The Misanthropic Shiba

Archive for February, 2010

Here are a couple of stills I captured:

Continued from last Friday:

Yeah, this is all about me. And why shouldn't it be?

I still have to keep from automatically launching into my spiel when people say that they want a dog like Tierce.  Because I don’t think I’m normal and maybe Tierce is the ideal dog for my circumstances because I shaped him that way and was aware of his needs.  As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, via Sherlock Holmes:

“My line of thoughts about dogs is analogous. A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. And their passing moods may reflect the passing moods of others.”

The problem of putting this all at my door, or at Susan’s, is that I have adapted to owning Shibas just as much as Tierce has adapted to me.  For me, it’s second nature to waggle my leg in front of an opening door to confuzzle a Shiba hoping to escape.  Dominance is automatically met with the appropriate equivalent of You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”.  He gets out for several walks a day and I take him running and geocaching and to the dog park for heartier exercise.  I accept that I may never be able to let him off leash without doing a complex algorhythm in my mind, calculating the likelihood of other dogs or prey animals being nearby.

This is why I temper my raving about how awesome he is around the artlessly enthusiastic.  I know that without the complicated calculation that is great breeders, preparation, education, financial stability, the right attitude needed to effect change without breaking the dog’s spirit, time and the help of friends and family, Tierce would not be the awesome dog that he is.

For Shibas everywhere, that scares me, simply because I know the fickleness of the general population when it comes to dogs.  They don’t often look beyond the surface of a dog attack or breeds considered “snappy”, “fear-biters”, “bad with kids”, “horrible at the vets”, etc.  Thus, when people breed and raise Shibas irresponsibly, there’s the risk of people shrugging off unusual aggression or fear in a Shiba as ‘oh, that’s just how they are’.  No, we need people to say to themselves, “Well all the Shibas I know are great little dogs.  What’s wrong with that one?”

Understanding that dogs are individuals, affected by heredity and environment just as people are is, to my mind, one of the first steps to approaching dog ownership as a human responsibility, rather than something that can be determined or regulated by a dog’s breed or physical appearance.

All the benches are showing tightly placed planks and a new coat of paint!  Thanks, Nanaimo Parks & Rec!

Dear Richard and Jeff,

Tierce and I visited the dog park today and found that the benches had been fixed and are even sporting a new coat of paint!  I am very impressed with the celerity with which you addressed my concerns about the benches.  By the way, Tierce is fully recovered from his accident. Thank you both again.

Julie MacTire

************

Wow great photo and thank you emailing us back.

It is a great help to us when we know of issues and users of facilities let us know plus ideas on how to make things better. Many times we just don’t know something has happened or that something is a problem so thank you for letting us know in a constructive and positive way. Our Parks crews take great pride in our facilities and if they know something act very fast.

What a great day to be out in the parks!

Richard.

Look! A random cartoonized picture of Shassi I did in Photoshop and put on this blog for no other reason than that you should see it! To connect it with this post, I will say now that Shassi was NOT an easy dog to own. Not at first.

I have a confession to make.  Tierce is really the easiest dog to own ever.  He’s miles ahead of Shassi in that respect.  Actually, the difference between him and Shassi is more like the difference between a sociopath and the average jock.

For a Shiba, Tierce is a good size.  Solid.  He’s gregarious, especially with people he knows.  He (now) doesn’t have a problem with most dogs.  He comes when he’s called and the odds that he’ll do it when distractions are present is steadily increasing (still dependent on the tangible laden threat in my voice).

As I’ve said before (or intimated), Shassi had a brain she used for evil.  I’ve enumerated the many ways she would manage to get out of the house, teach me to take nothing for granted, etc.  She is the dog that made me believe that, if there was a god, Shibas were the manifestation of the phrase, “Hubris is a sin!”.  She is also the dog that spawned TMS, because so many people would not believe that owning a Shiba was a serious exercise in humility.

But let’s compare the two:

***

Shassi:  Wailed for three nights straight until I gave up and let her sleep on the bed with me.

Tierce:  Went to sleep in his crate the first night and every night with no lonesome wails at all.

***

Shassi:  Took off at every opportunity

Tierce:  Can be bargained with.  Usually.

***

Shassi:  Separation anxiety when not in ‘her’ home, ‘her’ car, ‘her’ territory.

Tierce:  Could be happily plunked just about anywhere.  Does not flinch at loud sounds (like SCA heavy fighting), does not care where he is as long as he’s fed, walked and paid attention to when he wants.

***

Shassi:  Hated every dog she met outside of puppyhood, with very few exceptions (usually dogs she had repeated exposure to over a number of months).  Spaying did not fix this.

Tierce:  Was a macho pain in the ass until I had him neutered.  Now he is a regular at the dog park and I don’t act all squirrelly if another dog runs up to him (although on principle I want to throttle the owners who blithely call, “He’s friendly!”).

***

Shassi:  The number of times she would return at my call could be numbered on one of my hands, even if I should by accident lose two of my fingers.

Tierce:  Recalls are good.  Other dogs or prey animals blunt this to a great degree, but there’s hope there.

***

Shassi:  Never aggressive towards people.  Flashed teeth once, maybe, and a good scruff shake cured her of that.

Tierce:  Required a complete overhaul of his schedule to deal with his dominance aggression.  After the age of a year (and NILIF, a series of obedience classes and the intelligence that if he ever flashed his teeth at me or anyone else again, he could expect to spend the rest of his life hunting for them – one of the many reasons that I advocate positive training most of the time; it makes even mild negative reinforcement much more impressive and required much less often) he has never shown unprovoked aggression towards another person.  Even when he got his leg caught in the park bench, he allowed complete strangers to extricate him, even though he was in pain and scared.

***

Shassi:  Extremely good with children.  This, I attribute to early socialization and frequent trips to the playground at the end of the street.

Tierce:  Somewhat nervous around smaller children who don’t show complete confidence around him and will sometimes bark at them, despite frequent trips to the nearby elementary school.  Likes my friends’ kids/grandkids who he was raised with.

***

Tierce: 5 points in his favour

Shassi: 2 points in her favour

Now I know that a lot of Tierce’s virtues can be laid at Susan’s door (Tierce technically has a different breeder, but Susan bred his line), because she has taken pains to breed Shibas that are a little more in touch with the human world.  (When I was hunting for a male Shiba puppy we visited her to chat and my jaw dropped open when more than one Shiba came to the fence and wagged its tail.)  And, yes, Mischa and I have a LOT to do with how Tierce acts.  I am childfree and my job allows me a lot of freedom to spend time with him.  Mischa works at home now, so Tierce rarely needs a dog walker.  We spoil Tierce, but he knows where the line is and that crossing it is B-A-D.

But he’s so easy to live with – he can be warned away from the door when it opens, he is great in other people’s homes, he is a great companion when I go walking or running, he is reasonably friendly with people and other dogs – in short, he’s as close to ideal as I think a Shiba can ever come.

Continued next week.

Something that was mentioned on SHIBA-L recently was this Secret Powers prong collar by Lola Limited. Its advantages are that it looks prettier than a regular prong and also it is less likely to draw the ire of those opposed to the use of such things.  This brought up a few thoughts on the whole prong collar debate for me.

One of my tools is an ordinary prong collar, as Tierce has neck like bull and every so often requires a reminder that, hello, no, you’re not in the fucking Iditarod, thank you very much and I would like my shoulder back.

I don’t mind prancing Tierce out high, wide and handsome with his collar gleaming around his neck.  I’ve been accosted by do-gooders who haven’t been able to answer the question of how do you control a Shiba who pulls on his leash during walks as if he was Buck moving the thousand-pound sled for John Thornton so that you can have a reasonably pleasant walk uninterrupted by yelling, strained tendons or yanking the dog around.

Tierce is actually pretty good and the prong collar comes out only on special occasions now that he is almost 3.  However, when you’re dealing with an adolescent Shiba, I think there isn’t anything that beats a prong collar for quick control.

There are people who think the prong collar is cruel. I don’t entirely disagree.

“Cruel” refers to “willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others”.  When you’re physically interfering with a dog so as to cause it discomfort, one can argue that you are willfully causing it distress.  (Let’s ignore the fact that Tierce considers us not sharing the toppings of pizza to be “distress” here)

The prong collar controls by causing the dog discomfort if he puts pressure against it.  I’ve put a prong collar around my arm and given it a tug and, damn, it doesn’t tickle.  Dogs’ necks are a lot tougher than human skin, but I’m willing to bet that it doesn’t feel that great to Tierce.

Yeah you're damn right she's cruel. Put this collar on me and didn't even take me for a walk!

Here’s the part that people who will condemn me for using a ‘torture device’ will copy and paste:  I don’t mind causing discomfort and even mild amounts of pain to Tierce if I think it’s the fastest way to stop problem behaviour.  If Tierce is lunging all over the place and the normal collar correction doesn’t work, it’s on with the prong collar and miraculously, a lot of the pulling and yanking and the fuck-you-I’m-going-over-here-except-I-weigh-25-pounds-and-you-weigh-mores stop.

Worse, I don’t even feel BAD about it.  Apparently if you get to the point where you use a prong collar, you’re supposed to wallow in excessive amounts of guilt and bewail the necessity of it all.  I don’t.

If Tierce walks nicely and doesn’t hurl himself against the collar in an attempt to get one… inch… closer!  to that maple leaf frisking in the middle of the road, he doesn’t get pinched.  It’s kind of like dog collar Aikido: the amount of energy the dog puts into pulling against the lead is the amount of discomfort the dog endures.  Tierce, being a sensible creature, does not endure a lot of discomfort gladly.  So he walks nicely.

I take into account MY feelings and tolerances and I’ve found that I’m a lot more patient with Tierce when I have something I know will get his attention and control him.  There’s few things more frustrating for me than a dog who just doesn’t give a shit because he knows he can handle the amount of discomfort he gets from jerking against his buckle collar.  Now that I’ve taken that away from him, he’s willing to listen to me and I can get my point across without reefing on whatever collar he’s wearing and constant warnings.

Now I’m sure that someone will bring up the head halters/choke chains/special harnesses that I could use.  Well, I’ve tried a lot of them.  Head halters would have me jerking Tierce’s head up on an angle to correct him and I just… no.  Choke chains choke.  They put pressure on the trachea, even when used properly.  Harnesses just reinforce Tierce’s image of himself as a sled dog in the Yukon Quest.

Prong collars work for me and I won’t apologize for using them.

However, there are people who have found that these collars don’t work for them (read this if only for an awesome overview of Cesar Millan’s training techniques and how Mei Chuah of the Shiba Shake blog found they worked on her dogs Sephy and Shania).  Not all dogs are created equal.  What works for Tierce, who thrives on serious Schutzhund training techniques, does NOT necessarily work on another dog or even on another Shiba.  There are some Shibas, especially some abused/neglected Shibas, who will respond to this training tool with shrieks and panic.

You can’t depend on anything to miraculously “fix” your dog’s behaviour issues.  Prong collars are a tool; they are not a cure-all for a dog’s bad habits.  So it’s up to you to determine whether the prong collar is a good fit for your dog.  It is entirely possible that after shopping, fitting and buying, a prong collar will end up not being the most effective tool for your dog.  So what you do is put the prong away and find a tool/technique that the dog does respond to.

As for the Secret Power collar above, I’ve got nothing against it, mainly because the collars are pretty and anything that makes my dog look more aesthetically pleasing is good in my book.  And, hey, if it makes people feel better about using prong collars and therefore having better control over their dog, then fine.  I’m just not ashamed of using one and letting people know that I use it.  For me and for Tierce, it works.

… in the Dogs in Canada 2011 Nikon Photo Contest

Entries close on June 15, 2011.

Check this out:  Lifehacker features one of the many uses of webcams: to catch a deadbeat dogwalker.

I am eternally grateful that my ex-boyfriend was available throughout Tierce’s growing years.  He made it possible for us to housebreak Tierce and not leave him too long during the day.  Now that he’s back from his sojourn in Ontario, Wolfie sporadically takes on walking Tierce and caring for him when we’re not there.  I trust him implicitly, but as you can see from the link, not everyone is that lucky.

If someone did that to me, I would probably plaster their name all over the Internet, warning about their neglect (abuse is more like it) of their charges.  What’s she going to say?  “I’m suing for defamation of character because someone caught me not performing the tasks I am being paid for!”  She’s probably doing this to a bunch of dogs. One of my fantasies involving this chick involves a crate, a lock and a 10 hour timer and see how she likes not being able to just go to the bathroom when she needs to.

What pisses me off more than just not walking the dog is that this walker left the dog in the crate when she knew that the dog was likely to be there for 9-10 hours or however long the owners were at work for.  That’s just not okay. She could even have taken the dog out for a quick pee and returned it to the crate in less time than it took for her to rifle through her employers’ belongings.

Now, Tierce can go for 12 hours without having to pee (he sleeps on our bed and we sleep in on the weekends we’re not gallivanting around the Island – he has stayed in bed at least that long several times without asking to go out), but when we’re not home and he has no way of getting outside, that’s putting an inordinate amount of stress on him and I would not do that to him if there is any other way.  Paying Wolfie 10 bucks a walk is more than worth it to me and at least I know it’s getting done.

This is one of my many Shiba-themed Cafepress shops.

Sales from these T-shirts and others like them go to the maintenance of the website and keeping Tierce in expensive dog food.  Because I won’t sport with your intelligence, I am NOT claiming that if you don’t buy a shirt that Tierce will die of some mysterious malady or starve to death in the hedgerows.  But it occurred to me that perhaps not everyone had seen these shirts, so I’m making sure that you do.

This post is full of subliminal messages that are going to make you buy a shirt.  Just kidding.

All benches should have planks too close for a little paw or leg to slide through.

Hurrah!  Remember this post?  I sent a letter to the Parks and Rec Department of Nanaimo about it.  (Richard Harding is the director of Parks, Recreation and Culture and my new best friend)

Dear Mr. Harding,

My name is Julie MacTire and I got your email address from the City of Nanaimo website.  I am writing to you about an incident that happened last Sunday (January 31) at the Nanaimo dog park.  My small dog jumped up on one of the park benches that happened to have widely spaced planks and his right hind leg slipped through when he tried to jump down and got caught.  This has caused a severe muscle strain, perhaps some tearing in the affected leg that is taking him some time to get over.

As a result, I’ve become concerned about those benches that have widely spaced planks.  While we discourage our dogs from jumping up on these seats, it happens sometimes before the owner can warn the dog away.  Also, there are a number of parents with small children who keep their children on the seats to avoid an accidental collision with rambunctious dogs and I fear they could be at risk of an accident as well.

I am wondering if you can give me any information as to what I should do to put forth a petition to the City to have the benches replaced or covered by material that prevents small legs from getting stuck.  I would also be interested in taking an active role in fundraising for the modification to the dog park benches if that is a feasible option.

Sincerely,

Julie MacTire

I got this reply early this morning:

Thank you Julie for your email and sorry to hear about your dog.

I have copied your email to Jeff Ritchie who is Senior Manager of Parks who will get in touch with you.

I am sure we can work something out to modify the benches.

Thanks Julie.

Richard

Then, just now, I recieved this from Mr. Ritchie, another new best friend:

Julie, thanks for pointing this out to us. I hope your pooch is recovering. We will replace the boards on these benches with wider planks so as to prevent this happening again. Thanks for your e-mail.

Wow!  I was expecting… I don’t know, a long time between emails… an argument… certainly not a prompt response that promised immediate attention.  I don’t want to carol the City of Nanaimo’s praises too loudly until the benches are actually fixed, but if their maintenance department is anything like their standard for communication, I think this issue will be resolved very quickly.

I wrote back to each gentleman, thanking them for their timely response to my email and attention to the matter.

So far, this is a great example of the things that can be done if you bring the attention of the powers-that-be to issues in your local dog park with a polite letter.