Don't get up, gentlemen, I'm only passing through

[lizblackdog]

Added a new LJ friend today, which prompted a rush of ridiculous embarrassment at the sparsity of intelligent words in my journal of late. It can't be helped. Deathtired is bigger than I am and I can't even let myself think too hard about everything I want to be doing.

Have some linkspam as a cunning substitute for an actual entry. Many of these are regurgitated from my Facebook: I actually hate Facebook, but you wouldn't know it these days. It's just that I can forgive myself for short meaningless entries more easily on Facebook. Every time I try and write more than five words about my life it turns into bitter self-pitying whine; better just to keep my face shut.


* Join rewatch_therapy and spend your Saturday afternoons/evenings with classic Who episodes and me in a chatbox. There's LOTS OF CAPSLOCK, varying amounts of occasionally intelligent commentary and it's fun. Real Life has eaten too many of our members of late (wyntereyez I MISS YOU LIKE BURNING) and I need some fresh meat.

* Sharks rock.

* Sassy Gay Doctor Who. Found via brb_gallifrey where I lurk silently because I'm rarely up to making intelligent conversation these days.

* Prince Fucking Philip. My love for this man knows no bounds. I would do him. Even at ninety.

* TORCHWOOD IS COMING OH YES YAY. I've always loved Torchwood, even in the first season when it was honestly kind of bollocks. It's all grown up now and I love it more than ever. THIS IS GOING TO BE AWESOME, PEOPLE, MAKE NO MISTAKE.

* Bob Dylan - Still God. He's playing London in ...I think July sometime? I was half tempted to try and get there, but it was fleeting. The last time I saw him was in ...either 1990 or '91 with John. It was right after he released Oh Mercy. I wore a shiny green, blue and gold print thing that one of my aunts gave me, and I had these rose-scented cigarettes I'd bought from a little tobacco specialist in... where the hell was it, Charing Cross? Somewhere like that. John had the maroon cotton jacket I'd bought him in Camden. It was so new I could still smell the dye on it - that smell hung on that jacket for ages, and it's come to read as John-scent in my mind, together with the coffee-caramel smell of the Kenya Peaberry shampoo he used. We were at our peak, beautiful and sweet smelling and intoxicated with new love.
Dylan was magnificent. I call him God a lot and it's mostly hyperbole, but I've seen him lift a whole crowd to a higher place with only his words; what the hell else would you call that?
So I'm not going to see him again, this year or ever. I hear from a friend who saw him this year that his voice is almost gone, and even if I put that down to an off day, 1990 (or '91, whatever) was too groundshaking an experience to overwrite.

*tripped by dogs last weekend and landed badly on my leg, which is still swollen like a water balloon with toes a week and change later. Dr Internet says it's a bone bruise, but I'm taking it to a real doctor tomorrow since Dr. Internet can't prescribe me painkillers. Fucking dogs. Yesterday Spike did his best to impale his face on the business end of the ringer zinger flinger thinger. ARGH FUCKING DOGS.
On the plus side, I swapped my water gun for a desktop treat jar and am actually making some progress on Spike's barking-his-fool-head-off indoors issue. Not a lot, and Squish is actually getting worse - he's worked out that STOPPING BARKING GETS YOU TREATS so he's starting barking a lot more than he used to. Not sure how to fix this at present, so I'm ignoring it for the sake of Spike's off switch.

/end

Comments

[silverblaidd.livejournal.com]

Well there's about a trillion ways to go about dealing with this, and you're already doing one of them, and how effective they are really depends on a lot of things (why, how, when, the individual dog, consistency, ability to do certain things, timing, etc etc etc). If Squish is getting smart, just put his smart little ass in a time out when he barks. He gets nothing but a time out (in the crate, in another room, leashed to some furniture in a very boring spot, whatever). He sounds like he's totally doing it for the attention. At the same time, when something happens that he does not bark at, make it a party. Even if it's something ridiculously boring, like a bird outside. This takes a lot of attention on your part, which is why I say start small with easy little things you know he's not likely to bark at, that way you're building a foundation of Shit Being Out There But Getting No Reaction = Super Happy Fun Time.

On the other hand, if the barking is alarm barking, (which it sounds like is Spike's problem, because you know, dogs can't fucking COORDINATE THEIR ISSUES or anything), then I would start LAT or counter conditioning for that. You can't remove attention or remove the stimulus for alarm barking and have it be very effective since it's the stimulus that is causing the emotional response, so you have to change the emotional response. It may just be easier for you to throw handfuls of sausage at his face to give him something to do besides bark, though. It entirely depends on how much work you want to put into it.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

I can see exactly how all that ought to work. Except I never see the things before they do because I'm at the computer or in bed or in the toilet (someone ALWAYS starts a huge fucking barkfest while I'm in there and I am totally going to start keeping a second treat jar in the bathroom. Today.).

I am trying to work the Shit Being Out There But Getting No Reaction = Super Happy Fun Time for both of them at once and it IS getting some results, but there are so many times when it turns into Shit Is Out There One Dog Barks At But Not The Other or Shit Is Out There And Spike Barked But Still Gets a Prize for Making a Choice to STFU and Squish Gets One Too Because He's Right There and it seems mean not to give him something.

...all those caps hurt my head.

Also my own consistency and timing suck balls; so often the barking surprises hell out of me and I squeal and fall off my chair and then I'm all flustered and etc etc etc, but I'm working on that too. So I'm pretty much going with option two and the sausages, because I honestly don't have my own shit together enough to get seriously preemptive with it, and this way at least I'm reducing the amount of horrendous noise coming out of my dogs.

thank you <3

(edited to make fucking sense)

(edited again to add an apostrophe that escaped the first time. No, I'm not a perfectionist, why do you ask?)