Retrospective Part 4: Dog Days

I've been slacking on the blog. My apologies. I missed last week because it took me until Saturday to sit down to write. I got a comment from a loyal nephew demanding word from a warmer place. His words served as a nice kick in the ass to get me working again. Thanks, Jim. It is true; the weather was in the 70s in Oakland much of last week. It's been absolutely beautiful, but the fog has been sneaking back into our daylight hours. Today I went into SF and it was actually sunnier, which was a shock. (Jim you have to come out here and see it yourself!)

I am back to spending a lot of time at home working independently on my own things, trying to keep my eye on the big goals and wondering if I will ever conquer the Mount Everest that is self-discipline without falling into deep depression or going completely insane. Yesterday I was sitting here at the desk researching ways to keep that madness from winning when I turned around and caught a glimpse of my muse. It was hard to keep from laughing out loud before I had the chance to get the camera out. Apollo is not supposed to get up on furniture when he's not invited, and he knows it. Banking on the fact that I often spend big chunks of time typing, reading and not paying attention to him, he typically he finds a nice spot to snooze on a bed or futon out of whatever room I am in. When I do catch him, I have been doing the absolute wrong thing if my goal has been to discourage dog misbehavior: I've been laughing and petting him before I give him the boot. He knows his strong suit, and when faced with a potential discipline situation, he plays the cute card because it's trump to whatever I've got in my hand. This is how I found my ever-bold and clever devil in the chair behind me yesterday...

This is a sign that I have lost the battle. Instead of sneaking back into the bedroom to curl up in the pillows that smell like his people, Apollo stayed in the same room and skipped right to belly exposure, his most powerful weapon against the hard ass in me. Maybe a stronger person could get angry at this, but I don't have it in me. I love my boy more than I love my furniture, and letting him doze up there isn't hurting anyone. In fact, it brightened my day. Apollo brightens most of my days.

This brings me back to my retrospective...

Geography and our diets have not been the only ways our lives have changed since we moved out here. Naturally, we expected that. However, we had no idea what changes to expect or how they would affect us. Transition has rocked us all in our own ways, and it continues to do so as we sink in to our new home. Despite trying to warn him for weeks before we left NH, Apollo had no idea that we were about to pack him in his crate for hours upon hours while we drove for days, nor that we would be moving into an apartment in a new climate with no yard and lots more leash time. He's taken it well, but not without some ups and downs in his life along the way that have affected all three of us.

Our recently single-eyed dog in our backyard in NH

Our daily routine is drastically different than what we had been doing back east in respect to the dog. His life has changed in every way from his bathroom habits to how he gets his workouts. After all, we left a house with a fenced-in back yard in what is comparatively the country for an apartment building with no yard whatsoever. This has been a positive aspect of my life. We were allowed to be lazy with Apollo in Nashua. I could let him out wearing my pajamas from the back door in my climate-controlled kitchen to do his thing (business, potty, nasty, whatever ambiguous euphemism you prefer.) Here in Oakland we have to dress for the weather, leash him up, dig for a plastic bag, go outside and up the block to a patch of gravel between buildings before he can relieve himself. No more stinky piles freezing in the yard under the snow. Here Andy and I split up at least 4 mandatory trips out between us every day. Apollo's happy with the added attention and I'm happy it keeps us on our toes.

In NH, getting Apollo exercised was as simple as grabbing the Frisbee and driving up to the park a mile away for 20-minute stints of fetch. No leashing necessary. During the winter time we would have the park to ourselves. Who else but dog people would spend their afternoons standing in an ice-covered field in negative temperatures? With his double fur coat, Apollo might miss those afternoons, but we are happy to be consistently with in 10 degrees of 60 F all year long out here.

Our first week of residency in CA was spent in the lovely Extended Stay America in Alamdea. After spending 9 days, changing beds an average of every other day, Apollo was sick of moving and sick of the car. He communicated this to us by being a royal pain in the ass. When allowed to romp around off lead he would take off and play the catch-me-if-you-can game until we cornered him or bribed him with something irresistible like chicken while swearing at him with all the words in our arsenals in the tone of voice he interprets as praising. We were not interested in bringing home road kill so Apollo rapidly found himself reacquainted with his leash.

This abrupt habit change took Apollo for a bit of an anxious-dog loop. Our dog, who we knew to be infinitely social with other dogs (just not people) flip flopped entirely and began aggressively lunging for other dogs barking like crazy with his hackles raised. And at first, not realizing what was going on, we didn't properly discourage this behavior; we didn't even know it was coming because his outbursts were occasional and seemingly unpredictable. By the time we moved into our apartment and picked up running the lake three times a week, Apollos unsociability while leashed was reaching 100% of the time we encountered another dog. We began to avoid being around any other dogs on our runs and walks and we took him to an evaluation with the Berkeley Humane Society's in-house trainer. She helped us with helpful suggestions on how to curb Apollo's outbursts by seeing his behavior as completely fear-motivated. When he goes after another dog his fight or flight response he is choosing fight. I have since greatly enjoyed psycho-analyzing his every move. Dogs think a lot like us on a fundamental, primal level. We just behave in more complex ways that are harder to see, not to mention harder to step away from and critically think about.

In August Apollo turned two. He's moved into adolescence since we moved out here. This new phase includes that classically male trait of peeing anything standing still on the sidewalk. And if he's in doors with another male dog? Anything with a breeze nearby making it even feel like it could be confused for "outside" and he's going to lift his leg on it. Acting aggressively toward other dogs fits this transition, too. He's "resource guarding" as our dog-walker friend Molly calls it. Andy and I are his loving body guards. He's going to bark and put on a show whenever Andy and I are around because he would no longer be safe without us, in his mind. For first-time dog trainers, these sorts of things are hard to pick up on until they are no longer subtle. When we reached that point with Apollo we knew we were in for a lot of work building his confidence back up to a level where he could do what we want him to do in social settings.

For now, we're using a Gentle Leader when we are out walking with him. That's the black strap you can see across his snout. It's not a muzzle. He can eat, drink and bark his head off with his leader on, believe me. What it is is a loop around his snout that is connected to onto a thicker strap that wraps and clips around his neck like a leash does. When we're walking and Apollo pulls straight ahead, the contraption will tighten up and put pressure on the back of his neck, a place where he won't gag himself crazy on but discourages him from tugging. And if he pulls in an opposite direction away from us (such as towards another dog on leash nearby) the leader will tighten around his snout and pull him in the direction towards the arm holding the leash, simulating the actions of a mama dog biting her babies' snouts in an effort to lovingly guide them as pups. We're talking about the ergonomics of dog training, here.

As long as he's free to depend on his strengths--speed and agility--Apollo is friendly and playful with all kinds of dogs, including strangers.

He's going to wear his gentle leader until we have trained him to keep his cool around other dogs while we're out on the town. During that time we're doing a lot of off-leash socialization again to get him more comfortable with others of his kind. So far we've made a lot of progress and we're feeling a lot more confident about Apollo's future.

Apollo has been growing up in nice ways, too. He's mellowed out to such a degree, in such a short period of time, that one week I actually considered he might be sick because he was so calm. It seemed too good to be true. At night if I pack it in to read a book in bed with the lights on, he'll jump up on the bed and sleep at my feet. Before this new trend he would never stay back out of the action with me, he would always want to keep an ear close to the door to make sure no one would sneak in and get us while our guard dog was dog snoozing.

He also loves his crate these days. It stays in the living room, the heart of the house, and faces the door. It's his clubhouse where he can go to hide away and be safe while being close enough to hear any food hitting the kitchen floor. The crate, with a towel covering 3 of the walls like a birdcage, is a little room just big enough for Apollo to go in, turn around and lie down. Yet he choses to sleep in there for hours a day, with the door wide open to let him come and go as he pleases. Every time we move his crate--for any reason at all, and if only a foot or two--he immediately gets into it, makes a rapid turn more speedy that you would think physically possible, and comes back out signaling that everything is OK in there.

As I've delved into recently, we have been exposed to a ton of new places because of Apollo. First we toured the local dog-park circuit until we realized they are too fenced-in and boxy for our guy. He needs a trail to burn off his energy on, a place to play and frolic while on the way somewhere. Screwing around is just not that fun when it's the only thing going on in his mind. I have to admit I can relate: compulsive multi tasking is sorta my way, too. So now we have been exposed to the world of local dog beaches and wooded dog trails that are all kinds of accessible around here, as long as you're in the know.

Our neighbor Lauren turned us onto one of these places in our very neighborhood. About half a mile from here there is a strip of forested land between two rows of houses on the top and bottom of a hill. That strip, about a third of a mile long, has been converted into an unmarked dog run. I don't know what it's known as in the 'hood, but even if I did I wouldn't tell it to you yet. I feel like we need to build up our own credibility in there before we can start bringing others in on the secret; it feels that selective. I have been in the habit of putting on the weeks This American Life podcast and running down and back 4 or 6 times with Apollo tagging along beside me. If I've got the pouch of treats, he'll even heel next to me just like he's been trained to on his leash. This whole experience makes me want to put a bumper sticker on my car saying "I'd rather be running with my dog while listening to Ira Glass on my iPod." It's that good.

We've finally settled on a plan to head east for next month. Apollo was holding us up (and then it was Andy's job changing, but that's another post all together.) In October I started calling around to find a place for him to stay so we could get to see our families on their turf during the holidays. The first place I called, the only place I had received face-to-face referral to by other dog people, was already booked "with a substantial waiting list." Crap. After that I researched flying with him. Since he's 43 lbs, we'd have to ship him as cargo (boo) and it would cost $239 each way, about $100 more than our tickets were going to be. Double crap. That's when I called Molly. Lucky for us, not only does she have room for him in December, she's awesome, too.

You know the old adage write what you know? It does come easy, that's for sure. I could write about Apollo all day. He's the perfect subject: he provides me hours of entertainment, and he can't read the ways in which I make fun of him. I will no doubt write about him again, but I'll hold out so my pet gushing doesn't get too stale. I will finish with a statistical fact that I calculated just now (thanks to Andy's idea): Apollo has now lived here 7 out of 27 months, a quarter of his life. In a year it will be half. That seems like a good portion of one's life to be in a place. In many ways it feels like we just got a dog, bought a house, moved across the country, sold a house. But, time keeps doing its thing and all those events are slipping back further and further. All the while this place is putting a mark on us and changing who we are, like all experiences do. Overall, it feels positive. And some day when we feel California has taught us enough, we may move on to another new place that will get me blogging about how our lives are constantly ticking forward. All I ask of myself is to keep learning and remember how to stay content.

Here are a few more images of Apollo since we've moved out here:

He doesn't know that he can't digest it: Apollo will pick bok choy or broccoli stems over his bone for a snack!


The other evening we came home to a row of locally-grown lemons and persimmons that Lauren left at our door. Check out a closer look at this photo...


Look at the intensity in that eye. The lemon wiggled a little and Apollo wasn't sure what to make of it. He was all business as we giggled at his antics.


In the morning Apollo politely waits until the alarm goes of or 8 o'clock rolls around, whichever comes first. If we let him up in bed, he'll cuddle for a while before he insists on going out to that patch of gravel up the street.


He looks so little on the balcony from Andy's vantage point.


Apollo says, "Aww, yeah."

For all y'all in or near NY, we're going to be in Endicott from December 10th to December 15th. Give me a holla if you'll be around town then. Apollo will not be with us :(