would help. If you are still standing by
the idea that everyone has to agree to partake in the care taking, I'm
really interested in what happens if it plays out that they don't.

Sometimes I take care of our dogs for days at a time...feeding, watering,
etc., and my kids are all older teenagers. Someone always takes care of the
dogs, and it is usually one of the kids, but they are very involved in
outside things in general right now, and there are times when they aren't
here much. And sometimes they are here and beat, or catching up with a show,
or some such thing. Since I'm not trying to catch up on a show, or beat, I
happily take care of it. I don't say, "It's your turn"...in fact, I can't
ever remember saying that. I may say, "Would you please feed the dogs?" if
I've got something else going on. And most every time the reply will be yes.
But if it wasn't, I would ask someone else, feed them later, or just do it
then.

I think everyone feels supported and respected in this family. And from that
place, they take good care of the dogs most of the time. There is no
schedule, no duty that has to be done by a particular person at a particular
time (though if they wanted to do it that way for predictability reasons,
that would be fine too). I'm the one to make sure the jobs are done everyday
by someone.

If I am mis-remembering the post of months ago, my apologies. It's still a
great subject though!

Jacki

k

I just love whisperer stuff and your post has me wishing severely that we
have cable so I could watch it regularly. Oops! That means I can hit
youtube. Again! Yay! More and more that's my stand-in for TV.

~Katherine




On 9/14/08, Angela Shaw <game-enthusiast@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> <If we had twelve people on the list we could all talk about what our
> dogs are doing >
>
> Speaking of dogs. <grin> I don't post often these days but this spring I
> posted on a topic about a child wanting a dog when the parent wasn't ready
> yet. I was against getting a dog until the whole family was committed
> because you are dealing with an animal's life and there are so many dogs
> that are neglected because it was more work than a family expected. I still
> stand by all that I said about it being a family decision because it's a
> huge decision that affects the whole family and ultimately a dog's life.
> Anyway.
>
> It was shortly after that post that my husband decided that he was once
> again ready to have a dog in the family. I had been ready for a while but I
> needed it to be a family decision. It had been 9 years since we had had a
> dog. We now have a lovely puppy named Archie. We got him June 1st. He is
> a black lab and he is a LOT of work but we all pitch together to care for
> him and because everyone agreed and was willing and everyone loves him, he
> gets all the care he deserves. I walk him every morning. The kids walk him
> periodically. The kids or I play ball with him whenever he gets wound up.
> And we all enjoy his snuggles and loving. My husband enjoys him too and he
> will feel safer leaving us home alone when he travels for work (which he
> does a lot) as soon as he is fully grown. (And my don't they grown fast!)
>
> I am so glad we said yes but I am also very glad we waited until it was the
> right time for our family. We have 2 horses, 2 rabbits, 2 cats, and now a
> dog. I love all of our animals but there is just something special about a
> dog because they want to be with you so much. We are his pack. :-) We are
> avid Dog Whisperer watchers and we have learned so much about dog
> psychology
> that we didn't know back when we had our last dog. It's been a fun journey.
>
> Angela Shaw
>
> Game-enthusiast@... <Game-enthusiast%40roadrunner.com>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Angela Shaw

<<Just wondering...what happens if one of the children doesn't do anything
to
take care of the dog? Or numerous don't?

I think everyone feels supported and respected in this family. And from
that
place, they take good care of the dogs most of the time. There is no
schedule, no duty that has to be done by a particular person at a particular
time (though if they wanted to do it that way for predictability reasons,
that would be fine too). I'm the one to make sure the jobs are done everyday
by someone.>>



Everyone in my family also feels supported and respected and in return they
generally respond in a like manner. My kids aren't that little anymore and
they've always been unschooled without the forced chores or random rules.
They are almost 12 & 14. They are used to taking care of their animals
because we've had horses for 4 years and cats and rabbits (off and on) for
as long as they can remember and they've always participated in their care
because they enjoy it. (notice I said participated in, not took full
responsibility) They understood when we got the dog what kind of work it
entailed because they already shared in some big responsibilities with our
other animals.

However, I also knew that they were still kids and that they are often busy
and I knew the brunt of the responsibility would fall on me and I am willing
to do that because I really wanted a dog. I didn't get the dog with the
impression that the kids had the whole responsibility to care for him and
they knew that. They knew it would be a family thing and not once yet, (3.5
months) have they not gotten up from whatever they were doing and taken the
dog outside when I've asked.

Having a dog inspires me to walk every day and sometimes one or both come
with me and often I walk him alone. It's something I enjoy and I knew that
I would enjoy that going into it. Occasionally the girls walk him alone but
less often since he was attacked by a dog.

So, like you, there aren't certain responsibilities that they must do but
because they feel supported and respected and they did agree to help with
the work it takes to have a dog, they do it with a good attitude. They love
him!

I also enjoy mucking the horse's stalls and I do that most of the time while
Leigh my cat lover feeds the cats because she likes to. Both girls take
care of the rabbits although my younger dd needs more reminding than my
older. Both girls share in all the horse responsibilities but I muck much
more often than they do.

Angela





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Nancy Wooton

On Sep 15, 2008, at 3:59 AM, k wrote:

> I just love whisperer stuff and your post has me wishing severely
> that we
> have cable so I could watch it regularly. Oops! That means I can hit
> youtube. Again! Yay! More and more that's my stand-in for TV.

Have you found hulu.com yet? I've been watching "Journeyman" again
the last few days. There are short commercials, but I just mute 'em.
A small price to pay for seeing complete shows and movies for free :-)

Nancy
(if you missed it, you can see SNL's opening sketch, the joint press
conference between Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, on hulu...)

k

Oh! SNL. Don't get me started. I might never turn off my computer again!
Thanks for the reminder about hulu. I've been meaning to get over there.

~Katherine




On 9/15/08, Nancy Wooton <nancywooton@...> wrote:
>
>
> On Sep 15, 2008, at 3:59 AM, k wrote:
>
> > I just love whisperer stuff and your post has me wishing severely
> > that we
> > have cable so I could watch it regularly. Oops! That means I can hit
> > youtube. Again! Yay! More and more that's my stand-in for TV.
>
> Have you found hulu.com yet? I've been watching "Journeyman" again
> the last few days. There are short commercials, but I just mute 'em.
> A small price to pay for seeing complete shows and movies for free :-)
>
> Nancy
> (if you missed it, you can see SNL's opening sketch, the joint press
> conference between Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, on hulu...)
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

I was having a dog conversation just yesterday with Holly's
boyfriend. Holly housesat for friends of ours who have four dogs.
I've known the dad of that family since he in his late teens. (The
mom since her mid-teens, come to think of it, but I knew them
separately and they weren't even in the same town.)

I've known every dog he ever had, though I don't know the current
ones as well as I knew earlier ones. What I DO know is that the dogs
are crazed, untrained, desperate for attention and destructive. And
they have a new dog who's chewing things up--books, dishes... So
Holly needed to stay there 24 hours a day.

Her boyfriend was there with her a lot of the time, which made me
feel better about her being in a big house with the owners clearly
gone. But he was talking about how the dogs are.

By contrast, our dog is mellow and will guard the front door, but if
we tell her someone's fine, she calms down. Occasionally she'll nip
at the heels of a male visitor if he's walking fast or she'd rather
he'd leave, but she's never bitten for real. Our cats adore her and
one is usually lying touching her if she's lying down.

Maybe our dog is a genius and understands English. I don't think
so. Marty dropped out of puppy training because he didn't like their
rough methods. We've just treated the dog gently and sweetly and let
her know what wasn't okay to do.

Our next door neighbors never say anything decent to their dogs.
They yell at them all the time, so the dogs bark at other people all
the time, and then the people yell at them more and the dogs bark more.

At the house where Holly was, the dogs have medications, and have to
be fed separately and given pills and the food is measured.

She has housesat other dogs. The less food she's instructed to give
them, the worse the dogs behave. Those who have more food are
calmer. Our dog, calmest of them all, has all the dogfood and
catfood she wants. But she's not fat. The vet expressed nearly
disbelief that she was given all the food she wants. There's
always food down, and she doesn't eat it unless she's hungry.

All of that has to do with unschooling. There are aspects of all of
those things that can illuminate principles behind unschooling.

When a dog needs to chew, they need MORE things to chew, not fewer
things. Say yes to the dog, give him stuff to chew, and then let him
know gently what's not okay to chew, and keep the best stuff up until
he's older.

Those dogs and their medications? Holly doesn't see anything wrong
with the dogs, but sure enough, three of them need medications.
Why? She doesn't know. But the kids in that family need medications
too, and the mom is on an ever-more-limited diet. No doubt stress is
a factor. Deprivation can't be helping.


About dog care, Marty helped me see that our dog has specialized
expectations. If the dog wants new or different food, she comes to
me. She hangs around when I'm cooking. She has a very food-specific
expectant posture she takes with me, though she's good-natured if I
tell her to go on. She leave the room on "Go on, Gudrun," and I
don't say it meanly.

It turns out she doesn't beg from the others (though it's not much
"begging" anyway; it's subtle).

If she wants to play, she goes to Marty.

When it's nearly sundown, she starts hanging around Keith in the
"going for a walk" positions--near the back door, or near wherever he
is and she looks at the door and jumps up if she thinks he's not
understanding plain dog language. She never does the go-for-a-walk
stuff with me, even though I do take her sometimes.

Sandra

Sandra Dodd

-=-Occasionally the girls walk him alone but
less often since he was attacked by a dog.-=-



Maybe send them armed with water guns or squirt bottles. If a dog
comes to growl, they can say NO and spray the dog and run away with
the puppy happily!



Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Angela Shaw

<Maybe send them armed with water guns or squirt bottles. If a dog
comes to growl, they can say NO and spray the dog and run away with
the puppy happily! >

I've been learning how to deal with aggressive dogs by watching The Dog
Whisperer and running away is one thing that Cesar Millan (The dog
whisperer) says not to do because it entices them to chase you like prey.
The day it happened my 13 yo dd was walking him and I was with her. I saw
the dogs at the last second as we came around a corner. They were in a yard
where there are not usually dogs. (the lady's dd was visiting from out of
town with 2 dogs and no collars on) I tried to size up their body language
as they ran over and at the same time I was getting ready to ask the owner
who was standing there if the dogs were friendly, and before I had time to
even think, the dog was on our puppy, growling, snarling, and biting. It
didn't break the skin so it was more likely a show of dominance but it was
really scary and for a couple minutes after the attack our puppy sat in the
road whimpering. I dragged the dog off our puppy by the scruff of the neck
and back skin as the owner wasn't reacting very quickly. I held onto him
until she took him from me and after that I started carrying a big stick.
(although I've gotten lazy about that lately since those dogs are gone and
our route is familiar)

Thankfully, the puppy got over his fright pretty quickly and we moved on but
it was scary for me and I know it was scary for my dd too.

Our pup is delightful! He gets walked every day and he has a million toys
to play with so he's good about not eating stuff he shouldn't. (Although he
did snag a loaf of bread off the counter last night for the first time!) He
loves to be outside and if he's starts to get mischievous, all one of us has
to do (if we don't feel like playing ball or something) is to sit on the
front porch while he entertains himself outside. He's a pretty lucky chap
because one of us it typically around almost all the time except for a few
hours at a time occasionally.

We're really enjoying him.

Angela





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Sandra Dodd

-=-running away is one thing that Cesar Millan (The dog
whisperer) says not to do because it entices them to chase you like
prey.-=-

You're right, but if they've just sprayed the dog with water, that
will discourage him for a while.

I grew up rurally where dogs were loose to run.

I live in a city now where dogs are never supposed to be out of a
fenced yard or off a leash. It makes a difference in behavior and
reaction.



Sandra

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