I totally want to be a Dog Whisperer too!!
A bad thing happened tonight. Cesar Millan (aka 'The Dog Whisperer') started his new season tonight with not just one hour of his amazingness...but two! (In case you're wondering, this is bad because now I will get nothing done around here on Monday nights!) I was mesmerized. I had never heard of him until late last year when someone on another blog mentioned him and raved about how unbelievably awesome he is. But I could never seem to find when any of his shows were on so I only watched him briefly on-line advertising the show.
Well, let me tell you, if you are a dog owner, or thinking of becoming one, you should definitely check him out. He goes to people's homes and usually within a matter of just a couple of hours, he has completely changed the negative behavior in the dog. More accurately, he changes the owners behavior which in turn changes the dogs behavior.
And since we recently adopted a middle aged Shepherd into our home (who really is amazingly well behaved, aside from a few quirks), after watching the show I was all like "Okay, I'm the pack leader...she will do what I want, when I want it" and feeling all authoritative. So I took her out for her nightly stroll and I put into practice some of the things Cesar says that you should do to reinforce in them that you are the leader.
And she actually went along with the changes I made about who walks out the door first, and not getting ahead of me while on the leash. She was really good.
And then, we came home and I got on the computer and she took her bone into the hallway and I heard her happily chewing it apart. Except that a few minutes later, I found out that it wasn't her bone. It was one of her tennis balls. And that ripping sound that I thought was her rawhide bone was really her tearing the crap out of the fuzzy tennis ball covering. Like, she tore it completely off. Into about eight pieces.
The good news was that when I grimaced and questioned her in a low tone about what she had done, she slunk down to the end of the hallway and wouldn't look at me, so at least she knew that what she did was wrong.
Either that or she went down there to hide her face so that I wouldn't be able to see her laughing at me and my 'pack leader' skills....
