Pentagenarians & Beyond: W/B 7/31

[irongrl]

Deb-the largest cities in Oakland County are Troy & Rochester. Pontiac is the county seat. Ann Arbor is actually closer to where we are now. It's about 2o miles from here. We would probably be living there if it wasn't for the commute to work for Chris. Today we are looking at homes in Royal Oak & Birmingham. They are smaller communities, between Troy and Detroit.

 

[fox2star]

Judy, sounds exciting!

 

[Traildoggie]

Deb, she lets the dog do whatever it wants. I know it ran off one time and some unknown lady grabbed her or else she would have been gone. dogs are better companions when "socialized" and learn how to act. you give them an order like "sit" or "stay" & that keeps them from doing whatever pops into their head, like nipping. it makes them feel secure because they know what they should do. I went to an obedience class at the Y and learned a lot. I did 15 minutes twice a day and he learned everything in a few weeks. anyway, I will talk to her again and see if she ever did anything. the bigger the dog, the more important it is, although I think small dogs should be trained too, for their own safety. those are some interesting explanations for dog behavior. good explanation for why they bark at the mailman!

it wasn't supposed to be so hot yesterday, the forecast was for 60-ish. Ha. it was 85 in the sun. a nice breeze helped, but I don't sweat enough to cool anything off. they get the forecast right down in the lowlands but the mountains, not so much. One interesting thing yesterday.... this has happened other times too..while we were hiking down, we saw fighter jets fly by way below us. we have some military bases here and although they're not supposed to do it, they fly up the river valleys and thru the mt passes.
they are flying so fast and low that you can't hear anything until after they're gone. sometimes the sound is so intense it can knock you over, especially if you aren't forewarned. this ooked like a "toy" plane flying thousands of feet below us. no sound until after he was out of sight. one time long ago we were on a high ridge and a plane flew right past us so close we could clearly see the pilot, his helmet and stuff in the cockpit as he approached. he was SO low and close to the ground following the land contours. happened so fast we could hardly believe what we'd seen. the blue angels are here for this weekend, so maybe the military jets had to fly elsewhere.
shopping today. thought we were going to OR coast on sunday but some other things came up re the new house that need to be done Monday, so we will wait a week or two.

 

[WD]

Today I did Hard Strikes with the Heavy Bag Tabatas, 60 minutes, 386 calories. I then did budokon weight loss system accelerated workout, 39 minutes, 158 calories. I could not remember this one so decided to do it instead of my original plan to do the Flow ad Flexbility dvd. I like the latter better. The weight loss is a basic yoga instruction for 20 minutes then martial arts drills followed by a standing meditation. The Flow and flexibility is more active and flows through moves and sort of makes me feel like a stealthy warrior or something I have been watching some of Cameron Shayne's demonstrations on you tube. I find them fascinating, particularly with the animal moves added. Sort of like a dance or something. He is so agile. He has a really good demo on you tube of how to do a push up for vinyasa hand positioning etc. I need to keep this in mind when I do push ups. Here is a link to on of his demos of motion and movement I like.

 

[WD]

Gertie seems to be doing better. She was scoping the kitchen for crumbs and food last night. The problem seems to have let up and she was a lot more active last night and this morning. It is nice not to be woke up in the middle of the night so she can get out the door. Yesterday morning I was lying on the floor doing my stretch when she ran up and put her nose in my eye and her paw on my face, She scratched my face with her rough claws that she chews on. I asked if she wanted out and she flew back down the stairs to the door. I cooked up a whole bunch of chicken last night and pureed it.

Lori, I like my rebounder so much that I know if anything happened to it I would be out trying to get another one. I think each instructor on the URX-MT series did two workouts. Then Greg Cook came out with a 3rd one later that uses dumbbells, a pull up bar and the rebounder as a circuit. I have a Tracey Anderson trampoline workout. I am not real fond of it. I feel silly flopping around doing her odd movements on it. It has a mini strength workout on it.

Valerie, I know from experience that you can learn a lot from media and books on dog training. They need to know when you say to lie down and stay to stay there. I taught my dogs that so that when there are guests that they do not know well I can have them lie down till I tell them it is okay. Generally by the time the guests are here a bit and the dog is released they are much calmer. My dogs have never been to classes or dog parks though which I am sure helps them be more social with other dogs. Gertie is okay with the other family member's dogs. That is interesting about the mailman. I remember when they had air shows here every year and all of the planes circling around. The Blue Angels used to come out. I remember my husband getting to know some of them. He used to work the air show sometimes. One year he brought home some Russian Pilots. He took them shopping and one bought a microwave to take home. It was quite interesting. You would have thought our humble 3 bedroom home was a mansion or something.

Deb, it was an anti diarrhea liquid with kaolin and pectin. It says it is for soothing relief of upset stomach in dogs. The woman at Pets Mart recommended it and she seemed to feel better within a few hours of taking it. I won't continue giving it to her. I want to see some normal signs from her. I am keeping up the chicken and pumpkin till I see things normal then we will work on just the dry food a bit at a time mixed in so I can tell if it is the food or treats or something else. I do not think she ate anything at the camp. I had her on leash whenever I was outdoors. She did a lot of sniffing around. I checked out all of the plants outside here. I have never seen her bother any and there is no evidence that any have been chewed on. I probably should move the hydrangea to outside the gate. It does not do well there on the hot pavement though. I looked up all of the plants I have where she is. Cannas are okay. Morning Glories are like LSD if a dog eats them. I am going to pull them out. Otherwise it is roses and a mum which I should probably move. She doesn't even hang out outside here. She runs outside to do her duties and comes right back and waits on the step. I go out with her quite a bit. I have searched out everything I can think of. She does eat grass occasionally. That is another reason I had switched dog foods. I had read that lack of fiber and veggies could be a cause of dogs eating grass. If she does not come right back to the door I go out because a lot of the time I will find her out there chowing down on grass. It makes her vomit. I am always afraid to put any chemicals on the grass because of this. Thanks for the link to the Probiotics. I have heard of that one before. It looks like it has a good variety of probiotic strains in it. They did not have a lot of choices at Pets Mart. Like I said they had odd ingredients in the chewable ones. There were two chewables and I did not think they looked like they would be good. I ended up with some Essential Pet Probiotic capsules.

Judy, looking for a house can be fun. Sometimes though we would find ourselves having to go back because we couldn't remember which house had some particular feature that we really liked. Once we narrowed it down we took some pictures to help decide.

 

[Traildoggie]

diane sue... that's what I was hoping she would do, for those exact reasons. just read the book, teach some basic things to make the dog saf and guests comfortable. sit, stay, heel, and whatever command people use to send them to their crate. I hate it when peoples dogs jump all over me!. I like dogs, not afraid of them but I still don't want to be over run. hiking is when you must confront unruly dogs and stupid pet owners. I've had dogs growl and snarl at me . their owners let them run ahead and unleashed dogs, especially if there are several, can be aggressive. I've never been bitten but have had strong words for some owners.

 

[garance]

Look, it is really stupid. She shouldn't have a dog! What does she need it for if it alienates her caretakers and her daughter for heaven's sake--I really don't get it. You can't help her except by telling her she is not someone who should have a dog. Your family sounds like a disaster from everything you have printed about their poor souls .
Live your own life, Valerie!