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.
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