Thursday, August 8, 2013

A tired dog is a good dog

Ok so I haven't been on here writing in a while and I feel so guilty.  Not guilty that I'm not writing, but guilty that I don't have any new positive progress to report on.

As I prepare for a big music competition that my students and I are all competing in and everything that goes with that (flying to Ireland, leaving Olive behind for a week, figuring out the bus system in Ireland, which is NOT easy! etc), knowing that I come home to a really important audition for school and the start of the semester, I have been so stressed.  I will admit that in this time I haven't been giving Olive the attention she needs, I have been expecting her to give me the attention I need.  I'm starting to realize that isn't fair.
She has been so rotten the last week.  Asking to go outside every few minutes, wrestling way too hard when I try to pick her up for a cuddle in front of the TV, stealing things, running away when she is called.  The worst thing has been this uncontrollable play biting.  She doesn't break skin but she really just gets way into wrestling and makes horrible noises while pretending to bite if you try to pick her up or pet her belly.  She is not upset, she is definitely playing, but it's just unacceptable behavior. She has just been miserably terrible and I started to get so frustrated. I thought "I have put in hours and hours into her training and suddenly she is just so awful, so rotten, I can't do this, she'll never behave!  What happened to my reliable, well-mannered pup?!"

But today I read a sentence that I know well, that I've said to many, but that I hadn't really considered this week - A tired dog is a good dog.  She isn't getting enough exercise!  I used to take her for at least two long walks a day.  Now she's getting probably 0 long walks in a day.  She begs and cries to go outside.  She will even squat and act like she is going to have an accident if we don't get out the door, but when we get outside she just runs and runs around me in circles and won't use the bathroom.  I couldn't figure out why on earth she would so clearly ask to use the bathroom so often when she doesn't need to go.  She doesn't need to use the bathroom, she wants to play.  She knows she is hilarious, she runs around and around me knowing that she gets to either tie me up, make me spin in circles, or make me walk her out of it.  She has me trained well.

Yesterday I got Olive a new toy to destroy in hopes that it will keep her mentally and physically occupied for a few days until she can go spend a week with her cousin corgis and my parents where she will have more play time than she'll even know what to do with.  So far so good - but her dragon has already lost all of his spines and teeth in only one day...




She has such a goofy, wild-eyed smile when she is hyper.  Who wouldn't want to play with this pup non-stop all day?


Run run run as fast as you can around and around in circles!  Everyone thinks it's so hilaaaaarious!