So Fall is officially here, at least in CNY. Trees are turning, and the vistas will soon look a painter's pallet.

And for the last two weeks the mutts have been blowing coat. I'm reminded of the musical Hair. Everywhere hair.

Hot days, colder nights. And hair.

Brio, Kai, Titan and Sam. A mix of personalities and drives.

Of a sudden, they seem to want to out vocalize each other, even out ferocious each other, when someone comes through the front door. That is being addressed. Can't have either behavior. It upsets my sense of solitude and tranquility, and after all, it is my house.

Revisiting the Place, and Enough commands, in lower case. Don't like to yell or compete with one barking dog, much less a cacophony of noise for no real purpose. So we are having moments of presence with attitude that is having the effect of reminding the mutts of my disapproval of unwarranted noise.

Then too, maybe my tolerance levels ain't what they used to be.

Doge bark but I'm not into barking competitions.

A beautiful day has dawned. 52 degrees on the way to 75 or so. Clear blue sky is brightening. And so it goes.

Hi Mike! I also have a mixture (4) of very different temperments and drives. Additionally recently a new neighbour moved into the house next us with two dogs, who are left alone there during the night. Means: a hell of barking. The neighbour's ones of course trigger it much. But my own are no lambs too. Especially two of them seem to be very excited about the neighbour dogs.
I'm training mine to bark on command and be quiet on command. Works perfectly!!, but only during training sessions, A higher level I have not been able to reach yet. Good luck to you and I hope you dream no doggie nightmares.

 Quote: Mike Arnold

So Fall is officially here, at least in CNY. Trees are turning, and the vistas will soon look a painter's pallet.

And for the last two weeks the mutts have been blowing coat. I'm reminded of the musical Hair. Everywhere hair.

Hot days, colder nights. And hair.

Brio, Kai, Titan and Sam. A mix of personalities and drives.

Of a sudden, they seem to want to out vocalize each other, even out ferocious each other, when someone comes through the front door. That is being addressed. Can't have either behavior. It upsets my sense of solitude and tranquility, and after all, it is my house.

Revisiting the Place, and Enough commands, in lower case. Don't like to yell or compete with one barking dog, much less a cacophony of noise for no real purpose. So we are having moments of presence with attitude that is having the effect of reminding the mutts of my disapproval of unwarranted noise.

Then too, maybe my tolerance levels ain't what they used to be.

Doge bark but I'm not into barking competitions.

A beautiful day has dawned. 52 degrees on the way to 75 or so. Clear blue sky is brightening. And so it goes.

Shed-A-Thons & Bark-A-Thons

In case you need a Little Laugh, here's an OLD joke from the AKITA community:

1st Owner, "At our house Dog Hair is a CONDIMENT...

2nd Owner, "HA, at our house it's the Main Course!"

Much as I utterly LOVE dogs, I also HATE nuisance barking -- That's why my previous K9 companions over 5 decades were almost entirely Sighthounds and an Akita, LOL ... Now I have adopted my 2 rescue Dobermans, but for that breed, they are amazingly QUIET "Presence WITH Attitude", Carry On, Mike !!!

As I get older, my tolerance for any type of noise is diminishing, so when the dogs kick off at the postman, or whoever else has the temerity to walk past the house, I do nip it in the bud with 'enough' and that usually does it, if there is a cat outside giving them the metaphorical finger, I have to use a shake of the gravy bones tub to get their attention.

My neighbourhood has it's share of barkers, and it drives me mad, and I wonder how it doesn't drive their owners mad too

Proper Autumn weather here in Blighty, got drenched over the fields at dawn, and the muck spreading got underway last night; The dogs were in heaven, I could have wept...

I can exactly feel your situation. For me it means almost every night hours without sleep. I certainly do understand the dogs, but not the owners, who do not care in the least. And I mean: Do not care! I can live live with situations which simply can happen because we have dogs, but I have difficulties with owner, who can't understand anything and don't even try to begin to do something against.

Weather is starting to change here also.

Cool nights and warm sunny days are supposed to indicate a colorful fall.....according to the weather folks on TV anyway.

Trooper has always been a pretty quiet dog but Thunder likes to bark.

The Yorkie behind us can get him started fairly easy but one simple tap from me on the bedroom window or the sliding glass door shuts him up quickly.


Coats are blowing pretty hard right now. Most all will be out in another week or two now.

Since both are outside dogs I'll stop brushing for the winter after a frost or two.

Trooper (long hair) is looking petty much like a big coyote right now.

By late January, early February he'll have a full mane that will make Mufasa look like a kitten.

You can't tell a book by it's cover though. He'll forever be my court jester in spite of his regal looks.

Fall can't come sooner to AZ although we won't really get much of one until mid-October. It's hard to exercise the pups when they get overheated before expending any real amount of energy.

I have to admit that I finally resorted to a can of compressed air for in crate barking with my two. The one pup would get the other pup going and what shuts Rogue up is an invitation to bark louder to Maverick. He's got that terrier-like tendency to want to come right back at you for the mild corrections that get Rogue to knock it off. A couple repetitions of "quiet" followed by a short blast and my pups now both respect just the "quiet" command. Not ideal but I consider the risk of fall-out to be pretty low if the can is used correctly meaning very carefully and sparingly.

I started a new job this week. I got a dog training job at a PetCo and I'm hoping to have some financial stability for a bit. Not exactly my "style" of training but I can make it work. Not really any reason that the initial training of an average pet would need corrections anyway. Of course this means that my pups are now in their crates for 9 hours a day while I'm at work. Maverick didn't get his morning "blast around the yard" time today because I overslept and he was going a little stir crazy when I got home. I really can't believe that people make normal pets out of cattle dogs like him. He gets this intense "edge" to him if he isn't exercised and worked with enough.

I'm experimenting with a front attach harness with both pups and so far I like it. Rogue can be a bit of a bulldozer when she decides she wants something and it allows me to re-direct her while I get her engaged with me again. Bonus effect is that because I can't give corrections with it I have to really think about keeping distractions to a level that my pups can be successful with. I use the harness with a double ended lead. One end is connected to the front ring and the other to the back. This way I can use the front ring when I need to but she isn't constantly being controlled by it. I want our training and relationship to be my leash. It's just that sometimes an 8 month old AmBull decides that she REALLY wants something.

Here in Minnesota, it is beautiful fall weather, but there is an ominous silence when you step outdoors-- swallows and most migrating song birds are gone. The land awaits the great freeze.

After about 5 yrs on the Forum love to read in print something about an ACD who "might come back at you" -- makes me feel less alone in the world!

And the hair -- holy cow. My ear muffs for noisy tractors are hanging on the Dyson, been running it so much I'm likely to go deaf indoors.

 Quote: Betty Landercasp

After about 5 yrs on the Forum love to read in print something about an ACD who "might come back at you" -- makes me feel less alone in the world!

Yep, I tell people that cattle dogs will "talk back" with their teeth and people don't really take it seriously. Normally he's being a happy squeaky boy begging for pets and they can't imagine him coming up the leash at me but he's tried it twice.

Still have hummingbirds at the two feeders and at my scarlet honeysuckle vines.

Oct 7-11 is the average last time I see them till mid to late April.

They drive Trooper nuts.

A couple of yrs ago a hummingbird was actually flying backwards about a foot in front of Trooper. He was falling all over himself in the effort to catch it.

It did that for almost a min before it finally took off for the front of the house.

I could almost swear I heard the hummingbird giggle the whole time.