Chili (4 months)

Chili is growing up. She is now almost 30 pounds. She is actually heavy when you pick her up now. And, when she uses your leg as a pillow, her weight can put your leg to sleep.

Since her last trip to the vet, where she was boarded for two days, she has become quite unmanageable when it comes time to crate her. She essentially turns into Cujo when she nears the crate. We have tried feeding her in the crate, and that has helped some, but she still hates the crate. Since she is better about not peeing in the house (at least not as much), we have begun leaving her out for short trips away from home. So far she has done pretty well.

She has also learned a few commands (or as she sees them, suggestions)

• Come - this one works about 60% to 70% of the time
  
• Sit - she is pretty good with this
  
• Down - she is also good at this one
  
• Shake - she just learned this, so it is still improving

All of these commands go out the window as soon as a cat walks through her field of vision. And, when there is food involved, she will go through all she knows in no partcular sequence. We have tried to teach "off", but that only works about 10% of the time.

The other big event in Chili's life in the past couple of weeks was the purchase of a Gentle Leader Head Collar. This contraption came highly recommended by pretty much everybody in the world of pets (Humane Society, vets, etc.). You put this deal around the dog's head and also part of it goes around their snout. Then the leash attaches to the part that is around their nose, so that when they walk too far ahead of you or pull on the leash, their head gets turned around. It is supposed to work miracles. It lasted under two seconds. She pulled it off immediately. After re-tightening the leader so that she was essentially muzzled, we tried again. This time she fell over on her side, paws working at the leader like mad, and the thing came off in under a minute. We tried several days, thinking that she might get used to the dumb thing. Didn't happen. When I mentioned this to the guy at Bone Adventure in Edina, he recommended the Gentle Leader Easy Walk Harness as an alternative. This worked like magic. She doesn't mind the harness, and it turns walking a 30 pound maniac into a breeze.