Never owned a Chia Pet.
These days they seem to get heavily advertised around Christmastime.
Commercial was on TV last night and I thought… why not? Buy one for each of the kiddos. It could be fun.
Of course I know the end result is the cats will eat the plants, then throw up green whatever on the floor soon afterwards… and not just because they were eating from the Obama Chia. 😉
Maybe I should get the kids a mood ring or a pet rock.
A friend pointed me to this article by Eugene Wallingford titled “I Just Need A Programmer“.
The Slashdot entry sums it up best:
“As head of the CS Department at the University of Northern Iowa, Eugene Wallingford often receives e-mail and phone calls from eager entrepreneurs with The Next Great Idea. They want to change the world, and they want Prof. Wallingford to help them. They just need a programmer. ‘Many idea people,’ observes Wallingford, ‘tend to think most or all of the value [of a product] inheres to having the idea. Programmers are a commodity, pulled off the shelf to clean up the details. It’s just a small matter of programming, right?’ Wrong. ‘Writing the program is the ingredient the idea people are missing,’ he adds. ‘They are doing the right thing to seek it out. I wonder what it would be like if more people could implement their own ideas.'”
The interesting thing was, before reading this article my friend and I were talking about teaching kids how to program. He’s been studying this nifty 2D graphics library and given how well-written it was, maybe he’d be able to use it to teach his son how to program. Maybe, but the problem I saw there was there was still too much other stuff to deal with, like the language issues, because the first time you try to figure out pointers in C/C++/Objective-C well… it’s mind-bending. 🙂
The thing that hit me was the last sentence of the Slashdot summary:
I wonder what it would be like if more people could implement their own ideas.
And as I was thinking about teaching our kids I realized what we need to give them are the tools that enable them to realize their ideas.
One cool thing about programming computers is computers are such general purpose tools, that with a little work you can get them to do almost anything you want. Such is a great thing about learning to program. But kids tend to not see that, they just see they want to play a game. So if they want to write a game, give them those tools.
Daughter is very artsy, so we ensure she has a constant supply of art and craft materials. For example, yesterday morning, inspired by the movie “Tangled”, she took some paper plates and painted some really neat stuff on them. We have to keep brushes, paint, pencils, paper, and all sorts of art supplies around at all times for the kids. I’ve even bought software for them to help them be creative. In fact, I think our Christmas card this year is going to be one designed and assembled on the computer by Daughter.
Or if the idea your child has is to create music, ensure they have instruments or other tools to create their music… even software like GarageBand.
The point is, in whatever realm the kids are having their ideas, don’t let them just dream about their ideas coming true; give them the means to make their dreams come true. And that includes a lot of encouragement and support.
Oh, before I go… couple random things.
1. Feeling a lot better. I think whatever I had is now gone… but last night I felt really bad. My guess tho? The cigar and glass of wine did it… body just wasn’t quite ready for that yet. 🙂 But I’m on the mend, almost 100%. Thank you for the well wishes.
2. Daughter did something cool.
My father-in-law has a deer lease (natch) and the first couple weeks of January there’s a special youth season. He invited Daughter out to come take a doe or a spike during that time. I spoke with Daughter about it and she declined. Why? because she doesn’t feel her marksmanship skills are quite there. She would rather pass on the opportunity than recklessly take it. I am mighty proud of her. I know she’s got the ability to put a rifle round within an 8″ circle at 100 yards, but she’s not sure of her ability to do it on demand especially given the excitement and pressure of “the moment.” I respect her thinking here; she wants to do the right thing and would rather wait than rush into it and do things wrong.
So it just means more range time. No arguments there!
Make me think… maybe time to buy a second Ruger 10/22 and do an Appleseed with the kids. I’ve been wanting to do that for some time. Hrm.
Took the family to go see the new Disney movie, Tangled.
That was a fun movie. It felt like a return to classic Disney magic (to borrow a 3 word review from a friend of mine). The songs, the pacing, the storyline, the way everything unfolds, characters… just well done. I felt like they remembered what made great Disney movies like Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and so on. I’ve been so turned off to Disney (non-Pixar) movies for a while because they were caring more about money and less about making a good movie and telling a good story. Well, perhaps the Pixar influence is rubbing off on the Disney studios (now that they’re under the same roof) because it seems they cared first about a story and second about everything else.
Good show. Recommended, if you like Disney movies.
Daughter has been asking me to teach her to play guitar.
About a week ago she pulled one of my guitar’s out of the rack. Mind you, I haven’t seriously touched my guitars in years… they’ve mostly been collecting dust. 😦 But she pulled out the classical guitar, I tuned it up, and showed her an E chord and sent her to practice it.
Last night I rummaged through a box and found a “new” set of strings and restrung my steel-string acoustic. Now I’ve taught her an A and a D.
She knows 3 chords. She can officially start a rock band now. 🙂
Our fingertips are hurting, but had a lot of fun. Played a lot of Led Zeppelin for her, some Badlands, John Cougar Mellencamp, even some stuff I wrote years ago. Amazed at how much I remember.
Time with my kids, teaching them, seeing the look on their faces as they discover and grow… hard to beat that.
This is opening weekend for general season (gun) whitetail deer hunting in Texas.
Of course, I was out in the field. 🙂
I had such a great experience at Storm Ranch last year, I opted to go there again. My goal? If I could bag a couple does, I’d be thrilled. Meat was the goal, didn’t feel like paying for a big rack of antlers since they don’t cook up very well. 🙂 However, if some awesome monster came along, I wasn’t opposed to taking him.
The cool thing about this go-round? I took the kids.
Oldest went with me Saturday morning. He’s hot and cold about hunting. Sometimes he’s all gung-ho, other times he groans when I talk about it. But he talks about wanting to go hunting enough that I figured he needed to go like it or not (tho I think he does like it). I also figured to take him out first, because I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time with him lately. The plan was to alternate: Oldest on Saturday morning and Sunday evening, Daughter on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Youngest isn’t ready to go (he doesn’t care, and would just be beyond bored). Thing is, Oldest only committed to going Saturday morning. *sigh* Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.
I got him up around 3:30 AM, then again at 3:45, then again at 4:00. 😉 We got dressed, a little breakfast, load the car, and off we went. We get in. Casimero the ranch hand, and his son, once again picked us up. He had a new truck, but only with a standard cab so 4 people were cramped up in the front. Good thing the kids can still sit on my lap. We went to a stand, got ourselves settled in, and waited. I remember this stand well — it’s where I had “redemption” last year.
Let me just say that I’m glad I planned ahead for Oldest. I made it clear to him a few days ago how cold it was going to be, so that he couldn’t ignore my telling him to dress in layers, wear gloves and a hat, and so on. The notion of freezing his buns off was obviously unappealing, which worried me that the day might flop. So while at the sporting goods store yesterday on a whim I picked up those dry pack “hand warmer” things as well as a small propane heater. Man, I’m so glad I did. There was a freeze warning out for the Hill Country, and I reckon it was around 32º that morning. We were layered well, but still it was cold. I recalled how last year was a bit miserable just sitting in the stand bored and cold, so yeah… I was happy for the warmth and Oldest was too. . The heater didn’t make it feel like we were indoors (the blind windows of course let all the heat out), but it did take the edge off and allow us a nice way to keep our hands toasty. The little hand warmer packets were so-so… didn’t live up to my expectations, but I will say my hands weren’t as numb as they could have been. I also bought Oldest a big insulated thermos so he could bring some coffee. In the end, good purchases… we were still a little cold, but the gadgets took the edge off.
But that’s all there was to write home about. We saw nothing. No deer. Just birds. Did see an owl, which was cool. Thankfully, Oldest has been fishing enough to know there’s “fishing” and then there’s “catching”, so he knows there are no guarantees. But he was very positive about everything and told me he still had a lot of fun. I asked if he wanted to go back out Sunday evening and he said yes. Frankly, I didn’t care so much about the lack of deer; just being out there with my son was satisfying enough. We got to talk a lot, fun around, make jokes at the other’s expense, I got schooled at Doodle Jump. Sure, bagging a deer would have been nice, but as cliché as it may be, time with my son was priceless.
I will say tho… while sitting and growing mildly impatient to even SEE a deer, I realized that while I want meat, I also want to finally bag something with that 6.8. I found myself itching not so much to bag a deer, but to bag a deer with that 6.8. If a warm gun is happiness, then I have a very unhappy gun. 😉
Came home, cleaned up, then got Daughter ready for the evening hunt. Drove back out to Storm Ranch with our hopes high. Got there about 3:00, loaded into the truck, and Casimero took me out to a stand that I remember well. This was the stand where last year the feeder went off, then a bunch of horses came out and never left… I spent the evening watching horses and wishing they would go away. I was fearing another repeat of the same for there were 5-6 cows parked right at the same fence juncture. Great…. But, I spoke up about it. When I was left the ranch that morning, I spoke on the phone to Josh about how the morning went and where I’d like to sit that afternoon. I actually wanted to sit in the same location as I did last year’s first night when I got the doe. So I mentioned that to Casimero and well… I don’t know if there was a mix up in the communication, if I didn’t describe it right, if another hunter was already there… don’t know. But, we did pack up from that horse-and-cow laden location and went somewhere else.
I don’t believe I ever sat in this spot. And to be honest, the picture cannot do the beauty of the location any sort of justice. That picture was taken from within the stand. The stand was up on a hillside looking down at a feeder 100 yards away (you can see the feeder as a little dot in the center of the picture). Behind the feeder the hills went up and it was just a gorgeous view from that stand. Thing is, the deer could have come from any direction since trees were everywhere and paths everywhere. So we just had to keep our eyes open.
4:00… 5:00… feeder goes off. We continue to wait. Last year my father-in-law gave me a deer grunt call as a Christmas stocking stuffer. I really don’t know how to use calls, but I studied some prior to going out so… what the hey, might as well try. Oldest and I tried in the morning, but had no luck. I tried a few calls and nothing. Nearing 6:00.
Now about this time I was changing my mind about going back out on Sunday. You can only get a deer if you’re in the field, but did I really want to be in the field another day? Yes, because I wanted some deer. Yes, because I wanted to share more of the experience with my kids. But no, because I’m dead tired. I haven’t been sleeping well lately and the lack of sleep has been affecting my performance. Furthermore, with Daylight Saving Time ending well… technically it’s “fall back” so you gain an hour of sleep, but not in my case because the sun and thus the deer still rise at the same relative time, so instead of waking up at 3:30 AM to get ready I’d have to get up at 2:30 AM and oye, that’s just even more lost sleep. I was giving serious contemplation to staying home on Sunday and resting. I can go hunt later, but I need to heal my body now.
I changed the deer call to a “tending/hyper grunt”… a buck mating call, used only during the rut. I gave it a whirl. Waited 5 minutes. Gave it another whirl. I looked down in my lap at my phone, and when I looked back up… I saw her.
“Here child… here!” and I shoved my phone and the deer call into Daughter’s hands. “Deer! Deer!” I excitedly whisper. “Where? What?”, Daughter replied. I’m working to get my rifle into position. “Down there, in front of the feeder”. It was actually hard to see her with the naked eye, she blended in with the terrain very well. I had the rifle up… but ugh… I was facing south, the sun was setting, and so my right eye was getting flooded with sunlight and I couldn’t see. Reposition. Sun gone. Got her in my crosshairs. Breathe… breathe… calm down… steady… deep breath……. breathe.
“There’s another!” Daughter whispers. Scan scan scan…. ah, there. Doe. Smaller. Switch back to the first one. Damnit… she jumped inside the low-fence around the feeder. Well, that’s OK. She’s hungry, she’ll be here a while. Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Come on… jump out. Perfect broadside shot, but I’m not going to take her while she’s inside the fencing…. tempting tho it was. Finger went to the trigger a couple of times, but I wasn’t going to take it.
Wait.
Wait.
SHIT! They just flew the flag. “Dad, it’s a bird on the fence.” Doesn’t matter why, they got spooked well enough by something. Big doe jumped out of the fencing and was looking to bolt, but she paused. OK, now or never. Damnit, another almost front-on shot… why can’t I get a broadside? well, I know the anatomy, so here goes. “Daughter, plug your ears.”
Boom!
I press off the shot. I follow through. I see the doe take off running towards me (to her 1 o’clock, my 11 o’clock). Her front left leg is moving funny so I know I got her and broke her shoulder. OK…. running behind that little group of trees, I can’t see her… I’m still following her though, my head turning to my left and oh! What’s this?
It’s the other doe.
She of course ran when she heard the shot, but only ran about 50 yards to the east, stopped, and looked back in the direction of where the loud sound came from (me). Gosh… the grass is tall, you’re down the hill and mostly hidden, but I have a perfect and clear shot on you.
Boom!
I didn’t see anything. No idea if I got her due to the terrain… she could have run and I wouldn’t know where she went. Daughter and I gave a small celebration. Daughter reported she saw the first one crash on the ground, and the second was either dead or long gone. Yeah yeah… wait before you get out of the stand. I saw no reason to wait. But I tell you, I felt like a clumsy fool trying to get out of the stand. Trying to move the chairs, trying to get through the door… I was shaking so much from the excitement, from the aftermath. I strapped the gun over my shoulder and headed down the hill.
We found the first doe. about 25-30 yards from where she was shot.
But we didn’t stop to take pictures then. We flagged where she was, then went searching for the other one. I knew her general location, but with all the rain we had this past year, the grasses were pretty tall and plentiful… figured it would be a lot of scouring around. A little bit of searching and we found her. There was a splotch of blood on the ground, and from how the deer was laying, all twisted up, we deduced she was DRT and never took a step.
I talked with Daughter a bit about how she felt, what she experienced. She was excited, it was thrilling. I talked to her about being thankful, about giving respect and thanks to the deer for giving their lives to nourish ours… and Daughter finished the sentiment by saying then when we die, we go into the ground, feed the plants, which then feed the deer. And the circle of life continues. 🙂 While we waited to be picked up, I phoned Wife to tell her the news. Her take was that I placed my order (“I’d like two does, please”) and God served it up. And how.
Casimero came to pick me up. We loaded the deer, went back to the cabin area to clean them. Daughter was feeling tired so I asked if Casimero could clean them because he’s amazingly fast at it (I’d take twice as long, at least). While he did that, I got to talk with Josh and catch up with him. Another group of folks was in for the weekend to hunt and the had a campfire going. Daughter went over there to warm up. I admit, I was a little nervous about Daughter going over to a campfire with a group of strangers… not that they’d do anything, but I had no idea who was there, if they’d be nice and accepting of a little girl coming over or what. Turned out to be great tho, since Daughter got to meet Lauren who was so welcoming and kind to Daughter, as well as the other group in for the weekend. Everyone was so nice to her, they all talked for a while. I eventually wandered over myself and chatted with everyone. Seems this other group saw 8-10 bucks during the day, a dozen hogs…. so that’s where everything was! 🙂 We stayed and talked to everyone for a while. Makes me think that one of these times I need to just stay the weekend; sure it’s a 30-45 minute drive so it’s nice that I can sleep in my own bed, but gosh if the camp isn’t part of the fun of the experience.
Daughter was fading, so it was time to head home. Two deer in the cooler. Earlier I wasn’t sure if I was going to hunt on Sunday, but having 2 in the cooler? I figured I could rest on Sunday and head back out to hunt another day. I spoke with Oldest about it and he’s cool with it; we’ll go out again together, just him and me.
When I got home, I washed all the quarters and put them on ice and water. I’ll let them wet-age in the garage for a couple of days then take them to Johnny G’s for processing. The fun part? While I was cleaning things up, Wife came out to the driveway and brought Sasha. Oh… I guess a primal nerve got struck with her. She’s never smelled deer and so much fresh flesh and blood, but she was mightily interested. I had a couple chunks of the fresh venison flesh that I set aside, and when I was all done cleaning things up, gave Sasha the chunks. She wolfed them down. When the deer were cleaned, I had them keep all the organs they could (that which wasn’t blown all to hell). Got a heart, a liver, a couple kidneys. Going to cut them up today and make another “stew” for Sasha. She’ll love them. 🙂
What would this entry be without a little gun geekery.
I shot these two deer with my rifle chambered in 6.8 SPC. It’s a mild franken-gun, with the upper being a Wilson Combat 6.8 and the lower from a Bushmaster, and the trigger a Rock River Arms 2-stage match trigger.. The scope is a Burris Fullfield II 3-9x40mm with a standard Plex reticle on their P.E.P.R. mount. I used Silver State Armory 6.8 SPC 85 grain Barnes TSX tactical load for ammo.
Interesting on the ammo. On the second doe, the bullet passed through. Hit in the front shoulder, exited out the side. On the first doe tho… there was no exit wound. Now, her heart and lungs were sufficiently destroyed, the shoulder joint was blown… but where did the bullet come to rest? There’s a lot of deer it had to go through (remember, it was an almost front-on shot) so the bullet came to rest in her somewhere… just… where? Don’t know. We didn’t find it. It could still be in the meat somewhere (tho I didn’t find it), or in the carcass that is now buzzard and fox food somewhere on the Storm Ranch property. If the bullet is in the meat I have, I’d love to recover it. But the bottom line for me is… it shows the impressive performance of Barnes bullets.
I’m also happy that the 6.8 performed so well. This is my first kill with the 6.8 and it did great. I’m certainly looking forward to loading those 95 grain Tipped TSX bullets and using them exclusively for my Texas hunting needs.
The gun was zeroed to be 1.5″ high at 100 yards. That worked well. The first doe was at about 100 yards and the second I’m guessing 125-135 yards. There was only the occasional slight breeze (5-10 MPH at far most). Everything performed well and did what it was supposed to.
In other geeky stuff… notice in the picture I’m wearing a white shirt? There was no camo wearing in the afternoon. I know… wearing camo is the way things go. It’s part of the tribal aspect of the event. But come on. Siting in a box blind is all the camo needed. I might not wear white again since it’s kinda reflective and visible. Camo has a place, but I’m not going to get religious about it.
The deer call. Who’s to say. It was evident these does were hot, so did that “excited buck mating call” bring them in? Or were they just aware of the feeder and came out of habit? Who knows. I’ll continue to practice calling.
It’s evident from speaking with some long-time hunters that I’m in a different place than they are. They’ve been at it a while and generally only want to shoot “that big one”. They want something different from I want. I want experience: I’m now up to 4 whitetail deer in my lifetime, and the fact I got to shoot 2 in row? Wow! I want meat in the freezer. I am a little impatient. I am not picky. I want to give my kids an experience I never had growing up, and just like fishing vs. catching I know that it’s sometimes better to catch a little bluegill quickly than to sit all day and never catch Big Bubba Largemouth, if you want to capture their interest. Sure I’d love to bag that big buck of a lifetime, but why? For the stories, for the experience. Well folks, right now I’m having one heck of a fine experience as it is, so I’m good.
What made me most happy? My shooting. Yes as soon as I saw the doe my heart rate went up, my breathing went up, I started to shake. I calmed myself. The two shots I took? They were calm, steady, true. Bullet went right where I wanted. I had to make quick decisions, and decisive shots, especially on that second one. My mind was made up to take two deer if I had the opportunity, so when it arose I didn’t have to think if I wanted to do it, I just acknowledged the situation, assessed if I had the shot, and since I did I took it (had plan, executed it). To be able to make such a shot quickly, calmly, accurately, and decisively felt good and reassuring of my skillset. This has extrapolation into other areas.
I’m happy with how things turned out. The gun performed well. The weather was fantastic. I love how Storm Ranch is so close to home, but being buried in the middle of the ranch you have deep stars and absolute silence (other than someone else’s gunshots ringing out in the distance). I got to spend good time with my kids. I got to provide some true free-range organic meat for my family to be nourished by. Folks, life is good.
I again want to thank Josh Storm, Casimero and his son, and everyone at Storm Ranch for again making for a good time. I want to also give special thanks to Lauren for being so kind and friendly with my Daughter. We’ll be back.
And now… to rest. 🙂
Updated: I edited the post slightly to add in some details of things I forgot to add the first time around.
Updated 2: On the big doe, due to the “hit from the front” angle, there was no exit wound. Thus the bullet was somewhere inside that deer. I wanted to recover it but we couldn’t find it. Well, I just got an email from Josh Storm. He found the bullet! He said it was lying on the slab where the deer was cleaned. He emailed me a picture:
I reckon he took the picture with his iPhone, since it’s a little blurry. But you can still see that 85 grain .277″ Barnes TSX expanded perfectly! Petals all curled back. Looks like no loss of petals either. THAT is Barnes performance. THAT is why I love Barnes bullets.
I do wonder where it actually ended up inside the doe. That is, how far did it penetrate, especially after hitting the shoulder. I do know the heart and lungs were demolished. While trimming out the right backstrap, I saw a hole in the ribs right next to the spine and wondered if that might have been where the bullet ended up. We’ll never know exactly.
Josh is going to mail me the bullet. I expect no loss of weight (or negligible), and for it to look picture perfect…. as long as it makes it through the US Mail without a hitch.
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
I hear the sound of the hammer.
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
The hammering continues. Oldest is putting up Halloween decorations outside.
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
That stupid “signpost”. It’s oddly constructed so you can never give it a good enough whack, and it just doesn’t want to go into the ground.
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
It’s the single-most frustrating holiday decoration we have. Yet, every year they want to put it up.
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
Man… how long has he been out there working on it?
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
Nah… I’ve got my own work to tend to. If he needs my help, I’ll wait for him to ask for it.
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
OK, now it’s driving me crazy. But he’s still working on it.
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
I go downstairs to look out the window. A friend has come over to help him. They pull out the hose to water the ground to soften things up.
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
Still hasn’t said a word to me.
bang bang bang bang…. bang bang bang bang…
And finally, he gets it in.
He never gave up. It’s an amazingly frustrating thing to work on, but there were no complaints. Only dedication. Only persistence.
I know it’s a small thing — putting up a Halloween decoration — but it’s not a small thing. He gets frustrated quickly, and even if he sees it through to the end, many times he’ll get bitchy about it. But not this time. When he came in, I told him what a good job he did. He took the complement. I smiled. 🙂
I just returned from an Early Voting Rally. It happened to be sponsored by Texas Republicans… not 100% sure who exactly was sponsoring it (e.g. Travis County Republicans, Texas as a whole, etc.), but it was attended by all your big Texas Republicans: Gov. Rick Perry; Sen. John Cornyn; Jerry Patterson, Texas Land Commissioner; Susan Combs, Texas Comptroller; Attorney General Greg Abbott; Melissa Goodwin, 3rd Court of Appeals; Paul Workman, candidate for Texas State House District-47; Dr. Donna Campbell, candidate for US House Texas District 25; and a host of other Texas Republicans.
Now, I’m not a Republican… and on more than one occasion I wanted to shout out something that would have rubbed folks raw. But this was not the place for such things, and I had bigger reasons to not stir the pot. For you see, I took my children to this event. I was glad to see other parents brought their children too, because this is a lesson in civics. Furthermore, it let’s them see these people close up and see they’re not just a picture on the TV. Besides, you can’t appreciate Gov. “Good Hair” unless you can see him up close. 😉
What I loved most? Oldest. He groaned at the thought of attending this event, but of course he had no choice… he was going. Then I happened to notice during Gov. Perry’s rousing speech… there was Oldest, cheer and applauding with gusto! Yeah, he got into it. 🙂
As a random aside, it was fun watching Gov. Perry’s security detail. One guy (you can see him behind Jerry Patterson in the above picture, in the sunglasses) was pretty tough and serious looking. I nicknamed him Agent Franks. 🙂
As the rally broke up, I managed to chase down Dr. Campbell to say hello. Introduced Daughter to her as well. I could tell she was a tired lady, but a tough one. I applaud her efforts and hope it pans out in a couple of weeks. Daughter was excited to meet Dr. Campbell. 🙂 I was also happy that on the drive home we saw a couple more Donna Campbell yard signs in the neighborhood!
For me, that’s the big reason I went this morning: I wanted my children to experience this. Oh sure, I’ve done things like this before, when I was a kid and my Dad was a Congressman; but then it was “Ugh.. can we go home now?”. Today was the first time I attended a rally because I wanted to be there, and I wanted my children to be there. I want them to understand that politics can and does suck, but we cannot ignore it. It’s important to our lives and something all responsible citizens must care about and partake in. Plus, since they had such a good time, I think it left a positive impression on the kids that sometimes yes, politics can be fun.
To bring Sasha home we had to drive 2000+ miles to Georgia and back. Spending about 37 hours on the road, we saw many interesting things.
One of the best things I saw? My children.
They were bored. They were tired. They were cooped up and cramped up in the car. They could have been cranky, they could have fought, they could have complained. But never a problem.
We looked at the trip as an adventure. A way to see more of the world (Wife and I had never been through this part of the world). A way to experience different things. And of course, a way to bring Sasha home.
I often speak of how your mindset makes a big difference on how you view, experience, and consider life. Giving my kids a good mindset, framing the trip ahead of us? And of course, rewarding their positive behavior? All the difference in the world.
The kiddos were well-behaved, excited, looked at the world with wonder and inquisitiveness. Yes they were tired, yes they were sick of McDonald’s and Subway, but they hung in there and were real troopers about everything.
I like my kids. 🙂
These first few days at home with Sasha have been a challenge.
First, we have to make a big paradigm adjustment to “dog think”. Wife and I have been neglecting many other things in our lives (including each other), instead spending our time devouring all that we can about dog think, training, behavior, etc.. Who said training is for the dog? It’s for the owner. 🙂
There is no question Sasha loves and submits to us. We go away and come back, she explodes with joy and excitement at the sight of us. We can cuddle her, brush every part of her, manipulate her head and teeth, you name it, and all the kids can do it too. No doubt, girl has said “This is my family. I love them, I will protect them.”
It’s that last part that’s been hard to deal with.
We don’t know if Sasha has baggage. I spoke with the breeder about this a couple of days ago, and their feeling is Sasha is adjusting. New family, which is strongly claims, then everything else around her is new as well. So, family is good, everything else is unfamiliar thus a potential threat. Thus, much barking, almost impossible to have other people in the house. It’s been a challenge. Wife was rather dejected on Sunday evening. Even the discussions with a friend of mine were a bit on the negative side and had me a little concerned and beat down, like did I get myself into a bad situation?
But I’ll say this.
Sasha is improving.
I’ve been working on the basics: sit, stay, down, come; she knows them, but isn’t 100% with them (especially if there’s a distraction like a perceived threat, which could just be someone outside walking down the sidewalk). She’s good at “drop it” and “leave it”. She knows her name.
I’ve been working on her with “quiet”. I’ve been working on her about going to her “room” (crate). I’ve also been working on loose leash walking. I see progress, but also a lot of work ahead.
This morning, I took her out for a walk. The past few days I haven’t done a neighborhood walk, instead we’ve been in the yard working on loose leash walking technique. But later today Sasha will have her first visit to “doggie school“, so I didn’t want to do any training work, just morning poop and a walk to get a little exercise. I expected the walk to be like prior walks: her talking me out for a controlled drag (I will not let the dog control the situation, but certainly past “walks” have been a massive tug-o-war). But to my (welcome) surprise, the walk was not like that! Oh sure, it wasn’t a picture perfect “at my side” walk, but I could tell she was getting it with regards to proper walk. I’d say the leash was loose 70% of the walk. Oh sure she’d get a little behind me to sniff something, but I’d keep walking and merely the pop of the leash tightening when I got far enough away was enough to tell her to get back to me. Or she’d get in front of me, perhaps slight tension on the leash, but never a strong pull that I had to fight. A few cars drove by, she got alert but no problem. We had to stop on the sidewalk as a car was backing out of a driveway, I had her sit, no problems. Someone was in the shadows of their driveway, coming out to get their newspaper, and that did excite her more than anything else on the walk so I did have to give a few explicit pops, but there was no barking or overt “must fend off the threat!” behavior.
Much praise was lavished on Sasha throughout the walk. 🙂
The Kuvasz has their nature, and that’s part of why we chose this breed. I do not want to turn her into something she’s not, I do not want to suppress her nature, only help us live in better harmony. She needs to allow our friends to come over to our house and allow herself to get to know them — they are extended flock. So, we just have to keep working on things.
She’s not a lost cause. She just needs work, but then, don’t we all?
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