Merry Christmas '13

Holiday Greetings from Mokey & Chase. Wishing you all lots of family, smelly trees, bouncy balls & tasty cookies!

Crazy Wildlife

So it seems like the local wildlife is getting a bit wonky lately. Mokey and I have had several encounters with our yard neighbors this summer and each one has seemed kind of stupid.

A couple months ago Mokey went outside for her evening stroll. It was dark and she immediately shot off to guard Yard from our terrible bunny evasion. I heard her extremely high-pitched critter alert and after a minute, as per usual, the alarm ended. Yard was safe once more; or so I assumed. A minute or two later when I opened the door to let the dogs back in, neither dog came. While such an action isn't unheard of for Mo, Chase (our literal stop watch) always promptly comes when called. When neither dog came, I got a little worried. Shoving my shoes on, I went out to the back where I could dimly see their outlines glowing in the dark. As I drew closer I realized Chase was pacing around Mokey with his 'I'm gonna get it!' expression/body language. Meanwhile, Mokey is looking up at me and back down with a worried & wrinkled forehead. Once I'm near the dogs I know what has her so worried. She caught the bunny. The poor thing is laid out on it's side and Mokey keeps looking down at it and pawing at it like, "What'd I do? Get up! Let's run some more!" At first I thought the dogs had accidentally killed it by pouncing on it since there wasn't any blood (Ok, it probably wouldn't have been an accident on Chase's part). But the next morning, when we went out to bury it . . . the bunny was gone. Apparently, they can play dead too. It's called Tonic Immobility. Who knew? It took Mokey the entire night to calm down afterwards but at least the bunny was alive.

Mokey practices her Nose Works abilities

Two weeks later I'm out mowing the lawn. We have a riding mower so I usually watch the front wheel to make sure I don't hit the fence. On that particular day, as I'm watching the wheels, I see this little gray lump suddenly hop forward. There was a bunny literally an inch away from the wheel! By the time I see it and realize it was a critter, I'm already forward with the blade part of the mower. I still swerve away, hoping by some miracle I didn't just kill a tiny, calendar worthy animal. And then I sit there. On the mower. Because I'm not really sure I want to go back and look. Did I hit it? Why didn't it move out of the way? Our lawn mower is loud! Eventually I convince myself I have to look in case I really did hit it - I don't want the dogs to find it. So back I go ... the silly bunny was completely fine & completely frozen. I had to tap it with my shoe to get it to move out of the yard.

Two night ago, Mokey found another opossum. Sigh. She always does this stuff when it's late at night and I can't actually see her, all I can hear is the critter alarm. I went running back to find her desperately jumping against our now (luckily & wonderfully) 6ft fence, trying to get at the

Chase has so much drive it's scary

oppossum who's frozen at the top with his mouth open. What is with these things? Can't they just jump off the other side? Even though the fence is now 6 ft, she was literally 1 inch away from having possum for dinner. While the bunnies seem fun to chase and play with, I have no doubts that the possum falls under the 'prey that would be good for killing' category. We left the opossum where it was and finally coerced Mokey into coming in for the night.

2 yrs old

 

So Mokey had her 2nd birthday on the 26th! It's hard to believe she's now technically an adult or even that we've had her for 2 years. Especially since Mo's still young at heart. ;) Her birthday dinner looks pretty gross (turkey and green beans don't look so good together) but she loved it.

 She still loves to suck on her toys.

 Enjoying a car ride!

Summer!

 So I have to admit to being a little lazy this summer. I haven't taken Mokey out walking and staring at people as much as I usually do. Partly because it's gotten hot and it's hard for her to be out long, but also partly because she's been staring at a lot of neighbors and handy men. She's been doing a beautiful job if I do say so myself. ;) Occasionally she loses her brain but she's been finding it again more easily and focusing sooner. We've also slowly been working on getting her used to her carting harness. It's an incredibly slow process, she's not a fan yet. But we're still trying.

Summer just wouldn't be summer without pool & hose time. Mokey lives each day with the hopes of playing water hose - if you're outside she spends her time trying to convince you to play it with her. Eventually she may give up, if you hold out long enough, and will then grab her blue ball and drop it in her pool. She'll happily hop in, dig around, and push it from one end to the other, splashing water everywhere. After she's satisfied with that she'll jump out and probably try to go wipe her face off on one of our rose bushes. Side note: One can never be too paranoid when planting a garden. This year I've spent some time putting plants in. Everyone thought I was a little paranoid at first when I insisted everything be dog safe. No toxic plants, only thorn-less roses allowed. It was a bit of a challenge to do. But since Mokey took a taste test within the first hour of their planting and then 3 days later tried to dry her face on the rose bush - I'm very grateful for a little paranoia ;)

 This past weekend the King and Queen of Yard upgraded our fence. Our guard was not the best match for our elderly fence. While it grew weaker, Momo grew stronger. When one of our neighbors had a visitor over who freaked out while he was inside their house because he thought Mokey was going to jump the fence after a rabbit (which has never happened by the way) the decision was made to retire the old fence and give all the neighbors of Yard a little peace of mind for their tired brains. Mokey's new guard companion is a wonderful 6 feet and as an extra bonus much more private than the old one. While our old fence went off to protect a field of crops from deer, our new fence looks smartly ready to help Momo guard Yard for years to come.

As a side note - Mokey did as well as I could ask with all the workers running around our yard. We took some precautions by giving her meds to help manage the stress plus lots of tasty treats and she made it through like a star. I would even say the experience was good for her since she did a lot of 'Who's That?' -ing and a lot of quiet watching. Yay!

Spring! Wait, winter?

So the weather has been somewhat confusing this year. We had about a week of warm, spring-like temperatures and then this week it's been back to cold rain and winter coats. While I'm usually ok with most types of weather, I'm not a huge fan of constant rain (mostly b/c of the mud and the muddy leonberger - the exercise deprived, lets stay outside in the rain, mud covered leonberger. For proof see Exhibit A.)

Exhibit A: Mokey enjoying a spring shower.

Even if the weather can't make up it's mind we have had a few nicer days. Days that have allowed us to take our walks and stare at people in their driveways and once again assume our position as local stalker in the neighborhood. Mokey's finally learning the fine art of stalking in silence and not giving away our position by loud barking and lunge fits. In all seriousness, she is slowly getting better - we're crawling along really. But progress is progress. When Mo isn't sleeping or training or pestering the family for attention, she's usually outside dragging around her water hose - hoping desperately someone will come hook it up and play that silly game with her. She's obsessed. I mean 100%, crazily, happily obsessed with it. In the summer I used to just leave the hose hooked up to the house. When Mokey started pulling on it to get the excess water to squirt out - I had to start unhooking it for fear that she'd yank the water spout off.

Mokey pulling her hose around the yard.

 Mokey has been practicing her nose works as well. She's doing really well at it so far but unfortunately we're stalled for the time being. Normally at this point you would begin training with a scent - pairing the food and scent. However because Mo's still so fearful - of people and strange noises and objects - we're unable to move onto scents right away. This is because we want to avoid a situation where Mokey could become scared/startled by something during the search. If she became scared enough, she may associate the scent with the scary thing and then begin to avoid that scent. So, in order to be extra careful, I decided just to leave her on finding treats for now while we work on searching in new areas and around unfamiliar items. Of course I'll never be able to bomb proof her - there's always a chance that something, somewhere will scare her. But right now, since she's still learning and since so many things still make her nervous, we're just going to play it safe and wait. Whether we're on scent or not, it's still fun to do.

Mokey searches.

Mokey finds it! Yay!

Snow! and . . . More Snow!

Here's a blog dedicated to one of Mokey's favorite things . . . snow!

After work there's. . . Snow!

At home there's Snow . . . people?! What is this thing that has invaded Yard? He smells like yard, he tastes like yard. . . wait. What's that? That thing sticking out at the top? Is that? It is!

A carrot! Yum! I'll just jump a little and . . . success! *crunch crunch* Maybe I'll let this thing *chomp scarf* stay in Yard after all. Now. Just let me get those other little carrots . . . It doesn't need them anyway. . . I'll just be *chomp chomp* helping it *crunch* watch its' figure.

 Whew! That was great. What else does this thing have for me? Ooh, branches! My favorite! A tug here a tug there . . . and . . . out. it. comes! Look at me! How cool am I? A crunchy stick and I got it all on my own. Look Ma! A stick!

 Ah, how great was that? I think I'll let that thing stay in Yard for a little while longer. Maybe it will grow more carrots. I know! I'll charge it a carrot tax for staying in Yard! Right after I get up from my nap.

In more serious news, Mokey has been working on her nose works skills and has now graduated to finding treats outside and on cars. Yay. We also went to see her behaviorist again and due to her lack of/slow progress he's bumped up her meds. So, here's hoping we can make some training strides in that area as well.

New Year Blues

Sleepy Momo

So our new year hasn't started off so well. The dogs have been ok - their owners not so much. We've already packed in a years worth of hospital visits and had a death in the family. I'm pretty sure all of our bad experiences have already happened so the rest of this year should be smooth sailing. Or at least, that's what I'm going with.

The holidays went by pretty easily. Mokey got to meet her Grandma and it only took us 4 days of treating and staring to get to a tail wag and chest rub. While that's extremely slow, at least Mo did eventually greet her. That's something, right?

This winter has been pretty dismal as far as winters go. No snow, warm temperatures - just mud and rain. Yuck. I'm a huge fan of winter and the snow we usually get. So when I got up this morning and we actually had a couple of inches I was pretty happy. But probably not as happy as Mokey - she immediately went out and tried to get Chase to play with her. Then she dunked her face in it. Must be a dog thing.

 Recently Mokey and I started taking nose work classes. Which is basically where you teach your dog to recognize three different scents and then find the hidden scent in a room. There's different levels and different titles you can accomplish. Right now we're still working on finding treats but Mokey's already a huge fan - and really what's not to love? Free food. She doesn't even have to do a trick. The whole purpose of this is to try and give her a job and help build her confidence. It's something she can focus on without getting revved up about her triggers. We've already practiced at work - a place where she's normally nervous - and it did help her calm down and focus. Besides all that it's nice to do something that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with her reactivity.