The Katzke Dog Diary

Lee Mannix presented a seminar today to the rescue group I volunteer with. The following are my own recollections, gleanings and impressions and definitely do not represent my foster, my training beliefs and methodologies, or those of any group that I’m affiliated with.

The seminar was mainly aimed at people who are involved with or leading a rescue or shelter. There were representatives from a number of area shelters, mostly Brazos Valley or Houston-area groups. As such, it focused mainly on places where the rescues can make a big behavioral difference: Intake, fostering, and placement. Lee usually presents seminars that are ten days in length — what we got today is a drop in the bucket compared to the usual full education and in-depth examples that he usually provides. I’m going to cover in broad terms the topics we discussed and a note or two about anything I liked or thought was poignant. There’s no way in how that I can cover everything that we talked about. I also had to leave briefly to help deal with one of the rescue’s puppies, who received a small snakebite to the lip that swelled up something fierce over the course of the day… With all those grains of salt presented…

Lee’s stock in trade is common sense. (I’m referring to him as Lee here, by the way, because as he put it, “Mr. Mannix is my daddy.”) It’s the things you don’t want to hear. It’s the things your dog really doesn’t want to hear, because he had a great deal going before Lee came along. It’s the things that only, frankly, a drunk irishman who likes to brawl would say to your face. If you liked the movie “Boondock Saints”, you would like Lee’s speaking and training style. lIf you’re curious, yes, Lee is apparently newly divorced. Word has it that his dog house has heat, cold Shiner Bock, and satellite TV.

On the political spectrum, he stands right smack dab in the middle between “Beat the dog till it’s dead, and then you’ll have a dog that is perfectly obedient.” … and “give your dog anything you want like it’s a child in the California school system.” He’s mainly concerned with results and doing no lasting harm in the process of getting there. In case you’re curious, he’s extremely critical of Caesar Milan and has specific reasons why he’s critical. (That’s an entirely different blog post.) All in all, I’m comfortable with his stance, which seems soundly placed in the middle of “common sense” and “last time I did that, I got bit.” He has the scars to prove the bites, too, which I think makes some people uncomfortable. Frankly, I have some of the same telltale V-shaped scars on my arms, and I only handle my two and whatever strays I’ve come across.

The first points that he made were that if a dog has a medical issue or a nutritional issue, you’re not going to get anywhere behaviorally. The dog’s life has to be sound in those two areas before you can even begin to diagnose or address or evaluate a behavioral issue. The take-away for shelters and owners in the audience is that when you’re faced with an issue, look in those two places before you spend a lot of resources on training.

Self-congratulatory note: I had arrived at the same conclusion, and Lee’s #1 and #2 on his list of foods — Innova and Wellness Simple Solutions — are what my kids get. We spent about twenty or thirty minutes talking food. Lee cited some recent studies that show soy products as one of the drivers of aggression in young human men, and some other studies that showed correlations between other ingredients and behavior issues. I had arrived at the medical issue point myself after working with Eo and Henry at different points in their treatment. Before we got Henry’s diet and digestive issues solved, he didn’t make any improvement. Eo currently is only dependably well-behaved when she’s on painkillers above and beyond her normal NSAID.

After we discussed those items, we started to touch on some of the ways to start examining and correcting behavior issues. One of the things that Lee said that I’m having a hard time with is the idea that an animal like a dog would more naturally want to be alone than as part of a pack, and that for this reason all siblings should be separated. I agree that siblings can develop in unhealthy ways, but I think that dogs naturally seek out companions that complement their strengths and weaknesses. The problem with going against Lee’s point of view is that he has an answer. His counterpoint is that of course humans and dogs form groups that balance their strengths and weaknesses… but aren’t the things we’re trying to train into or out of our dogs places where they’re weak? Argh. Now you know why I’m single and have dogs: It’s hard living with someone who’s always quickly and loudly right.

On Breedism, Lee pointed out that the most vicious dog in the state of Texas is the Chihuahua. Nationally, Golden Retrievers are the most often put down for serious bites. I’ll note my previous point about Jacques Chirac’s vicious Maltipoo. Lee predicted that he would begin to see an excessive number of Labradoodles within the next several years. He did acknowledge that some breeds or lineages of breeds had a predisposition to be aggressive in a fashion that accelerated quickly. Frankly, this is common sense. It’s worth repeating common sense to people who rescue in areas that have significant dog fighting populations, because you get, frankly, biased easily against the breeds that are most used and forget that some of the common household breeds can bite too.

One of the interesting parts of the day was the demos where he looked at four dogs with varying degrees of issues. He demonstrated a technique for making friends with a chihuaha that would guard aggressively. One of the things he was very sure to do was to make sure the dog was not hurt — it has several spinal injuries and bad hocks. This is internally consistent with Lee’s “do no harm” philosophy (and his critiques of the way Caesar Milan operates). Back on the other paw, Lee critiqued Caesar Milan for not showing a training progression all the way through (including the failures) to anyone during either seminars, training classes, or television programs. Lee got into things with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who would growl in an attempt to get it’s way in certain situations, and when his first attempts failed to create a change, he declined to press it further. Again — it made sense, but it was kind of a pot telling the kettle it was a touch warm in the room…

Overall, the only criticism that I can muster is that Lee seems to move too fast sometimes. By move too fast, I mean that he’s too quick to apply Occam’s Machete to the forest of information, and might be prone to throwing the puppy out with the poo, to butcher another cliche. I wonder how often he has to back up A LOT and try another approach. I suppose I’m prone to recognizing this because I’ve recently tried so hard to avoid this same behavior in myself. I can’t really condone or criticize it in someone else, especially someone else who seems to be about as well-adjusted as your average irishman can get…

All that being said, I’ll probably have more to report in the future. I plan to take some of Henry’s anxiety issues to him. For the record, Eo bit Henry again tonight but I’m 99% certain it was her medical problems. Yesterday, I felt her shoulders crunch as if they were beginning to degenerate too; more on that later this week after some X-rays. In the meantime, we’ll continue to manage it the way we have been, by not letting her and Henry share the same space.

(Wherein by “Less Painful”, I mean for both human AND dog.)

Among other things, Henry is afraid of having his nails clipped. Yeah, go figure — my guess is that it was a very traumatic experience for him in the past. All the traditional “solutions” (which I’ll cover below) were out — I can’t operate a dremel within his hearing, I previously could not grab and hold one of his paws without him doing a full-body fish-out-of-water thrash to free himself, and god forbid I touch one of the nails themselves or try to hold one of his toes.

His claws are black, so it’s easy to “quick” them — clip the part that has the soft tissue and veins in it. (This hurts.) He doesn’t chew on his nails frequently, so it’s easy to hit the sensitive parts. After six months, his claws finally got long enough that it couldn’t be ignored. I started two months ago with conditioning, and can now trim Henry’s nails one paw at a time without him complaining or struggling (much). That’s huge progress! Of course, Henry is also an extreme case. Eo will let me trim all four paws with only the distraction of a small smear of peanut butter.

There’s a few things that can take the place of a regular nail trimming, or that can make it easier without any effort from the owner. A nice afternoon of chasing tennis balls in a cul-de-sac or concrete area can grind off enough claw to be a “trimming”. Most groomers and veterinarians will offer nail trimming services, but these can be expensive and (in my opinion) traumatic for the dog — what’s worse than someone holding you down and doing something painful to your hands? Or worse, sedating you so you can’t resist and cutting your fingernails so far back that you bleed from under them?

Henry is proof that nail trimming CAN be a pleasant experience for everyone. You can condition a dog to be perfectly OK with having their nails trimmed. I even use an oversized pair of human nail clippers, so it takes a while … I like to go slow, a little at a time, because of my dogs’ black nails.

Deconditioning

Before you can condition, you need to remove the negative association with handling paws, toes, and nails. It’s easy if you take it a “little bit at a time” — spend five minutes a day, and be patient and persistent without being pushy. Grab some treats (I like Zuke’s Mini Naturals for this kind of thing, but regular old peanut butter, lunch meat, and other things your dog likes out of the pantry will also work well) and lay down on the couch, carpet, or some other comfortable place with your dog.

Start out by grabbing a paw, and then giving them a treat. When you can do this to all four paws as much as you want without them jerking back or running away, start lengthening the hold time before you give them a treat. What you’re doing is positively associating the stimulus of “s/he’s holding my paw” with “ohai,food!” … I should note here that if your dog isn’t food motivated, you might need another approach. I have hounds. They’re always food motivated. Again, you’re doing this for five-ten minutes at most per day. Go slow and easy. If they’re not receptive on a day and you can’t get the right response, go back as far as you can and try to set them up for some sort of success… even if it’s just laying there next to you while you poke at a paw.

If you have a clicker or use clicker training, you can also click-and-treat — the “go slow and give treats” training is the same principle, but just doesn’t use the clicker because I don’t have three hands.

When you can handle their paws at will, start making your handling smaller. Go for the toes. Spread them, play with them, handle them, examine them. They’re pretty fascinating constructs, and the webbing is very sensitive and kinda neat. This is a good opportunity to check for sore spots, too. Don’t forget the dewclaws if your dog has them. (Eo’s front ones are actually attached to some tendons, which are scary. That dog is already too smart. She does not need opposable thumbs.) Keep feeding treats for new milestones of holding a toe — one second, two seconds, three seconds.

At some point, you should make sure the nail clippers (whichever sort you choose) are out and visible. You don’t want THEM to be an indication that something bad is going to happen. You can just have them out, lay them on the ground next to you, and make them a part of the ’scene’ in your dog’s mind.

The last step before you get to actually using the clippers is to grab and hang on to the claws/nails themselves. Squeeze them. Tap on them with your fingers. By now, your dog should get used to being handled in this way — and be happy, because it means FOOD and ATTENTION! Henry took three weeks to get there. Eo let me on the first day.

The Tools of The Apocalypse

Yeah, clippers. Dogs hate ‘em. There’s three mechanical styles that work well to greater or lesser degrees, and you can also use a Dremel.

Full Disclosure: As usual, these links are Amazon Affiliate links. Anything I make from you buying something from Amazon gets turned back into treats for the kids, and some of the treats also go to a rescue I volunteer with.

Personally, I’m a cheap bastard that uses a pair of wide-jaw toenail clippers to do the dirty deed on my dog’s claws. I like them because they’re easy to manipulate, I already had them for my own use, and they take off a little at a time (to avoid hitting the quick) and let me clean up the edges easily. Some of Henry’s nails are narrow enough to clip just by turning the clippers sideways.

The quick is the soft tissue in the middle of the nail — which in a human is under the nail. I’m sure you’ve gotten something jammed up there before, like a splinter or paper or something, and cut yours before. You KNOW it hurts. The other two clipper types are scissors and guillotine clippers; I don’t prefer these because it’s too easy to take off too much in one chop when you’re dealing with dark nails. You’ve just gotten your dog happy to have his nails trimmed! You don’t want to ruin that by hurting them! The guillotine can also leave extra nail material on the outside if it isn’t exactly sharp; this can be removed with a scissors or other type.

Dremels are another popular way to trim claws. Using the drum sander attachment, you’ll be able to take of just enough to avoid quicking your dog. Some dogs greatly prefer this. Mine are afraid of the noise the Dremel makes, and I haven’t gone through the effort to decondition them because they’re already receptive to using the nail trimmers.

Introducing the Trimmer

When your dog is comfortable with you handling it’s claws, you can introduce the trimmer to the environment. Sometimes, a dog with bad past trimming experiences will get up and run when they see the trimmer. You can lure them back with treats, or you can just place the trimmer farther away and slowly get them used to the idea that it’s not going to jump out and bite them if it’s just in your hand or on the floor nearby.

Before you start trimming, you’re going to also want to desensitize them to the trimmer touching their claws while you hold the paw. I did this with Henry and Eo by tapping on the claw with the trimmers. It simulated the hold-and-jerk that the trimming process itself will do. And on top of that, it’s painless. And did I forget to mention that after every tap there’s a treat? Of course there’s treats! If you’re using a dremel, get them used to both the sound and the closeness and weird smell of the tool first. Some dogs have no problem with it. Others (like Henry) will be in the next county before you can turn the tool off and set it down.

The Dirty Deed: Trimming

Hard part’s done. Now it’s all downhill. Again, go slow if your dog is cautious. This took a day or two with Eowyn and took four+ weeks with Henry. We still trim one paw every other day with Henry because he’s not yet used to sitting still for more than that.

Cutting a dog’s nails is easy. Just use your trimming tool to remove the nail material without hurting the dog. If your dog has white nails, it’s REALLY easy — just trim the white part without getting into the pink part. At first, after each snip, I treat. Then, after each nail, I treat. You can slowly back off the bribes. Eo prefers a smear of peanut butter on the floor or a plate. (Oh god, I’m turning into one of one of THOSE dog owners, letting my dogs lick things off the floor…)

When you’re cutting a dog’s nails with dark nails, you definitely want to go slow. When you start to see a pale bit in the middle between the flaky white soft tissue on the bottom and the dark surface of the nail, you’re getting close to the quick — stop.

I try and leave “finished” edges — with the toenail trimmers instead of a file. That way the nails stay blunt longer and don’t catch on things.

A few other tips…

The shorter you keep your dog’s nails, the more the quick will recede. This means that you can keep the nails even shorter. Trimming frequently will help greatly. I like short nails because they don’t catch on rugs and things like that, and don’t make annoying clicky noises on the floor.

If you do nick the quick and it starts to bleed, you can use a styptic pen or some flour or cornstartch. I try not to nick the quick that badly, because it hurts.

Again, go slow and take it easy! Having your dog happy to have it’s nails trimmed will make it go ten times faster and easier. And it might just save you money at the vet or groomer.

I haven’t seen this story much in the mainstream press, but apparently former President of France Jacques Chirac has been hospitalized after his dog mauled him.

Would you like to guess the breed?

Not Pit Bull. Not Mastiff. Not Bulldog. Not GSD. Definitely not Ridgie. Not terrier, not large breed, not even a medium sized breed. The dog *is* a hybrid, but not a mutt. Not Dachshund, although you’re starting to get close in size. You’d be half right if you said Poodle, actually.

Nope. The 76 year old former Presiden of France, Jacques Chirac, was “savagely” mauled by his Maltipoo. I demand immediate breed-specific legislation to outlaw these vicious beasts…

In some ways, training Henry is really difficult. Even after six months of recovery, it’s so easy to trigger a panic attack that you can go straight from the most positive training session in the world to him cowering under the couch in less than a second if you’re not careful.

The things a dog experiences during puppyhood are, to an extent, indelible. It’s not so much that older dogs can’t learn new tricks, it’s that older dogs have to overcome their pasts to learn new things. In Henry’s case, his past is intentional and unintentional abuse.

One of the training exercises we do is designed to teach him patience and watching hands and face for signals. We move a treat slowly from our eyes to his mouth, and if he jumps for the treat we pull it away. We did this exercise in five minute mini-trainings for a few days just fine … and then yesterday, we did it right before dinner and after a walk and all of a sudden his lips start quivering and his head bows down into the “sad Henry” that he acted like when I first rescued him. Checking his heart rate, it was very elevated. Classic case of Henry Panic Attack. This dog’s on so much prozac that he shouldn’t be able to wake up in the morning, much less actually have a panic attack!

It turns out that visitors to the house he lived in used to play “keep away” (intentionally or not) with food, which Henry would try to grab from them … while Henry is quietly starving due to parasites and malnutrition. One of two things would happen — he would be smacked and put back in his crate (hence the fear response), or he would be given some food for laying on the ground and looking REALLY pitiful.

Yeah, that’s going to short-circuit the exercise we were trying to do. *sigh*

I made a post on my tech/personal blog about my techie and personal goals for 2009, but it’s time I sit down and take a hard look at what I want to do with the dogs.

Henry unexpectedly came into my life in July, and has been the bane of my pocketbook and social life ever since. On the other hand, he’s been such a rewarding personal experience that I’m loath to quit while I’m ahead — and I refuse to dump my problems on someone else. Henry’s goals for 2009 are:

1. Start trailing off of the prozac. At my vet’s directions, he’s on a 1.5x dose of Reconcile right now. I can get generic prozac in 20mg capsules for much cheaper than the Reconcile, but since he’s on about 52mg a day right now and attempts to back that off have not met with great success, I need to wait a little bit on it.
2. Build his confidence with obedience training. This is in progress and going well, thanks to Jennie. We’re working on retrieval right now.
3. Build his confidence by exposing him to new social situations. This is meeting with mixed, but mostly positive results. He will happily enter elevators now, and he can walk through a lobby full of students on campus without flinching. I’d like to expand the number and level of social interactions that he’s comfortable with.
4. Decide if I’m going to keep him or adopt him out. A lot of this decision depends on how well Eowyn does, because if she’s still in pain after the FHO recovery, then I need to put her down for her sake and I’d prefer to still have Henry at that point.

Eowyn turned 2 this past year, and she also had both hips operated on. After her rehabilitation period this year, we’ll hopefully be able to start training out some of the dog and food aggression that she’s picked up along the way. Experimentation with painkillers has shown that her tendency towards aggression drops markedly when she’s not in pain. (Go figure.) My goals for her this year are:

1. Finish her recovery from the FHO following the crate rest and physical therapy guidelines.
2. Get a solid and immediate ‘down’ command trained in that I can use to redirect any time she gets into an aggressive pattern.
3. Start redirecting her aggression using the ‘down’ command.

Here’s to a happy new year for you and yours!

We’ve got two crates in the house for Eowyn, and I’m thinking about adding a third. Each comes with all the modern conveniences — water, a nice soft place to lay down, enough room to turn around in, a Nylabone or two for those immediate chewing needs, and a door that closes and latches.

For a little bit of review, Eowyn has two problems: Dog/Food Aggression, and Hip Dysplasia. The more research, reading, training, and practice I do with Eo, the more I realize that these are very closely connected, intertwined, interlinked, cause-and-effect, systemic issues and NOT discreet behavior problems that can be treated empirically.

There’s currently one in the bedroom, where we all sleep, and in the kitchen next to the table, where we spend most of the rest of our days. She eats in the crate, she naps in the crate while I cook and eat dinner, she’s in the crate when Henry and I are working on obedience… all the usual stuff.

Magically, she has no problems eating in the crate when Henry’s eating his dinner two feet from her. No growling, signs of aggression, stiffness in her posture, whining, barking, or other vocalizing, no lunging and gnashing — nothing. If she is out of the crate and I try to feed him, she will attack him for his food. What’s the difference?

The seat of the pants doggy psychologist in me says that she feels threatened because of her hip pain. She can’t back up a warning (growling, baring teeth) because it’s patently obvious that her hips are bad, so she just attacks without notice. With the crate between her and the other dog, she doesn’t feel like her food supply is threatened. It’s her comfortable place that other dogs don’t go into.

The usual approach from here I guess would be desensitization. I’m wondering if I can’t just AVOID the behavior for now and just not allow her to make any mistakes for now so that she “forgets” the aggressive stuff, and then after her hips are fixed, start working on the actual desensitization work with a chance of it getting results this time…

For those keeping track at home, Henry had one of the world’s worst case of separation anxiety — we’re counting two destroyed crates and damage to a third, damage to the house when he escaped from the crate or was left out, and physical damage done to himself during escape attempts.

At my veterinarian’s recommendation, we had him on about 48mg daily of Reconcile, which is Fluoxetine Hcl (same as Proazac) and a behavior modification program that involved desensitization and making his kennel his happy go-to place. This is completely standard and is easy to enforce. From there, it just has taken time for him to become more comfortable in his new life.

We reached another giant milestone today. I was gone from 8:30am until 1 and then until 6:30 at night — and not only did he not pace and drool, but his tendency to wet his kennel (stress urination) didn’t happen! Except for his usual “run around in circles” when I got home, he didn’t display ANY signs of undue stress or anxiety and wasn’t even breathing hard when I came into the room to let the kids out of their crates!

Henry went through four distinct phases over the past few months.

The first phase was completely insane hyperactive panic attacks whenever I left the house — especially if I took Eowyn with me. He would try anything and everything to escape and follow us, up to and including pulling the welds of a metal crate apart, chewing through plastic, bending wires, and figuring out how to manipulate catches. Once he was loose in the house, he’d try to chew through the windows, doors, and window and door frames. We started the reconcile after the first two crates got chewed through. It helped a lot, but definitely isn’t 100% of the solution.

The second phase was drooling and pacing the entire time I was absent. Again, this is indicative of an incredible amount of stress. I worked on this when we were home by randomly having one or both of them go into their kennels, rewarding them (esp. with a treat inside the kennel already so that they don’t associate it with me — peanut butter kongs for the win!) and letting them be for a while.

The third phase that was a real pill was the heavy drinking phase. No, not beer. Henry would re-enter the panic state if his water bowl got emptied. Considering that I didn’t want to OVER-water either of them and have them go to the bathroom in their crates, I had limited both of their water during the day to a quart. Henry would immediately drink this and then panic when it was empty. (At this point, I was monitoring them with a webcam.) I “solved” this by buying a gallon(!) bucket and double-ended D-clip and hanging the entire gallon of water in his crate.

This, of course, brought about the fourth phase — wetting the kennel. I didn’t realize it for a few days because of the history of pacing/drooling, and he’s a typical sloppy hound drinker, but Henry was consistently peeing in his kennel in the afternoons every day even though I was arriving home at a regular time each day. He’s SO well potty trained that I was 99% it was connected to the anxiety. (He’s had one accident in the house with bloody diarrhea, and when he couldn’t wake me up, he pooped in the far front corner of the house as far from the ‘den’/bedroom as possible and on easily cleanable laminate flooring. I removed the soft items from his kennel (towels/pad, soft toys) and left only easily sanitize-able kongs and nylabones plus a smaller water dish and his food bowl in the crate during the day, and after two weeks of consistently wetting, I *think* he finally didn’t today! It must’ve been the long walk we took at lunch and a couple opportunities to go to the bathroom along the way.

I think the big hurdle was first providing enough water so that he could get past the “I’m going to be dehydrated” thing, and then solving his food issues at the same time. With his history of intestinal problems, I switched him from the Innova Adult (which is otherwise an excellent food that I highly recommend) to Wellness Simple, which has a few different varieties that have only five or six ingredients and very little overlap between the ingredients… that way if one variety doesn’t work, you can always try others. He immediately stopped scratching at his sides with his hind leg and his stool firmed up to solid for the first time.

If you’re facing the same type of situation I did, whether with your dog or with a rescue or shelter dog, there’s lots of hope and light at the end of the tunnel. You and your dog will be fine. Just continue treating the dog with dignity, respect (without coddling), and address any concrete health issues or definitive psychological issues that come up as quickly and completely as possible. Separation anxiety *can* be managed! And what a difference it makes in a dog’s life to not be so worried all the time!

Eo and Henry are going to love this weekend — Mouse and Basil (Respectively: 150 lbs Swiss Mountain Dog, 2x Eo’s size, and 15 lbs floor mop Laochen who rules the house) are coming to stay with us over Thanksgiving.

I’ve been remiss in updating recently. Work is busy with a vengeance, and I’m stretched a bit thin.

Henry and Eo are doing pretty well, all things considered. We’ve gone two weeks now without Eo reacting negatively to Henry. As I posted below about the Wellness Simple food, Henry’s stomach is on the mend and he’s happily filling my backyard with little solid logs of poo.

Eo’s doing OK, but I had to push her Rimadyl dose up. I may have to up it again. We’re probably headed back to surgery within a month or two. I’m trying to figure out how to schedule it around any traveling I was planning to do to see relatives at Christmas — Eo may spend Christmas at the vet’s having her other hip done. Not fun. But patently better than the grinding I can feel through her skin over her right hip.

One of Eo’s main problems that I’m trying to get a handle on is her reactivity to Henry in certain situations, like when he enters a room or is laying in a spot she likes. He’ll happily defer to her. If — and that’s a very large if — she lets him before she attacks. She doesn’t draw blood in the attack, but she sounds terrifying, definitely pinches and grabs tufts of fur, and he is definitely and appropriately terrified of her. I think I’ve finally gotten the message through her thick skull that reacting that way is NOT appropriate behavior by combining positive control (aka: “Don’t let it happen!”) with positive reinforcement.

You can take the business process analyst out of the factory, but you can’t always take the factory out of the business process analyst. It helps me to track data about her behavior — for example, how long it’s been since she acted aggressively towards Henry. We now have a “Days Since a Lost Fur Incident” sign on the fridge. Every day she goes without acting aggressive, I get to stick another Post-It with a higher number on it.

We were up to six days this week until Henry sniffed at a Kong that Eo wasn’t quite done with. She didn’t actually manage to get to him (I stopped her and put her in a down-stay) but he yelped in fear and ran under the table — and I dutifully reset the clock to 0. One of these days I’ll get a week of peace.

One of my new favorite Flickr posters is Julie.Anna, and she posted an AMAZING set of photos of some of her curs at work. This is what Henry’s breed was intended for — hunting, herding, and controlling wildlife on the Texas frontier.

All of the photos are linked to the full res size in her flickr gallery, and I suggest clicking through — the clarity, sharpness, and timing of the photos is amazing.

Go watch these videos at SmartDogs! Man, if that happened at the dog park I used to take Eo (who, as a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, is descended from african dogs — although a different breed) there’d be owners running everywhere, (human) tears, and lots of bruised (human) egos. I don’t do dog parks much anymore.

As I was watching these videos and typing this, Eowyn (the huntress) disemboweled another Bad Cuz. I had to give her something to chew on because she was hunting for more geckos to hunt after she caught one that slipped in under the back door. Henry is cowering in mortal fear underneath the kitchen table as she tosses the Cuz around. After she’s torn the squeaker out and crunched it into tiny plastic pieces, she runs throughout the entire house biting down on it and then plugging the hole with her tongue. Note to self: Dog likes sucking chest wounds. Do not piss dog off.