Going Cuckoo Over Haiku*
Category: Dog Care Page 10 of 20
A series of haiku about Donna’s first day at dog daycare. The daycare centre said Donna made a few dogs angry because she kept trying to mount them. But she learnt to avoid those dogs angry at her and play with other dogs instead.
When she returned home, it seemed like dog daycare has made her more hungry than usual.
Mr P just returned from his travels. A series of haikus about homecoming and how Donna greets him at the door. There is a video too!
How do your dogs greet you when you come back home?
My Best Photo of the Week (MBPOTW) – week 13
An unexpected moment when Donna decided that she would perform her wave, repeatedly, to con Mr P of his burger. I didn’t know how long she was going to keep at the begging dog act, so I had to take the picture from where I was sitting. I was glad that I could capture her expression, actions and also the food she was interested in. Mr P’s arm in the foreground is kind of distracting but this is the best shot out of the few I snapped. I had to put that line of text to balance the picture, without it, there’s just too much empty space.
Why is it that the dog always thinks that we should give up our food to her. Humans get hungry too, you know.
This article is a continuation to – Dog Socialisation 1 – What do you think of when you hear the word “socialisation”?
An off-leash JRT that approached Donna during our walk at the park.
We brought our dog Donna to a Dog Daycare Centre for a temperament assessment a few weeks back. We realised, as we watched Donna trying to blend into the wall in that room full of other dogs at the Dog Daycare Centre, that she does not get to play with other dogs enough to know how to deal with this sort of situation.
After that she further showed us how true that thought was when she started to show a tendency to mount the dog she was playing with when the dog run was over crowded with dogs. She gets too excited and humps the dog she is playing with. And the over-arousal makes her less responsive to recall and other cues we try to distract her from the obsession with trying to gyrate against another dog.
Last week in the comments on Donna and husky videos, Lindsay from ThatMutt.com said: “The videos made me smile :) She’s fast!”
Yah, when our local mongrel dog wants to be. Her normal walking speed is…
This: Old lady walking speed
OK, I said walk, not stop.
Socialisation.
That is a big word, isn’t it? And one that is not particularly intuitive either.
Just a couple of weeks ago, we took Donna for an audition a temperament assessment with a Dog Daycare Center. Before that, the owner had asked me over email, “what breed is your dog”. And when I replied mongrel, I was asked – “Is your dog socialised?”
To say I got my hackles up was an understatement. I got the underlying implication that mongrels are likely to be trouble-makers, and further conversation with the owner of the daycare center confirmed the truth of my suspicions. The owner said that the few times they had a mongrel, it had caused them problems.
Do we look like problems to you?
Picture taken in January
She never did this before, but we had only adopted her for a short period of time when this picture was taken… it sure looks funny. She looks like a pole dancer…
So I sent the picture over and was informed that we’ve got to stop it because humping is a sign of dominance. Ooops… ok, best stop encouraging the dog just because I want to take a funny video :P
