Category: Blog

There is a facility very close to my house, run by people who claim to be positive reinforcement trainers, but aren’t.

Yesterday was a good example.

The woman I’m speaking of is a Karen Pryor certified trainer, and I have officially complained about her in the past.

So I peed the girls before I went in.

The fun match was a bit delayed, but neither dog had access to water. 

So Dulce has a pretty good run.  She stops and sniffs a few things but not bad.  We took a second pass at the teeter, as she really had it together, and on the middle of the teeter she pees.

The person in question finds out and starts screaming at me.  Mind you, she’s part of the reason that Dulce has this issue in the first place.  I said I was leaving and wanted a refund on the rest of my runs, which they refused.

The good news: I won’t be entering anything else, and I was thinking about entering the upcoming Teacup trial, saving me a couple of hundred dollars.

First one in a long time.

No zoomies and no peeing in the ring.

A nice ternager and her uncle followed us in thinking I would know where to go. <sigh> I didn't but we all got there.  Beagles are so predictable, Macy has to pee first, then Dulce will.  Girl wanted to why, and I said, "They are beagles,"

Macy wasn't her self, but she had her ears packed yesterday morning,we got it right on the third try.

Dulce did a really nice job, both runs.

We are trying a different one tomorrow.

I got Taggs on my dogs when Maggie started escaping.  That started when a drunk driver drove into the house.

It went on for several years after.

Maggie was almost 15 years old when she got to where she screamed anytime I touched her (for a week) and the last day when my husband touched her.

Dulce and Macy have never left the property without either Maggie taking them, or one of the humans.  Actually Dulce hasn’t ever left the property.  Once she left the back yard when Maggie opened the gate, but didn’t leave. 

Macy has only made it to the park.  Then she laid down and waited for us.

The last time Maggie escaped, the other dogs stayed in the house.  She dug under the dog run and when through the fence.

She was determined to leave during a rain storm.

Here’s the main reason I cancelled my Taggs:  They break fairly easily and only have a 1 year warranty.  Replacing them now costs more than the original service and the monthly service has gone up.  The web site does not work well with Internet Explorer, something I consider the gold standard.  If your website doesn’t work with IE, I’m not doing business with you.

Also the battery life has went from 3 weeks to about 3 days.  No changes in my dogs activity.

Just checked my claim status and they paid all but $5.00 of an tooth extraction and cleaning she had two weeks ago today.

I can’t see the detail as to what they didn’t pay, but we have Major Medical and CareGuard Premium.

Now I can’t wait to see what they paid on Dulce’s.  Hers was a cleaning only so I don’t expect the same rate of coverage.

I got a Bark Box each for Macy and Dulce.  They are great.  This month, Macy got a chewy and two bags of treats.  Also got two toys.  Often the toys only least a few minutes, but they do enjoy them.  I am not sure I do.

They complete degut them and then we have plush toy guts all over the house.

Get your own here: 

I am a dog sport enthusiast and a service dog user. My friends are breeders and dog sport enthusiasts. We are not pet parents.

We spend a lot of money on our dogs and our vets and suppliers don't need cutesy titles to make more money off of us. In fact, I get a discount from mine since I have been a client for so long.

One of my vets competes with me and I know for a fact, she got up out of a warm bed and delivered a litter of beagles during the ice storm we had a few weeks ago. She doesn't need to up sale that client either. That client goes to her for reproduction only
and also competes with her.

Now I know the type of client the other vets are after and they really should be ashamed of themselves. I have heard what "pet" vets charge and it is freaking ridiculous. About double what mine does without the discount.

Maybe if they would drop the charges, drop the upsale, they would get better clients?

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I took a break from agility and am slowly coming back. I entered both dogs in FAST, Standard and JWW

The weather sucked, and it was just too hot for Macy. She tried, but just couldn’t do it.

However, Dulce made a huge break through, she stayed in the ring all three runs. The FAST, which was first, was a bit iffy, but the second and third were two solid, dog was definitely in the ring. She did spend a lot of time eating things in the ring but did take quite a few obstacles.

Getting there.

We try again next weekend, but Standard and JWW only.

I think!

While she looked around the ring and didn’t do everything I said, she didn’t leave the ring and she took some obstacles.

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Dulce has been a rock star this week, but then she usually is.

Tuesday night we had a pre-Trend Sale appointment at Nordstorm – my Beauty Stylist loves her and really looks out for her so arranged for us to get an Oxygen Massage and a Warm Hand Massage, along with Trend Sale specials. We all agreed that Trend Sale would be too crazy for her. Plus we are double booked for Saturday.

Tonight we had a reception / check awards ceremony with the Junior League of Dallas. I was concentrating so hard on walking that I forgot we were supposed to stop and take a picture. Plus I was a bit startled by the audience reaction. They forgot about the service dog and I didn’t remind them and it worked out find. They had us arranged by school name so the check presentation would go faster. We did startle the woman next to us, but Dulce stayed under the chair in front of us. Big difference from last year when she hung out in a cage.

She did end up alerting when they were doing the last three schools. She did give me enough time for them to finish the picture taking – a group picture is shared on Facebook.

Fortunately I asked for sugar – the iced tea was sugar free and what looked like water was heavily sweetened lemonade. I would have guessed the opposite if I hadn’t asked. That and a couple of small brownies got us home.

Of course the first thing I did was set of Dulce’s “office”.

Since Dulce is a little dog, I have always set up a cage for her. I think Tara was a bit surprised at that, but I’m a huge believer in the power of the crate. I have gone through the training protocol “Crate Games” and have found it useful.

And yes, Dulce can and does alert while she is in a crate.

When I’m at school, she hangs out in her crate, most of time with the door open. She is comfortable there and knows that she won’t be bothered. The kids get a kick out of watching her pull the door open and closed with her paw.

Her crate is under my desk which keeps her close to me.

When we have staff development, I’ll take a smaller crate so both hands are free. If we have a short meeting, I’ll just take a mat so she still has a defined space.

Both of us tend to prefer the crate, as people can’t step on her when she is one – a waiter accidently stepped on her last week when she was loose.