Pictures

It's been awhile since I've posted pictures, so here are some new ones.

Here's Loki with the flash:

And here's Loki without the flash:

Big difference huh? The colors are much richer with the flash. I think I might have increased the ISO to 200 for the ones without the flash. I always thought natural light was best, and so it's better to adjust things like ISO rather than use flash. Maybe I was wrong.


Lastly, here's Jujube.

What I Love About My Shiba

One of today's Dogster threads was "What I love about my shiba." I thought it was a really wonderful and heartwarming thread. And so, I figured I might as well share what I love about my shibas here.

Loki:
I love his airplane ears. He has the best airplane ears. They flap up and down when greets me.

I love it when he talks. Usually, it’s an expression of his discontent, but I think it’s adorable.

I love how he thinks inanimate animals are real. When we went to Penn State, he thought the Nittany Lion statue was real. He approached it very cautiously. First, he stuck his nose out to sniff it. Then he darted backwards just in case it was dangerous. Repeat a few times. Then he would bark at it and even offer a play bow. But alas, the statue didn’t respond to his play bow.

I love how he’s a great guard dog. It all begins with, “Huff. Huff. Huff,” which soon escalates to, “Bark. Bark. Bark.” And lastly, if it’s really serious, he’ll start howling, “Aroo! Aroo! Aroo!”

Jujube:
I love it when she grabs a toy before she greets me. Her ears flap, her tail wags, and her mouth clamps down on the nearest toy.

I love how she always stays close to me. She follows me around and keeps me company.

I love how easy she is and how I never have to worry about her being aggressive.

I love how her good nature has changed my overall impression of shibas.

I love how she is fearless and determined. If she has set out to kill a fly, it will die. Her prey drive is extrodinary.

I love how quick and predictable she is in going to the bathroom in our yard. She always goes in the same spot. And it's almost always the first thing she does when she goes into the yard. No dilly dallying for her.

The behaviorist on the terrible, bad day

Last night we finally got to talk to our behaviorist. I have to say, I’m so glad that we have one and I’m even more glad that she is good. After Yun described to her what happened on our terrible, bad day, she asked more questions. I find that to be one of the best things about her. She really tries to get a full picture of what happened. She takes the time to learn about the situation and circumstances before diving into an opinion.

Prior to the seemingly very random bite, Loki and Jujube were playing. He was trying to get her to chase him, but became annoyed when she caught him and snapped back at her. Then apparently, this repeated a few times. Loki kept asking for more play, but was agitated by her at the same time.

I know I may be anthropomorphic here, but I sort of imagine a child who really wants to play, has only one playmate, and gets annoyed when the playmate doesn’t understand the rules of play. Like trying to get someone to play tag with you. You chase your friend and finally catch him. “Tag, you’re it.” Now it’s his turn to chase you. But instead, he’s confused and doesn’t chase you. Now, you get annoyed because he’s not playing the way you had wanted to play. Repeat a few times and now you’re really frustrated. You might still want to play, but at the same time be very agitated.

So the point is, the behaviorist thought that Loki might have still been in an agitated and unstable state when Yun went to pet him. We already know that he’s not the most stable dog. And he and Jujube did have a scuffle in the morning, so that may also have contributed to his unstable mood.

Still, she mentioned that we may never fully know why Loki did what he did. He’s a dog, and we are humans. We can make the best educated guesses possible, but we may never know for sure why dogs do what they do.

In addition, she encouraged us to be even more obvious in our preferential treatment of Loki. At the moment, we still feed the dogs at the same time, and that morning Yun was about to give them rawhides at the same time. She suggested that our actions be further exaggerated in very deliberately showing Loki that he gets food first and that he gets rawhide first. We already did other things to show Loki that he’s top dog, like letting him out of his crate first, but she suggested we do more. She said that the more obvious we are to assure Loki of his top dog status, the more secure and stable he would become.

Lastly, she said that she considers this an isolated incident. One incident after about two months of peace isn’t terrible. She said if this were occurring every week, then we’d be having a different conversation.

In better dog training news

I hope I don't jinx myself for posting this...

In better dog training news, Jujube has gone a whole month without a potty accident. Yay! I wrote previously about our difficulties in potty training her in this post and that post. She had come to us from her breeder, who said that she was house trained. When she first arrived, she whined incessantly at the door. It drove us nuts! So we mostly ignored it, because it was super annoying. Unfortunately, she whined to let her people know that she wanted to go out. So, we sort of trained that out of her when we ignored her whines. Really, it was insanely annoying. But also, when she lived at the breeder's, there was always someone at home to let her out. Here, we are not always home. To some extent, she had to learn to live on our schedule, and not have the freedom of going anytime she wanted to.

Now, we have a pretty set schedule that we are all happy with. And if necessary, she sits by the door to let us know that she has to go out.

Yes, I know it took awhile, but maybe we've finally succeeded. Though I hope I'm not speaking too soon.

A bad, terrible day

Since we consulted with the dog behaviorist back in May, we hadn't had any fights, bites, or other incidents. But unfortunately, our run of good luck ran out on Monday. We had both a dog fight and a bite. I wasn't present for either situation. In the morning, Yun put the dogs out in the backyard, and as he put it, both dogs wanted to sit by the door. Then Yun was going to give them rawhides, but they got into a fight even before he gave them any rawhides.

Boo...

After Yun called to tell me about the dog fight, I called our behaviorist. Unfortunately, she must be on vacation. Her voice mail message said that she was out until next week.

More boo...

Lastly, after Yun got home from work, the dogs seemed perfectly fine and calm. They were playing with each other and generally happy. Yun was petting Loki on the head, just like usual, and then all of a sudden with no warning at all whatsoever, Loki bit him. We don't know why. It was extremely upsetting, especially because there was no warning.

Most-est boo...

Jujube, Expert Fly Killer

Who needs a fly swatter when you have a Jujube? She keeps her eye on the prize and nothing stands in her way. Not even a wall... Yep, I've seen her run full force into a wall as she was chasing a fly. She stays focused on her prey and nothing can distract her. When I see her running around the entire house like a ninny, I know that there must be a fly.

This morning on our walk, a fly landed on her tail. How dare it rest on her tail! No fly lands on Jujube and lives. Bam! In an instant, the fly was dead. Jujube didn't eat the fly. She just killed it. I had to brush the dead fly out of her bushy tail.

I only hope that she never meets a bee.