Maki's Future Playground!

For the past month we've been religiously scouring craigslist's "for rent" postings. Our lease ends in May and we would really like to find a cute, affordable house with a nice yard for Maki. It was a mentally tiring exercise due to the fact that we we're either looking too early and no one wanted to hold the house for a month or the majority of budget-friendly homes were in the "murder zone" of Oakland. We did view a couple homes that were in the nicer, lower crime zones of Oakland but the prices were on the high end of our budget and we'd rather not stretch too far.

After our return from the Mitten vacation we became more liberal in our search and started to consider the fact that we might need to look at multi-unit dwellings or stay in our current location. However, we really would like to move out of our current "Jr. One Bedroom" apartment and by Jr. One Bedroom they mean studio with a extend-o wall. Not very conducive to people who have varying morning wake-up hours. We also wanted to move away from neighbors on the other side of the wall as Maki's barking was previously a concern and the lady below us is less than pleased with our noise level at times.

We looked at a real walled one bedroom within our current community but it was previously inhabited by a smoker and smelled horribly. Our current apartment was once inhabited by a smoker and the closets continue to leech smoke odors into my clothes.

Our search was becoming more and more dismal and we began calling any decent looking ad in craigslist that we happened upon. One add was for a small one bedroom house and "small pets negotiable." Maki is small for a dog so we called and went to the showing last Monday. The house was indeed very small and below highway 580 (which puts in slightly within the "murder zone") but it had a large yard and the neighborhood appeared safe. The house had just been renovated with new carpet, cabinets and appliances and fixture so the interior was clean and appealing.

We discussed it and decided that it was a good match for us and sent in our applications. There had been 3 other interested parties the day of the showing but we won! The landlady is very nice and agreed to have the yard mowed down and fix the portions of the fence that had fallen down so Maki would not escape. She agreed to allow Maki with only an extra security deposit which was nice compared to our apartment which charges an extra $300 in rent for a pet.

Here's a link to the floor plan that I designed. http://www.floorplanner.com//projects/18501848/floors/18525102/designs/19835598?guest_pass=dtmgfa

Even better she is going to give us the keys early so we can begin to move things in over the course of the next 3 weeks! We stopped by on Saturday to take picture of the yard to share with Maki and friends. I put together a couple panoramic shots!

-Elizabeth

Bath Time!

The day we got back from our vacation (last Sunday) we were obviously very happy to see Maki. While we were petting him, hugging him and kissing him we came to the realization that he smelled utterly horrible. Before he had a characteristic Maki "musky" odor. Maki did not have the characteristic dog odor, his ears actually smell like ferrets! However, the odor at this time was completely different, this was wet doggy smell times ten. Part of the reason he smelled like this (other than not having had a bath in about a month and a half) was that he had been around other dogs constantly for a while now and he had just come back from a hike with Elizabeth's co-worker (this hike has a couple stories that will be explained in a separate post). Despite the combination of reasons, it was time for a bath.

Let's begin by saying that Maki is not a water dog... he is afraid of the rain and does not like getting wet. I suspected this was going to be a very traumatizing experience for him. To my surprise it wasn't! Don't get me wrong, he did not enjoy it... but he did not hate us for it, which is the most we could expect under the circumstances.

The process was as follows: we filled the tub with some water (in retrospect it should have been a little warmer), changed into our swimsuits, got into the bathroom and closed the door! Once he was in the tub he tried to scape a couple of times, this was followed by shivering after being shampooed and rinsed. Before the second rinse we tried bribing him with some treats, he refused to take them! We finished the process as quickly as possible and proceeded to dry him. This took a little while and we decided to turn on the heater in the bathroom... just to avoid getting him sick. After he was somewhat dry we proceeded to let him out of the bathroom. Once out of the bathroom he was as happy as one could be! The experience went much better than it had played out in my mind... We even had some time during the shower to take some pictures!

- Daniel

Separation anxiety?

While we were away in vacation Maki stayed with one of Elizabeth's co-workers. They have a house and a really, really big yard. They also have a dog named Omega, she is very cute and gets along with Maki wonderfully. In his stay in their house, Maki spent 8 hours of his day in his crate, with Omega as company and moral support. After we picked Maki up, he returned to his routine. This involves a walk or run in the morning, a walk mid-day and a walk/run at night. On Monday as usual we started his routine, which also involves recording his day so we know how his separation anxiety is doing. Previously this is what one of Maki's average days would look like:
To brake it down: The image represents about 8 hours. There are some small peaks (like at the left of the image above) that are just the noise from either the hard drive, refrigerator, the occasional plane, or the dog walkers. The really big peaks (middle and right of image above) that are out of range for the recorder are Maki's barks, whines and other noises. Those are directly related to his separation anxiety... basically it has been very bad. This has been one of the harder things for us to deal with and for him to improve. Well to our surprise this is what the recording on the Monday after our vacation looked like!!
It was obvious that he had done incredibly better! Maybe a couple barks and a whine, but much better! but was this a fluke? or was he depressed because his girlfriend Omega was not around? We couldn't be sure, so we continued his subsequent days as usual. To our surprise Tuesday through Thursday were incredible ... absolutely no barks!! we are very very happy with his improvement throughout this week! (Note: there was no Friday recording because I had the day off). Will this last? Hopefully... but for now we are very proud of the little pig.

- Daniel

Exciting older news...

Well there is a bunch of stuff we need to update everyone on... so I guess I will start with some pre-vacation (last week) news. First off, Elizabeth had been very concerned about Maki's safety while in the car. To solve this she proceeded to do incredible amounts of research in dog car safety technology and found a couple of alternatives. The safest thing is to have a crate in the car where he can lay, but we don't like this mainly because it involves a massive crate in one of our cars and it would be difficult to change it from car to car. The next alternative is a body harness. These devices allow the pooch some mobility within the car while being strapped to a body harness which is attached to the seat belt or the child seat hook. We decided on a harness, but then the question became... which one? There are many out there with many prices. After much research on Elizabeth's part she found the only true crash tested dog harness! This thing is heavy duty with seat belt grade straps, heavy duty D rings and hooks. The actual thing is so heavy that at the beginning Maki would loose his balance when walking with it! He has the bright red harness which is great since it would make him easy to identify... not that he would get very far with it on, but it is a nice bonus! He does not mind it one bit since I think he knows it means a ride in the car! Here are some pictures of Maki and the harness:

Other things that have been going on before we left for Michigan... Maki has had some visits to the doctor, but I will let Elizabeth give you the details on this later. Maki has also learned some new tricks! The little guy is very smart and loves to learn new things... and if he doesn't get it he just gives himself a time out in his crate, it is really cute! First new trick he learned was "shake" ... this has now become his favorite thing to do, he can shake with either paw and he will default to this trick (or "sit") if he doesn't know what you want! The next trick he learned was "crawl". This one is a crowd pleaser! At least we both love it, he looks ridiculous. However it is a little hard to get him to do this without a treat, but we are working on it. He has also perfected his training coming in and out of the house. He now will wait for you to say "break" or "come" before he steps into or out of the house. We have extended this training to his walks, he now waits before stepping onto a road from a sidewalk. This one definitely needs some more work since he now stops if we get withing ten feet of the edge of a sidewalk... it can get annoying. Recently he has also learned the command "leave it". He knows that he is not supposed to touch "it" (whatever we are referring to at the moment) until we say otherwise. We have taken this to his feeding time. He will not touch his food until we let him get to it, which is great!! Overall he is a really smart puppy... he is having a really difficult time learning "roll", but I'm sure he will eventually get it. Here is a video of Maki doing some tricks:

Actually, he turns one year old today!! so Happy Birthday Maki!! (this is only if he was 10 months when we first got him)

More updates to come!
- Daniel

Woofwalk!!

Dog walking is a great business to go into if you live in a densly populated area with a lot of working dog owners, such as the Bay Area.  You can charge between $15-$35 for a walk ranging from a simple 30min neighborhood walk to the more extreme 1-3hr off leash adventures.  Last week Maki had Monday thru Thursday neighborhood walks.  He doesn't seem to do as well as when I returned during lunch but this may be due to the fact that he's just getting a walk, not a romp through a field chasing other dogs and birds.  And also he has new people walking him and then leaving him alone which has to be confusing for his separation anxiety.  Hopefully he'll improve as the routine becomes more regular.  More importantly he's signed up for Woofwalks!!   Which obviously I'm excited about and pretty much wish I was Maki on Fridays :)  

Woofwalks is an off leash adventure where he'll be "on the trails" for at least an hour and out of the house for 2-3 hours.  Basically he'll be joining a "pack" of other woofwalking dogs and will be led by "Raul and Teresa" through the local parks, recreation areas, and hiking trails.  I met with the Woofwalks business owner and Raul, who leads the Alameda area pack that Maki will be joining.  Needless to say they impressed me with their knowledge and personalities and usiness.  Maki will be in great hands, learning obedience training, and having a blast.  If I was rich Maki would go on a Woofwalk everyday! But $25 a walk is a little too much for us right now so he'll have special Fridays instead!

I am happy to report that Maki did excellently this past Friday on his first Woofwalk and received a glowing report card.  Yup, Maki gets a report card each time he goes on a Woofwalk.  I love it!!  Being the proud mother that I am I scanned his report card and am posting in this blog tail.  However, it may not be very legible so I'll just read it aloud for you....or type it...

"Maki 3/20/2009, pick up 9:24, drop off 11:53. My day out was : Happy, Playful.  My poops were : other (did not see).  My energy level was : High. Notes : Maki was great on pick up! He was in a pack of 12 today, and he got along great with all!  He had tons of fun play-chasing with many in his pack, and exploring, and smelling the animal trails!  He wore a cowbell so that we knew where he was at all times, but he never ventured too far from his pack!  He is the best "1st time dog" that we have had!  He also chased after sticks that I threw for him, and he listened + behaved well the whole time!  You two have done a great job with him!   - Teresa"

That's all for tonight, but I have much more material to add in the next week or so.  Keep checking up on Maki!!

-Elizabeth

Maki's New Daytime Routine

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!

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

The new hanging spot

After taking Maki to the secret dog park for a little while we have came to realize that they can be pretty dangerous places for dogs. We've had a couple of experiences in which Maki was bullied and could have been hurt. So we have decided to only take him once in a while to dog parks. This forced us to find another place to exercise him in a regular basis. In one of our walks near our apartment we found a great field by the water in which he can be off leash and just be Maki!! This place is great (except for one thing which will be mentioned in a little bit), he can chase sticks and balls and once in a while there are other dogs which he can socialize with. However his favourite exercise is to chase birds! he loves to chase birds around... needless to say, they always beat him. One his friends at the field is a dog named Dashi, he is very cute and plays with Maki when he feels like it but is never annoyed by him! This place has been great until recently when Maki decided it was time to eat as much grass as possible! He would not stop eating it... after a while Dashi's owner, whose name I can't remember, mentioned the danger Foxtails can present to dogs. This was enough to get Maki coughing and gaging for the next 5 hours. I proceeded to go to Capoeira since Elizabeth didn't want to and when I came back the little guy kept caughing and gaging. After Elizabeth's research we decided to go to the emergency Vet around 10:30pm.
Whe we got to the Vet, there were three other people waiting. One was a really loud man with no manners who was speaking on the phone about how he was there because her friend was putting her dog down... he was pretty annoying. The second person was a nice younger lady who was very polite. The last was a incredebely rude old lady who ended up snapping at the nurse on duty because she had to wait a long time in an emergency room (??). After waiting one hour and thirty minutes we were allowed in one of the rooms. A nurse came in and did the initial check up. On a side note, Maki is really indiferent about having his temperature taking through his rectum, which I found surprising since he is very annoyed by people trying to touch his mouth. Bacl to the story... after the nurse we were greeted by an incredebly upbeat doctor. He was too upbeat for being one in the morning. Ater checking Maki up he suggested that the best option was to inject some steroids to make the inflamation of the tonsils go down. This would probably make the gaging an dcoughing go away. When asked if there were side effects, he said genrally no...

We got home and went to bed... around 4am I hear Elizabeth wake up and speaking. I am a very very deep sleeper... so I am completely out of it. After a minute or two I come to realize that Maki had an accident in his cage, he had peed. I proceeded to take Maki out to releave himself. We go back to bed and later in the morning he had another accident. After some research we found out theat there are some side effects to the steroids... increased thirst and incresed peeing... so much for the Vet.

As of now he is just getting the steroids out of his system by giving us lots of kisses and just being a dog. Overall he has been a great puppy, and we can't be mad at him at his last accidents, since they are not really his fault. We still correct him, but we know he is not being stand off-ish or anything like that.

The weekend is upon us and we are currently researching for dog friendly bars... so hoping it works, it should be an interesting night.

Last treat for you guys... video of Maki playing with Dashi!! Enjoy!

- Daniel