I wore a t-shirt and some wide-legged pants today. This is a totally normal outfit formula for me. I’ve worn minor variations on this outfit several times a week for three months. I get occasional compliments on it, especially if I’m wearing a particularly cute top.
Today, I received six compliments on it in three hours. Many quite effuse and gushing.
What’s the difference?
I wore makeup today. I was expecting to be photographed, which is basically the only situation in which I will wear makeup. It wasn’t a lot of makeup. A little concealer, a little eyeliner and mascara, a little blush. It’s barely noticeable that I’m even wearing makeup.
But it was enough.
When we say wearing makeup isn’t a choice you make “for yourself,” it’s conditioned into you via social approval/disapproval, this is what we mean. Nobody complimented my makeup, they complimented my outfit. If I didn’t already know how this works, I might never have made the connection. But that’s how this works. It’s insidious. “I just feel more confident when I wear makeup!” No, other people reward you in subtle ways when you wear makeup.
And I don’t blame the people who commented. It’s not like they’re all in on some conspiracy to make me wear makeup more often. They just noticed that I looked unusually “nice,” and wanted to say something nice about it. They probably didn’t even notice that the makeup was what was different.
But the message was loud and clear - people like my appearance more when I wear makeup. People are nicer to me when I wear makeup. People go out of their way to say nice things to me when I wear makeup.
Nobody is immune to that. I certainly am not immune to that.
So I have been looking at different apps to track both training and health.
I want to log
Weight - I want to log weight just for fun. It’s good to learn to stand still on a weight scale too.
Training - I want to keep a journal or at least an overview of training but I want to be able to track different types of training individually. Like nose work / agility / puppy class ect.
Vet appointments - I want to track different appointments and preferably I want reminders for future appointments. Like an reminder for revaccination and flee/tics treatment and so forth.
I’ve narrowed it down to 3-4 apps because I just can’t seems to find one that have it all.
DogScroll: Made in Finland. Made to track training with multiple dogs. Easy to use. Can track different types of training and there’s a log for how much you have trained in the last month/year. The health tab is very basic and there’s no feature to track weight. Not free.
11 pets: I think it’s made in Spain. It’s easy to personalize. There’s a lot of opportunities to track everything from nails, teeth, bath, weight, different vaccinations and reminders for when you need to schedule next appointments. But there’s really no sufficient way to track training. I don’t know. It seems a little fishy too. I made have sold them my soul and first born. It’s free (but nothing is really free)
Dogo: Okay. This is a guide for training dogs.. and it’s very guided. I was actually pleasantly surprised about how they want you to train your dog (with clicker and positive reinforcement) and the drawings are cute. I actually didn’t download this at first, because I thought it was very ‘Novice handler’. But it’s a good way to remind myself of different tricks and to log them individually. Like sit and down and recall and stuff. You add how well the dog preform the task.
Some of you may have been wondering why the blogging hiatus. That’s because I’ve been extremely busy raising a litter of growlybiteyjumpy things, er– Hokkaido Ken puppies. Since two of them will be staying for at least another month until they can fly to their new homes, I thought I’d go ahead and share my tried and true methods for potty training.
Note: I’ll be using the term “puppy” in this post. However, this post applies to adult dogs just as easily!
The first thing you’ll need is a means of containment for your puppy. For now, start with a crate. All puppies coming from a responsible breeder or experienced foster home should have already been desensitized to being in a crate. If your puppy is coming from a shelter, pet store, or backyard breeder, I highly recommend starting with Susan Garret’s Crate Games DVD as quickly as possible. Crates should be just big enough for your puppy to curl up and lay down in. If the crate is too big, this will make potty training much harder because they will begin to designate a specific side of their crate for pottying in vs sleeping in. PUPPIES DO NOT LIKE TO POTTY WHERE THEY SLEEP! We’re going to work with this. Many crates these days come with wire dividers so you can gradually adjust the size of the crate to fit your growing puppy. If your crate does not come with such divider, using a cardboard box to divide the crate and gradually reducing the size of the box works as well! (Though you may have issues with your puppy chewing the box.)
Your puppy will need to be let out every hour during the day, and every time he starts to cry at night. Just because your puppy can “hold it” while he’s sleeping at night does not mean he can do the same during the day. When you let him out, leash him and take him directly to his potty place (typically outside, but I realize running down three flights of stairs if you live in an apartment isn’t always feasible; sod potty patches or piddle pads are also acceptable).
Leashing him does two important things:
It builds a positive association between the leash and good things, and
It helps him differentiate between potty time and play time
You should do minimal wandering with your puppy when you are attempting to get him to potty. Hold the end of a six foot leash. If necessary, you may take one or two steps in any direction, but no more than that. Give him five minutes to do his thing. Once he does, and wait for him to finish so you don’t cause him to STOP going, shower him with praise/treats while saying “Good GO POTTY!” Only after he potties should you unclip his leash (if he’s indoors or in a securely fenced in location) and let him sniff around or play for thirty minutes before putting him back in his crate.
This teaches him two things:
“Go potty” is something he can do on cue, and
The faster he goes potty, the faster play time comes
It’s extremely important to be consistent about your praise and your cues. If you start slacking off, the inconsistency will show.
When your puppy starts getting the hang of this, introduce an x-pen to give him more freedom. Place his crate inside the x-pen, along with the potty patch or piddle pad if you are going that route. If your puppy is successfully using the potty patch, gradually give him more freedom and start moving the potty patch closer to the door until your puppy will go to the door when he needs to potty.
Keep in mind that a puppy doesn’t have full bladder control until 16-20 weeks of age, sometimes later! Forgive mistakes, and never correct for “happy pee” (puppies eliminating themselves when excited). Remember that potty training is a long process, and while many puppies will progress very quickly using the methods above, there may still be accidents if you aren’t careful about supervising. If your puppy does have an accident and you didn’t catch them in the act, promptly clean it up with an enzymatic cleaner and avoid punishing your puppy for it. All punishment does is confuse a puppy and it can cause issues further down the road.
Still having potty training issues? Stay tuned for my next blog post on potty training troubleshooting!
Jason: How many murders did you refrain from committing today?
Damian: Thirty two.
Jason: Good for you.
Jason: Here, have a cookie.
Damian, expectantly: I also refrained from fourteen severe maimings.
Jason: *hands him a second cookie*
Bruce:
Jason: positive reinforcement
Okay I so very much want criminals thinking Red Hood is not killing then because Batman offered him cookies. And what if they think Red Hood started working with the bats because of cookies in the first place?
I now want this
as some criminal trying to explain how red hood ended up working with the bats
And then I want my beloved thug named Jeff to, as Dan is putting together the PowerPoint, go recruiting and find a baker to bring into the fold because they need all the enticements they can get their hands on if they’re going to get their boss back
Or just one of Red Hood’s goons to straight up go to culinary school or whatever because apparently boss likes cookies enough to work with Batman so surely if they can do better…
Bruce appeases Murder Child for the first time
Murder Child devours appeasing offerings on the streets of Gotham
Batman gives Murder Child a GINGERSNAP COOKIE???
Criminal reaction - the Murder Child has rejected the appeasing offering!
I see a lot of my professional dog training buddies bragging about how fine their dogs are on July 4th. I’m glad for you, and TBH my dog is too - but that doesn’t mean it’s because you or I are good trainers.Sure, training, thoughtful early exposure and counter conditioning helps. BUT what helps even more is a dog with a solid temperament (you can’t train that), and a hell of a lot of LUCK.
This is the first 4th of July without Charlotte - that dog taught me more personally and professionally than ANY temperamentally solid dog ever has. For weeks around July 4th she was highly medicated long lasting and fast acting crisis meds and she STILL was beyond being able to be comforted and was a serious danger to herself. No amount of training was ever going to “fix” that. I am so relieved there are no fireworks in heaven and she is not in agony today (at 8am i’ve already heard fireworks).
TLDR - dog people your dog’s successes and challenges don’t define you. Stop shaming people whose dogs are struggling. If you’ve never had a dog that struggles that tells me either you are lying, have culled your pack, or don’t have as much experience as you say you do. Don’t be elitist. Help others to keep their dogs safe while the country blows things up. Keep dogs inside and supervised and encourage/support others to do the same including seeking out medication if their panic is severe.
When I fully understood my reactive pup and her challenges, I made these promises to her (after I saw some inspiration from artist Sydney Koehl and her adoption of a sweet, fearful pup).
You don’t have to have a fearful or reactive dog to make these promises. These are a great reminder that our relationship with our dog is a two-way street. Our pups are not just with us to provide us love, comfort, entertainment, etc. We HAVE to give them what they need too.
I’ve seen so many people talk about punishing their cats, and I am shocked every time. Even yelling at a cat is detrimental—they will think you are insane, and they will lose some trust in you—they don’t understand it, it means nothing to them, so you’re making your cat feel less safe without doing anything to change the behavior. Every time you yell at or punish a cat, you are putting your…
I hung out with a friend of mine whom I LOVE kicking it with because we just talk and talk and talk and it’s amazing. Anyhoo, we were catching up on life and it reminded me of something I needed to do. These past few weeks, Kevin (my husband) and I have been having some miscommunication issues with regards to polyamory. Communication in polyamory is a big deal, ask anyone who does it. Kevin is by nature not talkative, private, and a passive communicator so that is an area he struggles with. When he went to go visit his LDR, I could tell he made a sincere and concerted effort to communicate better with me and it was super helpful and I really appreciated it. I was reminded that I needed to tell him that. I think it’s important that I acknowledge and show appreciation for my partners when I see them working to improve themselves and how they relate to me. So many times, I have no problems bringing up when I have issues with what they are doing but I want to be just as quick to applaud them when I can see that they took something that I communicated that I needed and applied it to their behavior, especially when I know it’s something that is naturally out of their wheelhouse. Plus it just feels good when someone acknowledges that you’re trying. When they see you showing up for them and they are grateful.
