Yesterday, I came home to a bunch of toys strewn about my place. I had left two toy totes on the couch as a way to block Macy and Loki from getting up there. Turns out, it didn’t have the effect I anticipated.

In my mind, I imagined some sort of scene like this playing out:

Macy: “Hey Loki, you’re tall. Why don’t you hop on the couch and get some toys down for us.”

Loki: “I don’t know Macy. I think your human wouldn’t want us to do that.”

Macy: “No, he’s totally cool with it. I do it all the time. He lets me do anything when he’s not here.”

Loki: “I don’t know Macy.”

Macy: “Wimp!”

Loki: “Hey! That hurt my feelings!”

Macy: “Sorry! There’s a really good bone up there. I’ll let you have it.”

Loki: “Ok!”

And then I imagined Loki shyly putting his paws on the couch and plucking a few toys out for Macy which she then went nuts on and tossed around my place.

Here’s what actually happened…

Loki’s exonerated and Macy has some explaining to do. 🙂

It’s not perfect yet, but Zeus has been figuring out “touch.”

It’s been slow progress to get him into a training mood. My last two attempts to teach him “touch” failed.

Maybe it’s because it’s early in the morning, but something clicked today and he started to get it.

Good job, Zeus!

Training Zeus, a small chihuahua-like mix, has been one of my more interesting experiences at the shelter.

Zeus has PTSD due to some bad experiences with guys. He’s wary and slow to trust new people and if you’re a dude with a goatee, good luck!

I love all dogs, big and small. We don’t get to do behavior training with small dogs often so the opportunity to work with Zeus got me really excited.

Excited, but also a little defeated right off the bat.

The first two times Zeus hung out in a room at the shelter with me and a behaviorist, you could tell he wanted nothing to do with me. I tossed him super tasty wet food, he’d ignore it or come over for a sniff only to walk away.

On my third session with Zeus, he came over and sniffed me. Progress!

Yesterday we tried something that I was almost certain would not work: I went to Zeus’ kennel to see if he would let me leash him and take him out for a walk.

I figured I’d try, but expected Zeus to take one look at me and retreat to the back of his kennel.

The opposite happened! He ran up to the kennel gate with a wagging tail and big grin on his face. My heart nearly exploded. 💗

“Yay, get me out of here! I don’t care who you are!” was probably what was going through his head. I like to think that he may have thought for a split second “Hey, this dude is a cool dude. Come get me out!” 🙂 Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.

We went for a nice walk and then headed back to the behavior room where Zeus seemed less worried about me.

A couple times, he came over and put his paws on my leg. One time he perched on my lap as I laid on the ground and pawed his way up my chest.

The best was when he rolled over next to me.

What’s interesting is I haven’t even tried to pet him. We’re not there yet.

It’s small progress, but it’s super rewarding.

Hang in there and be brave, Zeus!

Zeus getting some extra rest after a long day.

It all started when my dad told me my best crush friend in the whole world was coming over for a sleepover this Saturday night!

Sweet!

My top three things in life are pretty much treats, snuggles, and Loki so I knew this weekend was going to be off the Kong!

After my dad picked up Loki we went to the park so I could do my best cheetah impression while stalking and chasing him.

Loki’s so dreamy. ❤️ Look at that fancy tail blowing in the wind! 🥰

My dad seems to think these kinds of photos are funny. Yuck! 😕 The signs I could hang on him! (“Single. Taking applications. Has cutest/smartest/bestest dog in the world.” comes to mind.)

I’m just glad Loki couldn’t see it. Shew!

And when Loki left, the only thing I could do was mope around in my neck-pillow fort.

Till next time Loki! 😘 I’ll be chasing you in my dreams! 🙂

I started out by trying to teach Macy how to “dance” with me by standing on her hind legs. When I realized she was more interested in raising the roof (big surprise if you know Macy, right? 😂) I changed the command to “Raise the roof!” and only treated her for bouncing on her hind legs.

This was a fun one to teach 🙂 Good job Macy!

For Macy 🙂🐕

Macy had a fun weekend while her Golden Doodle buddy and endless chase-mate, Loki, stayed with us.

She seems happily exhausted now and again aware that I exist and how useful I am as a body pillow or a neck and head rest.

Fun weekend!

Syer got adopted today. Ever since I found out this afternoon, I’ve been a happy/sad mess.

It all started on Tuesday when I went in to train him. I saw a couple looking at him in his kennel. He has a sheet partially blocking his dog run since he gets a little worked up by passing traffic. The woman was smiling and talking to him softly. Part of me gets a little defensive when someone is looking at my training dog. I know it’s stupid, but you get attached and in a weird way, sometimes, for a millisecond, you don’t want them to leave the shelter. I got over that emotion and as the couple started to walk away from Syer’s run, I asked them if they wanted to meet him.

They said yes, so I set them up in one of our visitation rooms and went back to tell Syer to be on his best behavior and to prep him to come out of his kennel without getting too worked up. If you read my previous post, you know Syer “demand barks”, especially when he wants out of his kennel. He did pretty good as I approached, so I slipped in quickly and started leashing him up.

The most direct way to the visitation room would have taken us past a row of ready-to-bark dogs, so I figured it better to take the long way through the lobby and then around the back of the dog runs where a hallway would give us a straight shot at the visitation room without passing many dogs.

Syer did great, until we were almost to the visitation door where he started to back pedal and not in a good direction. He started to back pedal toward his kennel which caused us to go past all the dog runs that I tried to avoid in the first place.

It was ok though. We made it to the lobby and I psyched him up for another go around. This time, we’d turn on the treat machine and get super excited as we approached the visitation door.

We made it! But immediately I could tell he was scared by the visitation room. The thought occurred to me that he probably hadn’t been in there much. Although he’s a lovable goof to me with a squeeze-worthy blocky head, he doesn’t present well to our guests with all his barking, so being in a small room with new people was probably a little freaky for him.

I tried to cheer him up with some treats and verbal encouragement. He wasn’t taking the treats and cowered in a way that I’ve never seen him do. Slowly though, he got a little more comfortable. He came over and buried his head into me as I told the couple how lovable he really is. Not only was I telling them but I had proof to show for it.

At this point though, I thought Syer may have blown it. The couple was nice, but not very interactive with him. They gave him a lot of space and just watched. Looking back, I think this was the right move on their part since Syer really needed some time just to get comfortable with all of us and this weird room we had taken him into.

I told the couple that Syer is really awesome as soon as he gets past the lobby door. Although I wasn’t sure if they were interested in him, I invited them to go on a short walk with me as I got Syer ready for training.

Once we got in the lobby, he made a pretty quick b-line for the front doors of the shelter. That’s always ok with me as a trainer. No matter how great a shelter is, it’s still a really stressful place for a dog. Just think if you were in a human shelter and the guy next to your cage wouldn’t stop screaming. You’d rush to the door too, even if just for a brief walk.

At the front door, Syer dutifully went into a sit position without any prompting. “Great job Syer! Look at how you know you have to sit at each door,” I said. “You must have a really great trainer!” I love a chance to ham it up and take some undeserved credit that really belongs to Syer for all the hard work he put into training 🙂 Through the first doors and into the second doors, he reliably did another sit. Now Syer was truly starting to sell himself.

Outside, he got more relaxed and interacted with the couple more. Now that Syer was feeling a little better, I started to show off his sit and shake commands. Syer has a very “meaty” handshake as I call it. He gently plops his paw into whichever hand you offer and holds it there firmly without pulling it back until you let go. I told Syer, as I often did after his shakes, “If this were a job interview Syer, you’d get the job!”

The couple still seemed a little undecided. They said if they were going to adopt a dog, they would come back on Thursday. I thanked them for hanging out with Syer and getting to know him a bit. Off they went.

Back in the Dog Training Room, I told one of the behaviorists how Syer did and that the couple might be back on Thursday. Maybe they’ll come back for Syer, I said. We both hoped so, but she said it’s also not uncommon for people to say they’ll come back and they never do.

Today is Thursday and, at this moment, Syer is at the home of the couple he met on Tuesday. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

My heart is so happy and at the same time I just want to see Syer one last time. I’ve already daydreamed a few times about what it would be like to see him in town and to have a chance to get a big blocky head hug from him again.

I don’t have any recent pictures of Syer, so I’ll just wrap this post up with a picture from one of the first days where Syer seemed to open up and relax around me. I’m going to miss that handsome smile 🙂

You did it, Syer! Great job, buddy!

P.S. May you never see Russell ever again. That guy was the worst!