You see that blue thing he is so comfortably sleeping on…Yes, that thing, you can’t miss it…it’s obstructing his face. You see? Okay. That blue thing is what we put treats in for Spot. So, his way of letting us know that he wants a treat is throwing this blue thing in our laps ALL DAY. I am pretty sure at this point he had been ignored by his humans and this is the…”maybe I’ll just (yawn, chew, chew) lay here and close my eyes for a second and get after them again in a just aaa…(yawn) few minutes or so.”

Poor poor Spot. He seems to always get something…this time an eye infection. As you may or may not know, Spot will only chase a yellow tennis ball. However, at the beach, it would be great if he would chase a water toy because the sand sticks to the ball. Besides the fact that the sand on his ball frustrates him beyond beyond beyond…even bugs, he swallows tons of sand which leads to emergency bathroom visits. 

But, no, he inisists on the tennis ball and spends a large amount of the time working hard on getting that sand OFF his precious ball (see freak-ish pic above). I never see him dig, but at the beach he thinks if he digs out the sand that is around his tennis ball it will come off. This results in him kicking sand in every direction, sending pee infested dog beach sand in our chairs, clothes, eyes, and mouths. It’s lovely. 

Anywho, the kicking sand everywhere and swimming in the ocean resulted of course, as almost any special outing does, to the vet for…this time an eye infection. For being a good boy, the vet gave him a Charlie Brown bandana for Memorial Weekend.  He does like him some clothes.

Umm, I don’t know what to say. A statue and two dogs.

I mentioned that Spot ran into a rattlesnake in the post Rattled.  We were impressed on his ability to actually absorb rattlesnake training and avoid the snake perfectly, so the great thing is that his memory is great. The bad thing is that his memory is great. 

Shall I go on? 

I always tuck him in like this. This is mid-day nap time at home. He is wondering why I must take pictures while he is trying to get some shut eye. You did your job of tucking me into bed now go please.  

The morning after the hike we take Spot to go potty. Why wouldn’t we? He must relieve himself which involves a grassy well sniffed out place to take care of business. We get to his regular pee zone area. Spot stops, stares at the ground and ‘avoids’ the pee zone. Are you kidding me? 

It was a full week of Spot ‘avoiding’ everything. Which makes me think why didn’t we do ‘poop avoidance training’ while he was a puppy when he thought breakfast was ‘dropped off’ every morning out on our front yard.

It was very sad at first because poor Spot would be trembling while peeing, and while leaving breakfast for others (just kidding, I pick up), he walks and leaves a long trail of bread-crumbs for us to dutifully pick up. Trembling, he would do the poo in record speed while maintaining this walking technique. If he couldn’t walk, I don’t think he could do it.

Every branch, rock, mud spot, leaf, puddle was now…a rattlesnake. 

The poor little guy. 

And at the park, the great joy in his life, the dog that will fetch the yellow ball for as long as you want him to because if he doesn’t the world will come to an end…didn’t fetch. His world had ended.  

What were we going to do? Without the ball, how do we wear him out? That’s when we realized WE need the yellow ball just as much as Spot. 

So…we walked the park instead of chasing the ball. He stuck to my side, avoiding all those very scary things such as grass! Every time we got close to the car he sat by the gate to go home. That was a first. 

I thought, what would the dog whisper do? He would try to distract the dog with positive encouragement and not coddle him. Tough love. So that is what we did. We continued with our routine as usual and didn’t coddle him. 

It took about a week and a half for him to get over it all. We are so glad he did, because sometimes he holds on to things forever! Apparently, he forgets some things after a week. Do you think Jack’s memory works the same way? Maybe I should go buy those shoes on Melrose and just tough out the week. 

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Well, it happened. We prepped for the day. We knew it would come eventually. Spot encountered a rattlesnake on our hike tonight and came away unharmed. Yes, I cried. Jack was calm…way too calm for my liking. And Spot. Spot was perfection. I’ll explain later. First…

As I said, he was prepped for this moment. We moved to California and discovered after months of hiking and camping without a care in the world, a lot of rattlesnakes live here. Okay, al-righty then. 

I looked into rattlesnake vaccinations, but geez! They are so risky. Veterinarians and testimonials basically said “enter at your own risk.” They can have various side effects, skin tissue damage, etc. No thanks. 

The next option was rattlesnake training. Yes, there is such a thing, and after weighing the options, this option seemed better to me than the other of “popping a pill to fix all problems” kind of way. Why not train my dog’s mind and educate him. Made sense to us. 

So, we signed up for rattlesnake training with Patrick Callaghan. It was almost impossible to find anyone else because everyone recommended him. I tried my very best to find others to get other opinions but everyone insisted on this guy…so fine! I booked it. 

We drive a couple hours south of Los Angeles to attend our rattlesnake training. Apparently, others had the same concern because there were so many people there. There is a corral. A tent. And a chain gang of dogs lined up waiting their turn. 

Luckily, the chain gang was completely full of dogs. Oh darn. I had a whole story already planned out why my dog had to stick with me…”he is really sensitive and has separation anxiety…” 

Then they bring over the shock collar. They let us feel the shock collar. It wasn’t bad at all. I know it sounds harsh, but we are trying to save his life here. That is what I kept telling myself anyway “we are trying to save his life.” 

While waiting we have heard dog’s barking and saw an Elk Hound who just bit through one of the rattlesnakes while training. Not the most comforting setting. Were we doing the right thing? 

It turned out to be the most incredible experience. 

They use real rattlesnakes. They de-fang and muzzle them. It made us feel horrible for the poor rattlesnake that was unable to defend itself from the Elk Hound. It apparently happens every once in great while. 

So, they take Spot off in one direction and we are led to go another under the tent like all the other parents who went before us. We watched Spot enter ever so happily into the corral like this was the best day of his doggy life. Just so happy with not a care in the world and then “oh, what is that smell….hmmm….have never smelled this before…what is this?…” ZAP! They were teaching him to smell the snake and avoid it. At least that is what they were telling me to calm me down because I must have had a look of shock on my face. They tried to bring Spot back to the snake and he avoided it perfectly so he passed the first test!

There were two other ‘obstacles’ to go! The next taught him to hear the snake’s rattle and to avoid the snake, which Spot did perfectly. The last one was to see, smell, hear and avoid the rattlesnake and he passed with flying colors! 

Proud Mom here, other dogs were not passing so quickly. Spot was done in 10 minutes with only one zap! 

Now, does the training work? 6 months after the training, we found out today. 

If you have been reading my blog, you would know that Spot will never give up his yellow tennis ball. It is the most important mission he has and he executes it with pride. He carries it on the entire hike no matter how disgusting it is or how much it is suffocating him because he can’t breath as well while holding it, he will not let go of that ball.

So…we are walking along and look up to see Spot’s ball sitting right next to a rattlesnake and hear the snake rattling…and Spot? He was ‘avoiding’ the snake. Ears back, trotting fast, without looking back, moving far away from the rattlesnake. 

He was perfect! And yes, he did learn. Rattlesnake training works.

Spot, the ball obsessed labrador retriever, saw the snake and his jaw must have dropped open because he gave the snake the ball and left with no regrets of letting it go. Spot could not get out of the park fast enough and every single stick, hole or anything that resembled a snake was avoided the entire way back. What a good boy! 

Well, he is no chuck. This is me… “tapping on Spot’s fish tank” as Jack would put it. I tend to pick and poke and bug each of them, so when I pick and poke and bug, I am therefore tapping on the fish tank irritating and scarring the shit out of the them, the fish. This act of “tapping” goes only one way in our house. I do the “tapping” and no one else. They scurry and hide in the treasure chest…unless I catch them and put them in a “stay” so I can take a picture:) It works on Jack too.

Spot is a “gentleman” of course! Duh! What else would he be? He just is…except when it comes to sharing his infested yellow tennis balls…bones…and treats…and…well, anyway, he really captures the essence here. Little man, yes he is!

Sorry for the red lipstick…if you don’t know what I am talking about…it is for the best. 

Above is Spot in heaven…the park with his yellow ball.

So, last night we are sitting around watching Bill Clinton give his speech at the Democratic Convention. Spot has found a new friend and that would be Bill. During Clinton’s speech, he says “…Knock it out of the park!” Well, Spot was laying on the floor bored and appeared to be sleeping, but then he heard his favorite word “Park” come from Bill. Spot perked up and stared at the TV with his eyes round with excitement, “I don’t care who this guy is, what affiliation cause I like where he is going with this.”

It’s amazing. All day long the dogs lay around sleeping, but they have their listening ears on just in case they hear a word that they know and love. Not every word Spot knows brings on this excitement.

Any time we give Spot a pill or have to clip his nails, anything with a fuss, we lay down a towel and say “medicine.” This way he knows when he is going to be bugged versus be pet. We had a big problem with this because Spot has a memory like an elephant, he remembers for days if you have clipped, poked or brushed him, he will not forgive you. Therefore, he would get very upset if you came near him. So, we decided to give it a word (medicine) and a visual (towel) to let him know. Whenever you do anything serious with Spot, he looks the other way like – “This isn’t really happening if I don’t look at it. Nope, you are not clipping my nails right now. Doot, da, doo…FYI, you are going to pay for this.”

Remember how it was growing up with dogs? Man, times have changed because this is not what I remember. The big dogs were not allowed inside. Going on a trip in the 1960′s & 1970′s? -Throw some newspaper on the floor, open a window, a heaping bowl of food, a large bowl of water and the dogs are just fine. Could you imagine doing that now? Or maybe this was a Minnesota thing and I sound crazy right now. I wouldn’t be surprised. Crazy Minnesotans and their hot dishes.

Anyway, Spot asked me to send a shout out to Bill Clinton to let him know he will be right here waiting to go at any time to that park…oh, and make sure to bring the ‘Chuck It,’ I tend to slobber.

Who’s dog sits this way? Mine. That’s who’s. What is his inner monologue here? I think he’s saying “What’s up? I am just chillin’…ummmmmm when is someone going to give me a treat?”

He sits like this all of the time. In my motherly pessimism I think “Great! He has hip problems. Spot has hip problems! Isn’t that fantastic!” But the Vet assures me he doesn’t.

I thought I would leave the cat’s eyes like that because if you stare deeply into her eyes you see the true meaning behind the cat’s existence -’To kill the dog and these people who don’t let her sleep on their bed.’  She always seems to get herself in pictures. We took pictures of our house to sell it. Later when we were looking on the MLS listing, we notice this little gray kitty in the pictures. Hiding behind corners or under chairs.

There is Jack in his pj’s playing ‘Guitar Hero.’ We love ‘Guitar Hero’ so we had to get a PS2…just for ‘Guitar Hero’ mind you. No other games. No other purpose. Later our DVD player broke, so now the PS2 is serving as our DVD player, which is cool because we never play Guitar Hero anymore.

Anyway, I am looking at this picture of Jack, Spot and the Cat and think – “Wow, this…this is my family…”

This cracked us up. I got an iPhone yesterday and I am having fun finding Apps. I installed a horoscope App, which is always a hoot. Mine was pretty good talking about work. I read it after work but it summed up my day. I had to sit back and wait it out while two other people in a project argued. My horoscope’s instructions were to “Wait before acting.” That was a good plan, glad I channeled my horoscope in early in the morning. Jack’s on the other hand was something about take control of your hectic day, but his day was pretty lazy…hit the pool early. Or is that somehow “taking control of a hectic day?” Good question isn’t it? Yeah, maybe he’s the smart one.

But then we looked up Spots. His Birthday being November 15th, he is a Scorpio. This horoscope is just too perfect. See below.

“Your desires may exceed your ability to fulfill them today and that leads to frustration. It’s a good time to relax and use other techniques to achieve contentment.”