Met him a while back and copped a few of his pieces for the shop I was at, but I cant seem to find him anymore! Does he still blow glass? I know we lost a lot of fire artists in the post-covid unemployment recovery lol, but i didnt think he was one. Would just love to keep up on his work🤷♂️
Just got done at the barber and she showed me the top of my head for the first time in a while. My days with hair are numbered and some songs about aging not being so bad would be appreciated😂
Edit: I have gotten too much advice (all good) to respond individually, so ima put it here: First and foremost, thank you all so much!!! This has definitely made me feel hope about a situation that was starting to feel hopeless! I will definitely be getting her into doggy daycare at least one day a week now, and investing in more active stimulation toys! Getting her the the exercises she definitely needs is going to be the toughest part, but I think I have some teenage neighbors who will want to make a quick buck for walking her! I will also be getting a new trainer, she was the default as a family friend, but it seems like she needs some more experience🤷♂️ and I will definitely be getting some elevated pathways for my cat too! If anyone has links to specific products they like or really fascinates their dogs, that would be awesome! Again, thank you to everyone who commented and put down such thoughtful advice💜
So, I know that these questions have individual answers but my whole situation is a mess and the interplay of some of these has me just dying. I have already had a proffesional come out, and after about a month of following her directions to a T, about zero progress:
So due to some really unfortunate circumstances, I ended up with my childhood dog. She (12 years old, half Border-Collie, 1/4 Blue Merle Sheltie, 1/4 Blue Heeler) is so freakin sweet, and wants nothing more than to impress her humans, buuttttttttt my family trained her, if it can be called training, like absolute DOGSHIT ('scuse the pun).
She definitely has the cattle dog need for a job, and that job for the last 12 years has been the self-assigned task of keeping an eye on my mom 24/7. They also let her in and out a million times a day on whatever whim she wanted, never did anything about her scratching/barking at the back door, and just let her bully every other dog that was ever in the house. She actually almost got it really bad from my little brothers Burmese Mountain dog a few times because she's so jealous she can't stand anyone else getting attention or being played with, so she would nip and steal the other dogs toys. Its actually cost a total of 3 broken fingers (one of which was mine) and a 6 stitches across a few people because of the fights they would get into.
Now, for the current issues: my biggest one is the aggression towards my cat. Its not just a reactive jump when my cat gets the zoomies (that also happens though), but if my cat makes any noises or her hears me interacting with my cat, she comes and scares her away. I've even seen her calmy walk up to my cat and then back her into a corner while growling, just because my cat was on my lap. I don't think she would actually attack my cat out of malicious intent, but a nip from a dog her size is different on a 12 pound cat than 110 pound Burmese. That's issue 1.
Issue two: she will not hold any command for any length of time. In a perfect vacuum, she will hold sit for like 2 minutes, but I move at all, make any noises, the wind blows, my cat walks by, literally anything, she breaks the hold, and ive been working on this at least 5 days a week for months now. She very clearly knows what I want and ignores it. That leads to issue 3
Issue three: she will not stop following me around. I mean, I can't stand up and stretch without her doing a lap around me, let alone stuff like she won't sleep in her bed, so I step on her in the middle of the night, despite months of trying to get her to sleep literally anywhere but the exact spot she does. This wouldn't even be that big of a problem (except for the fact it drives me insane) if i didnt live in a smaller house and she's constantly in my way. The dog trainer said to just keep walking, but its been months and im still powering through her LITERALLY every time I walk to a different room, it's starting to feel abusive. Again, the issue at heart seems to be that she knows that I hate it, but its her self-assigned job, which is more important than obeying my commands to stay or get out of the way.
Issue 4: scratching/howling at the back door. Again, it wouldn't be a bidg issue elsewhere, but i have neighbors and she cant be left outside for more than 5 mins or else she starts HOWLING at max volume like she's being stabbed. The dog trainer told me to /very, very, very/ lightly grab her snout, and a firm but gentle voice say "no, bad dog" which i have been doing about 4-10 times a day for, again, months. Im not hurting her at all, cannot stress how lightly I am holding her chin, but it clearly hurts her feelings so much she's started to shy away from the door when she sees me coming, which just makes me feel like an abusive asshole, on top of the fact ive made literally zero progress on this front.
Basically, the sense I get (coming from a totally uneducated dog owner, mind you) is that she needs a job, which has been keeping tabs on her humans for her whole life. The problem with that is it's self-assigned so the moment a distraction or urge presents itself, it goes out the window. Her job has never been to obey commands, or watch the front door, or anything else. Im just at a loss because she makes it so fkn annoying to exist in my house that I don't even like being home anymore, not to mention I genuinely fear for my cats safety in the long term. She's a good dog, but had just literally never had an ounce of discipline in her long life and I dont even know where to begin with this huge, interconnected, tangle of issues. If you read this far, I love you. Any advice is appreciated, because I love this dog from the bottom of my heart but I have been annoying existing in my house for months straight now. Im unwilling to do anything that causes her physical pain, thats absolutely a hard line.