We made another attempt at removing the cardboard box wall in our house, allowing dogs free rein into family room which has carpeting. Unfortunately, during the night Woody pulled up some carpet. So we finally decided to get a little pet door so we can keep them out of family room unless we are in it. I think long-term this will make things easier if, say, we want to keep the dogs in one part of the house due to guests or worker or whatever. The gate is kind of fun anyway. Except one time I was walking through (carelessly) holding some empty reusable grocery bags and next thing I know my foot was stuck in the gate door that closed behind me and I fell down—taking the gate with me. Rob came and disentangled my foot from the gate :)
We arrived at our first dog training lesson on an uncharacteristically freezing cold & wet evening. They almost cancelled due to the terribly cold nasty weather. First thing we noticed is that the class had more dogs in it than we were told to expect which was slightly disappointing. Then the instructor said that they only had one of our dogs on the sign-up sheet. Later we learned the gal who registered us messed up and spaced on the second dog. So anyway, the instructor was like, just stick around, we’ll work that out later. Ok fine.
Then we all gave quick summaries of our dogs (at a distance). Many other groups had issue with their dogs (we learned that this organization often gets difficult cases) but we just said that so far our dogs are fine, they just need training.
As instructor walked around, he looked at Stony for a prolonged moment with concern. And in talking to us he was like, “Did you say these were littermates?” And we’re like “yes” and he was all like “Oh…this is bigger than you know…” and all this dire-sounding talk and I was like geesh are we in a scary movie or what? He’s telling us about littermate syndrome and how awful it is and how from that second on we must go back to kenneling our dogs and never having both free at the same time, etc. And how we should not proceed with this class but do private lessons…
So anyway then we left. As we left (totally freezing cold too) we talked about how the instructor was like Mr. Know it All special (he’s been to Japan you know and in Asia no one feeds their dog kibble etc) and of course he wants us in private lessons as that makes the class size smaller and they make more money. But still, it was jarring and scary to hear about how bad littermate syndrome can be.
We googled a bit, and decided to just do a few more things routinely with the dogs separated. We had already done occasional walks with dogs separated, and now we always include at least a section of our walks with dogs separated. We also talked to the vet who was horrified about what the instructor said.
Anyway, Rob talked to the dog training place later on the phone and they apologized. Anyway, the dog place offered us discount on getting private lessons from a DIFFERENT instructor. So we were like, OK we will try it. That begins tomorrow afternoon.
Meanwhile, two men who came to do a check of water/septic in our backyard recently chose to meet the pups rather than having us keep them inside. The dogs were excited but only Woody got real close to the men. A lot of barking and stuff but they were too nervous to really meet. Still, better than aggression!
There was a neighborhood meeting scheduled for later in October, and we were told you could attend in person (outside) or attend virtually. So we were like, cool, we’ll attend virtually. Then as date got closer, they changed it to virtual-only. OK, fine. And then, like a day before the meeting, they totally cancelled it. The email, subject line, “CANNCELED” was kinda spooky:
As the day has progressed, Covid-19 concerns have appeared to worsen. Subsequently, a few of the HOLA officers will not be able to attend nor contribute to the fulfillment of the agenda.
We will keep you informed about rescheduling the annual meeting.
We regret any inconvenience caused by this extraordinary and uncertain time. Thank you for your understanding and patients. Be safe.
Whoah!! Haven’t heard a thing since.
In other Heritage Oaks Neighborhood news, I was looking at Google Maps and noticed that Jester King, a huge brewery with interesting craft beers, food, and music is really close to us as the crow flies. I realized that theoretically it was within walking distance. So I asked in the Nextdoor app and found someone in Heritage Oaks who said that “there are paths that take you that way” behind her backyard and we exchanged some personal messages and she invited us to cut through.
So this past weekend we made a reservation (for outdoor table just to get a beer) and set out after alerting the neighbor via text that we’d be coming. So we get to her backyard and there’s a fence all the way along the back. As we were trying to find an opening, her dogs started chasing a deer which was panicking and getting possibly stuck in the fence. It was getting hairy! I finally texted her (she was not home) and she explained we had to wedge through the fence “to the right of the little diy fort in the back”. We never saw the fort, but we did get through the fence. Then she said there “will be a clearing, then go to the right for the path”. So we tried this, but didn’t see any obvious path. So we kept going, bushwhacking and finding easier ways probably cleared by deer. Using my phone I tried to keep us going approximately in the right direction. All the while, watching for snakes and encountering grassy areas, forested sections, dried creekbeds. We did eventually find a dirt road, but it led the wrong way. Later we found a barbed wire fence, possibly the outer edge of Jester King property (not sure, but possibly as it is a really large area), but no place to get through. We probably spent about 40 minutes in our futile quest.
Which way to go?
When the neighbor checked with us later, I admitted that we were never able to get there and she was like oh gee come to think of it when I told you to go “right” I should have said “left”. Oops. She also said her husband would be better at explaining the way…LOL. Anyway, we never made it but it was a fun adventure. Meanwhile, a couple of other neighbors in Nextdoor are now all intrigued about doing this and want an actual official path. I kinda doubt that’ll ever happen as you’d have to cut through someone’s property.
Our neighborhood, Heritage Oaks
I also saw that this artist makes painting using fire ants. So now Rob and I plan to paint our very large canvas (that Rob had carried around on several moves which was originally for his kids to paint) using this technique. We already tried to experiment with this on a mini scale with small paper, but the ants turned out to the non-fire-ants. When we moved in, we had a lot of fire ants so we hired someone to use an environmentally friendly method of getting rid of them. Seems we succeeded! The thing is, fire ants are invasive and so I am sure that very soon we’ll discover a new big nest of them on the property and then we can start painting with them. The plan is to quickly shovel some of the ant hill into a bucket (wearing gloves) and then put water in the bucket. The ants will come to the surface. Then use a strainer or slotted spoon to pull out the ants and put them in a container. Then you setup your canvas with paint and pour the ants on it!!
Last weekend we drove to Milton Reimer Ranch Park and walked some trails with the dogs. Great time overall, the only puzzling part was when we entered to pay the $5.00/person fee, we asked the guy where to walk as we hadn’t been there before. He suggested taking Granite Trail and handed us a map. So as Rob is driving ahead to a parking area, I’m looking at the map and there is no Granite Trail. So we drive to the 2nd of 3 parking areas, take a long walk on a couple of trails, and, you guessed, it, THERE IS NO Granite Trail! LOL.
For car rides, we’ve been attaching the dogs’ harnesses to the backseat seat belts but they dogs move around constantly (and whine and cry) and get tangled up. And then we discovered Woody has literally chewed through 90% of the seat belt!! Repeat after me, “WOODY!!” So we will have to have it replaced. In response, we recently we tried putting them in the back-end attached to clips which seemed better but they still move around and can manage to get all the way to backseat. I know in the old days dogs were loose in the back-end but for safety it is better to connect them to car (or dog becomes projectile in case of an accident).
Photos below.
