Decibel the bargain dog
Decibel is taking to fall like she took to water, with enthusiasm. Racing around in the cooler temps seems to be a no brainer. Me - I dread winter.
She has brilliant moments of sheepherding, and chaotic flashes of "chase that silly thing", especially when another dog 'helps' out. Usually the magic of the 'that'll do' holds, and I can get her refocused on me, and work again. She is learning that horses are big and to avoid them at close quarters. I prefer that. There is no need for a dog to be too confident around large animals with hard hooves.
I know she is not supposed to be afraid of anything, but there is a difference between caution and fear.
Anyhow, because she was out of her BilJac food, I took her to town last week. Our first stop was in another town, our county seat, where I had to renew the conservation reserve contract at the Farm service agency. (The program allows us to keep highly erodible land out of production and covered by perennials. Without it we would have to have the land farmed, but it would be intensive and require high fertilizer input to produce anything. It would be hard on the soil, groundwater etc., and barely pay the taxes. The CRP barely pays the taxes with benefits to the environment. It is only a bad deal when people call it a subsidy.)
Decibel was on her best behavior. She walked in at heel, sat to be petted and was such a hit, that we walked out of there without paying the contract renewal fee, since it was all about the dog. Unfortunately I got a call a few days later about that, so I still had to pay, but it almost worked.
We had a good laugh over that. Even the FSA agent thought it was funny. And yes, it was all due to Decibel's blinding beauty.
At Petco Decibel got me a 10% off coupon, because she is so pretty. I should take her shopping for big-ticket items.
On the way out of the store we saw a big construction machine that scared the wits right out of her. So I had to load her food in the car and spend another twenty minutes watching construction with her, until she could ignore the roaring clanking beeping dozer.
Once she could watch it without freaking out, and do a sit on command, without touching me for safety, I found her a nice human to pet her and we went home.
I'm sure the construction workers were flattered, thinking this 'cougar' watched them for completely different reasons.
Decibel is doing well on most of her single trips (no other dogs), and all of her double trips to town. When she is alone, she still gets nervous now and then and throws up. It isn't real car sickness, as in motion sickness, she just gets a little stressed. At least that is how it appears to me. She never gets carsick on the way home, even though it is the same distance ride, same driver. And I know that dogs can barf way more than just once.
What can I say? She shreds, too.
Love
Decibel the star
I hope your time at the Nationals was well spent and you were successful. However, there is no way your success could compare to the magnificent Decibel. She was absolutely awesome, fabulous and beyond comparison.
Let me elaborate:
Yesterday we gave a 'dinner party' for 15 of Harold's colleagues (from across the country. They were here for a professional meeting, and this was one of those 'dinner for the boss' type affairs that I had hoped to never have to host. I mean that sort of stuff should have been abolished in the sixties.)
At least three of the attendees were NOT dog people. One doesn't like to be touched by dogs.
Still mine is a house with dogs, so I won't lock them away.
First came the weeklong prep period. Clean the damn house, cook, bake, shop prepare, clean again, etc.
The last day was chaos.
Additionally my cow Ruby is due to calve, donkey choked, and we have kittens to get acclimated to us.
Sure, all Harold has to do is go to work. He gets paid for that?!
Anyhow, all dogs were very good, they picked up that I was stressed and behaved, BUT Decibel went a step beyond. She made sure that I remembered that life was not about the perfect sparkling floor. I had the rugs piled up and was mopping, turned around and there on top of the rug pile, sat a flowerpot.
Perfectly balanced.
I knew Decibel had put it there, only when? I looked for her, and she had somehow gotten across the room and was innocently sleeping on the couch. I never heard or saw her. She didn't mess anything up, but I took a break and went to play with them all, while tossing the flowerpot over the fence so she had to find another one. After finishing the floor and having put the rugs back, vacuumed, I stepped back for a final look.
There on the rug, a red apple. Perfectly placed by devilishly clever Decibel. How? When?
She didn't make any messes, but kept reminding me that there was more to life. Don't you just love that girl?
But that would not have quite gotten her the equivalent of the Doggie Nobel Prize, that came later. We had arranged with Dehlia, Harold's lab tech who attends dog class with us, and teaches me the horse business, that she would take one of the dogs on lead, when people arrived. She had Maggie who behaved perfectly, sitting for pets and the like. Harold took Skeeter, who will jump up otherwise, I had Decibel. Ralph does not jump up, and can mostly be voice controlled, as long as everyone else behaves.
Any one of them can really, but when there are four loose dogs and 14 people including two toddler/children types, Skeeter jumps up for attention and then it all goes to hell from there. And I didn't want to have to use my 'dog training voice'.
Well, the dogs were awesome. Decibel went through the whole meet and greet like it was her final CGC exam, Skeeter behaved, Maggie showed off, and Ralph was fine.
Soon Maggie was off lead, then Skeeter, then Decibel.
Now the older boy is maybe four (what do I know about kids, he is mobile, fast, and can speak in short intelligible sentences, and understand even more. I think he is four) and he likes the dogs, but does this run by pet quickly, move quickly, wave hands and arms around, screech occasionally, thing that some dogs think makes him something to chase.
So I watched Decibel really close, since we don't have much kid time with her.
She was spectacular.
She never showed fear or got overexcited; she behaved as if she knew all about kids. We all went for a walk to see the farm animals, and Decibel would trot ahead, chased by the boy, Alex. She would let him catch up and then quickly circle him, and I though, oh no, she is playing, and she roughhouses with Skeeter like that, but she never bumped Alex, jumped on him, or even reacted in any way when he grabbed for her tail. She would run ahead again, no, trot, slowly, letting him chase her.
She was absolutely wonderful with him.
Then we got back to the house, and I gave the obligatory tour (Damn why do people want to see the whole house, where am I supposed to hide all the crap I cleaned out from the public area?) finished dinner, and the dogs were all wonderful. During dinner Ralph was in his crate, Maggie and Skeeter were at my feet, and Decibel? She carried in her big bone (they had all gotten bones so I could work, and chewed on them in the yard) plopped down at the bottom of the stairs and chewed on that.
Terry, Dominique, we had steaks!
I mean manna for dogs, and yet Decibel just occupied herself, no begging, no table surfing, no lap drooling.
Not impressed yet?
It got better. Alex got restless and started cruising the room again. Decibel did not care that he touched her or showed any sort of bad reaction, in spite of having her bone there. Now I was watching like a hawk, mind you, hovering close by, but there was no indication of her being stressed or wanting to defend her bone or anything. Of course I take food up, bones away, toys back, but that was fabulous calm behavior from a not yet seven month old.
It got even better.
The toddler Kristopher began wobbling around the floor, and Decibel was very gentle and nice to him, never pushed him over or ran through him, let him grab onto her, no problem, and in the end gave him kisses (it was okay with the mother, who got kisses too from Decibel). The whole time Decibel acted like she grew up in a daycare. Screeches and crying didn't bother her, she was gentle, aware of her size, and wait, it gets better yet.
Alex told her to 'sit down'. Decibel sat, then laid down. I swear, she did.
Then Alex looked at me and said, 'make her get up again', and Decibel sat.
She took pieces of steak from him, and left all the fingers intact.
I knew she would, she does not snap at food and we work with her on that, but it was still awesome to see. All four dogs around this little kid, who is about the height of Ralph sitting, and they do their sits and downs on his say so, and eating bits of steak without the occasional finger.
I was so proud of my gang, and Decibel especially, since in spite of the socializing and all, she just doesn't get all that much off leash kid time.
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