The Well Behaved Dingo

We went hiking today on Story Hill, it felt like we were in Scotland with all the rolling hills and was a nice, if a little bit unexciting, hike. The trail meanders through grassy hills and was maybe a mile, we inadvertently started at the top of the trail and then looped out and came around, ending at the bottom. Then we had to walk up the hill to get back to the van. On the way up the road we worked on loose leash walking and Scherzo did great, just as she did at Hyalite. Read the rest of this entry »

Intro
You just aren’t going to strong arm your dog into skateboarding, but luckily with positive reinforcement your dog can achieve great feats.

Jump on youtube.com to see dogs on treadmills, skateboards, two legged dogs walking up right, and even a Chinese Dalmation on a bike. Often the owners of these dogs present their animals as miracles. Whether this a conscious deceit a la the magician doesn’t reveal his tricks or simply those occasional animals that luck into finding their own rewards for complicated behaviors, the only way to set about teaching a dog to skateboard is with positive reinforcement. All this means is that the dog gets rewarded, step by step, for offering parts of a behavior that in the end combine to make a dog who “rides” the skateboard.

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I was relaxing in the van this afternoon while Sarroar was inside the library. I was coming back from heading in to pee when a cop pulled up. Turned out the neighbors thought it was suspicious that we’d parked on the public street in the same spot two days in a row. Who the hell keeps a daily record of where people park by their house? Yuppies. Read the rest of this entry »

Scherzo caught a gopher this morning!
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I’m lucky today. This morning I found a twenty laying in the middle of Main Street. Then I found four quarters on the sidewalk. I went to the library, they let me get my library card with a postcard I sent to myself (there was some speculation by my dad they wouldn’t take it) and to top it off we had a nice walk on the Gallagator trail that cuts through Bozeman. I’ve been on the trail before but I think they made some improvements since I was younger. Either way it’s the best trail I’ve seen through a city. Definitely worth checking out. You feel like you disappear into an over run city. Makes me wish that foot paths were everywhere, the world could be so much nicer.

Scherzo howled her first howl! We were outside at a Pow-Wow when a fire truck and ambulence went right past. It was the sweetest sound mine ears have ever heard! And it only took her two years to build up the guts to make it!

She then ate her first Antelope meat ever for dinner. She had blood running down her chin so I think she liked it.

Scherzo has been getting my goat these last couple days! It all started with Ruby, a horse, who was supposed to have my little chitlin- a colt.

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Scherzo tried to play with a porcupine today and got a chin full of quills, a funny little goatee of them. She didn’t even seem to notice them until I pulled out my leatherman and tried to remove one. Well, it was pretty obvious she wasn’t going to sit still, that it would be very painful and that we have no skill at removing fish-hook barbs from a moving target. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m wondering if we should call it “feral feeding” when she half feeds herself. I mean, can I really take credit if I don’t even know what it is or where she got it?

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The vet had checked Ruby earlier that day and said shed be having the foal that night. So we drove out to see little Chitlin, as I wanted to call him, arriving around 10:30pm. It was 10 degrees and a blizzard, so we ran straight from the van to the cabin, knowing Mac’s mom would wake us up to see the baby being born. That night I had a dream I was out at Ruby’s pen, the baby had a white stripe on its nose and was in a heap on the ground trying to stand up but it couldn’t. Ruby was agitated and trying to bite me through the fence. Read the rest of this entry »