I have four half-written blog posts sitting in my draft folder. I just cannot get it together.
It might be because every single time I sit down to blog, I get called away to make snacks, help set up a lemonade stand, try to figure out what would make poop turn green, clean up a flesh wound, and save the cat from another attack of kisses and hugs... and then Ellie comes home from school. (heh heh)
ANYWAY.... the other day we were watching The Dog Whisperer while we had Abby over. That Cesar Millan is amazing.
After watching two shows in which Cesar trained the most vicious, difficult dogs, we decided to train Abby not to bark at the door whenever someone knocks. She's a great dog, and she has only this one problem. Cesar would laugh about it. He would say, "Please. Such an easy task. I will have her trained in five minutes."
According to Cesar, you are supposed to put yourself calmly and assertively in front of the dog and the door. You are not to allow the dog to stand in front of you. You are the master and commander and you get the door--not the dog.
So I ran out the front door while Ellie waited in the house with Abby. Of course, the moment I opened the door to walk out, Abby went into a frenzy and started bolting for it. Eventually she calmed down and went back to sit with Ellie. Then I knocked.
Ellie and Abby had a race to the door. Abby got there first. Instead of calmly and assertively putting herself in front of Abby, Ellie shoved Abby away from the door and jumped in front of her. Not exactly the vibe we were going for.
We decided to switch places and have Ellie knock so I could show her how it's done. This time when Abby bolted, I stepped in front of her and swiped my hand firmly above her to signal that she should back up. It worked! She backed up and stopped barking. We switched places again and Ellie tried it. It worked again! Of course, Abby might have figured out by then that it would be one of us on the other side of the door and not a real stranger. She is a smart dog.
What I really need is a Kid Whisperer to come and teach me how to train my kid not to whine when she doesn't get what she wants and to do what I tell her to do.
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Stuff about me...my life...my family...but mostly my kid
3 comments:
I'm hiring you two to come train our dog! Our Ellie, the dog, is having trouble understanding that "come" means "right now!" (among other puppyish problems.)
Green poop???
We would be glad to help out with any puppy problems you have and we will charge only a nominal fee.
Yep, green poop. The good thing is that I was able to fit together the gallon-size bucket of blue cotton candy she had eaten when we went to see a movie the night before with the green poop of that day. (The cotton candy had so much dye in it that two bites of it coated her mouth and lips with the most intense color blue I'd ever seen). So that mystery was solved pretty quickly. I'm never buying her cotton candy at a movie theater again.
I was thinking the green poop was Abby's and wondering what we were going to have to pay the vet for that one.
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