Hey Humans,
So today was my day off. I've been working a lot lately and am getting a little burned out. Recent advice from friends points to this: Do not do anything work related. No dogs, no training and no writing about either.
That lasted about 10 minutes into my coffee completing its brew cycle. So here I am pecking away about a little lesson, courtesy of one of my dogs. I thought that it might resonate.
While feeding my dogs this morning I noticed my super-food motivated pitbull Miller turned his nose up at his bowl and just walked away. Never good. Turns out that the other day, in a moment that was no doubt the result of my afforementioned life-lived-in-overdrive haze, I forgot to close my bedroom door. Don't really know when it happened but what I do know is that Miller had been up to no good. It didn't take a whole lot of sleuthing to uncover the steps leading up to Miller's self-imposed breakfast embargo. Going back to bed without a meal could only mean he ate something that wasn't sitting right with him. The bathroom trash was a good guess. My suspicions were confirmed tonight when he honked up a disposable nursing pad. Sorry TMI..and really gross.
He's fine and running around like a fool right now.
But there's a moral to this story: Always remember to set your animals up to succeed. My dog has a history of scavenging behavior, and I should have closed the door. Fortunately, it ended OK but he could have gotten pretty sick by eating stuff from the garbage. These stories abound.
Lesson two:
Around 7:30 this morning, my wife Jill looked out the window and saw two loose dogs being corralled by the golf course grounds crew across the street. Here's a pic of the culprits.
Cute suckers and nice dogs to boot. One had a tag on his collar so we were able to track down the owner and walk the dog back home. The other dog was a stray that the owner of the first dog was keeping until he could find him a home. The stray was an intact male pitbull. Great dog! He was good with other dogs and kids, and he had a pretty low prey drive (at least for rabbits and squirrels).
But no matter how great this dog is, he has no business adding more diversity to the gene pool. Did I mention that when we woke the guy up from his comfy night's sleep, he had no idea his dogs were even outside? (Nevermind running off with a ball that a guy had lined up for a birdie on the fifth hole:)
So the moral for today's post is keep tabs on your dogs, even when they're home, and never let them run free outdoors. and if you're not going to spay/neuter your dog, please build a better fence and keep him safely inside it.
Chris
Filed under: A better life for dogs
Tags: dogs, fences, intact pitbull, trash
