How to Train Your Dinosaur

We’re taking Yoshi to the vet tomorrow - or well, my partner is.  I have an event I’ve been planning for 8 months that I can’t get out of.  She still isn’t eating her food.  Yesterday night while we were out of town we left her with my boyfriend’s parents.  They left her out in the living room for the night - even though we thought it was clear she needed to be confined.  She chewed up their leather couch. 

I don’t know if this sudden destructive streak was separation anxiety, the fact that nobody was around to stop her and she didn’t have anything else to chew on (I left her a pig ear and a frozen Kong stuffed bone, but apparently they forgot to give her either of those), or even linked to her not eating.  The vet never called me back yesterday, and this morning she couldn’t talk to me either, so I just made an appointment for tomorrow.   I’m worried and I don’t know if that’s rational, but I’d rather be safe than sorry and see if she can tell me anything.  

Yoshi hasn’t eaten her kibble in 2 days.  I’m starting to get concerned.  She’s picky, and finnicky when it comes to eating sometimes - sometimes she eats right away, and sometimes she just won’t eat when I feed her.  She eats her daily Greenie, her Kong fillings, and any chicken or beef we give her (no sweet potatoes in the past 3 or 4 days due to busyness).  We went to my partner’s parents’ house yesterday and she tried to eat their dogs’ kibble.  She’s drinking normally and acting fine.  I haven’t noticed any signs of fatigue or her hiding or anything weird.  

I don’t know what’s up suddenly with not eating the Blue Buffalo.  I called the vet and she hasn’t returned my call yet.  I’m going out of town tonight and she’s staying with his parents but we’ll be back early afternoon tomorrow.  I hope nothing’s wrong.  The receptionist at the vet said she’s probably just being finnicky if she’s acting normally and eating anything else we give her.  Might be time to change foods?  I don’t know.  Hopefully the vet calls back soon. 

I will have an unnatural abundance of free time come come the second week of June, and with that I’m thinking of starting a jogging program, something like the Couch to the 5K thing.  It’ll get me in shape for our agility class, and ya know, healthy benefits, etc etc.

Any advice on bringing Yoshi with me?  I will be a turtle at first and pretty slow more than likely, so she could work up her endurance with mine, since our greatest exercise now is our walks and spinning in circles at the park, but those aren’t exactly the most strenuous, nothing like jogging.  I’m worried about the heat and her pads more than anything.  We’ll be going in the evening more than likely, because I’m not a morning person by any stretch.  The pavement will have had all day to soak up the sun though.  We might be able to go the park and run on the grass there, but it’ll probably be too dark at the time.

Lots of stuff to read in the next couple weeks.

We’re going on our first long car ride at the beginning of July (about six hours).  I’m starting to read up on what to do to make the ride as easy as possible.  

We have a Beginner Agility six week course in July. Our training session with the trainer I mentioned previously is the second week of June.  

Things are slow, but Yoshi is awesome.  

I finally heard back from one of the trainers I contacted a few weeks ago (I actually left another message this morning, and she called me back right away, so I’m led to believe I may have dialed the number wrong the first time… oh well).  She seems very knowledgable, so once I check my schedule, we’ll probably end up doing a private lesson with her.  She has group classes, and she even has a CGC class, but since they use an outdoor facility, she won’t be starting those up again until October, because of the heat (damn you Arizona).  But she says that she can give us things to work on during the summer, and right off the bat she said that she could teach me how to teach my dog.  

Which is mostly all I want! 

So I’m stoked about that.  She also mentioned an extremely close agility training center, which i mentioned as another possible activity for Yoshi, and I looked them up and they look fabulous, and better yet, they have a huge indoor arena, so if we decided to try that, we could try it during the summer.  

I’m pretty stoked about it all.  Yoshi is as sweet as ever, and we’re getting a lot better at barking at the door (however she barks like crazy when she’s outside so… we have another challenge to think about) and working on extended stay, but I’m kind of at a loss on where to go from here, so this is perfect timing.  

My house flooded last week.  I came home to Yoshi splashing in some water wanting to play - thankfully it was clean.  It was a big flood, but our floors are tile and our walls are adobe, so  there was hardly any damage at all.  We had to stay with my partner’s parents for the weekend, where we first lived when Yoshi came to stay with us.  She had a good time in the big backyard, and we worked on sitting in the new, big, full of distractions space, and she did pretty well.

The temps this weekend are going to get over 100.  In April.  I hate this state.  We’re going to keep Yoshi inside for the hottest part of the afternoon and will be getting her a special type of bath that should trim out some of her fur and … other things.  I’m not sure yet entirely how it works, my sister was a dog groomer and advised against shaving and recommended this, so will be doing whatever she says.

On other things, my partner plays drums.  He has a pretty fancy drum kit.  The drums haven’t been set up since Yoshi came to live with us, and he hasn’t played in a few years, due to space and health issues.  However, he set them up last week (the day of the flood), and it’s clear even from those few hours, that Yoshi is not going to be happy with the big noises.  It didn’t even occur to me that there would be a problem (it really should have, I know), but she darted from the room where the drums are, and ran outside.  He set the drums up again yesterday, and I experimentally just did a tap on one of the little ones, and she was not having it.  She bolted again.

It’s really imperative that she be comfortable with them - my partner makes music for a living, and he’s going to start using his drums again soon.  I’m going to put as much effort - as is he - as we can to make her okay with the noises.  I’ve been reading that the loud concussive noises can hurt dogs’ ears, but that’s mainly from Yahoo! answers, and not anything definite.  Does anyone have any tips or advice on how I can make Yoshi comfortable around these drums?