fleas and thank you.

all is well in doggy behavior land. sinka went for an entire month without having an accident inside. she had one slip last week, but has been back on track since then. osman gave the girls some new (and altogether too exciting) stuffed animal squeaking chew toys. the dogs both went crazy over the toys (comically shaped like vegetables), but sinka just got absolutely out of control. even though she had two out of the three toys, she was not happy without taking the last one away from lady. sinka hoarded all three of their new toys and growled at lady whenever she came within a few feet of them. suffice it to say, osman and i were not putting up with that shit. he ended up yelling at sinka and taking all of the toys away entirely. by the end of the incident, sinka had peed inside. i’m still not sure if it was out of spite because we took the toys away, or if it was because she was scared when osman yelled. either way, it was the first and only time she’s peed inside in more than a month. i’m so proud of her!

me, futon napping; sinka, my butt warmer:

lady being adorable in her bed:

so now on to today’s real topic…fleas. first of all, let me say, ew. second, i would like to point out that until sinka, i have never had a dog with fleas. dexter (my family’s huge, lovable, 12-year-old golden retriever) has had nary a flea in his long, flowing locks. lady had also never had fleas until sinka moved in with us. sadly, however, fleas love sinka. i noticed the first flea a little over a month ago. as osman can attest, i was completely horrified. at first, i only found one or two on her a day. then i started finding four or five on her at a time. when i found a few on lady, osman and i decided to wash everything we own (including the dogs) and amp up their flea meds. after bathing them with anti-flea dog shampoo and washing both of their beds, the flea problem was seemingly solved. but it’s been about three weeks since then, and the fleas are back. both dogs get a monthly dose of frontline, but i think we need to start giving it to them every three weeks. we also bought sinka a flea collar a couple days ago, because osman couldn’t stand me obsessively picking fleas off sinka anymore. yes, it’s disgusting, but i would rather pick them off her and wash them down the drain than let them infest. i have nightmares about fleas taking over our apartment. ew! maybe this will be less of a problem in the winter?

sisterly cuddle love:

i gotta get in on that action.

happiness is a wet nose.

sorry for the lack of posts as of late…it’s been a busy few weeks. the good news is that little miss sinka has really turned a corner. she hasn’t had an accident inside in two weeks! she has also mellowed out noticeably. sinka finally seems completely comfortable in our apartment. she used to be too antsy and energetic to sit still and she would constantly be sniffing and exploring everything around her. now, though, she is quite content to lie around on the couch and cuddle with lady, osman, and me. this does not mean that sink has stopped bugging lady to play all the time. lady will be calmly relaxing on the floor, and sinka will pounce on her out of nowhere and start corncobbing her or biting her legs out from underneath of her. photographic evidence of this below.

interestingly enough, lady has picked up several new things from sinka. sinka’s taught her how to jump. now they both jump whenever anyone walks in the door. lady has also picked up some of sinka’s boldness…in fact, lady has become the instigator for their playfights. i’m actually glad that lady has stepped up a little bit in that sense. lady has definitely come out of her shell more with sinka around. when sinka plays, she acts confident and often makes the first move. lady has really picked that up from sinka; she is much more brazen now than she used to be. i’m proud…they’re both tough pups.

i think that picture is so funny with little sink licking her chops.

one of the major training tools we’ve used to help sinka turn this behavioral corner is the spray bottle (thank you, chris, for the suggestion). we picked up a couple plastic spray bottles at target, filled them with water, and use them to squirt sinka whenever she is misbehaving (e.g., when she begs for food, when she and lady play too roughly). it has worked remarkably, and i highly recommend it. we have only had to spray sinka a handful of times for her to get the message. now, even just picking up the spray bottle is enough to get her to back off or calm down. she does not like the idea of getting sprayed with it at all (even though it’s just a harmless squirt of water…) and she’ll stop whatever she’s doing almost immediately to avoid it. she definitely knows that the spray bottle means business. but, like i said, she’s been doing so well that we’ve barely had to use it. our little stink is growing up!

osman’s newest nicknames for the girls…twinkles and stinkles. i’m sure you can guess who’s who. best new nicknames in a while.

^that is lady’s favorite new way to sleep…her whole body in her bed, but her head and neck hanging out on the floor. it’s amusing.

it’s a good afternoon for the dog park. off we go.

back and bonded.

so osman and i have returned from a week-long trip to visit my sister, niece, and brother-in-law in california. while we were gone, the puppies spent a few days with my family and then a few days at a kennel in greensboro called Camp Bow-Wow (look out for an upcoming guest post by my mom about her time with the dogs). i missed them so much, but knowing they had each other was very comforting.

osman and me having a lovely time at venice beach:

after a grueling day of travel and traffic, we made it back to carrboro with the dogs in tow. much to my surprise, i really think that the week away from us was good for the dogs. lady finally seems to fully accept sinka! they got along well from the start, but getting used to having sinka around permanently has definitely been a transition for lady. the good news is that i think the transition period is coming to an end–the girls seem to have really bonded with each other while we were away. they act fully comfortable, playful, and loving with one another. they are adorable puppy sisters!

i was also worried that we would have a lot of ground to make up training-wise after a week away from them (my family is much more lax with the dogs than osman and i). however, this was totally not the case. both dogs seem to have really gotten into the pack mentality. this is most noticeable when i take the girls for a walk by myself. when i do this, i use the (amazing) double leash. osman doesn’t like to use it when he’s just taking them out to pee, but for our daily long walks, it’s been an excellent thing to have. it’s essentially a four foot nylon leash with two short extensions attached by a rotating swivel doohickey. see below:

(note sinka peeing)

the double leash is great for several reasons:

1. it lets me control both dogs with one hand.
2. since the dogs are connected to each other as well as to me, it strongly emphasizes the pack mentality.
3. because the dogs are connected, lady helps pull sinka along when she’s dragging, so i’m not doing all the work by myself.
4. as the above pictures demonstrate, the dogs have plenty of space to do their own thing when they need to. the leash allows an adjustable 4-8 feet between them.
5. as the below pictures demonstrate, the double leash is also great for keeping the dogs close while walking (which is really important when we’re crossing a busy street or walking somewhere crowded).

they are doing so well! they have both learned that they need to walk beside me and osman rather than in front of us. whenever either of the dogs (but usually sinka) pulls to get in front or pulls in the direction of a squirrel, we correct her briefly, but sternly. the most important part of this is to give the dog some sort of warning before she has misbehaved or pulled. the earlier you let them know that chasing after a bird or running across the street to sniff another dog is not an option, the more easily they will let the inclination go entirely. keeping them in line during walks translates to how they behave in the house. because lady and sinka understand that they are the beta to our alpha, they are much more willing to listen to us, obey commands, and behave well in general. we just have to do our part by making it clear that we are the pack leaders and they are not. so far so good.

lades has even started sharing her cool spot on the tile with sink. cuties.

sinka or swimma?

(thanks to my mom for the pun)

last weekend we took sinka with us to the lake for the very first time. she had a blast and acted totally differently around the water than lady.

lady is very tentative about swimming in the lake. the one time she has gotten in the water, osman and i literally had to toss her in. she’s really had no interest in swimming since that (traumatizing?) incident.

but sinka is a totally different story. within five minutes of sniffing around the dock, she hopped right in the water. i don’t think she knew exactly what she was getting herself into, but her instincts took over and she swam like a champ. we (regretfully) didn’t have the camera with us, but next time we will definitely take pictures down at the lake.

we did, however, have the camera with us when we gave sinka her first bath. it was very exciting…

pre-bath:

during:

me soaping her up:

post-bath:

she was definitely scared during the bath, but she stayed impressively calm. after osman dried her off, we rewarded her with a bone (and gave one to lady, too). she smelled so nice (and oatmeal-y!) after her bath, and her coat was even softer than before. i was much happier about having her on the bed once she was clean.

the girls with their bones:

they both really love their bones. lady can get through a big one in less than forty-five minutes. sinka is much slower with hers. normally she’ll get about two thirds of the way through, then try to hide/bury it for later. when she starts trying to dig through the futon to hide her half-eaten bone, we try to just take it from her and put it away for later.

the girls, tired after a long weekend at the lake:

could they be cuter? no.

scary incidents always lead to new harnesses.

i am a huge proponent of the dog harness, especially because both of our dogs are able to slip their heads out of normal collars. also, when your dog walks frequently on a leash (as ours do), normal collars can pull against and even collapse the dog’s trachea. no, thank you. harnesses are much more gentle on your dog and more effective. the pressure is distributed along the chest and shoulders instead of the windpipe. last winter before the harness revelation had dawned on me, lady and i had a scary incident. she was wearing a normal collar and we were out for a walk. we ran into another man out walking with his two dogs, and the dogs were immediately aggressive towards lades, barking, lunging, and snarling at her. lady panicked and literally backed out of her collar and into the very busy street behind her. luckily (after i nearly panicked myself) i was able to coax lady out of the street and back onto the sidewalk and into her collar. after that scary incident, i went straight to petsmart and bought her a harness. she has never gotten out of it, and i honestly think it’s more comfortable for her than the collar was.

we had another scary incident recently, which led to getting lady another new harness. the girls were rough housing, and sinka somehow got her jaw caught in lady’s harness. it was terrifying. the strap wrapped around her jaw, and the harder she tried to pull herself out of it, the tighter it got around her. she started yelping loudly, and osman (saving the day as always with his skills and wit) grabbed a pair of scissors and cut sinka out of it. lady was unbelievable calm and patient during the entire incident (which in reality only lasted about thirty seconds), sitting perfectly still while sinka was literally attached to her, yelping and writhing, and while osman cut off her harness. the whole thing scared me so badly i instantly burst into tears, but calmed down once we checked thoroughly and made sure that sinka was not hurt at all. she just got trapped and panicked. since then we have made sure that the girls leave each other’s harnesses alone when they’re playing. also, the new harness we bought lady is a different style, one with less straps. after finally finding what we were looking for on this site: www.puplife.com , i decided that sinka needed one of these, too.

check out lady’s harness and sinka’s harness. so cute!

i would definitely recommend the site we ordered these from. neither petco nor petsmart had what we needed in the store or online, but puplife did. they also shipped incredibly fast (four hours after i placed my order, to be exact), and since every strap is adjustable, they fit both lady and sinka perfectly. look how cute they are:

^going out to pee!

^lades, looking like she knows what’s up.

^sinka’s patented roll/writhe.

and after the dog park, they sleep.

today the dogs and i made a fun new discovery! the homestead dog park!

normally, we go to anderson dog park, which is ridiculously close to our house. in total there are three dog parks in the carrboro/chapel hill area: anderson dog park, homestead dog park, and the southern village dog park. up until today we had only ever gone to anderson dog park. it’s close. it’s huge. it has benches and poop bags. it’s relatively clean. the people and dogs are almost always friendly.

but today i decided it was time to ditch anderson and move forward with our conquest of visiting all of the chapel hill dog parks. and it was a huge success! homestead park was lovely. significantly smaller than anderson, but i actually enjoyed that. there were lots of benches and chairs and lots of shade. there were trees in and around the park. when we arrived around lunchtime, the park was totally empty, so i did some reading in the shade for about an hour while lady and sinka explored, sniffed, peed, ran, and generally entertained each other. then a chocolate lab puppy (who was already 70 pounds and still growing) and a little black mutt came in with their respective owners. sinka and lady had a ball running around and playing with them. (i took a video of it, but for some reason i can’t get it to load correctly on my computer. so i will upload it whenever i can get osman to fix that for me. love those computer smarts.) i also made a friend at the dog park. it’s so fun talking to other people who like hanging out with their dogs as much as i do. after the other dogs came, we stayed for another whole hour. this ended up being good for everyone…i got some reading done and some time in the sun, and the girls got all of their energy out. they’ve been tuckered out and calm since we got home.

i think we’ll be venturing to the southern village dog park soon. (look out for a whole upcoming post about how weird chapel hill people are about southern village…)

ARRGGG he says! (…he being me, me being Osman)

No, I am  not a pirate, I quit that life a long time ago. Sinka, however, makes me “arrgggg” so very often. Then Sarah Rose sends me a picture like this and I can’t wait to get home and see the pups and her…