[Dailydrool] Mariah's update on dog training

[Val lbrewerzwick via Dailydrool]

This is Mariah with updated news.  Today my sister Mila caught on on how to walk up the ramp to the bed.  hey, it's only been five weeks she's been trying to get this learned.  MIla has walked up the ramp on her own without prompting no less than three times today.   Imagine!  She really is capable of figuring  out how to do something she really wants to learn how to do  if you give her enough time.  Me, I'm what they call a "quick study" when it comes to figuring out how to get what I want.

FOr example,  I have just. outsmarted my dad. HA ha.  every now and again Dad decides he'll try his own hand at "training" us. SOmetimes it works--if he wants to train us to do something easy that I couldn't care less about, like sitting or shaking hands for a biscuit, or something I want to do--heck, Imfigure those things out myself.   But if I'd rather do something else than what Dad wants me to do, well then it gets trickier (for him). DAd has been trying to train Mila and me not to bark so much.  (Ipo is pretty quiet).  DAd's first efforts were making us all come in the house if any of us were barking and then giving us an hour inside "time out" whenever we got to barking before letting us out again (to resume barking).  OKay, we could live with that, though we didn't much care for so much time inside (we like to bark at passersby and cats and dogs and motorcycles, it's kind of boring inside).  but then  DAd was getting pretty tired of the in out in out in out, and it wasn't doing much to keep us from barking outside.  So Dad resorted to warfare. HE got "anti-bark" collars at the pet store.  well, those collars worked, actually--we hated them and we all stopped barking the first day, though  we were sad miserable dogs.  Both Mila and I said, "Why bother going out at all?, and sulked, and stayed in the bathrooms in the house.  DAd thought this was fine.  Mom seemed really sad.  But I digress.  I was also pissed off and I am a problem solver.  So I started scratching at the dang collar until I had a hot spot on my neck,  and then scratching some more until it got infected (all within 24 hours) and so I required a vet visit, and the vet said no collars of any kind whatsoever for at least two weeks plus antibiotics and soothing creams.  I have a harness now (and a donut collar around my waist to keep me from scratching) BUT NO BARK COLLAR, now or in the future.  Ha ha ha ha ha. I win.  (My mom is secretly glad.)

My sister, notabasset Ipo, is a dog of similar sympathies.  she was a boar hunting dog who disliked her life in a cage when not hunting enough to break off all her front teeth on the cage, making her no good for hunting, so she was abandoned, and two homes later now lives with us as a bet, sleeping in a human bed.  WE dogs are very clever.  Mom took a great photo of Ipo in a knitted doggie pink pussyhat saying"don't mess with the female of the species". IF you'd like to see it, write my mom, vlbzwick at yahoo.com and she'll email it to you.  that is not a political statement--rather a pro-female affirmation.  I know the drool doesn't do photos.

So, that's the update.  AS my predecessor, the late Commander Bo, ATB, always said, Semper Fido!!!   Pw. MAriah the Maraudah of Hawaii