A lot has happened since writing my last Maki Tail. Dan updated you on our disappointing experience with hiring a personal trainer to solve Maki's issues. He also told you about "the field" and the fox tail incident :( I'm still very paranoid about the fox tails and am monitoring Maki's every breath convinced that an evil fox tail awn escaped down into his lungs and is festering up horrible bacteria which will cause him to have pneumonia and hospitalization. Maybe I worry too much. But he has been sounding more congested with weird snorting sounds lately :( We'll just have to wait and hope it's nothing.
We had an exciting weekend a couple weeks ago where it started on Friday with my coworkers all bringing their dogs to work to meet Maki. This includes Omega a female, Australian, cattle dog mix (Maki really likes her), Latte a white toy poodle, and Mocha (latte's brother) a black brown toy poodle. It went very well and despite the occasional bark everyone got along. The meeting of dogs was a precursor to a larger gathering of coworkers and friends on Sunday. I like to call it Hot Pot Potluck Dinner with Dogs! We met at my coworker Y's house and each brought a "protein" and a "vegetable" to be put into the hotpot mix. Those of us dog owners also brought our dogs. In total we had five dogs and 13 grown humans, and one baby human. Logan the elderly malamute/husky mix was the only grumpy one of the group and I can't blame him given the chaos. Needless to say it was very fun!
We've been working on Maki's separation anxiety but probably not as much as we should. Our work schedules have been early mornings and later evenings; so we haven't been very diligent with our short 5-30min sessions. However, after meeting with the disappointing trainer we decided that we couldn't really do much more to ease him into the fact that he's going to be staying home while we work. So on March 6th Maki was thrown into peril as I departed for work without him. He spent three hours of off and on barking before I returned to walk him at lunch. We went out to the field and we met a dog named Dashy (sounds like daah-she). Maki tired himself out by dashing across the field to Dashy and then running all the way back to me. It was great! I left him back in his crate and returned to work. Dan came home 4 hours later and to our surprise he did amazingly well with minimal bark sessions and a large 2 hour gap of no barking!! Woohoo!
We had an exciting weekend a couple weeks ago where it started on Friday with my coworkers all bringing their dogs to work to meet Maki. This includes Omega a female, Australian, cattle dog mix (Maki really likes her), Latte a white toy poodle, and Mocha (latte's brother) a black brown toy poodle. It went very well and despite the occasional bark everyone got along. The meeting of dogs was a precursor to a larger gathering of coworkers and friends on Sunday. I like to call it Hot Pot Potluck Dinner with Dogs! We met at my coworker Y's house and each brought a "protein" and a "vegetable" to be put into the hotpot mix. Those of us dog owners also brought our dogs. In total we had five dogs and 13 grown humans, and one baby human. Logan the elderly malamute/husky mix was the only grumpy one of the group and I can't blame him given the chaos. Needless to say it was very fun!We've been working on Maki's separation anxiety but probably not as much as we should. Our work schedules have been early mornings and later evenings; so we haven't been very diligent with our short 5-30min sessions. However, after meeting with the disappointing trainer we decided that we couldn't really do much more to ease him into the fact that he's going to be staying home while we work. So on March 6th Maki was thrown into peril as I departed for work without him. He spent three hours of off and on barking before I returned to walk him at lunch. We went out to the field and we met a dog named Dashy (sounds like daah-she). Maki tired himself out by dashing across the field to Dashy and then running all the way back to me. It was great! I left him back in his crate and returned to work. Dan came home 4 hours later and to our surprise he did amazingly well with minimal bark sessions and a large 2 hour gap of no barking!! Woohoo!
The week before last, we continued to leave him at home with me returning during at lunch to give him some midday exercise. We determined that Maki is quite good if exercised vigorously in the morning and midday. He's not silent but he's lessened the number of barking outbursts, shortened their duration and often will be quiet for 1-2 hours between outbursts :) However, giving him 30mins of running in the morning is a little bit of a change in my schedule and I've been kinda late to work last week...ooops. Returning home at lunch is another issue due to the fact that I work 30 minutes away resulting in 1 hr and 45 min total time required to drive and exercise our pooch. So we've hired a dog walking service for Mon-Thurs and on Fridays Maki is spoiled with a Woofwalk!! Teaser = we'll be posting Maki's Woofwalk report card in the next Maki Tail this week!!!! hee hee he got a report card!!!
--Elizabeth
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