Lighter Fare

First, I just want to say how much I love my family, immediate and extended. You guys are all wonderful and I wish I was closer to you all.

Secondly, I decided I'd share a story about my other babies, my dogs. (Feel free to groan.) Now, for those who don't know, I have two huskies, Loki and Shadow (if you've read the Neil Gaiman book "American Gods", the naming is entirely coincidental). Anyway, they are great dogs and I love them to pieces. However, when we go for walks, you can tell they are definitely sled dogs. If I had a sled, I could really travel in style in winter. It became a bit of a problem though as they got bigger and stronger, especially when we met other dogs. Loki and Shadow are very friendly, but they want to play, so anytime we'd walk by another dog, they'd go nuts, jumping over each other and pulling me around trying to get to the new dog. Most of the time I could control them, just by standing still until the other person and dog passed. But when we walked by three golden retrievers one day, I nearly had my arms torn out of my sockets. At that point, I realized we had an issue, especially if this were to keep up when I was giantly pregnant and had a whole new center of gravity to deal with.

So, after watching the Animal Planet show "It's Me or the Dog," in which a British woman goes and helps British couples learn to control their wild dogs, Tom decided we should get head collars for our dogs. A head collar, if you haven't seen one, is a loop that goes over the dog's snout and then has two straps that fit around the back of the dog's head. (You can see a picture here: http://www.pickofthelitterdogtraining.com/GentleLeader.jpg). The idea behind it is the same as that of a horse bridle: control the head, control the animal. It's not a muzzle; the dogs can still eat, drink, and bite as if they weren't wearing them. I was a little worried about using them at first, but they have been a life-changing purchase! The dogs are unable to pull ahead - if they start to pull, the collar simply turns their head back toward me.

While we've been using these for a couple of weeks now, we had been walking mostly in the very early morning (around 6 a.m.) or during cool weather when no one else was at the lake. But yesterday, I didn't get up early enough to take them before church, and it was a beautiful sunny day by the time I got them out. It was our first test of these new collars with other dogs in the area and again, it worked beautifully. I just kept walking and the dogs came right along with me. No struggling or intense fear that I was going to lose control of them.

However, just as we were reaching the parking lot to go home, a new problem arose. A small black lab was running around without a leash, and owners who were somewhat less than attentive. Loki was on one side of me, facing the dog and Shadow (who is significantly bigger) was somewhat hidden behind me. The lab came racing across the parking lot towards us, eyes on Loki, and before I could even think about what to do, Shadow bounded out from behind me and stood next to Loki. That other dog stopped dead in his tracks, took one look at Shadow, and then ran back to his owners with his tail between his legs. I'm beginning to think Tom might be on to something in his claims that Shadow has some wolf blood in his veins. Anyway, after that, Shadow just kind of looked at me, then headed back toward the car.

Wow, that was much longer than I intended it to be, so thanks for sticking all the way through if you did. If not, I understand. :)