We arrived at our first dog training lesson on an uncharacteristically freezing cold & wet evening. They almost cancelled due to the terribly cold nasty weather. First thing we noticed is that the class had more dogs in it than we were told to expect which was slightly disappointing. Then the instructor said that they only had one of our dogs on the sign-up sheet. Later we learned the gal who registered us messed up and spaced on the second dog. So anyway, the instructor was like, just stick around, we’ll work that out later. Ok fine.
Then we all gave quick summaries of our dogs (at a distance). Many other groups had issue with their dogs (we learned that this organization often gets difficult cases) but we just said that so far our dogs are fine, they just need training.
As instructor walked around, he looked at Stony for a prolonged moment with concern. And in talking to us he was like, “Did you say these were littermates?” And we’re like “yes” and he was all like “Oh…this is bigger than you know…” and all this dire-sounding talk and I was like geesh are we in a scary movie or what? He’s telling us about littermate syndrome and how awful it is and how from that second on we must go back to kenneling our dogs and never having both free at the same time, etc. And how we should not proceed with this class but do private lessons…
So anyway then we left. As we left (totally freezing cold too) we talked about how the instructor was like Mr. Know it All special (he’s been to Japan you know and in Asia no one feeds their dog kibble etc) and of course he wants us in private lessons as that makes the class size smaller and they make more money. But still, it was jarring and scary to hear about how bad littermate syndrome can be.
We googled a bit, and decided to just do a few more things routinely with the dogs separated. We had already done occasional walks with dogs separated, and now we always include at least a section of our walks with dogs separated. We also talked to the vet who was horrified about what the instructor said.
Anyway, Rob talked to the dog training place later on the phone and they apologized. Anyway, the dog place offered us discount on getting private lessons from a DIFFERENT instructor. So we were like, OK we will try it. That begins tomorrow afternoon.
Meanwhile, two men who came to do a check of water/septic in our backyard recently chose to meet the pups rather than having us keep them inside. The dogs were excited but only Woody got real close to the men. A lot of barking and stuff but they were too nervous to really meet. Still, better than aggression!
There was a neighborhood meeting scheduled for later in October, and we were told you could attend in person (outside) or attend virtually. So we were like, cool, we’ll attend virtually. Then as date got closer, they changed it to virtual-only. OK, fine. And then, like a day before the meeting, they totally cancelled it. The email, subject line, “CANNCELED” was kinda spooky:
As the day has progressed, Covid-19 concerns have appeared to worsen. Subsequently, a few of the HOLA officers will not be able to attend nor contribute to the fulfillment of the agenda.
We will keep you informed about rescheduling the annual meeting.
We regret any inconvenience caused by this extraordinary and uncertain time. Thank you for your understanding and patients. Be safe.
Whoah!! Haven’t heard a thing since.
In other Heritage Oaks Neighborhood news, I was looking at Google Maps and noticed that Jester King, a huge brewery with interesting craft beers, food, and music is really close to us as the crow flies. I realized that theoretically it was within walking distance. So I asked in the Nextdoor app and found someone in Heritage Oaks who said that “there are paths that take you that way” behind her backyard and we exchanged some personal messages and she invited us to cut through.
So this past weekend we made a reservation (for outdoor table just to get a beer) and set out after alerting the neighbor via text that we’d be coming. So we get to her backyard and there’s a fence all the way along the back. As we were trying to find an opening, her dogs started chasing a deer which was panicking and getting possibly stuck in the fence. It was getting hairy! I finally texted her (she was not home) and she explained we had to wedge through the fence “to the right of the little diy fort in the back”. We never saw the fort, but we did get through the fence. Then she said there “will be a clearing, then go to the right for the path”. So we tried this, but didn’t see any obvious path. So we kept going, bushwhacking and finding easier ways probably cleared by deer. Using my phone I tried to keep us going approximately in the right direction. All the while, watching for snakes and encountering grassy areas, forested sections, dried creekbeds. We did eventually find a dirt road, but it led the wrong way. Later we found a barbed wire fence, possibly the outer edge of Jester King property (not sure, but possibly as it is a really large area), but no place to get through. We probably spent about 40 minutes in our futile quest.
