changes | The Harmonious Crow

I’ve read a couple of interesting articles the last couple of days.

One was about removing the Big Three from tech life (Microsoft, Google and Apple)

I started on that process quite a few months ago. Switched to Linux, closed my Facebook account, and I don’t own any Apple products, so that’s fine.

I also wanted to start working on getting my THC mail up and running and using it as my main mail account, instead of my gmail so that I can move away from them. That would be cool.

I’ve been reading about Android replacements as well.

I also read an article about how Google plans to slice up Google+ – not sure how that will work or how they will section it up and how it will affect the general user, like moi.

Hopefully I will be more “detached” from it all by then, so it won’t really affect me too much.

Gina got very very sick last week Thursday. I had to rush her to the vet. She’s not well still, but getting better. I tentatively hope.

Next article I need to read is about handling easily stressed dogs – that wasn’t the issue, or why she was sick, don’t worry! – because Gina is now 6 years old (on the day she got so sick poor girl) and she gets so stressed with my interactions with Azzie (who I have to constantly “deal” with – stopping her from doing stupid things, EATING EVERYTHING, barking at everyone and everything and yanking my arm out my socket) that she is now incredibly tentative on walks. She lags behind, at the end of her lead, or just stops dead as soon as I correct Azzie, or she THINKS I will correct Azzie (when actually I’m just watching Azzie to make sure she’s just SNIFFING and not looking for crap to eat) and she _watches_ me constantly, to see if she can anticipate my reactions. It’s stressing her out so much So I began an experiment this afternoon – took her on a walk on her own (I do take them down individually in the early morning hours, for their first toilet break of the day, and again in the evening for their last toilet break before bed as I found that she got so sidetracked or put off by Azzie darting all over and making me drag her all around that she either forgot she needed to poop, or would just hold it because she was too stressed to poop – either way, not a good thing) Just a short walk, 10 minutes of alone time with me. It seemed to work well. I took Azzie first (as usual) and she was also rather well behaved on the walk: perhaps because she had my FULL attention and didn’t feel the need to do stupid things to attract it, I suppose. And then I took G out and the transformation in her was quite profound. She was happy, her tail remained UP the entire walk and she bounced around and wanted to play with the plastic bottles we’d walked by earlier in the day. She didn’t poop, but that’s ok – she doesn’t go much when just being fed chicken (which is what she is eating at the moment because of the tummy issues) – as she seemed just much happier.

So from tomorrow, I will take them together on our long walks (because doing two long walks would be inefficient and silly, and I’m not sure Azzie would be very happy to be left alone for that long anyway) and then the rest of the walks I will take them individually. Just short walks. See how G manages.

I’m hoping it will boost her confidence in me, and in Azzie, and that her stress levels will drop.

Also – I will begin posting here a lot more, instead of on G+ – especially if that will be hacking it up and I will lose what little “audience” I have.

Right. And on that note – it’s time for the Last Walk of the day. Hoping that if G poops, it’s better than earlier

Night night, chickens.

OH! Almost forgot! Started on my Linux course So far, going very well. Can’t wait for the next section to start!

Due to some technical issues, I have unfortunately kinda “lost” my old posts and media.

My techno-whiz friend Vanessa (of The Vanessa Macleod Creative Agency ) has done what she can to save my archives (all the way back to 2006!) and they will be available as she gets the chance to import them.

But for now…

It begins again, from here.

So this is my first “proper” post on my new host.

A small update, I suppose, as I try and remember what I last posted about and what has happened since then!

First things first – just over a week ago (Saturday 24 November 2012) my husband and I made the decision to adopt/rescue another Bernese Mountain Dog. She was being moved from foster to foster and was already 7 months old and we wanted to give her a good home.

Her name is Azerenka Victoria – we call her Azzie.

She is a gorgeous girl with enormous paws (larger than a Great Dane’s, actually) and lots of puppy manic energy.

She’s learning fast – very intelligent, like the rest of her breed – but we are in the middle of house training her. Yes, 7 months old and not house trained. She’s from a litter of 11 so she was initially used to fighting for every scrap of food or treat or anything, and she never had her own toys.

She’s come a long way in the week or more that we’ve had her – no more hoarding of toys, no more snapping at Gina when it came to food, no more panicked hoovering of her food to the point where she can hardly breathe.

She’s calmed down, has learned “sit” and “wait” and “uh uh” and “no” and “good girl” and is happily going in to her crate at night.

She has, quite understandably, quite severe separation issues, but we will work on those once we get her house trained – she’s growing DAILY, literally, and soon she will be too large for her crate, so we need to work on the house training first! Right now my husband are exhausted, as we have to take 2 hour shifts to take her downstairs to pee or poop (or both!) – slowly extending the time by a few minutes each night. But it’s slow going – we don’t want to have any accidents, so we go backward in our training with her.

Gina has bonded quite well with her – after the initial posturing and figuring out who is in charge – G is starting to stand up for herself (a lot of that confidence is from playing tug of war with my husband – he goes on hands and knees and uses his teeth like a dog) and there is no more tension between them. Sometimes Azzie oversteps a bit, she’s a puppy – but Gina very clearly and quickly puts her back in place, without drama. She’s a gentle soul, our G-Girl, and she’s being every bit the “big sister” – including bad habits! But we’re working on that too.

One thing at a time, and baby steps!

Secondly – SNOW! SNOW SNOW AND MORE SNOW!!! It’s WONDERFUL!!! Bloody cold at night, when husband and I do our shifts taking Azzie down… but I’m still enjoying it immensely! My only issue is that my snow boots don’t do well with lots of water – they handle snow fine – so I get soaked, cold feet when we walk out in the slush, or in the wet grass. Meh. So I’m going through a lot of socks!

Thirdly – due to the new puppy and our tiring schedules with her, husband and I have not been swimming, and I have not been running since we got her We can’t leave her on her own yet, as she barks (LOUDLY! She has a HUGE bark) and we don’t want her to be a nuisance. We’ll work on that later. I told husband he needs to go though, on his own. I will give him his training schedule and he must just do it. However, with all the snow and icy weather, the roads (especially the very long, steep hill up to the swimming pool) are pretty dangerous, and Helga sometimes gets so cold she doesn’t want to close her door… Plus, husband is so tired from our up and downs at night that he is just not up for it.

We’re hoping that as we get the time extended between pee breaks, for Azzie, we can start finding a bit more energy for other things!

Tag: changes

Clean slate, fresh start.

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