Bike Check

Cara told me to put Beetlejuice up on The Pedal Room! After having her explain to me what it is, here's the page! I still haven't looked to see what type of brake I'm runnin', I haven't gotten to ride between the rainy days and working. But there it is!

Reprimanding Your Pup

I know reprimanding your dog is a controversial subject, and I'm kind of worried about talking about it but I'm going to talk about what works for me.

I will not and do not hit my dog. Don't hit YOUR dog. It's not ok. I spanked Mason ONCE in his whole life, I'll be honest--he ran out the front door and almost got hit by a car. I was so upset and mad at him almost killing himself I whopped him on the bottom like my dad used to do to me when I was little. I immediately felt like a shit head, but needless to say he has yet to run out the door like that ever again. But that is not the way to teach your dog not to do something--he'll associate it with something bad, he often won't understand the connection between the two things, and it can make him afraid. It's just not a good combination, and that was my BIG mistake.

Now fortunately, I was blessed with a puppy that immediately responded to a negative tone of voice. By consistently using that to reprimand him, (a firm "NO MASON.") he quickly developed a shamed look whenever someone told him no. One thing I did subconsciously that I've happily seen develop into his form of reprimanding is the fact that I ALWAYS snapped my fingers whenever he was not listening and he needed to do what I was saying before I whipped out the angry voice.

This leads to the reason why I decided to write this post--as he's 1 year old, I've started to notice things that work for him. When he doesn't listen, I snap my fingers and repeat the command and he does it. When he's out to pee and wants to sniff something and I snap and say "COME" loudly he'll come running. I had never noticed it before, but I guess I accidentally clicker trained my dog with my snaps. I think it's a good method--just as you reward when your dog does something right, it's good to have something associated with when he does something bad, so he knows quickly to correct.

Mason's Identiy Crisis

(Mason dealing with his identity crisis. "WHO AM I? WHAT AM I? WHY CAN'T I EAT ALL OF THE THINGS?")

I have always been of a firm belief that Mason is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi. When he was little, the vet's concurred. My discussion with a breeder went well, but it all depended upon his 1 year mark onward as to if he would fill out and look the part. Well...he isn't. He's built leaner all over--legs, chest, stomach, face, everything. His ears are still set too high.

When he was younger a lot of people asked if he was a Border Collie mix, but I didn't buy it. I've seen "Borgis" as they're called and he doesn't fit the type. Then I looked into the Karelian Bear Dog breed. It'd be a longshot if he were a Karelian Bear Dog Corgi mix, but it seems like it! He looks just like one, but with bigger corgi ears, short corgi legs and the corgi personality. Karelians even seem to have that underlying brown in their coat like he does.

At this point, that's probably my best guess. He's still my guy, and who knows what he really is, I can't prove a thing about his lineage since he came from a shelter.

Below are examples of the two breeds--a C-Myste Purebred Cardigan and a purebred Karelian bear dog. I feel like Mason is if the two of them had a baby:




After his initial emotional breakdown after I told him I suspect him to be part Karelian, or just not all corgi, he seems to be adjusting fine:

Dog Fur and How to Deal

If you have a dog like mine, you have fur on your everything. Mason has a double coat and is always shedding. His fur isn't sticky like a cats though, so it falls right off of my shirts, but I still make sure to brush him at least once a week. I can't recommend the Furminator enough. I know a lot of people pimp it, but seriously it deserves its hype. They're pricey, but worth it in my opinion. Cara was telling me how she liked the kinda rakey-circle types, and the design is much like that, but with two layers of the rakes, and I believe they're finer and it just works really well.

I do have to say do NOT over Furminate. I've heard of it damaging coats, but I think that's from just going overboard. No matter what you do, you will always pull out fur. Know when to stop, and you're good go! I've found this is the best at getting out the dead fur, preventing a lot of shedding and it's not painful for Mason. Normal wire brushes he hates and I can tell it hurts him, but this just seems to go fine, even if he does get bugeyed every time I brush:



I e-mailed Furminator to see if they'd send me free products to review, since I'm too broke to afford their other new brushes, but I doubt that's gonna happen. A girl can dream though! But I've heard their curry combs are equally as awesome at smoothing out the fur after the initial combin'.

Secret Project

Cara and I have a secret project in the works--a hopeful webcomic! I won't reveal many details, mostly because we're still working on it, but it's gonna be sweet. It's kind of on the backburner at the moment since we're both pretty busy, but it's ALWAYS in the back of my mind. I spent a few days nonstop doodling for it, and we figured out the designs for the main characters!









The last pic was one of the many tossed designs for her, we went with a shorter ponytail to kind of give an approachable appearance--one thing I really wanted was a girl that wasn't typically pretty. Someone relatable. She has a bandana to mirror her dogs bandana, and she wears jean shorts and kicks. Her dog is a mix of our dogs, he has Didgeridoo's coloring and one floppy ear, medium length legs and he has Mason's pointy ear and his blaze! I think they make an adorable baby.

To give a brief hint, it's a girl-and-dog adventure story with some mythical overlays and it's going to be set in Australia!

EDIT: 3/27/12: Here's an illustration of the two main characters by Cara! I LOVE IT:

Baby Mason

So I have just a couple photos from Mason's puppy dayz. I wish I had kept his photo from when I first saw him online, he was tiny and dirty and one of his ears was floppy. But, here's 4-5 month old baby Mason, for your entertainment:









To me he just looks like the midget version of what he looks like now. I wish I could have seen him at 2 months! A couple photos feature his sister Miss Darcy Cordelia Walls-Barton, and the one with three of them at the couch features Bingley, his brother. (Mason top left, Darcy right and Bing bottom left). They were all dumped at the same shelter in the middle of nowhere Tennessee. I was originally going to pick Bingley, but he pissed on my new Marvel tshirt so I chose Mason instead. We left Bingley and went back trying to find someone to take him since it was an extremely high kill shelter. My friends who picked Darcy got one of their parents to take him, they put him on reserve and when they went and got him they said the place was desolate. When we originally went for Mason and Darcy, it was packed (at least 4 dogs in every kennel, and they were even housing them in the dog run). It's really scary.

I do have to hand it to them, the people that worked there did the best with what they were given. They weren't funded very well, but they advertised their dogs and cats the best they could, but there were just too many. When we originally came they had just gotten several baskets of kittens and tried to pawn a handful of them onto us for free! They were doing the best to save the animals, and I felt horrible for what they were given to do so. They were also very sweet--given their facility, they of course couldn't accept cards and that's all I had brought, so they trusted me to mail them the check for his adoption fee when I got home. How many places these days would do that? They gave me the greatest little guy I could have ever asked for. (Even if he was covered in 20+ ticks, fleas and had kennel cough and severe hookworms hah.)

Fetch and Frisbee

So I'd like to think I have one of the smartest dogs alive. Mason is a PRO at fetching, but he's always been afraid of frisbees. The other day I spent 2 minutes throwing a frisbee to my mom and making it look like it was the coolest thing ever while her dog ran around and acted like he wanted the frisbee (he didn't), and Mason instantly started going after it. After a few minutes of just going up to where it landed and pawing at it, he started catching it. In total, it took under 10 minutes for him to start catching the frisbee. I took him out today and practiced--he's not doing as well as he did that first time, but I'm sure it will take some time for him to get used to jumping as high as he did every time for it. Here's a video:



I was going to just write up some advice on how to teach your dog fetch, because had he not been a SUPER longtime pro at catching a tennis ball and returning it, it would have made that endeavor a LOT more difficult.

Mason learned how to play fetch at a relatively young age. Honestly those super baby days of his life kinda blur together to me now, but I remember spending a long time throwing a ball and having to go get it, and him refusing to give it to me.

The ball I used to generate his initial interest in going and getting the ball (because why would he? BORING!) Was a 2 dollar Kong squeaker tennis ball. Like most dogs/puppies, Mason is nuts about squeaky things, so he was all over it (before it got destroyed by a dog at the dog park in under a minute one day, then we moved to normal balls, which he had laying around at home and chewed on). Also rolling around a normal tennis ball to a puppy gets them chasing it short distances, and builds up interest.

To get him to return and drop--well, it sounds like a simple and basic concept, but honestly I used cheese. I was all about using cheese when he was little to get calcium to his ears so they would stand up, and now they form a little triangle sometimes as you see in that video. He LOVESSSSSSSS cheese, and I would just treat him every time he'd go get the ball, which would make him run back WITH the ball for the cheese, and then I'd say drop it when he dropped the ball for the cheese. Tons of practice and patience later and he was a pro. You basically have to find your dogs one vice--the food he will go NUTS over, and use it against him repeatedly.

Mason is a fetch FANATIC now, and I really do believe it gives him a job to do and he is more satisfied after a good round of it.

Here are some photos from the day he learned how to catch a frisbee, where he puts that video to shame.







He busted those 2 frisbees in the photos, by the way. They were hard plastic normal frisbees, both alleged for dogs but obviously not able to withstand any sort of catching. I went to check out the Kong frisbee, but at 15 bucks my cheap ass was like HELL no. So I checked out Petco's cheap frisbees and they are sort of soft and flexible plastic, and so far no busting and they seem like they'll hold up a long time and be cheap to replace. (3 bucks for a big one, 2 bucks for a mini one).