Honey the Great Dane » Life in Brisbane

Wordless Wednesday: ‘Sleeping Beauty’…

bighoneydog — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 21:35:35 +0000

These paws were made for walkin’ …

bighoneydog — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:58:35 +0000

* ETA: Thank you everybody for your messages about Cyclone Yasi – we really appreciate your concern! Don’t worry – we are very lucky because Newcastle is much, much further south than where the cyclone is going to hit (North Queensland) so we will be quite safe. But we are keeping everything crossed for everybody in Qeensland – they have suffered so much already.

Enjoying a stroll in Civic Park, Newcastle

One of the best things me and my humans like about moving to Newcastle is how nice it is for walking around! The streets here are so different from where we lived in Brisbane. It was horrible in our neighbourhood there – there were no pavements so you either had to walk in the road or across people’s front gardens. If you walked on the road, it was a bit dangerous because sometimes the car machines came by very fast and you could get run over! But if you walked over people’s gardens, that was dangerous too. Why? Well, a lot of people left their doggies out in the garden all the time (they were “outside dogs”) and these doggies were really bored and grumpy so they spent their whole day just watching for anybody to walk past – and then they rush the fence and try to attack you!

Now, I have to confess something – “My name is Honey and I am a lunger-holic” – I am not good with grumpy doggies behind fences. I can’t just ignore them and walk past calmly like a lot of other doggies can – or even go up and try to make friends. No, they just make me really mad cracker dog and I want to yell nasty things back at them! When I was in my “bad teenage monster” phase at around 8 months, back in Auckland, I developed a habit of lunging and pulling and bouncing every time we had to pass a grumpy doggie behind a fence on our walks. I got so bad that I pulled Hsin-Yi off her feet several times and burned all the rubber off her shoes, dragging her across the pavement! That was the main reason my humans took me to have private lessons with my wonderful trainer, Flip at Flip’s Top Dog in Auckland, because Hsin-Yi just couldn’t walk me anymore and was getting very stressy even just thinking about taking me out, ‘coz I weigh a lot more than her, you know, and if I want to, I can really pull her off her feet and hurt her! Plus it looked really bad for me to be so out of control and everybody in our neighbourhood was scared of me and giving Hsin-Yi the Evil Eye for not being able to control me…

Anyway, so with Flip’s help, I learnt better walking manners – I learnt to “Heel” which is not the kind like in Obedience trials (with your head in a certain position, staring up at your human all the time, etc) but more a kind of ‘attention-walking’ where it doesn’t matter what position my head is in or whatever, as long as I walk next to Hsin-Yi, on her left side, with my shoulder in line with her knee, and totally ignore everything that is going on around me. It’s the “totally ignore“ part that’s important and I practised and proofed this with lots of different distractions, before finally doing it around grumpy doggies behind fences.

This way, it helped me learn to “ignore” grumpy doggies behind fences, when I’m walking past. Soon, I got so good at ignoring that Hsin-Yi didn’t even have to put me into “Heel” anymore - I could remain in “Close”- and still walk past grumpy doggies behind fences calmly. (“Close” is my casual walk command, where I can walk on any side I like, or in front, behind, as long as my leash isn’t tight (see my picture above?) – I do most of my walks in “Close” and only “Heel” when I have to pass distractions)

So since then I have been good and walk nicely on lead and Hsin-Yi can take me anywhere and I don’t lunge…well, most of the time!

See, you’re never really cured, you know. Once a lunger, always a lunger. Hsin-Yi says I am “in remission“. But every once in a while, if we walk too close to a grumpy doggie behind a fence – or if I’m suddenly startled by a grumpy doggie behind a fence, then I forget all my training and I start lunging and bouncing and pulling again – which really scares Hsin-Yi! She gives me a Big Telling Off when I do that and then I get in Big Trouble. And then I remember my manners and behave but by then, Hsin-Yi is all sweaty and stressy and grumpy.

So she hated having to walk me so close to the gardens with grumpy doggies inside but we had no choice – ‘coz either there was no pavement or if there was one, it was really narrow and very close to the gardens anyway. And most of the houses around us in Brisbane didn’t have proper high fences or solid walls, like they did back in Auckland – they only had silly, low, wire fences with lots of big holes in them so it looked like the grumpy doggies could break out any moment!

We really hated having to pass so close to all the grumpy doggies out in gardens in our neighbourhood in Brisbane and that’s why we hardly walked around there – my humans always ended up taking me by car machine to walk somewhere else, like in the Kelvin Grove Urban Village or Roma St Parklands. But we were sad because my humans don’t like to use the car machine if they can help it (they say it isn’t “green”) and also because back in Auckland, we used to really enjoy walking around our neighbourhood – my humans love walking so we often used to go for an hour or more in a big loop, all around – the streets where we lived in Auckland were so pretty with wide pavements, so nice for walking, and all houses had high, solid fences or walls, so even if we passed grumpy doggies, we weren’t too close to them and couldn’t see their grumpy faces! Also, most people had their doggies indoors or kept them in gardens at the back, so they couldn’t see people walking past and so never learnt to be grumpy.

the beautiful streets in our neighbourhood back in Auckland...

* Hsin-Yi says: there seemed to be a real problem in Queensland with many people keeping their dogs outside all the time and never bringing them into the house to interact with them. Back in Auckland, we’d lived in a “high dog density” neighbourhood too but we never passed as many aggressive dogs left out in front gardens or had such a problem with constant barking & howling from so many dogs in the neighbourhood. (And we lived in a pretty upmarket neighbourhood of Brisbane - I shudder to think what it was like in more ‘deprived’ areas!)

The RSPCA Queensland kept running educational campaigns to try and change this “outside dog” mentality – I remember going to one of their “Problem Barking” seminars, where they said that most cases of nuisance barking & complaints were due to dogs being left outside alone in the garden all the time, night & day. I sat in on one of their puppy classes where they tried to explain to many of their new owners why having an “outside dog” was a recipe for disaster – but many of the men, especially, still had very ‘traditional’ ideas about how to keep dogs and it was a struggle to get them to change their attitudes. One man even insisted that his cute Staffie puppy had to remain an “outside dog” because it would “grow up to be a big dog”. Oh Pul-lease! Take it from me as someone who owns a dog that is the size of a small pony: size has nothing to do with it. Honey is so quiet indoors, she is like an extra piece of furniture. Visitors often even forget that she is there. Like most things with dogs, nothing’s a problem if you put in a bit of training and socialisation. And dogs certainly can’t learn how to behave if they’re left in solitary isolation! (or at least, they don’t learn anything good!! )

What many owners don’t realise is that by leaving your dog outside all the time, you’re almost guaranteed to create all the common dog problems, like constant barking, digging, destructive chewing and other anti-social behaviours, as well as a dog that goes crazy every time you go out into the garden, because:

a) he has been so deprived of social stimulus, he is crazy with pent-up frustration & excitement
- and
b) he has never had the chance to learn to be calm around humans.

It’s bad enough with a lazy, low-drive dog like Honey but these idiots compound the problem by getting a high energy working breed, like a Labrador or kelpie or cattle dog. They argue that these are farm dogs, bred to live outside. There are even those who insist that certain breeds – like the Italian Maremma Sheepdog – prefer to live outside. Er, yes, sure – on the farm. Where they are busy working all day, with interaction & teamwork from the farmer, not to mention companionship from their livestock & other farm dogs, and when they’re not doing that, they’re asleep, bloody knackered!…NOT in modern suburbia where they are stuck alone in a tiny garden, bored and frustrated. And we all know what frustration leads to: aggression. (And no, having a “big garden” isn’t good enough – not unless your “big garden” is the size of Hyde Park or Central Park!)

Fence aggression can become a serious problem and it is created by leaving dogs unsupervised outside all day, with view of the street, often without any additional exercise (both physical through walks and mental through training and/or interactive games) – the dog releases his pent-up energy & frustratrion by barking and charging at people and dogs passing by. And the more frustrated he gets (especially with the fence barrier preventing access to his “prey”), the more aggressive he gets. Many people think such dogs are simply being territorial and “guarding the house” but dogs that obsessively guard and rush at fences have a serious problem – they are often more fixated on the fence than protecting the actual property and in many sad cases, the aggression gets out of control, turning them into a real danger if they manage to break through the fence one day or if they redirect that aggression onto their families.

For more information, here are 2 good articles on dealing with fence aggression:

Yes, it is natural and normal for dogs to be territorial and to bark at strangers - but this form of extreme, obsessive aggression is not normal or safe, and shouldn’t be encouraged. Honey is territorial at barriers: she will greet you with friendly, wagging tail if you just approach her but put a fence or crate wall between you and suddenly, she is growling and suspicious as you approach. (She will even bark & growl at us if we approach her from the other side of the house fence – the stupid dog! ) So while we allow her to bark at strangers approaching the house, we certainly don’t allow her to rush the fence or behave aggressively in any way at the fence-line. We interrupt the behaviour immediately, don’t leave her out front unsupervised where she can indulge in bad behaviour without being checked and reward her for watching calmly when people are walking past. I had to do a lot of heavy supervision the first week we moved into this new house until she re-learnt the rules with these new barriers but now she understands the difference and will watch calmly if dogs & people are just walking past but will bark if they approach our gate or stop outside our house.

What I really don’t understand is – what is the point? If you’re going to keep your dog outside in the garden all day and never interact with it, why bother having a dog? If it’s security you’re after, there are many less cruel, less hassle, cheaper - and more effective – ways to protect your home. I think sadly a lot of these people (again, often men!) actually like having a dog behaving like this for others to see – it boosts their sense of macho power and makes them think their house is better protected. We passed many homes back in Brisbane where the dog was trying to kill us through the fence and his owner was just standing at the front door, watching proudly… But to keep a highly social, intelligent animal like a dog in this sort of constant solitary confinement is really a form of cruelty and torture – as well as extreme irresponsibility, because you will be creating a very aggressive animal. We can only hope that the educational campaigns are working and attitudes are slowly changing.

******

Well, the great thing is here in Newcastle, the streets around our neighbourhood are so much nicer! First, there is a wide pavement all around the houses so that we can walk safely past them without getting too close to grumpy doggies…but there don’t seem to be many grumpy doggies out anyway! It seems that most doggies here are either kept indoors or in a garden at the back (like in Auckland) – they’re not just left in front gardens all day, to rush at everyone who walks past the house!

So we are really enjoying our walks now and we walk everywhere! We don’t have to take the car machine anymore, which makes my humans very happy. There are lots of big trees which keep us cool and shady, the pavement is really wide and roomy and we love looking at the pretty houses that we pass…

…a lot of them are those “Victorian terrace townhouses” which have those beautiful ”cast iron filigree lacework” all over them, especially on their balconies - my humans think they are so pretty! Don’t you think?

But what I really love about our walks is that there are SO many kitties in the neighbourhood! I am always meeting kitties on my walk every day – and some of them are really friendly and just lie on the pavements and don’t even bother to get up when I walk past!

Once, me and Hsin-Yi nearly stepped on a tortie kitty who was lying on the path. Well, the stupid kitty was just lying there, not moving and her tortie fur was almost the same colour as the ground with all the leaves around and we didn’t even see her! (Hsin-Yi says she must be a really stupid kitty just to keep lying there – we could have really stepped on her and squashed her!).

Some kitties are very confident and just walk right up to me and stare at me – that makes me really nervous so I always walk in a wide circle around them and keep my head down and turn my eyes away! But other kitties always run away as soon as they see me. That makes me want to chase them! See, if a kitty is all confident and bossy with me, then I’m really respectful but if they start acting like ‘scaredy-cats’, then I feel brave and think I can chase them!

So now I know which houses they live at and I start to get really excited as we’re getting near there. In fact, I’m so excited to see the kitties sometimes that I forget my leash manners and – gasp! - start pulling!

But Hsin-Yi is awful strict and if I pull, she always makes me turn around and go back and walk past again nicely and politely, with a loose leash - even if she has to make me do it again and again – just so that I learn that I can’t get away with that kind of behaviour! Humph!

And she’s really stubborn, you know! A lot of doggies think that if they just keep trying, their humans will get fed-up with their behaviour and just “let it go this one time” – well, they haven’t met Hsin-Yi! I don’t think any doggie can “out-stubborn” her! It makes Paul a bit grumpy sometimes because then he has to wait and wait, but once she gets it into her head that you have to do something properly, she will make you do it again and again until you get so bored that you give up and just do what she asks! Even if she has to stay there all night to make you do it! (I think if Hsin-Yi was a doggie, she would be a Terrier!)

(I once saw her doing training with a doggie who kept breaking his Down Stay - he would always jump up and come running and look so cute & cheeky that his humans always let him off. So he thought he could always get away with it, as long as he kept trying long enough – it wasn’t like he didn’t know the command – he knew what he had to do but he just thought he could weasel his way out of it!…well, Hsin-Yi just kept putting him back every time he got up – again and again and again – it got really boring to watch. But finally that doggie gave up! He just couldn’t “out-stubborn” Hsin-Yi – whatever he did, no matter how cute he tried to look and no matter how many times he got up, she put him back into a Down Stay… so that in the end, he realised that she meant it and that he had to stay Down until she gave him the release command. It was a tough battle of wills but the next day, when she asked him to do a Down Stay, he never bounced up again! )

The other nice thing about walking in our neighbourhood is that we can just walk to so many different places! My humans are so glad that – even though it made the search harder at first - they decided to find a house close to the city centre, rather than in the “outer suburbs”.

Aside from the lovely streets, there are lots of nice parks around us and we are even just 15 mins walk from the waterfront and the beach (although we haven’t tried walking there yet) and we can also easily walk into downtown too! There is a lovely park right in the city centre of Newcastle called Civic Park and it is really nice to walk in, with lots of pretty flowers and a big fountain too!

It is right beside the Newcastle City Hall and other important buildings. Because Newcastle is the 2nd oldest city in Australia, it has more history and so lots more beautiful old buildings “with character” which my humans like so much better than the ugly modern “concrete jungles”…Hsin-Yi says old architecture always seems prettier and more interesting! And because it is a much smaller city, it doesn’t have so many tall buildings downtown so you can see more green, open spaces and more blue sky!

Me & Hsin-Yi went to climb up the many steps to the top of the fountain, to get a good view of the City Hall!

Looking at the fountain made me thirsty so it’s a good thing my humans always carry a bottle of water with them for me!

At least there is no Yucky Humidity here in Newcastle – although it is still very hot ‘coz we’re still in the middle of summer now, here in Australia (it was 39°C / 102°F yesterday!) - but it is a sort of ‘dry heat’.

It’s the Yucky Humidity that makes things really hard for us doggies ‘coz the only way we can cool ourselves down is by panting and evaporating water from our tongues – but when there is a lot of Yucky Humidity, there is already a lot of water in the air – so it won’t evaporate from our tongues!

And so back in Brisbane, I was panting and panting like crazy but I still couldn’t cool down. It was horrible. But now, the air is much dryer here and so I feel much better, even on hot days. And there is often a nice breeze coming in from the sea!

Well, after that drink, it was time to start walking home! At the beginning of my walk, I always walk in front, with ‘bouncy steps’ and my head up, all full of energy and excitement…but by the end, I’m usually plodding along beside my humans, with my head down…looking forward to going home for a nice nap!

******

ps. Good news! I just heard from House’s human that he has started eating again! Only a very little bit still and he is still very sickie but it’s a first step! His vets still don’t know what is wrong with him – it is a big mystery. But he has also started being a bit cheeky and asking for attention, so that sounds good too! House & his human, Jeanette, want to thank everybody for their good wishes. Let’s hope he keeps getting better! (House doesn’t have his own blog but he is a regular reader of mine so you can always leave him a message in the Comments here!)

Goodbye BrisVegas! (The Year That Was…2010)

bighoneydog — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:57:42 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQc-aRS-lUw

See you in Newcastle!

Pack Animal Extraordinaire!

bighoneydog — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 04:36:31 +0000

* My humans are really stressy and busy with packing & preparing for our move to Newcastle at the end of this week, so I won’t be able to come round and visit your blogs for a while – I hope you’ll forgive me and understand! I am still thinking of you all and will come round to visit as soon as I can, once we’re settled in Newcastle!

The Moving Humans are coming on Friday! So I have been helping my humans with packing up our home…hmm, what do you think? Do I need a bigger case?

Paul convinced Hsin-Yi to let the Moving Humans do some of the packing this time, instead of doing everything herself like when we left NZ – because it makes her crazy stressy!

So Hsin-Yi is only packing all the clothes and personal stuff…and of course, her precious books!

Hsin-Yi has millions and millions of books and most of them have been living in boxes in the basement this year, because my humans knew we would only be in Brisbane for 1 year and so they wanted to unpack as little as possible.

Look at all of Hsin-Yi's books! She could open a book store!

But of course, Hsin-Yi can’t live without her favourite books (she likes to read them again and again, even though she already knows the stories – she says it’s like listening to a favourite song!) so she did unpack some of them…and of course, she bought LOTS more new ones!! So now she will have to put all the old ones back in their boxes and pack the new additions too.

Don’t worry – I’m helping her lots!

Where does this one go?

The Moving Company sent somebody to come and count all our stuff so they can tell us how much money paper it would cost to move it all to Newcastle for us. I liked the man who came – he has a big doggie too (although not as big as me!) and he gave me lots of cuddles – and even played Tug with me!

It is still RAINING and RAINING and big winds and floods everywhere. They say this is the most rain that Brisbane has had in 150 years!

I’ve been telling my humans that I really don’t need to go for my daily walks in this kind of weather…*shudder*…I mean, going out in the rain means getting wet!

But my crazy humans believe it’s really important for us doggies to have a walk every day, unless someone is sickie or the weather is so bad it is dangerous to go out…

…even just a short one – just to get some fresh air, change of scene and stretch our legs, Hsin-Yi says…

What’s she talking about? I can stretch my legs just fine at home!

But no – my humans have insisted on dragging me out into the pouring rain and hot, humid air for my walk every evening. Humph! Well, at leas they got as wet as I did – Hah!

What are you laughing at?

At least with my short, single coat, I dry off really quickly. Oh, but I do so hate getting my face wet! I try to go and sneakily wipe my face on the sofa but Hsin-Yi always sees me and gives me a big Telling-Off! She gets very grumpy and says that is why the sofa is covered in yucky slobbers and brown hairs…well, really, how else is a doggie supposed to get their face dry?

I got another big Telling-Off yesterday because I was very naughty. See, I saw these really cool Crunch Cards in the pet shop which are “edible cards” for doggies made of rawhide and so I got one to send to my special friend, Lucille the Italian Dane who lives in the faraway place called Verona. And Hsin-Yi helped me write her address on the envelope and everything.

Well, yesterday when Hsin-Yi was busy doing the scary Bath Thing on herself, I got a bit bored and then I smelled something yummy on Hsin-Yi’s desk…it was Lucille’s card, all ready to go to the Post Office! Mmm…it smelled so yummy, I thought I’d just have a little taste…I’m sure Lucille wouldn’t mind…oh dear, but it’s inside the envelope so I would have to rip it open to have a little taste…but I’m sure Lucille wouldn’t mind…mmm, it’s nice and chewy…maybe I’ll just have a bit more…and then I heard:

“HONEY!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Uh-oh. I looked up and saw Hsin-Yi standing there, dripping wet and clutching a towel, wearing her Scary Face. Uh-oh. I was in Big Trouble.

I tried to give her my “Most Pathetic Doggie” face, with big sad eyes and put on my most adorable wrinkles…but Hsin-Yi has a Heart Of Stone. My ears are still ringing from her Big Yelling. And now I have no card to send to Lucille either…sorry Lucille!

Anyway, I’m not the only one getting Telling-Offs. Hsin-Yi got a Telling-Off herself from the Dentist Human last weekend because she is clenching her teeth so much from stressiness that it gives her head ouchies and jaw ouchies constantly…AND she is getting scary exploding pimples all over her face too! Plus she keeps disturbing me at night when I’m trying to have a peaceful snooze – she keeps waking up screaming from having bad dreams, like last night she thought she had a turnip growing out of her shoulder!

So Hsin-Yi is stomping around in a Big Grump and wearing her Scary Face a lot now…hmm, I think I’d better try to be an angel doggie for the rest of this week!