Have you ever gone to a pet store and seen the chew toys that are shaped like feet or shoes? I always think, “Why would you want a toy that teaches your dog that these are good things to chew on?” I imagine people buying the shoe ones and then being shocked when Rover decided to chew on real shoes. Well, duh.
I thought of that watching this video:
And then there’s this one, where the dog chews up a rubber iPhone case. Hope this person always remembers to put the phone in a drawer!
It seems kind of obvious, doesn’t it? Don’t reward a dog for doing something you don’t want him to do. He doesn’t know the difference between pretending for the camera and chewing up the iPhone when you leave it on the coffee table. Duh!
Here’s a growing peeve of mine, related to this: Teddy is super social and loves meeting people, and so he jumps up at them. I keep him on a short leash when he meets someone, tell him “no!” when he does that, and I ask people to ignore him until he settles down. (Jump up, nobody loves you, sit nicely, get attention and love – pretty simple.) It just amazes me, though, that when you’re somewhere like a vet waiting room people will basically reward him for jumping – and give me a dirty look when I ask them not to do that. It’s annoying. When he was tiny it was cute, but he’s already getting big enough that it shifts from “cute” to “annoying” (and for some people, “scary”).
On the other hand, he hasn’t completely lost the puppy habit of peeing when he meets someone – just out of excitement. It doesn’t always happen, but in those situations (there was one at the vet this weekend) I can hope he gives them a special wet reward!
Closely related: people who make no attempt to control their dogs in crowded situations. Especially at the vet – who knows what the other dogs have? Teddy was in there with an intestinal parasite a week ago, do you really want your dog trying to lick his butt?
I was definitely not a dog person for a long time – not quite anti dog, but close at times. Part of it was a really bad childhood experience – when I was about four, my sister and I were in the yard with our cat, and a big dog came running into the yard, went right for the cat, and snapped her neck in front of us. No surprise that I never took to dogs for a long time after that.
Later I realized that it was dog owners – like that dog’s owner, letting him go out and roam and kill our cat. And the assorted dog owners who think it’s cute when their dog jumps on you (they know he’s nice, why don’t you know that?), who don’t pick up the poo when they’re walking them (a big issue in DC, but I have found some loads on my front walk here too), and so on.
But, as time went on, I had a few friends in DC with really good dogs, and thought, “Well, okay, they can be nice.” And then of course along came MWK’s pups, who completely won me over. If I hadn’t gotten to know them Teddy wouldn’t be sitting here by my chair now.
But if anything, having Teddy makes me even less patient with bad dog owners. Yeah, it’s a lot of work. But it’s also not that complicated. The worst is when I see dogs with collars wandering the street – something way too common here in Houston. I’ve actually never seen so many dogs on the loose anywhere I’ve lived. Don’t these people care about their dogs? Do they want them to get lost of get hit by cars? It’s infuriating.
