Finlay update

[juliet]

Finlay-the-dog appears to be settling in reasonably well (he is currently snoozing over the other side of the room). He is still obsessively following us around the house, but I've left him alone a couple of times for an hour or so with no obvious ill effects, and marnameow successfully dog-sat last night while Pete and I were both out. (Apparently he whined at the door for a while after I left, and experimented with Getting On The Beanbag to see what Marna would do, but settled down after that.)

I'm a bit concerned about the constant up/down of the stairs as he follows me -- just from looking at his gait it's clear that he's a hip dysplasia risk. For now I'm shutting the door upstairs if I'll only be downstairs for a moment, and I'll talk to the vet on Monday.

He's pretty bright, already had the hang of house-training, and now comes when called reliably, mostly knows 'leave' in various contexts, also 'back', sits if you insist (or faster if he's already clocked the bag of treats...), and we're working on 'down'. (Next: stay, which is going to be tougher because of the clinginess, but very useful.) The coming-when-called, & his clinginess, meant that I decided yesterday to experiment with letting him off the lead in the park, and it went v well indeed. He is now enjoying his walks significantly more, which is nice.

Ball-chasing is not really in his repertoire, although he fetched his rope-toy a whole twice this morning before getting the 'bored now' look. Anatolian Shepherds (assuming that's what he mostly is) tend to be fairly serious dogs & not necessarily much on the retrieving line, so this may be personality rather than stressed-ness.

His major skill is however "lying down and snoozing", which is nice, as "sitting down and typing" is what I spend most of the day doing. Canine snoring is surprisingly companionable!

I have been reading a lot about dog behaviour, dog psychology, and how to create a pack structure whereby you, and not the dog, are alpha. He's a big dog and I really don't want to end up with power struggles!

ION, last week I went to see the Orbital band (seriously awesome! Here is doop being glowy and me being less glowy.), & Aphex at Matter (bit rubbish, although he picked up in the second half of it. Nowhere near on-form, though.).

Yesterday evening Pete & I went to the opera. Specifically, La Grande Macabre at the Coliseum. Fantastic cast, musicians, and staging; shame about the godawful crap that they were saddled with singing. Ligeti, musically, is Not My Thing. The staging was genuinely brilliant, though, and probably worth staying just for that. Also there was a splendid disco background in the penultimate scene which I found entertaining enough that I have no idea what the people who were supposed to be in the foreground were doing at the time (on reading the Times review (not of the ENO version, but the same staging etc), I think they were getting Death drunk). I was also somewhat disenchanted with the casual misogyny, although P didn't see it as being as bad as I did.

(Reading the Times review, I see that the ENO changed the androgynous lovers from Clitoria and Spermando to Amanda and Amando. How ridiculous.)

Comments

[nanaya]

Aww, dog stuff! DOG!

I like the photo of doop. I still haven't been to Matter (was hoping to go for a Ladytron DJing session but could get precisely no information out of their office, so gave up), what did you think of the venue?

[juliet]

I really liked it! Decent size, nice balcony around the main room so you can see what's going on, reasonable amount of seating (although it's v modernist - all hard rectangular blocks, nothing soft & comfy!), bar staff do not confiscate the cap off the water bottle they're selling you (thank you Brixton Academy), only a quid for the cloakroom. Also they do a free minibus back to the nearest tube station, from where I presume nightbuses also run (I dunno, we cycled).

Dancefloor gets bloody crowded, but that's not really avoidable in a commercial (as opposed to a squatted) venue, sadly.

[nanaya]

Oh, that's good to know! Thank you.

I keep meaning to go to one of the late things at the 02 as well, since it's so close. Should actually organise these things at some point...

[samvara]

I saw the pics of your handsome new woofer - he's gorgeous! My woofer is a pound woofer and he started off very clingy, I did a lot of 'arriving and coming back - again!' type exercises which seemed to help and I maintain dominance by having very few boundaries but being very firm about the ones I maintain.

[juliet]

I must upload some more photos! Like this icon :)

He does seem to be getting better about being out of the room (either voluntarily or being shut out). He doesn't *like* being left alone (but then most dogs IME aren't wild about it!), but he was on his own for about 5 hrs yesterday & nothing was destroyed & he didn't seem unduly stressed before or after, so...

I don't blame him for being a bit clingy, in the circs.

We're doing the same thing now with boundaries - we've given up trying to keep him downstairs at night (it makes him really distressed) but are maintaining "not in the bedroom *ever* or the spare room at night" & he seems OK with that and settles down on the landing. We don't seem to be having any dominance issues now - touch wood! I was a bit worried that he would start boundary-pushing around now, but the only problem we're having atm revolves around us attempting to eat curry on our laps in front of the TV :) (we won in the end, but he was *very* grumpy about it)

[samvara]

He is very pretty, I have thing for dogs like him - although I love my boy lots!

It sound like he is working out well :)

Territory is important! I initially wanted him to be outside when I was at work but he gets more distressed than it's worth so I leave him inside to 'guard' the couch during the day. One good boundary setting exercise we did was me teaching him to 'give' me things. If I want it, I get it. We play tug of war and I throw balls for him but when I want him to hand stuff over he always does.

[adjectivegail]

I have been reading a lot about dog behaviour, dog psychology, and how to create a pack structure whereby you, and not the dog, are alpha.
I'm really interested in this - happy to talk about it for hours :-) So far I've only had to be the boss of small dogs, so if the worst comes to the worst you can pick them up and put them where they should be/break the 'no I won't' cycle.

Lovely that his favourite activity is snoozing! Very convenient :-)

[juliet]

Cool :) Happily so far I have won all brief power struggles with Fin, although we'll see how it goes after the next week or so, which is when it'll be about time for him to start pushing boundaries a bit. I *can* physically move him, but by pulling rather than lifting. (Not sure yet exactly how much he weighs, but I'm guessing at 25kg or so.)

Have you read "The Dog Listener"? Read that yesterday & found it v interesting.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

His major skill is however "lying down and snoozing",
I'm good at that. But I suspect my snoring may be less companionable.

I've been loving the new ENO posters, and the staging of La Grande Macabre looked interesting, but I'm not sufficiently fond of opera to splash out on going to see it.

The posters are still excellent, though.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

That photo is pure distilled essence of doop :) (It's a nice one of you too.)

[juliet]

It is very doopy indeed! Although technically he did not actually have any glowsticks, the Academy being a No Glowstick Venue these days. (Apparently people throw them, or something.)

[lnr]

! That's just wrong.

[uon.livejournal.com]

I blame The Klaxons.

[lovingboth]

Yep, wonderful production, crap opera.