A Happy Pooch Makes a Happy Human!

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We all already know that dogs have a serious impact on our lives. After all, they’re the reason we rush home at night, wake up early on weekends, spend countless hours in sub-zero and scorching temperatures when we could be curled up at home with the heat or the AC pumping, etc. Here at Out-U-Go!, they’re even the reason we have jobs (yes, that might be a bit on the extreme side, we know…)!

It’s interesting to think about all of the things that we would or would not do without those adorable little furry faces in our lives. As studies have shown, pup parents have an overall tendency to be more active than their pup-free neighbors. In my experience though, not only will your furry friend determine how much exercise and time outside you might get, he or she will also determine your overall hobbies.

Take Treasure for example, one of Denver’s finest and most fearless (as our Highlands walker, she spends her day with a plethora of adorable pooches but they certainly don’t come small!) Out-U-Go! dog walkers. One of the first things that Treasure told me when I was interviewing her for the position was how Cinder, her Doberman-lab mix, has basically taken skiing out of the equation for Treasure. Instead, they’ve taken up snowshoeing, an activity that our for-legged counterparts can enjoy just as much, if not more, as us. Getting my dog, Bosco, has had a similar effect on my life. Having moved to Denver in September, I was wavering back and forth as to whether or not I should reconnect with my childhood skiing memories. For better or for worse (I am leaning towards better–snowshoeing is a much cheaper and calmer sport), my outdoor adventures this winter involved much more steady uphill climb than speedy alpine descents. Well…except maybe for Bosco…he quickly learned that he can run down a snow covered slope, throw himself on his back and sled on down, no joke. When all is said and done, how could I possibly deny the Bosc a day in the snowy mountains when he is part husky?

Frado, one of the newest members of our furry family, has introduced a very particular past-time to his human family. Frado, a Cavalier King Charles, absolutely LOVES bubbles! He will chase them and bite them and pop them and if the bubbles ever stop coming, he will bark them back to life. It’s just about the most adorable thing you will ever see! And thanks to his little puppy obsession, his pet parents have been able to reconnect with their inner-child and spend many sunny afternoon hours blowing bubbles.

Even when pups don’t introduce us to new sports and hobbies, they certainly encourage us to pursue them to their fullest. In my neighborhood, I regularly see skateboarding pups. Well, okay, they’re not actually skateboarding but they’re running full speed ahead with a skateboarder on the other end of the leash. And they sure seem to love it!

Next time you find yourself playing frisbee or throwing a ball around or camping or hiking or basically partaking in any outdoor activity, just ask yourself if you’d be doing this if it wasn’t for your pooch. I guess that despite the many sacrifices that we find ourselves making for our furry loved ones, there is really only one thing that we can say to them: Pups, you ROCK!

A Stranger? Us? More Like a Best Friend.

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So I know one of the most popular concerns among our new Pet Parents is whether or not they feel comfortable having someone they do not know in their home.  They give us all sorts of detailed information, keys to their home, and access to their most precious belonging, their pets.  So, I get it.

This is one of my favorite questions to answer.  Sure, it can be a little intimidating.  But let me share a few stories with you from some of my sitters.  This may put you at ease.

Tim visits one of the coolest yellow labs I know. (one of, not only) His name is Sherman, Sherms, Sherminator… Anywho, Sherman likes to greet us at the door everyday with some item of his mother’s clothing.  It’s usually a shoe or boot that sits by the front door.  Occasionally, we’ll get a duck, a tennis ball, or some other dog approved toy.  And we make sure to congratulate him for his good choices.  Tim decided to sit down on the steps to write out our reusable report card one day.  This pup decides to pick up one of his mom’s hats and starts trying to put it on Tim’s head.  Tim called me immediately to share the story.  Hilarious.

Lauren, one of our fantastic cat sitters in Hyde Park, sent me a text one morning.  She was concerned because Ms. Girlie Cat was only eating the triangle pieces of food from her bowl.  She was clearly not liking the pellet-shaped pieces, and Lauren wasn’t sure what to do.  We chuckled for a moment, and decided we best try to get as many triangle pieces in her breakfast as we could.

Now, we could just walk in and grab the leash or check the litter box.  That’s just not us.  We have pets who help us get ready to take them out and request menu preferences.  And we love it.  In fact, we live for it.  These are the pets who make our days special and make our job awesome.

So, sure.  We are strangers, at first.  But man do we do a pretty darn good job.

Bark in the Park – May 7

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Out-U-Go! is proud to be participating in the Anti-Cruelty Society’s Bark in the Park on May 7 at Montrose Harbor in Chicago. This event brings out soooo many cute pooches and their owners.

What an amazing way to help raise money for the homeless dogs and cats in the Chicagoland area. And….lots of fun pet related activities and vendors. We hope to see you there! For more information, please visit http://www.barkinthepark.org/

A Dog’s View of the Civil War

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Today (April 12, 2011) is the 150th Anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumpter and the start of the American Civil War.  Most of the dogs I walk are history buffs, and I won’t be a bit surprised to find them waiting for me with capes and long goatees and muskets, or in hoop skirts and bonnets; whatever their inclination.  We won’t walk so much as march or promenade, and instead of picking up the poop I’ll just leave it all like little brown flags to declare our conquered territory.  I’d rather not stage any battles though, just for the sake of time.  Some of the multi-dog homes I visit already have regular reenactments, albeit with certain creative canine twists such as the biting of ears instead of the firing of muskets, and mutual leg gnawing in the place of cavalry charges.  This is to be discouraged, anniversary or no.  Though playing dead is always fine, especially since it’s a trick that human Civil War re-enactors are notoriously reluctant to perform.

It’s actually interesting to look at the Civil War through a dog’s eyes.  Dogs are the embodiment of that kind of unquestioned loyalty which we humans alternately admire and lament, depending on whether we encounter it in forces for or against us.  Forces like armies.  You could no more convince Hachiko, the Akita that waited for 9 years (until his death) for his dead master to arrive at the Tokyo train station, to give it a rest and go play fetch or something, than you could have convinced the Army of Northern Virginia to stop fighting in 1862 and just let the Yankees roll through Dixie.  Though if you could have done the latter, you would have saved this country a lot of trouble.  So thanks for nothing.

Someone who strives for something against all odds and good sense is exhibiting a kind of determination we call ‘dogged.’ With dogs, the great tidal force that pulls them (other than pure hedonism) is loyalty.  It motivates them to sit and wag and bark at noises in the night, just as it motivated Robert E. Lee to refuse Lincoln’s offer of command of the entire Union army, and become the leader of his state’s militia instead.  Lee didn’t support succession and didn’t much care for slavery, but his loyalties were fixed for him from his Southern birth, as was his aristocratic sense of honor, which in turn bound him to his loyalties so firmly that he doggedly fought for what he likely knew to be a lost cause.  He even kind of looked like a Bearded Sheep Dog.

My mom lives with a Black Lab and a German Shorthaired Pointer.  They’re my dogs in other words, though I left home and they didn’t.  She said once that it’s funny to think that, had they been raised by different people, they would love them as much as they now love her.  I was offended by this on the dog’s behalf.  They are our dogs and could never be happy with anyone else.  Even if we never met them, they would sit and heave great sad doggy sighs and long for something they couldn’t quite imagine (my family and I), just as we would pine away, vaguely missing something we never had.  At least that’s what I like to think.  In reality my mom is probably right:  their doggy love and loyalty is totally circumstantial, and completely non-transferable.  This doesn’t cheapen a dog’s loyalty, but on the contrary makes it all the more miraculous:  they don’t judge, they don’t hold out for something better, and they would never dream of seceding from any family. This is what makes abuse of dogs so horrible, because it is exclusively one-sided.  The dogs are doing the best they can in every case, and any mistreatment is a cruel betrayal of some of the most pristine, crystalline loyalties in the world.

My mom jokes that though the dogs make big noise when anyone approaches the house (including the mail carrier), they are too nice to really be very protective.  Though they make her feel a little safer when home alone, she says, it would really only take a burglar armed with a couple dog treats to totally deactivate the furry security system.  I totally disagree.  I know they are both very sweet and loving dogs, but I’m also sure that either one would lay down their life to protect her.  Even if General Sherman were marching through the living room, they would unthinkingly form a firing-line behind the sofa to guard their human’s flank.  If the German Shorthair did (or could–he’s not very bright) stop to think about it, he might reconsider.  But he never would.  We humans do enough philosophizing, prevaricating and rationalizing for all the animals in the world.  Dogs are great because they aren’t mixed up by any of that.  They’re just dogged.

Dogs and Their Nicknames

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Beau aka "allez Beau Geste"

I walk dogs with some great names.  Barley. Dudley. Poncho. Homer. Beau. Etcetera. Not only are they fun to say, but every one of those dogs fits his or her name perfectly. Either every owner was inspired by a bolt of lightning from heaven, or the dogs have so finely tuned their canine empathy with humans that they intuitively understand every historic or poetic reference contained within their names and divine the appropriate emotive response from the way we pronounce every syllable.  Like Mozart staring at a refrigerator covered with little magnet quarter notes, the dogs pull meaning from chaos and transform a sound into something natural and irrefutable. They are brilliant linguists and don’t even know it.

Other names I like to create nicknames for so I feel like I’m talking to the right dog.  Buddi. Sally. Jackson. Annie. Biscuit. Tsuki. The pooches do their best with what they’ve been given, but Orecchio is simply too big a handle for a small dog; “Rekyo” fits better.  Biscuit usually needs an adjective (Soggy, Crazy, Quick, Anything).  Tsuki becomes a verb (to Tsuk:  writhe around in snow or grass–or a rug if no snow is available–and snort and wag and generally look like the happiest thing that every lived).  Sally becomes “Fräulein” (just cause).  Dudley’s name fits great, but still he has been awarded some other titles, such as Mister, Captain, or Doctor.  Beau is a Standard Poodle and naturally speaks French, so he comes to “allez Beau Geste!”  Tucker is jolly, celibate (neutered) and a bit of a rascal, so I have no choice but to call him Friar Tuck.

Bailey is thrilled by everything so much so that her name replaces every word in my vocabulary while we’re together.  Sit, come, look a squirrel, here’s a treat: it all comes out as “Bay Bay!”  When I walk in the door and find her wagging with a toy in her mouth, I declare “it’s a Baaaaaayleeee” because simply commenting on her existence seems to bring her great joy. Though she doesn’t strike me as a creature much hung up on existentialism, who doesn’t like their presence confirmed now and then?  If a Bailey wags in the forest and no one is around, is it still really cute?  I assure her that she is.

I’m especially fond of the two-dog names.  “Jackson and Poncho” has become “JacksonPonch”, just as Morgan and Barley have morphed into MorganBarley.  That is to say, they’re not just becoming easier on the tongue, but also forming a new super-organism superhero.  Like a little wolf-pack or a bee hive of two, they are different parts of the same animal, each joined by a syllable to invoke a great magical beast strong enough to guard the gates of hell.  I know this is true because when I walk in and shout “Morganbarley!” I am greeted equally by both parts of the superdog.  If I say “good dog”, both tails begin to wag though it is clear to everyone that I did not say “dogs” plural.  The wagging and bunny-hopping Jacksonponcho both respond to their name by saying “Yes, it is I, and so is Us! Take me both for a walk!” It’s wild.

Though dogs are brilliant linguists, able to see right through all the clutter of grammar and syntax and divine the true meaning of what’s said to them by it’s tone and volume, I’m a little concerned that they might take this too far.  What if they forget the the name etched on their collars?  What if, for example, Jackson Poncho becomes so convinced of his/their new identity and so eager to embrace the life that correlates to the way I pronounce his/their name that he/they actually leave home one day to become heroic airship pirates?  What if Morgan Barley actually goes to London and becomes a prominent barrister?  I’d have alot of explaining to do to their owners.  But it’s not really my fault (I’d say) because, well, it came to me in a bolt of lightening.

 

The Millionaire Dog Matchmaker

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I admit I am a fan of the television show The Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo.  Patti Stanger is the show’s central focus as she works to find love for her rich clientele. Often watching the show, I thought “what about matching people with the perfect pet?”

Cutie pie Maddie

A couple years ago our family pet, Sugar Bear, passed away. My whole family was so sad. My mom especially took it hard saying she would never have another dog as losing them is too painful. Years went by and my mom stuck to her words until one day she mentioned she was looking on Petfinder.com. I was so excited to hear she was considering getting another dog! I sprang into question mode asking her what breeds she was thinking about, if she wanted a puppy or an older dog, a little dog or a big dog…

One of the best things about being Top Dog of the Downers Grove Out-U-Go! is working with the local shelters. I regularly visit the Hinsdale Humane Society and West Suburban Humane Society in Downers Grove. With my mom’s ideal dog in mind, I would always take a peek at the pups.

One day I was on the Hinsdale Humane Society’s website browsing the available pets when I saw her. Her name was Maddie, she was adorable and most importantly she matched the description my mom gave me. I immediately sent the link to my mom and received a phone call shortly after from my mom saying that we had to get over there to meet her.

Needless to say, it was love at first sight for both my mom and Maddie. Maddie has only been with our family for a couple of months but my mom says it feels like she has been with the family forever.  They have so much fun going for walks and snuggling together on the couch.

All I can say is move over Patti Stanger as there is a new matchmaker in town!

Awesome Fundraiser for Charity! “A Pampered Pooch Spaw Day”

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We are thrilled to announce an AWESOME fundraiser for a great cause!  Out-U-Go! and Boulder’s Natural Animal are teaming up to co-host a fun, furry and hilarious event to help raise money for human and pet relief efforts in Japan following the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

With the help of many other local Boulder businesses, Out-U-G0! and Boulder’s Natural Animal are organizing a Pampered Pooch Spaw Day on April 16th, 2011 from 1:00pm – 4:00pm.  This event will take place outside of Boulder’ Natural Animal in South Boulder.

Bring your best, furry friend and come join us for an afternoon of fun times, tasty treats (for humans and pets), doggy massages, doggy pedicures, doggy nail painting, ice cream, food from the grill, music, laughs and an all around dog gone good time.

A $5 entrance ticket gets you and your pooch full access to our doggy “spaw” and all proceeds will be donated equally to the Red Cross for human help and to World Vets to help the animals affected.  What’s more, Out-U-Go! and Boulder’s Natural Animal will be matching all donations dollar for dollar!!!

If you’re a human, mark your calendars for April 16th, 2011 from 1:00pm – 4:00pm, cruise by Boulder’s Natural Animal in South Boulder for the spectacle that is A Pampered Pooch Spaw Day!  If you’re a dog, just try to remember 🙂

Dog Walkers – Part Ninja, Part Viking, Part Teacher

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Before I describe my epic struggle to be accepted by the wild roaming pack of Bulldogs, I would like to make a couple of observations about the dog-walking business from my 3 or so months on the job.

Dog walkers are kind of like ninjas.  Quickly and confidently, we enter people’s homes and efficiently carry out our missions, disappearing suddenly into a cloud of smoke.  Actually we’re not like ninjas.  But we are like Vikings.  We come in the morning mist and our fervid throaty yells proclaim to our victims that we come to claim all that we do not destroy and bring it back to Norway and okay I guess were not like Vikings either.  Let’s suppose we’re like teachers.  We take care of your little ones for a while and then we give you a report card mostly just confirming what you already know and love about them, having ourselves no mandate to controvert or supplant you or your style of pet parenting. The little ones may love us intensely, but at the end of the day we are just the minor supporting cast in the furry one’s life.  A supporting cast of Viking, ninja, teachers are we.  And not dog trainers.

If I see a dog everyday and have never met their owner and have no notion of how the owner interacts with the dog (cuddly gushing indulgent, strict disciplinarian, laissez fair individualists, etc), I have to sort of go with it.  Of course there are often lots of great Out-U-Go! and parent notes available, but where info is not explicit, there are always clues.  If a dog walks always on the right, then that is probably how he or she has been raised.  I have no business meddling and confusing things, even if every other dog I see that day walks strictly on the left.  Dogs are creatures of tremendous adaptability, but the other side of that coin is a powerful tendency to habituate to the patterns and rhythms of their home environment.  Strange and unconventional though these may be; it’s not for me to judge.

Jackson and Poncho, for example, are two large dogs that almost always walk the exact same route.  I know that route because if I try to take another one, Jackson the Great Dane mix will stare at me with what looks like canine horror and then pull and pull until we’re back on track.  Magglio and MJ are used to having their treats tossed to them, which is the only way I think their owners can continue to have hands, since I nearly lost mine the first time I met them.  Dudley is used to getting a treat right after his walk, and if I delay there will be a small lake of drool for me to clean up.  I enter and conform to a hundred such customs every day, like a mad anthropologist with a combination teleporter/espresso maker.  At every visit, the dogs reveal the boundaries and engrained behaviors that best join them with their owner’s happiness.  Like ninjas, our hand is best invisible.  Like Vikings, we do not come to teach or preach.  Like teachers, we can always gather together at recess and share some good natured eye-rolling, and then bite our tongues and go back to the little ones that we care for.

Yet dog walkers must have boundaries too.  Not being bitten is always nice, but I’m talking about subtler stuff.  For example, whether or not a dog is used to stopping and sitting at intersections when walking with his owner, the pooch is going to at least stop when we have to cross a street where there are cars, and wait for me to determine the best time to cross.  Not negotiable, sorry pup.  Likewise is no dog allowed to stop in the middle of a street to smell something or have a good scratch.  I’m sure that’s really important business on the dogs agenda (probably the only business on the agenda in fact) but as a human with a car, I understand the risk of other humans with cars, and thus I’m really better qualified to take charge at that moment.

Sally is not allowed to chew on the neighbor’s Chihuahua no matter how much she wants to.  Homer is not allowed to eat snow that gives him bladder infections.  Abigale is not allowed to roll her nice fluffy white coat in the mud.  Morgan and Barley aren’t allowed to try and climb me like mountaineers, since they always either scratch my face, rip my clothes, or kick me in the groin.  Tsuki isn’t allowed to sniff the same spot for more than 30 seconds, because it’s a 20 minute visit, we’ve got to walk at least 100 feet to the corner, and I know for a fact that there is another equally thrilling smell just two feet ahead.  Give a ninja a break.

Morgan & Barley - Mountaineers!

Dudley - treats first, or sop up the drool!

And Buddi, oh Buddi.  Buddi is not allowed to destroy his leash.  He is not allowed to take up half of every visit chomping on to his choke chain (I conform to the equipment too) and clinging to it like it was all that he had ever loved, or truly hated.  Either way,  it’s my job to walk you, and I’m gonna.  I never set out to teach Buddi that tug-of-war was bad, cause he must do a lot of it with his owner.  Might as well tell a bird to quit all that fooling around the sky and get to marching.

But tug-of-war with your leash every day before I can even get it on you, that means no time for walking, for him or his brother, Orecchio.  It has to stop, and I have no time to correct behavior.  The clock is ticking, so I go against my better dog-raising instinct and accept the declaration of (tug-of) war.  For a person who is trying to fit comfortably into a new social hierarchy while maintaining at least nominal delegated authority, tug-of-war is risky.  You don’t want to encourage fighting, you don’t want to be seen as on the dog’s level, and most of all, you do not want to lose.  This last maxim was echoing in my head as I tried to remove the collar from the mouth of the truculent 50-pound lock-jawed beast that was bred to bring down bulls.  In total darkness.  That story next time.

 

It’s a Tail as Old as Time

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Princess rides unicorn dog

Me, Halloween 2010

Woof.  Woof woof bark.  Bark bark bow wow.  Hmm, suppose I should start writing in human for any of you readers who can’t read dog or don’t have Google translate. (Seriously though, who doesn’t have Google translate).

My name is Dini.  I was adopted from an orphanage in Steamboat, Colorado and was lucky enough to move to Chicago to live with my parents.  My days before the orphanage are hard to remember.  I never knew my father and my mother was apparently a bitch, at least that’s what I’m told.  Myself? I’m a smorgasbord of canine genealogy, my parents just say I’m a white dog.

My life started out a little rough but at the end of 2000 I hit the karmic jackpot.  Moving out of the orphanage and into my parents home was certainly a huge upgrade.  My days of living in a box were over and replaced by nights sleeping in a human bed with my head on a pillow.

But that turned out to just be the start.  I began my career search like most dogs, scouring ads on craigslist.  After several dog weeks of searching, which seems liked forever, my dad offered me a position at Out-U-Go! as the canine–human liaison.  While it was an entry-level position, that quite honestly I was over totally qualified for, I was thrilled to get an opportunity to get my paw in the door with Out-U-Go!

Since 2000 I’ve had many different roles with Out-U-Go!, human greeter, dog greeter, occasional cat greeter, cookie eater, costume wearer, and bed tester.  I’ve even done some occasional garbage sorting when no one else in the office is there to do it.  It’s been an awesome opportunity for me.  I gotta say…I’m a pretty lucky dog.

Dini Out!

Bulldogs – a unique perspective on “cute”

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Every time I walk Buddi and Orecchio, it seems people just have to tell me how cute they are and “oh isn’t he precious what kind is he” and “where can I get one.”  My own first reaction was quite different.  When I first met Buddi and Orecchio, I was as shy as a new kid in class.  I’d never had any interaction with Bulldogs before, so, though I consider myself a dog person, I admit I was at a loss for what to make of the little critters.  My definition of “dog” had always assumed, among other things, an animal with a tail and nose and ears.  I’ll admit they’re charming, and I don’t mean to hurt their feelings when today I walk into the room and say “hello monsters!”  The boys seem to relish their strangeness, and I guess you could say they wear it well.  Bulldogs certainly have their fan base, kind of like, say, Danzig, and I don’t want to antagonize them. Or Danzig for that matter.  Rock on, sir.

Still, there’s no getting around the fact that Buddi looks like he came from the kennel of Dr. Frankenstein, who, undertaking canine design as a side project not worthy of his full attention, was content to just use whatever parts were laying around.  In Orecchio’s case it seems that mad Doctor F simply crossed a bat with a large potato.  Snouts and tails must have been in very short supply, because both their faces look like they’re trying to sneak back into their heads and hide, and though Orecchio has a little nub tail, Buddi has nothing but a smooth streamlined rump.  He’d probably be very aerodynamic if he ever got over 4 mph, and was heading backwards. But they’re great, I mean, “yay Bulldogs!”

Actually Buddi was sired by a champion show dog.  So though he may not have been Frankenstein’s creation, someone did indeed try very hard to bring life to that peculiar form.  Bulldogs were not bred to hunt or track or work or herd (ha!).  They were originally bred to fight bulls.  Since bull-baiting has declined in popularity in the past few centuries, poor Buddi has all the fearlessness and gall to take on a bull but alas, there are no bulls to be found (at least on our walks in Forest Park, IL).  So Buddi improvises by latching on to just about anything else, including sticks, bushes, Orecchio, my shoe, and most of all, the leash I walk him with.

He looks very inert.  Of the dozens of colorful adjectives that slap my cortex upon viewing Buddi, one of the most pragmatic is “inert.”  “Solid” is another one, and indeed I challenge any lump of lead to pack as much weight into that same size.  Yet Buddi is capable of amazing leaps.  From a calm seated position with no wind-up or viper’s coil, he can launch himself at something in the blink of an eye.  He is simply a mass located in a particular place one moment, and the very next moment he is in another particular place–likely a place you don’t want him to be–and is firmly anchored to that place with a lock jaw that is, along with his leaping/teleportation ability, explicable only in terms of mutant X-man powers.

These powers, and my efforts to match them against my own dog walking powers, I’ll have to tell you about later.  Or watch the movie ‘X Men’ and you’ll get some idea.