Destruction and Doom

Yesterday I came home to a dismal scene. Every morning when Kai and I leave for work, Kai puts Xerxes in his kennel so that he doesn't destroy the apartment while we're away. I walk outside while Kai does this because I can't bear to hear him cry. Yesterday evening, upon arriving home from work, I found Xerxes LOOSE. Somehow he had gotten out of his kennel and managed to shred everything within reach in the kitchen and living room. He had my knives, Kai's birthday cards, our pens and pencils, etc. Worst of all, however, was that he had gnawed on my beautiful digital camera. The "shield" covering the battery and memory card was gone (Xerxes probably ingested it.), and the LCD screen was covered with dried slobber. I tried turning it on to see if it still worked, and to my surprise, it seemed to be functioning properly. I'm not sure how long it'll last, but at least I won't have to run out this instant and spend $200 on a camera.

Among the things that Xerxes destroyed was a can of cheeze whiz. He ate the whole thing. All of the cheeze whiz, that is. Thankfully, he left the can. Last night we had a training class, so Xerxes spent the majority of class embarrassing me with his farts. When he wasn't farting, he was peeing all over the trainer's carpet. He even lifted his leg and peed on the trainer's "tunnel." (It's some kind of tunnel thing that the dogs army crawl through.) You know your night is shot to hell when you have to pick up your dog and clamp his wiener shut with your hand. About an hour into the class, Xerxes decided he was done. The trainer has been trying to teach us how to make our dogs lay down, and I must admit that I haven't been practicing that particular command with Xerxes. I have my reasons. One - I don't care if he lays down on command. And two - he is incredibly stubborn when it comes to laying down, and I just don't have the energy to keep pushing him down. Because Xerxes refused to lay down, both the trainer and I had to keep correcting him with the "choke collar." Xerxes got really upset about the constant correcting and stopped paying attention. He just stood by the door with sad eyes that said, "Please let me out. I want to go home." When I didn't let him leave, he ran and hid underneath Kai's chair. That broke my heart. I let Xerxes sit out for the rest of the class, but stayed to watch so I could practice the new stuff with him at home.

Next week we have our last class, and I'm kind of scared to go. I don't want him to be scared. :(

I have good news, though. I am officially halfway through my sentence at The Landings at Pine Lake. I've got my fingers crossed, and I hope we make it to May without being kicked out. I'm not sure when I should start looking for a house to rent. Maybe March? I don't want to wait too long. The last thing I need is an extra month at The Landings.

First Day of Training!

Yesterday was Xerxes' first training class. I must preface this by saying that I know next to nothing about proper dog training. All of the dogs I've come into contact with (up until now) have been decently behaved. There's the occasional trash picker, or counter swiper, or couch surfing dog, but in my opinion, these behaviors are minor compared to the terror that is Xerxes.

The night started off rather frustratingly. The class was scheduled for 8:00 pm (ugh!) in Mantua, which is about 25 minutes away from my apartment according to MapQuest. Because it was dark out, and the roads we needed to take were a bit unfamiliar to us, I decided we should leave at 7:15. At said departure time, we loaded up the car and hit the road with printed directions in hand and the school's telephone number in case of emergency. All I have to say is THANK GOODNESS we brought along the number. After driving up and down Chews Landing, we came to the conclusion that the next road we needed to take, Barnsboro-Blackwood Road, did (and still does) not exist. At this point it was 7:50, so I called the trainer and told him we were having a hard time finding his place. He, using the fastest speech I've ever heard come out of a man's mouth, gave me back road directions that included about 500 twists and turns. It's a miracle I was able to follow what he was saying, let alone arrive at the school. By the time we arrived, it was 8:30.

We sat through about 2 hours of lecturing. I felt like I was back in college. He even gave us clipboards with paper to take notes! He told us everything there is to know about dogs. There's too much to list here, so I'll spare you the synopsis. The trainer, Steve, introduced German commands to us. He said that using English is a bad idea, because you don't want just anyone to tell your dog what to do. You should use distinct words for obedience. We learned "nein," which means "no," and "ya so braf hund," which means " you are a brave hound." As you can imagine, I felt pretty silly yelling NEIN, and then praising Xerxes with ya so braf hund. I sounded like an angry German woman. I'm pretty sure that listening to me yell these little tidbits will be very entertaining to my friends and family.

When we finally got to the training part, he taught everyone how to use "training collars" (commonly known as "choke collars," though we weren't allowed to call them that), which we practiced on his arm. Using those things properly is harder than it looks! During the course of the training collar demonstration, the trainer used me as an example. (Uncomfortable!) I had to practice on him while everyone watched! I found it incredibly hard to concentrate because Xerxes howled the whole time I was separated from him.

After learning how to properly use the "training collars," we moved on to our first task: training our dogs to not eat pizza that's put right in front of their face. Xerxes, in all his glory, decided to be a dunce. It took a while to get his attention since he was more interested in the cat that was slinking around. Kai had to wave the pizza at him multiple times. Long story short: those "training collars" are mighty effective. After about 2 minutes, Xerxes was running away from the pizza. We also taught our dogs to not run outside when a door is opened, and how to walk on a leash without pulling. When all was said and done, we left at 12:00 am! That was a 3 and 1/2 hour class!

We are supposed to practice all of these things and have them mastered by our next class, October 27th. Our biggest challenge will be Darby. She doesn't have the behavioral issues that Xerxes is so lucky to possess, but they do feed off of one another, and I'm concerned that she will "untrain" him. Due to her delicate mental state, I'm positive this kind of training will do nothing but make her poop herself, so training them both at once with the same technique is out of the question. This should be interesting...