Tag: dogs playing

It’s Them or Me

It’s them or me, and my money is on me. I’m the one with the opposable thumbs. I have the power to reason through a problem. I have tenacity. I also have osteoporosis. I was diagnosed in the fall of last year. Me with osteoporosis, no way. I’ve taken calcium religiously for decades. I was devastated when I found out. I’ve always thought that I was unbreakable. No matter how many times the dogs knocked me down; (and they knocked me down a lot) I would get right back up with nothing more than a few bruise to show for it.  Well there was that one time I tripped over the dogs on a walk and tore the cartilage in my knee.  Mitch had to walk home get the El Camino then come back and get me sitting on the side of the road.  Not now.  I have 5% bone loss, which I was told is significant bone loss. So now I’m taking my weekly dose of Fosamax and have realized that I’m quite breakable.  I’m now afraid of falling and breaking something.  I don’t like feeling this way.  I don’t like fear. 

I’ve not taken the lunging or the yanking the dogs do while walking seriously until now.  It’s been a source of entertainment and fodder for my stories.  But now I’ve realized that together the three dogs are much bigger and stronger than me.  I was five foot two before osteoporosis and losing a half inch, which makes me a great boat anchor dragging behind the leashes, but little more than that if the three choose to charge after the object of their interest. 

Basically they’re good dogs, fairly well behaved, but tend to feed off of each other’s emotions.  If one gets excited about seeing someone, the other two join in and I can’t hold them back.  Not anymore.  So now the serious training begins.  I know labs are hardheaded and stubborn, Orso especially seems awfully thick at times, brilliant other times.  We call him “Box of Rocks”.  Charlie is just hardheaded and willful.  When it comes to a battle of the wills, he will not budge one iota.  The thought of violence is often considered with him.  AJ is soft and submissive, but when no one expects it, he will instigate trouble then stand back and let the other two get yelled at.  Sneaky.

Training three dogs at once is a challenge.  One at a time would be easier, but I don’t have the time to work with each dog individually.  So three at a time is our only option.  I’ve given Mitch the ultimatum, “It’s either they get trained to exhibit patience and not lunge or we can’t have the dogs”.  And I have no intention of not having the dogs.

So it’s them or me.  Bet on me.

AJ After The Play Day

 

AJ after playing with the younger dogs

Play Day

The chase is on

My Ball!

Just One Glance

That’s all it takes.  One look from Orso with his head lowered and it’s GAME ON!  AJ, our eleven year old lab accepts the challenge with loads of exuberance, causing Orso, our five year old lab to reply in kind.  This sets off a charge toward each other from opposite corners of the room and at the last moment just as the two would crash into each other, both raise up on their back legs and slam into each other with a forceful chest bump.  Then they hit the floor chewing and barking at each other.  AJ will then lunge at Orso, who for some reason will back up around to the hallway or stand in the bedroom doorway and bark at AJ. 

AJ will then pretend to charge, stop short of actually connecting with Orso, then back up and bark back at Orso.  Orso will lunge back and pretend to come out of the bedroom but doesn’t.  The coward.  All the while this is going on between those two, Charlie will stand at my side and bark at me, just to let me know that AJ and Orso were behaving badly and that he had nothing to do with it.  If I don’t react and make them stop on a timely basis for Charlie, he will then join the fray, taking it out on Orso.  This causes a mass Orso attack, hair up barking, snarling and chewing.  No blood is drawn just wet slobbery necks and legs. 

Orso will escape run towards the bedroom and leap onto the bed from the doorway with Charlie in hot pursuit.  One of these days, one or both of the dogs is going to crash through the bedroom window.  On that day, we’ll have dog stew for dinner.

More Wrestling Pictures

Squaring off getting ready to rumble

Let the neck chewing begin!

Winter Wrestling

When it’s too cold to go outside to wrestle.

The Color Purple

I decided to start the new year off with a renewed commitment to take the dogs hiking more.  Bright and early New Year’s morning I loaded up the dogs and my new camera and headed off to the park.  The morning was cold and clear with a moderate breeze out of the northwest.  I figured that most or all of the new year’s revelers would still be in bed and we would be all by ourselves on the trails. I was right, no one was around.  The dogs were excited, pacing around in the back of the station wagon as I parked the car.  The barking started and didn’t stop until I opened the back and let them out. 

Walking down the long hill to the trailhead, was the easy part.  The hard part would be coming back to the car and having to walk UP the hill after hiking four or five miles.  I definitely need to get a pedometer.  The dogs ran back and forth, sniffing the air, the ground and everything in between.  Charlie as usual was hunting.  Charlie is always hunting.  He lives to hunt and hunts everything.  It doesn’t matter what, mice to deer, as long as it moves and breathes air, he hunts it.  AJ and Orso were more concerned with sticks and branches to play tug of war with.  Chest slams, grabbing the back of the neck and wrestling was the highlight of the morning. 

We were about a mile and a high from the car and I had already taken a ton of pictures, when we crossed a creek and started up the hill on the other side.  I stepped on a frozen patch of dirt and ice, and started to slip.  I knew I was going down so I made sure to save the camera and grabbed it with both hands to hold it up and out of the way, leaving me to fall hard with the only thing to break my fall was the large pointed rock and my thigh.  I felt this burning searing pain in my left thigh and thought for a minute that I wasn’t sure I could get up.  As I slowly stood upright, Charlie ran up to make sure that I was okay.  As soon as the burning subsided and I realized nothing was broken, I headed off down the trail with the dogs.

After I got back to the car and loaded up the dogs, it dawned on me that it would probably be prudent to start packing a backpack with a small first aid kit, just in case.  The bruise didn’t show up right away.  It took a day for my thigh to turn purple, but when it finally did, it TURNED PURPLE!  I haven’t been able to lay on my left side in bed all week.  I guess I’m lucky I didn’t break anything, skin or bones.

My New Toy

For Christmas, I got a new camera and I love it.  I have been taking pictures like crazy.  It’s a Canon EOS Rebel and man is it fast!  Now I can get all of the action shots of the dogs and miss out on any. 

We had a play day with our dogs and Murphy, the German Sheperd and Stella, the Belgian Mallinois mix.  They just love chasing Orso and chewing on him.  He loves it too, because it means that someone is paying attention to him.

Sunday Afternoon

Game On

Tug of War

 

The Winner