Mighty Jaws

Chores took me longer than usual this morning. I guess they usually take about an hour, but this morning they took two hours. The picture you see to the left is the result of my forgetting the baby goat bottles within LJ's reach. Now I need to find a new nipple before lunchtime.

L is doing great this morning. I thought I'd try milking her, but she refused to get on the stand, so I put her back into the yard. Sometimes we have to fight with them to get them onto the stand, but I just didn't have the energy this morning.

Actually, speaking of energy... I went to bed really late for me, 11pm. I was very tired, but I was trying to get on top of our finances and get some bills paid, etc. I woke up starving hungry at 2:30am, ate some cottage cheese and went back to bed. My ds2 woke me again at 4:30am, said he and his pop were leaving for work. Back to sleep and woke up at 6:00am in somewhat of a panic. See, we'd separated Z from her kids much earlier than usual last night. About 4:30pm, instead of 6:00. So I had planned to get out and milk her closer to 5:00am. She was actually crying during the night at 2:30am, wanting to be with her kids or be milked (probably more likely the latter was more intriguing since it includes *grain*).

I felt like I was having a hot flash this morning. It was pretty cold out, probably about 60° or so. And I was in shorts and t-shirt. I could feel myself sweating while I milked. I felt really draggy tired, too. I thought I'd come in and take an early nap. Instead I got a brainstorm. I decided since we had a couple dozen eggs that need to be used, I was going to scramble some of them up for the dogs.

Besides LJ, the new puppy, we have four other dogs. I've been reading everything I can on the APBT, and I've been feeling concerned that we will almost certainly (at some point in time) have some aggression issues because our other dogs have some issues. Like one book I have says that "normal" dogs will pick a fight with another dog, and then it's natural for one of the dogs to back off -- our dogs do this. But if the APBT is antagonized, it will not back down and won't stop after the other dog says "Uncle". We took in my MIL's dog. She was a big dog, when they adopted her, the shelter told them she was yellow lab mix. She has since passed, but in retrospect, I think she maybe had some pitbull in her. We had problems with our "alpha" trying to be controlling over Jewel (MIL's dog). On several occasions they got into it real bad. Dh had to pull them off each other, it was scary. I anticipate this happening again, with LJ, if we aren't aware of what is going on. At least now we know to be on guard for this type of situation.

I watched The Dog Whisperer last night and I am just so impressed with his methods. I decided this morning that I was going to begin working with our "pack" of dogs as a pack. We have an "alpha" and I'm still not clear if that is appropriate. If the people are the alpha, then the dogs are all under the alphas? Is there then a pecking order of the dogs?

I got the eggs scrambled up and took five dishes outside. I decided to first deal with the worst of our dogs. She is a jerk -- she won't come when called, even if I have good stuff for all the dogs. Daisy is very evasive, she will run the opposite direction, in fact. Anyway... I got a leash and found where she was at, and walked past her, then turned quickly and grabbed her by her fur. She's not mean, just won't cooperate and does irritating things like walks in front of our vehicles when we are driving on our property (trying to leave through the gates). I'm afraid she's going to get run over one day, but she acts like she is so clever.

I tied her to a post, and went and got the bowls of food. She also won't sit when I tell her to. But she knew she couldn't leave, and I was able to make her sit, then I got everyone else to sit, including my 10.5 week old puppy. It took a minute or two to get them to all stay still. LJ was jumping up and down all over everyone, so I made him stop and got him to sit and pay attention. WOW. It was amazing!!!! I let them all sit there watching me for several seconds, maybe 10 seconds or so. I handed out breakfast and at first Daisy wouldn't eat her portion. Everyone else was slowly licking at theirs. The alpha tried to leave her dish and take over one of the others, but I did that poking thing with my fingers that Cesar does and made her go back to her own.

I was so amazed at the change in Daisy. Just one "pack leader" thing, and already I am getting some respect from her!!! After she ate, I let her off the lead and she was licking and licking me (this is totally abnormal behavior for her). I know that dogs lick the pack leader, normally she is lukewarm toward me, with no respect at all. Usually I'll speak to the dogs, saying "Good girls" etc., this time I just acted real stuck up and they were all looking up at me, grinning and focused right on me. Just a few minutes later, I was getting ready to go in, and Daisy actually approached me and starting licking me again (I made her sit first before I paid any attention to her). I can't wait to tell my dh about this! We usually feed the dogs twice a day, filling up their dish, but I can see it is going to be vitally important that we change our methods if we want to keep our new puppy and stave off aggression problems. You know, previously I would have thought she was kissing up to me because I fed her good food. And I guess in a way, she is... but it's not that simple. It's pack leader respect.

I also learned last night from Cesar, how to deal with our other dog that has submission issues. I brought her in the house the other day, to do some work with her alone, where we could concentrate without all the other dogs all over us, and she was just like the black dog from the prison program. Backpeddling, with me pulling and coaxing, just like Cesar said people do, and that's wrong, lol! AND, she pees when she gets like that. I have decided I will work with her on leash like Cesar did with the black dog. All of our dogs are good dogs, they just have some confusion about who the boss is, I believe. I understand it is going to be necessary to make that plainly clear to them all if we hope to not have issues with LJ and the girls.

The really interesting part of this... I felt an energy charge from it. Cesar talks about energy... and how we have to direct our energy as pack leader. I'm anxious to learn more about his methods. Can't wait to get his book. Now that I've been sitting at the computer though, I feel my energy has drained... I am going to fix some breakfast and maybe take a short nap.

Until next time. :-)