Long Cold Nights

It is easy to feel miserable during the Chicago winter months, because the nights come a lot earlier and the days start so much later. When I leave in the morning, it is often pitch black and fairly cold and when A finishes teaching her last class, it is always pitch black and really cold.

But it really is hard to be miserable when every morning I catch A, Mr. B and Miss M keeping a watchful eye out the window as I bike down our street to work and on my rides home I get to see Mr. B's head in the window bounce up and down, excited to see me home.

Even though we live near a busy city street, the nights can be eerily quiet and lonely, but the sight of Mr. B sleeping so soundly and the sound of Ms. M snoring so loudly, reminds us that our house is whole.

Then there are the not so cold nights, because they are spent hugging our personal space heaters, Miss M and Mr. B in their beds.

Staycation with Dogs: Dome Walking Tour

When we went on a trip this summer, we realized that the best part of traveling was discovering new things we enjoy, then bringing them back to our everyday life...with our pooches. One of the main things we did  was walk around gawking at the amazing architectural designs and domed Cathedrals.

Then we realized, this is we actually live in a neighborhood filled with Chicago landmark domed cathedrals. In Ukrainian Village there are several beautiful European-style cathedrals nestled amongst the homes in a few block area. With the multi onion domes, gold-leafing and enormous mosiacs, it's almost like we stumbled into a far away land:

The cathedrals encompass a few-block area with beautiful tree-lined streets, because since we have to take the walks anyway, we might as well make them interesting:

Pooches: On Getting Miss M's Number and Moo Cards

Miss M still thinks she's a single gal. Whenever we go out, she is always eyeing the people, wiggling her little tush, and just giving people a good overall impression of pitbull-type dogs.

Our pooches have won over many hearts this way, and as double-insurance that people will leave having a good overall feeling of pitbulls, we give them Miss M's "number". Actually just a card with a link to her Two Pitties blog.

We have met so many people on our walks who want to know more about our pooches, living in the city with bigger dogs and pitbull-type dogs in general, and we found these little Moo cards were the perfect way to give them this information. You can upload a photo on the front and put website information on the back. You can choose a couple of different photos so you have several types of cards.

These are especially helpful when we have our foster dogs. So many people would stop us to talk, and we knew that they might not remember the rescue name, so it was so convenient to be able to give them a card. Plus, Miss M feels like a very fancy lady that she gets her own "calling cards".

City Dog: Walking Two Dogs at the Same Time

One of the hardest, but most necessary, things about having multiple dogs in the city is learning to walk multiple dogs at the same time. The city distractions can make it difficult to walk one dog, which is only magnified when you add a second pooch. Plus, since most of us don't have yards and we need to go on 2-3 walks a day, which quickly becomes a tiresome 4-6 daily walks if you need to walk the pooches separately.
I first 'met' Willie & Nabi's mom when she emailed to ask tips about how I learned to walk our pooches at the same time. But I was stumped. I had forgotten the steps I had taken. Now that she has been working on walking Wille and Nabi together, I thought it would be great for her to share her experiences: successes and struggles.

When A asked me to guest post about learning to walk two dogs, my first reaction was, “But I’m still learning how!  What could I tell anyone?”  Then I thought how one of the great things about the Sociabulls community is that it is owners helping owners, and how it is helpful to hear about the “Before” as well as the “After”.  

I first found this blog through Project Rescue Chicago, the awesome group that rescued puppy Bella, as well as our smiley Willie, who we fostered and then adopted about 6 months ago.  I was so impressed how A was able to walk 150 pounds of dog at once, because I was struggling to walk a mere 80 pounds of dog at once.

After a couple months with us, we started thinking of Willie as our Jekyll and Hyde dog.  Indoors or off-leash, he was super mellow and seemingly perfect.  On-leash, he would get overexcited, pull a lot, and react to other animals (sometimes dogs, but especially stray cats, squirrels, pigeons, or the housecat-sized rats that roam the streets of Chicago) by lunging and “barking smack” for half a block at a time.  Also, he would remember *everything*, so if he saw a rat on one walk, he would start reacting in anticipation the next few times he passed that same spot, even if nothing was there.          

Our other rescue, Nabi, is generally pretty good on leash, but true to her breed, she also has a high prey drive, and she has previously snatched and killed a pigeon out of mid-air while on a 6-foot leash.  

When I first started trying to walk them together, as soon as one saw a squirrel and got excited, the other would copy, and it was a mess.  We’ve recently started working with fellow Sociabull Maize’s trainer, and although we are definitely a work in progress, we are beginning to see some great changes.  Here are some of the things that we’re learning:

One Step at a Time.

Like Miss M and Mr. B, Willie and Nabi don’t have a yard, so we rely on daily walks.  We were used to doing long multiple walks a day with Nabi, so at first we were trying to work on Willie’s pulling and reacting during those long walks.  Inevitably, he was getting away with a lot of pulling on those walks (because otherwise they would’ve literally taken hours), and the more he was able to pull, the more excited he would become.

We switched gears by starting to walk Willie alone, without Nabi, because Willie was more excitable with Nabi present.  Our trainer had us break down walking with Willie to literally one step at a time, two steps at a time, etc., while never moving forward if he was pulling, rewarding for being “in position”, and “resetting” if he got ahead of us.  We use mainly kibble as training treats and began feeding most of his meals through training rather than out of a bowl.  He does get to run and sniff for parts of each walk, but only when we “free” him so he knows we’re no longer working.  Our street is a big challenge due to several dogs left out in their gated areas who charge the fence, a big stray cat population, and squirrels, so as part of every walk, we try to practice going back and forth on our street several times.  This type of walk doesn’t cover as much ground distance wise, but seems to tire Willie out by being mentally challenging.      

Not Cheating.

As you can imagine, practicing walking one step at a time can get tedious at times and sometimes the temptation to just get going already is great.  However, we have noticed that if we cheat, we have setbacks.  We especially noticed this when we took the dogs out to the suburbs for a couple days over Thanksgiving and were a bit more lax while in vacation mode.  When we returned to the city, it took a couple walks to get back to where we were before Thanksgiving.  

On Equipment.

I feel like before we started doing this, we were searching for a “magic pill” in different equipment.  We tried a couple different styles of no-pull harness, the Gentle Leader, and a prong collar.  Each would make a difference for the first few days as Willie got used to the new equipment, but then he would adjust to it and learn to pull against it, and would still get just as excited around squirrels, because we weren’t effectively addressing the underlying behavior.  I think different equipment can be a great management tool, but probably not in the way that we were using it before.  

Voluntary Check-ins.

Working with a trainer has changed our perspective from trying to get Willie to constantly follow a series of commands to letting Willie make his own choice to pay attention to us.  As an example, instead of us constantly telling Willie “watch me” like we were at first, now Willie can look where he wants, but he only gets rewarded when he voluntarily chooses to look at us and be at our side, which encourages him to keep making that same choice.  We noticed that using the first method, Willie would look at us while we were giving him a command, but not much at other times, but using the second method, he’s checking in much more frequently on his own, which helps him not get as carried away.            

Impulse Control.

We’ve also been working on other exercises like “leave it”, hand targeting, and recall, to help with focus and impulse control.    

We’re just at the beginning stages, but seeing great changes so far.  Just last week, Willie had a breakthrough moment, where a squirrel ran right in front of him, and he whimpered a couple times, but visibly made an effort to stop himself and then look at us instead!  We have noticed improvement when he is outside with Nabi as well.  Seeing how he is trying so very hard just endears him to us even more.

I love the support our Sociabulls community gives each other in trying to help our dogs be their best, from A sharing her experiences walking 150 pounds of pit bull to Maize’s mom telling us all about different trainers.  We are learning so much and looking forward to more.  Anyone else have experiences to share on working with pulling and prey drive, and learning to walk multiple dogs together?

SociaBulls: SociaBulls do the Boulevards

The Chicago winter hasn't slowed any of us down as we all bundled up to head out early on a sunny Sunday to walk the boulevards. Our SociaBulls walks have provided the perfect opportunity for the pooches to have a different type of socialization where they don't need to interact.
We were joined again by Adorable Adoptable Ferris who has been excited to brush up on his skills as he patiently waits for his foster or forever home.
As we've grown as a group, the pooches have become more accustomed to the routine and we've been walking in areas with higher-visibility. It's fun seeing the historic homes, over-the-top Christmas displays, dogs as statues, and the square.

 Plus all the gorgeous pooches:

 We had another adorable adoptable, Estelle, join our walk also. It's hard to tell from the photos, but she is a very petite little pittie; the perfect apartment size! It's so great to see how her foster mom is working with her, and exposing her to a lot of new things, to help her succeed in her forever home. And she loves her foster brother Boomer. She is from It's a Pittie rescue, and you can read more about her here:

We have started a Chicago SociaBulls facebook page here to keep everyone updated, and we're going to keep walking through the winter unless temperatures are unbearable.
Interested in joining? Use the envelope icon on the sidebar to tell us how you heard about SociaBulls and a bit about your pooch.

The Donkey and the Rabbit

Ever since Miss M had her big 7th birthday party, she acts as if she can do whatever she pleases. Now that the weather has gotten colder, she is more reluctant to go on walks, even outright defiant, holding her ground after we have leashed her and gotten ready to go out the front door. She will brace herself and refuse to budge, like a donkey.

It is only through a lot of coaxing with praise, that she will choose to leave the house. Then on our walks, after she has done her business, she will turn to head back home.

However, Mr. B really enjoys going on walks and he will even rush ahead like a rabbit; he is always looking forward to our next adventure outside,

but on the other leash, we have Miss M, who will brace herself in the middle of the sidewalk and refuse to walk a step further. Again, we will have to sweet talk Miss M to join us for another block. 

Which is all she will give us. When we try to go even more, she will defiantly turn on one of the streets that would lead us home and she will pull towards that street with all her might and on the other leash, we will have Mr. B running like a jackrabbit toward the other street that leads to our usual walk. 

Poor Mr. B, Miss M's will to lounge in the warm home is too strong for the both of us and we usually succumb to her ways and before we know it, we are back inside, enjoying the comforts of home, away from the elements.

DoggyStyle: On Dogs, Couches, and Upholstery Cleaning

 Since adopting our pooches, I'm constantly on the quest to find easy cleaning solutions. I know a lot of people are deterred from having pets because they think it limits their options, but we even have white furniture.

 We do have a 'No dog on the Sofa' rule, but our dogs think they are much more clever then us. We are constantly writing about Miss M's trickery where she will sleep on the sofa with one eye open ready to jump off the moment we come home. Our favorite was when she got a throw pillow stuck to her collar and she ate dinner like nothing was wrong.

 Though lately we found out Mr. B is in on the trickery. They even have assigned seats on the couch. Here he is caught, and not realizing what else to do, he plays possum.

On the microfiber couch, we do have a dry cleaning sponge we use that can brush off light stains and hair.  Though after many cycles of Miss M's trickery, combined with her drooling in her sleep, there were some stains even the sponge couldn't brush off. In my nativity I thought it just meant we needed to live with it, until after some googling I realized we could just get an upholstery cleaner to come clean our couch.
We used used A-Abace from Logan Square. The service is done by the owners who have been in the business for decades and they are very professional and knowledgeable. After realizing all the potential for dirt, oils, dog saliva, and bird and squirrel feces that could be brought in, the fact they were never cleaned before, and seeing how our couches looked practically new afterwards, we thought it was money well spent. It was around $100 per couch.

 The only bad part was we have the Crate & Barrel Petrie sofa which can only be dry upholstery cleaned so it will still get out the stains, but it's harder to get out discoloring; we also learned the white will eventually begin to yellow from the sun. Fortunately for us, the pooches have never tried to sit on that sofa. But we do enjoy having the white...especially since we're headed for a dark and gloomy winter.
We have also heard of many people who use couches with slipcovers. I was also curious if people liked that, or if it became too cumbersome to clean very often. Or do people have other recommendations for couch cleaning?

Daily Walk: Holiday Stroll

During our last family walk, we were shocked to see how much has changed since the week prior:

Miss M was especially confused, but delighted, to see the horses in the street. I saw her nose up sniffing the air before I even realized there were horses. She was quite intrigued.

Meanwhile, Mr B was still a bit spooked from the horses, while Miss M was just happy to continue her modeling in front of the Wicker Park fountain.

We have to walk our dogs anyway, and it is much better with fun scenery. Anyone else have any fun winter walks lately?

Pooches: On Fairness and "His & Her" Dogs

I thought it was something I had just imagined, but I found out research shows that dogs actually do have a sense of fairness. According to this report from NPR, dogs become jealous and unresponsive if they believe they are not receiving equal treatment.

 I was reminded of this article the other day when HounddogMom asked how we divide our time among the dogs, especially deciding which dog to take on an outing and which dog stays behind. This is what seems to work for us:
We Have His & Her Dogs

 In our house, we have "His & Her" dogs. Though we love both our dogs, I have a special bond with Miss M since we were roommates back in our bachelorette days, and Mr. B is completely loyal to E; he even waits at the window all day watching for his return.

 So if Miss M goes on an outing with just me, he's ok because he gets to hang out with E and do things like watch the Bears game. And Miss M is fine staying home as long as she gets to eat a kong.

We Try to Switch it Up

 We do try to be fair by taking the other pooch to do a special thing every once in awhile. During the summer, I like to take Mr. B with me when I meet friends at outdoor cafes. He's able to sit nicely at the cafe, and he makes an amazing escort walking back home in the dark. And E will sometimes do things with just Miss M. Though I really feel Mr. B doesn't have as much fun with me. And from this photo, Miss M looks embarrassed to be out with her dad.

We Try to Be Fair as Much as Possible:

We try to give equal treats, equal toys, and equal embarrassing outfits.

This is what works for us with our pooches, but I'm curious to hear how other people keep it "fair" in their homes. Especially when the dogs outnumber the people.