Nice to be home

[bill_schubert]

Playing pool volleyball was really good for me. My leg made some progress and my back did even better. I need to play more often. We've got a pool here and, yeah, I could go walk back and forth in it and it would help. But volleyball lasts more than two hours during which time there is no opportunity to do much of anything but hit the ball and say nice shot every time someone else hits it. At the end you find out that you've been moving constantly for two hours, twisting and pushing against the water and working above your shoulders all the time.

My theory is that exercise is 10% effort and 90% finding a way not to be bored.

The flight back was fine. No one started a fight. I've got sound deadening Bose headphones I use for the trip so if the kids behind me were loud I didn't know. And no important parts fell off. We ended up sitting on the runway in Austin for 45 minutes. Austin is the hub of Southwest so all the other airlines just have to wait. But we made it.

All is well here. It will be 90 degrees tomorrow. Back in Texas.

We have a slow leak in our front yard so I'm trying to get a plumber to dig around and find it. Hoping it will not be too expensive. I'm thinking not. It is pretty localized. I'm not up to fixing it.

Tomorrow I get a cortisone shot in my left hip. Fingers crossed that it fixes things so I can build up my muscles in that leg.

Before that I've got my Ranch day tomorrow. The first dog I walk in the mornings is a biter:



His name is Billie. He wanted to do something he wasn't supposed to do one time last year and he bit me when I stopped him. On the hand. Broke the skin but I survived. It was a little bit my fault for making sure he never had the idea in the first place. Since then we've gotten on well. I watch him and know what he's thinking so he doesn't get in trouble. Others have not been so successful. He's bitten several of the other volunteers. I think I'm the only volunteer who is allowed to walk him. I've got special permission. Hell, I'll just bite him back. We're a couple of grumpy old men out early in the morning being cranky. I think he recognizes me and kind of understands. He comes to me and waits for me to get him ready before we go out. He'd still bite me in the right circumstances so I don't set it up for him.

Comments

[maju]

My theory is that exercise is 10% effort and 90% finding a way not to be bored. Yep, have to agree.

[siglinde999]

I am totally stealing that line about exercise! I usually say I don’t exercise, I just do active things I enjoy.

That pup is really lucky to have you and that place to live. So often, a single bite is enough to invoke euthanasia. I guess it’s a legal liability thing? I hate to think what happened in his past life that made him feel biting is the way to get his messages across.

[bill_schubert]

They put down dogs because most people don't have the knowledge and training and time to properly teach them. We took over an abused dachshund from an acquaintance of Dana's who was moving into a nursing home. The dog needed long and calm training to bring him along so he could deal with people. I did not have the patience or training to do it nor does Dana. After he bit me a couple of times and growled frequently we found a dachshund rescue group who took him and presumable brought him along. We had Zoe and I didn't want a dangerous dog around.

Billie had, I think, a nice home life. I'm guessing by the way he reacts to me. But he's dog aggressive with some dogs and there are a couple of Pyrenees dogs that live a couple of places down from him that just piss him off. They don't much care but he wants to go after them whenever he returns home. If you let him get the feeling that it is OK to do that, just a little slack on the lead at the wrong time, he'll leap towards their apartment. If you then haul him back, watch out for your hands. He'll turn and snap. That happened to me once and he bit me. I knew immediately what was the issue and that it was my fault. I've never put him in that position again and am always fully focused when I return him home. From what I hear that is what has happened with the other volunteers.

He and I are both cranky old men and get on just fine. He doesn't need a lot of attention. He'll tolerate my scratching under his ears and kind of hugging him but his attitude is just that. He's tolerating me. I think he secretly likes it but feels like he needs to protect his tough guy image.

All these older dogs have such complex personalities. They are all so different. It is fun to try to figure them out.

[siglinde999]

I’m glad it’s just incidental biting and not a bad background, but he’s still lucky to have people willing to work with him to manage the behaviour.

[mrdreamjeans]

Billie looks like he's part Chow.