So I'm going to start out on a dog-note. Now, I have owned or lived with dogs my whole life. And for those that technically belonged to my roomies, well, I felt like their surrogate mother. I have always thought that dogs should get tons of love, attention, and exercise. So, "my" dogs have always gotten that. The last puppy that I owned (I've had a lot of adult dogs) was Daisy, my yellow lab. Although my mother wanted to kill her for the first 1.5 years of her life b/c she chewed everything from hoses to siding on the house, she was a sweet family-friendly pet. My best friend's dog had puppies when I was 13 and thus, I acquired Daisy. Now, dogs in TX are different than dogs in UT. In TX, the weather is warm year-round, so they can stay outside while you are at work/school. In UT, I feel bad leaving a dogs outside for more than an hour when it's cold (and we're usually hiking during that hour or 2). Thus, I have spent my days working on my thesis and training Baja. He gets so much attention it's insane! I feel bad leaving him in his kennel for more than 2-3 hours a day. Although most of my friends from grad school seem to leave their dogs in kennels for 8-12 hours a day....I just can't do that.
As you can imagine, Baja gets a ton of training time, exercise, playtime, etc. Now what I find to be interesting is the opinions of friends, family, and strangers. I take Baja on the trails in our neighborhood every day and we usually encounter other folks/dogs. They notice that he's a puppy and are itching to give unsolicited advice. For instance, we are working on reducing Baja's nipping tendencies since he is part heeler. However, folks on the trail willingly (and unfortunately) give him their hands and say "it's okay he is just a puppy." PEOPLE, do you know how hard I am trying to get him to stop biting/nipping! Or they'll tell me how to use a leash with him. PEOPLE, I have 2 different leashes, and styles, and have spent hours upon hours researching every possible technique. Then come the friends. I know they have good intentions, but dang! Leighton has had a few friends over to see Baja a few times. Sometimes they try to discipline him and think they know what's best and that really bothers me! I have to try and explain how we do things....for instance, Baja doesn't know "drop" b/c we use "leave it." And you have to do it and say it in a certain way for him to understand. But instead of asking how we do things, if Baja jumps instead of "leaving" his toy, they yell at him and try to punish him. This is so bothersome! It's almost like if I was a parent and other parents came up and tried to tell me how to discipline my child...or actually tried to discipline him/her for me. And the worst is that they'll try to tell you how to take care of this breed when they don't even own dogs! Again, hello people! I've owned and trained dogs my whole life....and spent hours researching everything imaginable about heelers (even though he's a mutt). I wonder if other dog owners feel this way.
Well, I was going to mention how terrible being a wildlife biologist is going....but I think that'll just make me upset again. So, I'll leave that for another day....maybe one when I have a job...wildlife or not. Oh, and I know this is somewhat of a negative post, and it's all about advice for those that like to dish out advice, but I think the most annoying thing for someone to hear when they can't find a job is "Stick with it, you'll find something. Don't give up on your profession."...b/c this always comes from folks who have stable careers. I want to shout back, "Yeah, you tell me how it's going when you are unemployed and just spent 3.5 years making basically no money to get a graduate degree that won't do you any good when you are stuck in one geographic location." Some of us don't have mommy or daddy money....we actually have to work to survive. Dang, this sounds negative, but things have just been rough lately. I promise, the next post will be much more uplifting.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Utter Exhaustion
As the title implicates, I am exhausted. I'm not just talking about being a bit tired or stressed, I'm referring to the fact that I'm losing my mind. I haven't slept for more than 4 hours straight in 2 weeks. Why, you ask. Well, between getting a new puppy, Baja, having massive amounts of stress about the new house and thesis, and becoming super ill, I haven't found time for sleep. So, if this post makes absolutely no sense, then I apologize.
So, lets see. Big change #1: Baja. about 3 weeks ago we fostered this cute little heeler/brittany pup from the local shelter. He was only 8 weeks old at the time. Of course, I should have known that Leighton would fall in love. Well, we took him back without too much griping from the gent on a Thursday night. Then, we heard that they needed fosters again on Saturday, so we watched Baja again. However, this time I noticed that from the second I picked him up he was sneezing and had some yellow mucus excretion. The next morning I noticed a ton of worms in his poop. Turns out he had kennel cough and worms. Poor little guy. At least the shelter got him to a vet right away and his health quickly improved. When we dropped him off the second time, we were told that 2 families were interested in adopting him. Puppies always go fast. However, Leighton had fallen so in love that he called the shelter within an hour of leaving him to tell them that he wanted to keep the little guy. Since we had fostered him, they were happy to let us adopt him. Now, let me mention something. I have had pets my whole life...from dogs to horses to hamsters and rabbits. However, the last time that I had a puppy (of my own) was when I was 13. My best friend, Genny's, yellow lab had puppies and my mom allowed me to keep one. Of course I recall my mother yelling at me to make sure Daisy didn't eat everything in the house or outside. However, I don't recall having to get up in the middle of the night to let her pee. Oh yes, that's because I lived in Texas! And dogs can be outdoors year-round (well, we still let them in sometimes when the weather is bad). So, you don't have to worry about taking them out at 3am. Now, Baja is a super intelligent puppy, but his bladder is not so much. I think his bladder has ADD. What's the best way to deal with ADD? "appropriate target goals to guide therapy"---yes, this comes from NIH. Well, that's our goal with Baja....target goal tonight will be 4:30am. I'm hoping he can last that long.....b/c mom is going to go crazy if he can't slowly learn how to hold it all night within the next week.
Okay, I don't want to talk about my dog's potty habits. I will say that within the first 2 weeks of having him, he's already learned to sit, stay, come, shake, "touchdown", turn around, and Leighton is trying to get him to do some weird agility training with chairs. Heelers are interesting dogs. I am working on minimizing the amount that he nips, although I am aware that all puppies nip. Heelers have a larger tendency to do this, hence the name "heeler." I should really refer to them as Australian Cattle dogs. They also have a tendency to run after trucks (at least that has been my experience as well as the experience of others). Thankfully Baja doesn't understand what vehicles are quite yet.
Okay, enough about the dog. I hope you dog lovers are enjoying this. We bought a new house! Yep, we will be permanent Park City residents. We've been taking loads of stuff over to the new place for the last few days and I am really falling in love with it. It isn't huge, but it's a 3 bedroom place in the mountains. I don't think I'll ever feel fully at home in Utah the way that I did in Colorado, but there are worse places to be. I just wish that there was more nightlife and a better culture. But what can ya do? At least some other amazing states are within a day's drive. And the scenery here is still quite pretty. Did I mention that Toll Canyon (the canyon right next to our house) was recently bought by Utah Open Lands? This canyon is a gorgeous area to hike/back-country ski and was privately owned. The owners told the residents that if they collected enough money to purchase the land, then they'd sell it to them for a reduced price (I think about $2 million less) than if they were to sell it to a private person that wanted to develop it. Amazingly residents from the neighborhoods in the area came together and raised several million dollars in order to purchase it! I'm always excited when land is protected, especially land that's basically in my backyard.
Well, I better get back to writing my thesis while the boys are gone. And maybe I'll actually get some rest tonight.....we shall see.
So, lets see. Big change #1: Baja. about 3 weeks ago we fostered this cute little heeler/brittany pup from the local shelter. He was only 8 weeks old at the time. Of course, I should have known that Leighton would fall in love. Well, we took him back without too much griping from the gent on a Thursday night. Then, we heard that they needed fosters again on Saturday, so we watched Baja again. However, this time I noticed that from the second I picked him up he was sneezing and had some yellow mucus excretion. The next morning I noticed a ton of worms in his poop. Turns out he had kennel cough and worms. Poor little guy. At least the shelter got him to a vet right away and his health quickly improved. When we dropped him off the second time, we were told that 2 families were interested in adopting him. Puppies always go fast. However, Leighton had fallen so in love that he called the shelter within an hour of leaving him to tell them that he wanted to keep the little guy. Since we had fostered him, they were happy to let us adopt him. Now, let me mention something. I have had pets my whole life...from dogs to horses to hamsters and rabbits. However, the last time that I had a puppy (of my own) was when I was 13. My best friend, Genny's, yellow lab had puppies and my mom allowed me to keep one. Of course I recall my mother yelling at me to make sure Daisy didn't eat everything in the house or outside. However, I don't recall having to get up in the middle of the night to let her pee. Oh yes, that's because I lived in Texas! And dogs can be outdoors year-round (well, we still let them in sometimes when the weather is bad). So, you don't have to worry about taking them out at 3am. Now, Baja is a super intelligent puppy, but his bladder is not so much. I think his bladder has ADD. What's the best way to deal with ADD? "appropriate target goals to guide therapy"---yes, this comes from NIH. Well, that's our goal with Baja....target goal tonight will be 4:30am. I'm hoping he can last that long.....b/c mom is going to go crazy if he can't slowly learn how to hold it all night within the next week.
Okay, I don't want to talk about my dog's potty habits. I will say that within the first 2 weeks of having him, he's already learned to sit, stay, come, shake, "touchdown", turn around, and Leighton is trying to get him to do some weird agility training with chairs. Heelers are interesting dogs. I am working on minimizing the amount that he nips, although I am aware that all puppies nip. Heelers have a larger tendency to do this, hence the name "heeler." I should really refer to them as Australian Cattle dogs. They also have a tendency to run after trucks (at least that has been my experience as well as the experience of others). Thankfully Baja doesn't understand what vehicles are quite yet.
Okay, enough about the dog. I hope you dog lovers are enjoying this. We bought a new house! Yep, we will be permanent Park City residents. We've been taking loads of stuff over to the new place for the last few days and I am really falling in love with it. It isn't huge, but it's a 3 bedroom place in the mountains. I don't think I'll ever feel fully at home in Utah the way that I did in Colorado, but there are worse places to be. I just wish that there was more nightlife and a better culture. But what can ya do? At least some other amazing states are within a day's drive. And the scenery here is still quite pretty. Did I mention that Toll Canyon (the canyon right next to our house) was recently bought by Utah Open Lands? This canyon is a gorgeous area to hike/back-country ski and was privately owned. The owners told the residents that if they collected enough money to purchase the land, then they'd sell it to them for a reduced price (I think about $2 million less) than if they were to sell it to a private person that wanted to develop it. Amazingly residents from the neighborhoods in the area came together and raised several million dollars in order to purchase it! I'm always excited when land is protected, especially land that's basically in my backyard.
Well, I better get back to writing my thesis while the boys are gone. And maybe I'll actually get some rest tonight.....we shall see.
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