Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Wordless Wednesday 40 - My bliss
Hi all,
Just popping in from not-exactly-sunny Florida to share a picture of something that soothes my soul: my garden. Hope you're all having a wonderful week and I look forward to catching up with everybody when I get home.
Just popping in from not-exactly-sunny Florida to share a picture of something that soothes my soul: my garden. Hope you're all having a wonderful week and I look forward to catching up with everybody when I get home.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Wordless Wednesday 39 - Bella and the bees
Jan told me I had to post this in order to explain, at least in part, why Bella is afraid of flies. These are from summer 2009 and her first exposure to yellow jackets (an entire nest of them).
While I wish it had taught her not to put her nose in strange places or dig in holes something else has already started that doesn't seem to be the case. The only lesson Bella really seems to have learned from the experience: buzz hurts.
While I wish it had taught her not to put her nose in strange places or dig in holes something else has already started that doesn't seem to be the case. The only lesson Bella really seems to have learned from the experience: buzz hurts.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
This is my dog on flies (and other house-keeping)
This isn't the post I planned to write today. In fact, I have 2 or 3 posts running around my head, jotted down on paper or scribbled into "Notepad" scraps. But those will have to wait while I do some blog-house-keeping here today instead.
First, I wanted to share this short video with you of one of Bella's most recent successes.
Remember back in April when I wrote about Bella learning the agility chute for Something Wagging This Way Comes's January is Train Your Dog Month Challenge? Well, she did it. Bella will now complete the chute with the fabric side completely closed. And I thought you might enjoy seeing the evidence:
Yea Bella!
However, as Pamela recently opined over at Something Wagging, "Progress isn't linear". (What a great line and oh so tragically true). Of course, I should have known this would happen. It serves me right for bragging about my "big, brave girl" in last week's blog post. Bella has overcome much, but the fear that remains can be debilitating.
What you're about to see is Bella's reaction to a fly in our house Friday night through Saturday. It is similar to her response to thunderstorms. Mind you, the fly is not near her, it's not dive-bombing her, in fact, it's not even in the same room with her. The only thing in the room this video was taken in is me and her. And she has been acting like this every time she (or I) goes near the bedroom for more than 12 hours at this point.
(I apologize to those readers who also follow us on Facebook as I posted this there as well but wanted to post it here because I want to talk about it in a way I can't on FB.)
Now normally I don't take video of Bella when she's frightened. As you can imagine after watching that, I'm usually dealing with her and trying to manage the situation. This time, her fear of the bedroom had lasted so long and we were so confused over what she was reacting to (we didn't hear or see anything at the time) that I decided to take a short video to share with her behaviorist and trainers to get their take on things.
Anyway, 18 or so hours later, after I had completely torn apart our bedroom and dusted, washed and vacuumed everything in it; after Jan had found a couple of flies in our sun-room and, shall we say, 'addressed' that issue; after Bella still wouldn't comfortably come in the bedroom, I happened to find a fly in the bedroom closet window, buzzing between the blind and the screen. Finally, this is what Bella had been hearing and I was able to eliminate the real "threat".
It took Bella several hours still to believe all danger was gone and she finally curled up in her bed around 4 a.m (the next morning!) Needless to say we were all done in by the event.
Finally, I wanted to let you know that the blog is probably going to be a bit light for the next couple of weeks (you may have noticed it's already been a bit thin the last few weeks.) This is partly because it's spring which brings many hours of garden prep and yard work with it. (Jan and I are avid, even somewhat extreme, gardeners.)
I will also be traveling on business and, while I'll have a variety of computers with me, I likely will not have consistent internet access nor time to do all the usual blog-gy type stuff. I do, however, hope to catch up on visiting my favorite blogs and saying hello to all you wonderful peeps and pets.
In the meantime, I hope you'll stick with me during these light content days. Because, and I admit right up front to stealing this from Sue over at Greyhounds CAN Sit,:
First, I wanted to share this short video with you of one of Bella's most recent successes.
Remember back in April when I wrote about Bella learning the agility chute for Something Wagging This Way Comes's January is Train Your Dog Month Challenge? Well, she did it. Bella will now complete the chute with the fabric side completely closed. And I thought you might enjoy seeing the evidence:
Yea Bella!
However, as Pamela recently opined over at Something Wagging, "Progress isn't linear". (What a great line and oh so tragically true). Of course, I should have known this would happen. It serves me right for bragging about my "big, brave girl" in last week's blog post. Bella has overcome much, but the fear that remains can be debilitating.
What you're about to see is Bella's reaction to a fly in our house Friday night through Saturday. It is similar to her response to thunderstorms. Mind you, the fly is not near her, it's not dive-bombing her, in fact, it's not even in the same room with her. The only thing in the room this video was taken in is me and her. And she has been acting like this every time she (or I) goes near the bedroom for more than 12 hours at this point.
(I apologize to those readers who also follow us on Facebook as I posted this there as well but wanted to post it here because I want to talk about it in a way I can't on FB.)
Now normally I don't take video of Bella when she's frightened. As you can imagine after watching that, I'm usually dealing with her and trying to manage the situation. This time, her fear of the bedroom had lasted so long and we were so confused over what she was reacting to (we didn't hear or see anything at the time) that I decided to take a short video to share with her behaviorist and trainers to get their take on things.
Anyway, 18 or so hours later, after I had completely torn apart our bedroom and dusted, washed and vacuumed everything in it; after Jan had found a couple of flies in our sun-room and, shall we say, 'addressed' that issue; after Bella still wouldn't comfortably come in the bedroom, I happened to find a fly in the bedroom closet window, buzzing between the blind and the screen. Finally, this is what Bella had been hearing and I was able to eliminate the real "threat".
It took Bella several hours still to believe all danger was gone and she finally curled up in her bed around 4 a.m (the next morning!) Needless to say we were all done in by the event.
Finally, I wanted to let you know that the blog is probably going to be a bit light for the next couple of weeks (you may have noticed it's already been a bit thin the last few weeks.) This is partly because it's spring which brings many hours of garden prep and yard work with it. (Jan and I are avid, even somewhat extreme, gardeners.)
I will also be traveling on business and, while I'll have a variety of computers with me, I likely will not have consistent internet access nor time to do all the usual blog-gy type stuff. I do, however, hope to catch up on visiting my favorite blogs and saying hello to all you wonderful peeps and pets.
In the meantime, I hope you'll stick with me during these light content days. Because, and I admit right up front to stealing this from Sue over at Greyhounds CAN Sit,:
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)