Last summer when we had a couple of training sessions with dog trainer extraordinaire, Laurie, we worked mostly on preparing Ray for the addition of a baby in the house but at the end of one of the sessions, she asked if there was anything  else we wanted her  to work on.  Weeeellll, at seven months old, Ray still would not got down the stairs and at his weight it was getting to be more and more of an issue.  I had tried luring him down with treats on each stair, coaxing with a toy, etc., to no avail.  As she went out to her car and dug in the trunk, I wondered what she was going to bring us.  I was sure she was going to teach me some magical technique that I could work on with Ray.  Would we start at the landing and work our way up and down from there? 

She came  back with a can.  A can of some magical, disgusting, vile, green goo that she popped open and waved around above Ray’s nose working  him up to an excited frenzy, she wafted the scent around his snout, gave him a small lick from the can and let him chase her up and down the stairs.  Up. and. down. the. stairs.  Twice.

photo from pet360.com  

Green beef tripe is a magical, disgusting (did I mention magical) mess that seems to make Ray do anything you want him to do.  After that session, Ray never hesitated around stairs again.  From what I can tell, though, this horrible can of innards is only available by the case and really?  I don’t want a case of green tripe.  Just having an opened can in the fridge was terrible enough.  Remembering that, however, I decided to look for some tripe in the form of treats.  I figured it was worth a shot to maybe find some tripe in handy treatable morsels to aid in training. 

At my last visit to Mr Chewy, I ordered some Tripe Treats by Petkind which I thought might do the trick.  I was hoping they were small enough to make into training treats and I was excited enough to not read too carefully.

These are not small and they are not easily broken, so they are more of a “go to your mat” treat to settle rather than a small tidbit to reward with.  That’s ok, because Ray loves his tripe and a bag of these should last well over a week if given once a day, which I doubt we’ll do.  In the meantime, I’ll keep looking for some smelly, bite-sized tripe, I guess.

Have you ever used tripe?  What kind of results did you achieve?

The behavior that we triple-quadruple-extra reinforce with Ray is “go to your mat.”  We use it to calm him down, deliver treats, kongs and anything else.  We use a variety of mats as well, one of them actually being in his crate.  The crate used to be called night-night, but after the short lived time period when Ray was no longer crated, “night-night” became a not happy word and “mat” replaced it.

We’ve used “go to your mat” so much that if Ray is really interested in scoring whatever tasty tidbit we may be possessing, he will sometimes run to his mat as an offering in exchage for the coveted treat.  Yeah, it’s that good.

As good as he is at offering behaviors, I think we become used to stretching his abilities as I recently heard Asia, the new mama, saying to Ray as she was eating a cookie, “Do you want a bite?  Where might you go if you want a bite?”  I turned to her, astonished, saying  that Ray couldn’t reason like that…just as Ray rushed past me to hop on his mat.

As much as I would like to believe my boy is a genius who can reason, I know it was just one of those times where he offered up the behavior that he thought we wanted, because the next time she tried that line, he jumped up and nearly took the cookie from her hand.  Genius?  Maybe.  Cookie monster?  Absolutely.

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We would like to sincerely thank everyone who graciously joined our Gotcha Day Blog Hop.  We loved reading your Gotcha Day story.  Thank you for sharing.
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What is your best trick/behavior?

We are coming up on our one year blogaversary which actually is nearly the same as Ray’s adoptaversary, or his “gotcha” day.  I began creeping on avidly reading blogs way before starting  this one and had grand plans of how this blog would be structured.  In my mind it modelled it after Love and a Six Foot Leash or Our Waldo Bungie which were two of the blogs we first started following pretty regularly.  I had hopes of fostering one dog at a time while possibly not even having one of my own.  As you can see, that isn’t exactly how this past year turned out. 

That’s ok, though, because when this little piggy entered my heart and home, I decided we could still write about our trials, tribulations, successess and silliness and still be good breed ambassadors.  While fostering is not in the cards right now, we can still do our part in other ways and we just have to be satisfied with that for now.

But along with having blogged here for nearly a year now, as I indicated, we were mostly creepers/lurkers/avid but silent readers so when we finally stepped out of our shell and started “making friends” we were blown away with the kindness of our little community.  In fact, those beautiful gals over at Pitlandia have nominated us for another award for which we are humbly thankful.

“Liebster means Dearest in German, so the Liebster Blog Award is the Dearest Blog Award. It’s an award intended to recognize worthy, lesser known blogs and to help expose their work. Of course, accepting The Liebster Award comes with a few rules!”

Liebster Blog Award Rules:
These are the rules as have been given to me:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you
2. Share five things about yourself
3. Answer five questions presented by Pitlandia
4. Ask five new questions to your nominated bloggers
5. Reveal your top five picks {with less than 200 readers} and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
6. Copy and paste the award on your blog
7. Hope that the people you’ve sent the award to forward it to their five favorite up-and-coming bloggers and keep it going!

So, merci, Pitlandia.  We are honored.

Five things about me that I hope are not repeats:

1. I have very few things that are “favorties,” or actually I have too many.  Since I change my mind depending on circumstances, I might have a different favorite color, song, flavor, etc. at any given moment.
2. I can be found in heels about 75% of the time.  Even when walking dogs for the SPCA.
3. I love to shop, can suss out a bargain and really only pay full price for a few things…mostly animal related.
4. I love old movies.
5. I’m shy, but go to great lenghts to fight it.

Five things about Ray:

1. Ray rarely barks.
2. He also rarely drools.
3. At 13 months old, he still squats to pee…and I love that.
4. Sometimes he is overbearing when he meets new people/dogs and other times he tucks his tail and piddles.
5. He is the best cuddler.

The Five questions posed by Pitlandia:

Now here are my nominees.  First I have to say that some of these will be repeats of Pitlandia’s and some may not be that new or have fewer than 200 folllowers but bear with me:

1. My Two Pitties is about Handsome Norman and Lovely Kaya and boasts some incredibly beautiful scenery in the photography.  Each visit to their blog is like a vacation for the senses.
2. It all Started with a Pitbull also boasts two of the cutest dogs in the world.  Hades has the most amazing coloring, Braylon has a seriously cute set of ears, and their current foster, Madden can often be found getting her swim on in their pool!
3. Pocket Pittie in the City is a new read for me, but oh-be-still-my-heart at how adorable those two dogs are. 
4. Mr. & Mrs. & Nola Kisses has been around all of last year but is a new read for me as well.  I’ve been thoroughly enjoying reading up on Nola and their now former foster, Anna.  I’m looking forward to more.
5. I literally just found this blog, Of Pit Bulls and Patience.  The name alone drew me in and I’m eager to go back and read some more.

So, there you have it, my list of five, but I think you should also go visit Remy because he is handsome like Ray and like Ray, lives with kitties who kind of hate him.  🙂

What a spaz!  I forgot to add my five questions!  Here they are.

1. Most of us have a common theme in the titles of our blog, but tell us: how did you come by the name of yours?
2. What is the be-all end-all favorite treat of your dog(s)?
3. What has been the biggest challenge of dog ownership?
4. And what has been the biggest reward?
5. What is your favorite “me” activity?

We need to refocus.  When Ray was 10 weeks old we started attending Puppy class, which while helped immensely, it became more beneficial for me to hold him and observe class then try to teach him the behaviors at home.  To say that he was the class clown would be an understatement.  Later we had some inidividual sessions with a primo private trainer which gave us some impressive tools to work with as well.  The problem with both is …me.  I got lazy with our training and as the primary care and training giver at home, I let Ray get unfocused as well.  Now it’s time for us (me) to get back on track and stimulate that overactive mind his and work on some physical and mental challenges for Ray so that he has less time and inclination to chew us out of house and home. 



Grainy phone photo, but look at how handsome!  🙂

I’m thinking about enrolling us in another class to help us refine our skills and shake the rust off but also thinking again about Doggy Daycare.  I know several of you use one, so I would love to hear your thoughts.  We aren’t in a larger city so our options are very limited and the only daycare around here that I know of requires the bordatella shot.  I have some mixed feelings about that but wonder if it’s worth it in order to get him some more activity.  So, interwebbers, what do you think?

So tonight I was practicing two things at once.  I was holding a toy above my head in order to get a good “I want it” face from Ray and I was celebrating the fact that he is maturing enough to sit and want it while exibiting a little impulse control.  Yay, Ray! Thanks for all the great feedback yesterday.  Today’s picture and your nice comments reaffirm the fact that we love our pooches so much and with great training, both formal and informal, plus perserverance and patience from us we will “get there.”

I had a couple of ideas for posting this week, but some other posts and comments that I read recently made me think about some of the lower points in the past year and how being able to share those with like- minded pet owners is such a huge relief.  I mean, having a Pit Bull type dog leaves you open for some pretty hearty preconceptions.

On one hand, I try to keep a balance between the upside of owning and living with a Pit Bull type dog and how sometimes there are very challenging days.  I mean, there are times when I just sat and cried but didn’t post about it for fear that the words freely expressed on the internet might end up as fuel for the anti-pit bull fire so I always try to balance what I write and keep it pretty positive but sometimes you just need to get it out there and have people who are able to relate without judgement.

Realizing that Ray hasn’t even lived with us a full year yet made me really think about the trials and tribulations we’ve endured because as I’ve stated many, many times I never wanted a puppy, but puppy I got so now we’re in it for the long haul. 

We visited Ray and his litter mates several times while he was in foster and we were pretty sure he was our baby, after all he was so sweet and calm and cuddly.  Until he came home and it turns out he wasn’t acutally a dog but a shark wrapped in white and black fur.  Ray was a little chewy, mouthy, razor toothed shark, but luckily he was fairly easy to redirect from feet and fingers to his stuffies and chew toys.

When we started leash walking, that was just another whole ordeal that I never want to relive.  It’s amazing that a puppy that can’t jump into the backseat of a pickup can jump high enough to rip the fabric on the upper arm of my coat, but the backseat might just be another story altogether.  My point is that reading about other really great dogs online like Miss M, Athena, Turk and Rufus and even the Chickerdoodles who all might have their own “issues” but are absolutely wonderful and entertaining dogs really makes me feel good in that we all read each other’s blogs and gain support from our online community.  No one has the perfect dog and that’s ok because they’re ours and we love them.

~I’m having picture uploading issues today, but hope to have it fixed soon.

Happy New Year, everyone!  We’ve been fairly scarce on the interwebs* because I’ve been as sick as a …well you know…for the past several days.  I don’t think Ray has minded it much because it meant a lot of nursing Mom back to health  laying on Mom’s chest and cuddling on the sofa. 

We’ve done a whole heap of sleeping this week punctuated with some serious rerun watching on television.  Have you ever noticed that there are some shows that you rarely watch but it seems like every time you flip in on you’re watching the same episode over and over again?  We found that to be true yesterday so we decided to scroll through the dvr list for a fresher rerun to watch.  Movie maybe?  Comedy, no.  Sports documentary, no.  War movie, no.  Musical, no.  It was looking like we were out of options when I found an old PBS recording of The Dogs are Alright that I hadn’t watched in ages. 

While Ray is at home during the day we sometimes turn the TV on for “company” for him.  Usually it varies between Nick jr and classical music and he has a recording of Marmaduke that we sometimes turn on for him but I’ve never seen him very interested in the little talky box that sits on a stand.  Until last night.  I was watching this episode and Ray was standing by the door wanting to go out for the bazillionth time last night when all of a sudden his ears perked up and he rushed to the TV and started watching…


Ray loves that handsome Jonny Justice!    

All in all, it was very cute and rather touching to see.  (And yes, Kevin, he got down right away) I find it ironic that I first watched this show and started following the Vick dogs and BAD RAP etc way before adopting Ray and I was actually looking for a brown or black dog.  One  that looked more like Hector and Handsome Dan or Cherry and Audie…definitely not one that looked like that funny little  Jonny Justice!  Ah, karma…you got me again.

When we decided to adopt a Pit Bull type dog, I had every intention of collecting an entire wardrobe of cute clothes for him.  I’ll admit, that even though I pretty much had my heart set on Ray, there were some moments of doubt as to whether or not to adopt his only sister.  Cuz, one word:  tutu!  After reading so many other blogs wearing cute, snuggly sweaters and wraps, I just knew my pink piggy of a boy would be grateful for a nice fleece or sweater to ward off the chill of the snowy days here.  In fact, last year, he wore a fleece and/or a coat nearly every day while it was cold and as a rapidly growing pup, had a pretty impressive wardrobe of discards.  I found that something more fitted and snug without buttons or velcro worked the best.

This one worked out so well, that I bought it in several sizes and it made the transition from late January through March or whenever the weather turned a bit milder.   It’s amazing how hard it is to find a shirt or jacket that will fit a big chested dog, even a puppy. 

While this one technically fit, it didn’t last very long because the buttons presented a challenge in that they demaded to be eaten, or at the very least, removed. I think I ended up purchasing more that he didn’t wear than things that he did wear. We also went through quite a series of wraps with a velcro closure.  I believe velcro is code for Pit Bull Crack, judging by how joyously Ray set about attacking the velcro.

So, with all of the snow we’ve gotten in the past few days, I figured that Ray would be a shivering mess who would run out to do his business and run back inside as quickly as possible.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  My thin haired, pink skinned little piggy seems to be a snow dog.  He’s been zooming through the snow all around the pool, knee deep in snow, plowing drifts with his snout, chipping ice chunks with his massive clubs that he calls paws and running proudly around with is prize.

Standing outside in Uggs, jacket and heavy sweat pants, I usually have to demand Ray come inside because if my legs are cold under all the layers, this naked little pooch has to be cold.  I think he’d just play out in the snow as long as we’d let him.  In fact, I’ve never seen him so much as shiver, not even a little bit.  We’ve been fortunate that the temperatures haven’t been too severe yet, but I think I’m going to have to find a coat or sweater that fits well and start getting him used to it again just in case it gets bitter outside.  Then maybe we can work on rebuilding the wardrobe again.  Hey, if you can’t play dress up with you dog…who can you?

So, tell me, do you dress your dogs and do you have a special trick for success?

I wrote something this morning that kind of put me in a blue funk, so in an effort to shake it off, I thought I’d share a little about some of Ray’s idiosyncrasies regarding rain.  Having quite a few of my own idiosyncrasies, I find it amusing that Ray can ge just as crazy as I am sometimes.

For many people, especially city dwellers who might not have a yard, it might seem like a luxury to have a nice, big fenced area where you could just open the door and your dog trots happily out to do his business or play.  In theory, that would be nice, but Ray won’t actually go outside alone.  That means rain or shine, hot or cold my happy butt is standing outside with Ray.  I don’t mind it, because it’s still time spent with my boy, but the times that he starts playing and its cold and he forgets to “go” but then wants to keep going outside…that gets old.

So, back to the rain.  I’ve yet to find a decent raincoat for him, but considering some of his other oddities, I imagine the sound of rain hitting a slicker that he is wearing might just cause a nervous twich or something.  At first, we started going out under an umbrella.  That worked well enough for him that if I opened the back door and he saw that it was raining, he’d refuse to go out until I said, “Wait, I’ll get the umbrella.” 
He then progressed to needing to actually having the presence of the umbrella, but not necessarily being under it.  It just had to be there. 

Becca, when she comes, takes him out front on a leash and that presents a whole different aspect of going outside.  Sometimes if it is raining pretty hard, and he can’t go out the back door, we’ve found he will go out front.  On a leash.  Near an umbrella.  I can actually walk him on a leash without an umbrella from the front into the back.  That’s safe.  I can also, sometimes if it’s raining, clip his leash on and walk him out the back door in the rain and as soon as he crosses the threshold I can remove the leash. 

Ah, life with Ray.  He is never, ever boring.  So tell us, what is the craziest and most random behavior you’ve noticed in your pets?

So, I guess it’s time to confess.  In my head, I understand the sense and value of crating but my heart still rebels against it just a little.  Ray doesn’t hate his crate, but he doesn’t love it, either.  His man cave has been under the kitchen table for so long that we ended up putting a comforter down under there for him to lay on since he likes it so well.

It’s a nice chill spot for him where he can still see most of the goings on in the house.  While Asia was home on maternity leave, I would still crate Ray when I left and when  Ray’s girlfriend  dog walker came at noon she would let him out for his bio-break then re-crate him.  We eventually worked to where he was only crated half of that time; either I would leave him out (in the two gated rooms) and she would re-crate or vice versa until finally the crate was gone and Ray was able to nap on the sofa or what have you.  He did great and we were feeling pretty pleased because he seemed much happier and was being pretty responsible for a puppy not yet a year old. 

When Asia returned to work, things still seemed to go well, until I discovered the support slats on two of  the chairs above were whittled down to toothpicks.  Uh-oh.  All for giving the benefit of a doubt and second chances, etc.we still did not crate Ray day or night.  The picture above is the family room where Ray spends most of his time, but you may have seen pictures more recently of this room that looked like this:

A lot of throw rugs.

Yeah, that’s an army of throw rugs across the floor.  I got a call from Becca, who walks Ray every day and her voice sounded worried so I immediately started fretting.  She said Ray tore up the carpet and she would send me a picture so in the meantime, we decided to have her get a gate out of the garage and leave him in the kitchen.  I had to go to a meeting so I didn’t receive the picture right away butI figured,  “How bad could it be?”  This bad.



Right down to the foundation.

Knowing Kevin wouldn’t be home until about 4:30, I figured I could call him and give him a head’s up, but when he answered he sounded so stunned that I knew he was home early.  He was in such shock that, although I don’t mean to make light of it, it almost became a non-event.  The immediate problem at this point was that Ray was already used to not being in the crate, so we couldn’t just toss him back in right way.  We decided that at night he could sleep in the man cave.  That way he wouldn’t be able to get to the carpet while we slept.  And we could have time to get him back in the crate without it seeming like a punishment.  Until he acquired a taste for drywall.

Ray is still allowed to chill in his man-cave under the table, believe it or not, and he is actually pretty good about going to his crate.  He knows the command, “go to your mat” which includes the mat in his crate, so he knows he’ll get a good treat if he goes so we’ve kind of struck a truce between Dr. Destructo and the ever maturing puppy.  I know I pushed the process too quickly and although he shows absolutely no stress about being in his crate, I have to wonder if it was just rambunctious puppy play or a bit of separation anxiety that caused the terrible-awful.  I really lean towards the former.  When he is crated, he naps, gnaws his antler and listens to tunes.  I usually only latch the top latch and once we left both latches undone.  We found him sitting in his crate looking totally freaked because the latches were undone! 

So, like any kid who is given too much freedom too soon, Ray has had some house rules laid on him and as for me?  I got new carpet. 

So did your pooch ever go through a Dr. Destructo phase?