Best. Christmas. Present. Ever. I was so excited I fairly danced up to the waiting room to see her before it was even her turn.
She was there for abrasions to her gums that her person had not correlated to the fact that she likes to pick up and gnaw on branches and sticks during walks. No more sticks, pretty girl. I think I'll go buy her a Kong stick for a Christmas present. She can have that during her walks.
<3 <3 <3 <3
I love this dog. I really really do. Even after two years, and in entirely different settings, she knows who I am.
I saw these toys in the display bin at a local pet supply store. They reminded me of Multipet Wooly Bully toys, which I really liked.
Cats and dogs are just attracted to the natural wool fibers (I gave most of the Wooly Bullies I've purchased in the past to my ferrets), and the best part about 100% wool toys is that when they start to look ragged, you can toss them in the washer on hot, and they go back to looking like new. Viola!
I actually got this toy for the cats, although in the store they look as though they are marketed more towards dogs.
I got a Woolzee ball, in a medium size. Medium is small enough that the cats can still easily play with it, but too big for Kitsune to swallow. Perfect.
When I first brought it home, both cats followed me into the kitchen where I pulled the Woolzee out of the bag and put it on the floor. Simon walked away, Mojo looked vaguely interested until I rolled it in his direction. It touched his paw, he levitated about a foot off of the floor, gave the Woolzee a horrified look, and left. So much for that. Spaz.
The Woolzee was ignored for a few more hours until Kitsune discovered it. Kitsune really liked it. Kitsune really really liked it.
A little while later, I looked at him and he had chewed a little hole in the Woolzee and was pulling wool out of the center. Apparently the Woolzee, from what I can tell, is a knitted ball or pouch stuffed with more wool and boiled to make it felt. So most of the wool in the center is just sort of loose in there like stuffing, which makes it great fun to pull out once a small hole has been gnawed in the felted outer layer.
Please pardon the horrible phone pics:
A sad little Woolzee ball, devoid of some stuffing.
Kitsune is rightfully very worried that I will take away his Woolzee, which I did.
I had to retire the Woolzee, much to his dismay. Although wool is a natural fiber, I still don't want him ingesting it.
Pros: It was only 3.99. That's not so much money that I'm really irritated that the toy only lasted 20 minutes. In fact, it is cheap enough and he enjoyed it so much I will probably go and get another one, perhaps a big larger, and try to supervise him more closely with it.
Cons: They really aren't made to withstand a lot of abuse. The Woolzee lasted 20 minutes, but 18 of those minutes were Kitsune actually playing with it by tossing it and swatting it. Once he decided to chew it I think it lasted about 2 minutes.
Bottom Line: I'm sure they are wonderful for dogs who don't give their toys any tough love, but for those who do they probably aren't worth the time or money. The dogs really do truly enjoy them, but unless you're willing to watch your even slightly destructive doggie like a hawk, the toys might not be worth the risk of ingesting a mass of wool.
One dog has been suffering with on-going vomiting and diarrhea issues for a month now. A month.
She calls to schedule bloodwork and I ask her how the dog is doing and she cheerfully says, "Oh he stopped vomiting." The chart didn't say what bloodwork the doctor wanted to run, so I took her number to call her back when the doctor got back from her lunch break.
Doctor got back from her lunch break and had a few questions she wanted me to ask, including, "When did he stop vomiting." I call the number the owner gave me, and a man answers the phone. So I ask him when the last time his dog vomited was. "Oh, last night."
Okay.
So we schedule the bloodwork for first thing Friday morning.
An hour later, the lady is calling back, crying, begging me to schedule her dog for the bloodwork today because "he'll die before Friday."
What?! Seriously?
Now the story becomes that he won't stand up. Not good. "How long has this been going on?" I ask her. "Um. Maybe.. two days?"
Two days. Your dog has been seriously unstable to the point of not being able to stand for two days and you failed to mention that when I asked how he was the first phone call? Wtf.
Really. Just wtf.
The only thing I could do was tell her to take the dog ASAP to emergency services and hope for the best, but I have a feeling that when I get back to work after the holiday there will be a fax from one of the local emergency hospitals letting us know that our patient has been euthanized.
Putting much beloved and well cared for animals down is not, in my opinion, as hard as dealing with the frustration, anger and guilt of not being able to save these animals who are owned by people who just don't seem to care, or who decide to care too late.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Ten years ago today, I was at Ground Zero with my sainted Labrador, doing SAR work. We had been planning on leaving that day to go camping in Maine, an annual fall tradition. Our plans got delayed a bit when the pager went off.
I will never forget:
The surreal feeling of being the only car on the deserted New Jersey Turnpike.
The acerbic, toxic stench of Ground Zero.
The flags and banners draped at every overpass we drove under from Chesapeake City MD to Acadia Park, Maine.
The people across the Eastern Seaboard, at every rest stop we stopped at to let him stretch his legs, who saw his SAR vest or harness and wanted to thank us, speak to him, give him something, anything.
I think I've mentioned Kitsune's distaste for the Gentle Leader head halter before. "Distaste" is a mild word, actually. He loathes it. I've never seen a dog freak out the way Kitsune freaks out with a head collar on. He simply refuses to reconcile with it, and if you happen to leave it in a spot where he can see it, he will try to steal it and then chew it into little bits. It is worth mentioning at this point that Kitsune is not a destructive dog. He never chews anything but his own toys, and even those toys that are meant to be chewed last him a long time. He has never chewed up any of his leashes or neck collars, so the fact that he destroys Gentle Leaders is significant in illustrating just how much he detests the things. The Gentle Leader head collar we currently own is number 3. I kept buying them because they do work when a dog will consent to wear them, and I labored under the mistaken belief that given enough time with one, he would eventually relent. Silly, silly human.
About a month ago while I was at work, I was taking a harness off of a dog and noticed it was a Gentle Leader brand. Well. News to me. Turns out, Gentle Leader is making new "Easy Walk" harnesses with the leash ring squarely in the middle of the chest. Same premise as the head collar, it still thwarts the forward motion of pulling, but easier for some dogs (like Kitsune) to accept.
I immediately went to the pet store I used to work for and looked for them. They didn't have them, but PetSmart down the street from my house did.
I dithered and couldn't make up my mind to buy one until yesterday. Then I finally did it. Today, having nothing better to do, I put it on Kitsune.
We had one initial Shiba Scream as he was trying to bolt down the stairs and realized he couldn't bolt anymore.
After that, he walked calmly with the harness on. He would not, however, poop in it. He looked like he really wanted to poop, but each time I thought for sure he was going to, he changed his mind about it. I'm sure that will come with time.
I left it on him when we got back in the house, so he can get used to the feel of it. Hopefully the next time we head outside, he'll do a number two.
All in all, we are much pleased with the Gentle Leader Easy Walk harness.
This never would have happened in a head collar.
Gentle Leader Easy Walk Harness: Shiba Seal of Approval.
The kitties who live in our hospital full time.
Chloe, the blue kitty, and her two adult kids from her only litter, Casper (the tabby) and Pumpkin (torti).
Casper lounges in the back of the clinic.
Chloe and Pumpkin sit on the doctor's desk and oversee.. stuff.
I love working at a job where animals are just lounging around.
My mind is blown over the fact that after Memphis Animal Control officer Demtria Hogan lost a dog in her charge, they let her continue to handle animals, leading to the death of Charles Mitchum's dog while Hogan drove around for two hours trying to wait out police who were at the shelter to arrest her.
Second (and third and fourth) chances should not be given when innocent lives are at stake.
Why was this woman still working at the shelter after failing to appear for numerous cruelty cases which were thrown out by her failure to go to court?
Why was this woman still working at the shelter with the authority to handle dogs in the field after "losing" one?
Why is she on a paid suspension after her actions directly resulted in the suffering and death of a dog in her care?
1. Pinch/prong collars are a bitch to work with.
Please, please, PLEASE I beg of you, if you take nothing else away from this post, just take the pinch collar off of your dog before you take him/her to the vet. As I type this, I have little spots all over my left arm. These spots are bruises I got from holding a large unruly dog who was wearing a prong collar at the time. In order to have a modicum of control over any dog, and make sure my vet co-workers can't get bitten doing their jobs, I have to control their heads. This involves wrapping one arm around the neck, and the other around the body. Not only do pinch collars pinch ME and leave little bruises from the pressure I sometimes I have to apply in the course of doing my job, my fingers also get caught in them. This also hurts like a bitch. I can only imagine what the dog is feeling. I don't have fingernails, but one of my co-workers does, and one of hers got bent entirely back past the quick the other day dealing with a dog wearing a pinch collar (completely different from the one that left bruises all over my arm).
2. Flexi-Leads may have their time and place. The veterinarian's office is not one of them.
I die a little bit inside every time I have to go out to the waiting room and bring a dog back for a take-to-back booster shot, a suture removal, a weight check, or any other thing and the owner hands me a Flexi-Lead. These things are utterly useless to control a dog with, and if there's one thing you want in a vet's, it's control over the animals in your care. I can't wrap it around my hand, they're clumsy to try and hold on to while doing something else with the other hand, and more than half of the time, they're broken and don't lock, making the most simple thing, like a weight check, a complete circus. The cheapest Flexi-Lead I've ever seen is about 23 dollars. The cheapest sturdy, six-foot nylon web leash I've ever seen was 1.99 in a clearance bin. Get a cheap, sturdy nylon web lead and if you do nothing else with it, leave it in your car for when you go to the vet, and leave the Flexi at home. Your dog's health care team will love you for it.
3.Muzzle your aggressive dog.
If your dog needs to be muzzled for strangers to handle him, and you KNOW your dog needs to be muzzled for strangers to handle him, it will save a lot of time if you buy your own soft muzzle and have your dog muzzled already when someone comes for him. If the only time you need to muzzle your dog is at the veterinarian's, and you don't want to spend the ten bucks to buy something you only use once every 12 months, that's okay. Vets have muzzles. Just make sure you tell someone while you are checking in that your dog will need to be muzzled. Please, do not wait until a member of the veterinary care team is reaching for your dog to let someone know.
4. Respect the scheduling, and the other clients' time.
Do not make an appointment for one animal and then bring the rest of your pets along to be looked at as well, without making separate appointments for each of them. This is REALLY selfish to everyone else who has made appointments, and it makes the doctors super grumpy. Then we have to deal with super grumpy doctors and pissed off clients who have been waiting way longer than they should have for the rest of the day.
5. Be honest about bite wounds.
If your pet has an overdue rabies shot, and a bite wound, don't try to lie to us and tell us it's not a bite wound. Your veterinarian knows what a bite wound looks like. We'll know when we see it. Please don't tell us over the phone that your dog "scratched himself" or "laid down on a nail" or "jumped off of the couch wrong" or any other bogus story. That's really not fair to the people who have to handle your hurting (and therefore unpredictable and volatile), potentially contagious with a fatal disease, pet. We need to know crap like that so we can take precautions for our own safety. We don't want to die of rabies.
6. We don't set the prices.
The owner of the practice and/or the office manager sets the prices (unless you go to a VCA, in which case some corporate main office somewhere sets the prices). If you have a problem with the prices, don't yell at the techs or receptionist. You might as well scream at a brick wall for all the good it's going to do you.
7. Know your local veterinary ERs.
Use them for emergencies, don't bother going to your regular vet first. If your pet is bleeding profusely, having serious respiratory distress, actively seizing or has just been hit by a car, GO TO THE EMERGENCY VETERINARIAN. In a medical emergency, every second counts and you may be wasting very precious time going to your regular veterinary practice if they don't have the equipment or resources to handle emergencies on-site.
8. Use your words.
Be descriptive when calling your veterinarian about a problem with your pet. No information is TMI in a vet's office. Don't withhold information from the vet tech and then pour it all out to the veterinarian when he or she gets in the room. We need to be able to write that stuff in your pet's chart for future reference, and so the vet has a better idea of what's going on before they get in the room with you and can ask intelligent questions. We're not asking for the fun of it.
9. Do your part to prevent disease transmission.
If your pet is coughing, sneezing, vomiting, having diarrhea or otherwise showing signs of a possibly contagious illness, feel free to wait with your pet in the car until the health care team is ready for you. On the other hand, if your pet is fine and just going in for a yearly physical, you probably shouldn't allow your pet to play with or have contact with an unknown dog in the waiting room, because some of them are there because they are showing symptoms of contagious illnesses.
10. Dogs should be on a leash, cats in a carrier when at the veterinarian's.
This should be a no-brainer, but still people will carry a small pet in and then put the pet down to run around in the waiting room where a larger, aggressive pet could possibly come through the door at any second.
This year has been an annus horribilis, in every sense of the phrase.
In April, J's beloved grandfather passed away. A couple of weeks later, in May, his stepsister also left us. On Memorial Day, my father had an aneurysm burst while on a tour in Sedona, Arizona. After being in a coma for four weeks in a Phoenix, AZ ICU, he also passed away.
My dad's death has come right in the middle of our purchasing a house. Unfortunately, my dad had moved to Arizona from Germany only a year ago, after taking a job here. He was a US citizen, he had been living in Germany on a work visa, but he lived there for about six years, and still had bank accounts and a flat there. As well as bank accounts in Australia (where he lived before Germany) and who knows where else.
After flying to Arizona twice, I will now need to fly to Germany to get probate started there, and to clean out his flat and ship everything back here.
Considering everything I need to do with the new house, settling my dad's estate, and regular life things (which have fallen woefully by the wayside even though I am valiantly struggling to keep up with everything), it is unlikely that I will get back to regular blogging until the fall. Possibly late fall.
I will try to keep everyone updated and post a thing or two, even if it is totally unrelated to Inus.
I'm sorry to my regular readers, and I hope in light of everything, you will forgive me and see fit to become regular readers again when I can once more become a regular blogger.
American dogs are fat. 90% of the dogs I see in the clinic could stand to lose at least 5 pounds, and practically all the dogs I see have a weight gain over last year.
Like their owners, American dogs eat too much and don't get enough exercise. And just like their owners, the ultimate results of being chronically overweight can be the same: Diabetes, joint problems, breathing problems, heart disease.
I noticed Science Diet has a type of "Jenny Craig" program for dogs - pre-packaged portions in a box.
"Everyone wants to fix the problem without having to change habits," she said.
I agree.
Fat dogs and cats are SO alarmingly common that many people who have pets in the normal weight range come to the clinic with concerns that their pets are too skinny. Of the 10% of people who have animals with a healthy weight, more than half of them will express concerns that they think their companion isn't eating enough, isn't eating a food with a high enough calorie content, or that something must in some way be wrong with them because they believe their pets are underweight. What's even more shocking, to me, is the fact that all of them, upon being assured by a veterinarian that their animals are at a great, healthy weight, express disbelief.
It's interesting to me that in a culture where body image issues are so prevalent, and we have more people than ever being diagnosed with eating disorders because they think they are too fat is the same culture that can look an obese pet and see nothing wrong.
Weird.
The flip side of the problem is the fact that pet food companies try to make a One-Guide-Fits-All feeding table on every formula, and it doesn't work that way. It causes confusion, which often leads to overfeeding.
I hope the Biggest Loser Pets program raises awareness about pet obesity. So many companion animals could be living much longer, healthier lives with less money spent on chronic health problems if their average weight was, well, average. It's really very sad to me when I see someone who has an obese Labrador and they proudly announce, "My dog weighs 140 pounds!" As though it is something amazing, to be boasted of when really the poor dog is about 70 pounds overweight and can barely move. The American Bigger is Better myth pervades, and it is costing our pets years off of their lives.
Samuel Belknap was looking for food and diet data of ancient peoples when he made an unintended discovery: The fossilized remains of the New World's oldest domesticated dog to date.
The skull fragment and foot bone of the dog was part of someone's dinner 9,400 years ago in what is now Texas.
The remains lead researchers to believe that the dog was cared for by people before it was butchered for food, meaning that it was domesticated. Analysis at the University of Oklahoma confirm that the remains are indeed dog, not wolf or fox.
During my month-long hiatus from the blogging world, I noticed something at work.
We were getting a lot puppies from a place I'd never heard of before.
As it turns out, a new puppy selling store has opened in the farmer's market down the street. I'm not sure if they are referring customers to us or if people are just finding the closest veterinarian within a ten-mile radius and we're it, but for some reason a high number of them are coming through the clinic.
The puppies we've seen so far are in good health.
The myriad of breeders the dogs are coming from are all from PA, and mostly from Lancaster.
One year after the legislation meant to shut down the puppy mill capitol of the world, the puppy mill capitol of the world is still producing puppies. It doesn't logically follow that just because all these dogs are from Lancaster, they must be coming out of puppy mills, or at least not out of puppy mills as most of us who are aware of them think of them. For all I know, the puppy millers have just downgraded their operations. One of the other tricks they use is to use family members as owners. "Oh, I don't own any dogs. These are my son's dogs. Those are my daughter's dogs. Those are my wife's dogs. Those are my dad's dogs." And so it goes. There are loopholes in everything.
What really bothers me is that a lot of people who put their voices against the PA puppy mills have gone silent, thinking that last January's law had solved the problem.
One benefit about working in a medical field is the attire. You get to wear the comfiest clothes ever to work. I'm a big fan of sweats and PJ pants around the house, but I get uncomfortable even just running to the convenience store in them. Scrubs have the same comfy quality as PJs, but you don't feel like a slob walking into the bank wearing them.
It's great.
I'm also a big fan of pockets. I love pocketses. My one girly guilty pleasure is purses and bags, because I cannot resist a bag of nifty pockets. I just can't. I'm a stasher, what can I say.
I have a pair of Dickies scrubs with just a giant cargo-style side pocket on the right side. Love those, except that I feel like I'm reaching halfway down my leg for my pen. I like scrub tops with the big wide double pockets in the front. Not a fan of the shoulder pocket. It's pretty much useless.
Unfortunately I live about spitting distance from a hospital, so there are many stores also within spitting distance where I can indulge my new scrub habit. I went to one the last week of December with some gift money, fulling intending to buy a pair of Grey's Anatomy scrubs (oh yeah, they have those). I couldn't find a style I liked in a color that I liked in my size.
I was really disappointed, until I turned around and saw a rack with a neon NEW sign on it. A brand called Wink was hanging on them. I went over to inspect them, and I ended up buying a pair. It was the pockets that did it, I'm not gonna lie. The Wink Origins Charlie style top has the big double lower pockets I like, with an outside pen loop AND a mesh pocket within one of the pockets. Guess what that's for. If you guessed dog treats, you're right! The Romeo style pant has six pockets - a cargo style on the leg and regular hip pockets like a regular pair of jeans. And inside the cargo pocket is ANOTHER mesh pocket. So I have options on where I'm stashing treats. I can put moist treats in my cargo pocket for small dogs and larger biscuits in my shirt mesh pocket for larger dogs. They're the best things ever. Seriously.
I just thought I'd let you guys know, because I know that among you, there are trainers. Casual trainers of only pet pups, slightly more serious trainers of foster and rescue dogs, and possibly a few professional trainers, too. Those pockets are seriously handy. Really. Think about it: Treats in the mesh pockets, poo pick-up bags in one of the outer pockets, cell phone and you're ready for a really productive walk. Without having a silly bag hanging off of your waist that you never use the drawstring on anyway because the clip falls off when you try to pull it. I know. I've used them. They're dumb, although in theory they sound good.
So even if you DON'T work in a medical setting, consider some scrubs. They're cheap (compared to most clothes) and they're great for all sorts of things. I clean the house in the ones I don't use for work anymore.
Oh, and randomness: I discovered roundworm eggs on a fecal flotation today by myself. This is a first. Usually the slides have nothing exciting on them and the ones I don't look at have all the good stuff. This time I pulled the slide, and found the good stuff. Eureka!
Last week, I had the most horrible sinus infection. I'm not entirely sure it has gone away, but it couldn't possibly get any worse than last week without my face exploding. I was constantly torn between taking this generic sinus decongestant/pain reliever that makes me really spacey, or just trying to tough it out at work. I'm still not sure which was worse, putting all of my concentration into remembering to think, or putting all of my concentration into pretending the pressure and pain behind my cheekbones wasn't threatening to lay me out.
I forget things at work enough as it is, but the day I took the generic green sinus pills, at one point Dr. W asked me why I was staring at a fecal flotation that was running and I honestly couldn't tell her. I wasn't thinking about anything at all. My mind was just blank. I was literally in the middle of talking to her about something and then stopped to stare at this poo test on the counter and just went away. It's not like this stuff has codeine in it or anything. It's 325 mg of acetaminophen and 5 mg of phenylephrine HCl. I don't understand why it does that to me, but there you have it.
I would have gotten back to blogging last week if it hadn't been for said sinus infection.
Wednesday was the worst day. I'm thinking it had something to do with the barometric pressure and the snowstorms we've had blowing through my area recently. Whatever the reason, Wednesday really popped me good. I was much better Thursday, and then Friday it started back up again with a vengeance.
By Friday afternoon, I was REALLY glad to be getting off of work and looking forward to getting everyone home, Kitsune walked and fed, and begging my SO to let me pass out again, like he angelically let me do Wednesday.
I got Kitsune out for his late afternoon/early evening poop walk. He seemed to be straining a little bit, and then squealed as he passed the feces. Then he snapped his head around to inspect his back end as if it had bitten him or something. When he turned so that his rear was facing me, I noticed blood on his butt.
Great.
On Sunday, I had expressed his anal glands, to my delight. (Hey, it's the first time I've ever done it. I knew the theory of it, I'd just never actually done it before. I was all kinds of proud of myself.) I saw him dragging his butt on the ground and knew it had to be done, but I also knew that we had no openings at work the coming week and I wasn't about to drag him over to the specialty center just to have someone express his anal glands for me. It was me or nothing.
Now, I've never had a dog that needed anal glands to be expressed. Kitsune is my first. (He would be.) Really only the left side was full, the right was fine.
After the deed had been done, he didn't go flop bott anymore, but apparently the episode had widened his licking horizons. Previously, he had given himself small lick granulomas on the outside of one of his back paws, and the inside of both front paws.
Friday he must have spent all day trying to give himself one on his butt, because after I'd called work and apologized profusely for interrupting their break, explained the situation, and was told to come in, Dr. W stuck her fingers up my dog's butt and declared that neither glands were abscessed, impacted, or had weird drainage. His butt was just raw. We were sent home with some steroidal ointment and a cone to prevent unwanted attentions to the area.
After our experiences with the Gentle Leader, I wasn't looking forward to putting an e-collar on Kitsune. I anticipated a wrestling match to get it on, and then hours of Kitsune trying (and probably sometimes succeeding) in removing it. Instead, I got this:
After that, Kitsune pretty much gave up on the idea of getting the cone off, and went back into my bedroom to lay in a pile of my dirty laundry and sulk. While sulking, he wouldn't even pick his head up to look at me when I spoke to him. He'd glance at me, but acted as though he'd decided to just lay down and die. After about two hours of that, he couldn't take it anymore and got up. He seemed to decide to just act like the cone wasn't there, which was interesting as he went crashing and bashing through the house.
By Sunday afternoon I'd decided that the crashing and bashing was deliberate. Kitsune seemed to be taking every available opportunity to smash the ends of the cone into things. A sneaking suspicion that he's smart enough to know that with enough smashing eventually it will break crossed my mind.
This evening, I caught him licking his butt. With the e-collar on, he had figured out how to lick his butt. Oh, the determination of Shibas.
So, pretty much as soon as my SO got out of classes for winter break, I found myself with no time to blog. At all. One of our best friend's birthday is in December. My SO's stepfather's birthday is in December. My dad's birthday is in December. Our son's birthday is five days before Christmas. It's a crazy month for us.
So I apologize in advance for the blogless month of December. Assuming this blog is around next year, you can pretty much expect the same. I certainly don't have time to sit down and type anything, and I'm not expecting anyone else to take time out of their holidays to sit and read my ramblings. We'll just take a break and see ya next year.
I feel like I should have given everyone a heads up, though. Sorry 'bout that.
Everyone that I speak to recently has one question foremost on their minds: How do you like your new job?
I like my new job.
I'm not so sure it likes me back.
I'm not even sure I can begin to explain why that is.
I feel like I mess up so much I make more work for my co-workers, and that it irritates them.
I hate being That Guy.
I feel like there's a million things to remember at once, and I can only seem to ever remember two or three of them at a time. And that might be okay, if it were the same two or three things consistently that I remember. But it's not. Ever.
I always seem to say or do the wrong thing. Sometimes I do the right thing at the wrong time. Which I guess makes it the wrong thing anyway.
Poor Dr. W. I know I drive her absolutely nuts.
For 99% of my working career I've worked in the pet industry in some capacity. I was a manager in a pet supply store that didn't sell animals for many years before I worked in one that did. For most of that time, people were telling me I should get a Real Job. Forget the fact that I was the youngest manager at the pet supply store. That's fine, but when are you going to get a Real Job? People always followed that up with something in the veterinary field. "You'd be so good at that!"
It turns out that in reality, I'm not that good at it at all.
So not only do I just suck at my job, which sucks in general because it has such a huge impact on your life, but I also feel like I'm disappointing a lot of people who wanted me to do this.
I'm not giving up yet, I'm just sayin'. I may not be the right person for this job.
before. "Distaste" is a mild word, actually. He loathes it. I've never seen a dog freak out the way Kitsune freaks out with a head collar on. He simply refuses to reconcile with it, and if you happen to leave it in a spot where he can see it, he will try to steal it and then chew it into little bits. It is worth mentioning at this point that Kitsune is not a destructive dog. He never chews anything but his own toys, and even those toys that are meant to be chewed last him a long time. He has never chewed up any of his leashes or neck collars, so the fact that he destroys Gentle Leaders is significant in illustrating just how much he detests the things. The Gentle Leader head collar we currently own is number 3. I kept buying them because they do work when a dog will consent to wear them, and I labored under the mistaken belief that given enough time with one, he would eventually relent. Silly, silly human.
with the leash ring squarely in the middle of the chest. Same premise as the head collar, it still thwarts the forward motion of pulling, but easier for some dogs (like Kitsune) to accept.
with just a giant cargo-style side pocket on the right side. Love those, except that I feel like I'm reaching halfway down my leg for my pen. I like scrub tops with the
in the front. Not a fan of the shoulder pocket. It's pretty much useless.
(oh yeah, they have those). I couldn't find a style I liked in a color that I liked in my size.