BOXER ADVENTURES

 Did you know that dogs go through fear stages?  Young puppies and adolescents can go through different stages where they suddenly find things scary. Booker has always been a very social and outgoing dog.  But just over the last couple of weeks he's started growling and barking when strangers approach.  This has only seemed to happen when we've been sitting somewhere and people start approaching.  It doesn't seem to happen when we are walking and people walk by us.   We're trying to figure out exactly what is triggering the fear or protective reaction.  More importantly we want to help him get through it so he doesn't get stuck and make this an ongoing issue. While at the beach we were sitting in our beach chairs and a party boat pulled in near us.  As they started getting off the boat Booker emitted a low growl and then a bark.   I immediately got up and walked into the water calling him.  He followed me giving a few glances o...

 

 A nice hot day today meant getting the kayaks out for a more extended paddle to see how Booker would do.   We loaded up lunch and all our supplies and took off late morning right after I returned from a morning race. The place we wanted to launch from has a muddy area with a steep drop off so I asked Marc if he wanted to get stabilized and have me lift Booker in, but Marc said that he thought he would be good.  So I climbed in my kayak and as I was calling Sisko in, Booker tried to jump in mine as well! So after Marc pulled him back and brought him over to his kayak, Booker jumped right in without hesitation.   We began the paddle with Marc again trying to get Booker to settle in a comfortable position.  Booker decided he wanted to hang over the side and watch the water which, clearly, did not work.  Finally, he settled down and we paddled the 2 miles to the beach.   And then it was play time.  For the entire afternoon the boys ran and ...

 Today was hot - FINALLY. Probably we should have waited until today for Booker's first kayaking adventure, but things worked out. Most of the early afternoon the dogs followed us around and hung out in the shade while we worked to get the garden in shape.  Around 3 PM, Marc asked if I was going to start rototilling the soil or do it later... Later sounded great to me, so we trekked back out to the beach.   Hard to believe that just a short time ago I couldn't even convince Booker to dip his toes in to get a drink! Lake Ontario is still a cold 59 degrees, but that didn't stop the boys.  They ran into the water over and over and then rolled in the hot sand and dug holes to lay in. What a fabulous afternoon.  Booker was fearless in the water. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Booker and Sisko (@boxeradventuresny) It was a relatively short time as we had to get back, but the boys made the most of it! And 2 very tired dogs came ho...

 I don't remember teaching our dogs to ride in a kayak.  We must have taught Archer along the way since we didn't have a kayak when he was a puppy.  Archer was such a low maintenance,  up for anything dog I don't remember it being an issue.  By the time Sisko came into our lives, I think we just tossed him in and he adjusted. But Sisko's personality is VERY different than Booker's.  Booker is way more high-strung and anxious.  He also does not have a lot of patience.  (This is not meant to be critical of him - it's just his personality.) Not to mention that he is now over 9 months old so introducing something new gets more challenging as a dog gets older. So I have been thinking about introducing Booker to kayaking for a while now and having some anxiety about it.  As the weeks have dragged on with cold, rainy weather, I have been frustrated.  The lake is my happy place so I wanted to get the kayaks in the water AND I wanted to introduce...

 I mentioned that yesterday Sisko walked with Marc while Booker and I ran.  Sisko has been having some difficulty with his knees.  Specifically his CCL which is comparable to the ACL in humans. The CCL can tear which, if it tears completely, requires surgery.  If it is partially torn there is a chance that it can heal.  So when last summer we came home from the beach and after laying down for a while Sisko got up with a terrible limp we had to make some decisions,  The most commonly used surgery for the CCL is TPLO surgery.  Sisko is 7 1/2 years old.  So we would be putting him through an intensive surgery and recovery time.  And statistically when you repair one CCL, there is like an 80% chance that the other will repture requiring surgery on the other leg. After some research we made the decision to not go in for surgery right away and try to manage it.  We placed him on a regimen of glucosamine/chondroiton , fish oil , and turmeric ....

 I continue to introduce Booker to running.  He is a straight up disaster on mile 1.  He is distracted and unfocused.  He thinks nothing of veering out in front of me while we run. But today something amazing happened.  He got it .  What do I mean?  I mean that he actually got into the groove of running next to me, at my pace, and just settling in. I was so happy.  And then we ran into Marc and Sisko.  We were passing them as they walked and needless to say Booker had no interest in continuing to run without them.  He turned into a crazy man - leaping into the air, pawing at the leash and generally fighting me as I tried to get him to continue on as he tried to stay with Sisko. Booker is our 5th Boxer and he is, by far, the most high strung boy we've had.  I'll talk about that in another post, soon. Eventually as they faded from sight, he got back into a happy run with me and we made it 6.5 miles.   He is strong and athlet...

 I recently watched an episode of Cesar Milan's new show.  The woman featured clearly cared deeply for her dogs but she stubbornly refused to believe that it was anything she was doing that created the behavioral problems in her dogs.  In fact she was incredibly defensive and combative about it.   Unfortunately the vast majority of our dogs' issues are directly caused by the mistakes that we humans make.  Not on purpose of course, but nevertheless we are the problem. One such mistake that I see frequently happened just yesterday.  I was walking my dogs down a path and in the distance I saw a woman walking an Australian Shepherd. As soon as that dog spotted us, he went into hyper-alert mode.  He ran to the end of his leash and started hopping around and barking. " It's okay, calm down, stop..." the woman told her dog as we got closer.  She then reeled the dog in and pulled him off the path.  She then crouched down to his level - he was co...