(no subject)

Edited photos.
Petted dog.
Made brownies.
Watched Boston Legal.
Ordered deep purple hair dye.

Heard a sudden dripping sound in a place where no drips ought to be dropping. By the bay window. Hopefully it is just a clog in the gutter. Leaks are so hard to fix when you can't figure out where they're coming from. Never did totally resolve the leak by the sunroom window, and still have buckets out there.

Got my electric bill. 900 kWh electricity, 89 therms gas. Average temperature for the last month was 39 degrees F!
The winter of 2007/08, my max usage was 455 kWh and 49 therms, in February when the average temp was 48 degrees.
The winter of 2008/09, my max usage was 613 kWh and 56 therms, in February when the average temp was 43 degrees.

WTF???

I'm trying to post an entry, but am getting this error:
Error updating journal: Client error: Sorry, there was a problem with content of the entry

dog training / people training

I have been unsuccessful so far in teaching Zorro not to bite on our limbs and clothes.

This page says:
"Some people advise trying to emulate a 'puppy squeal' to discourage biting too hard.
I don't know why, but people just don't seem to be very convincing with their squeals, so I don't recommend it as a training technique. What's more, some puppies seem to enjoy it when their human squeals and will get more excited, resulting in more biting."

Yeah.... when I yelp in pain, Zorro might stop momentarily but then she goes right back at it. Earlier on, I tried growling in a mean tone of voice when she'd bite my clothing... that worked a few times, but seemed to lose effectiveness fairly soon.

Whenever I grab her mouth to get her to let go of my clothes, the moment I let go of her, she jumps and bites them again. I have to literally squeeze her mouth shut with my hands and drag her with me to where I'm trying to go, or pick her up and carry her with my arm under her neck (she's getting too big and heavy for that) to prevent her from continuing to jump and bite and tear my clothes before I get into the safety of the house.

No matter what I do, I can't seem to teach her that I don't want her to bite my clothes.

I've taught her to sit when I say "Sit". If she's biting me, and I tell her to sit, she may back off and sit for a moment. But it's just for a moment, and then she'll go back to trying to bite.

The same page says:
"A different, yet highly effective approach is to say 'ouch' in a neutral tone of voice (not loud, not high-pitched and not angry) then walk out of the room, shutting the door behind you for 30 seconds. This marks the exact behavior you are trying to punish, then gives a time-out as a consequence."

This does not work, as I am not able to walk out of the room (or rather into the house), without her continuing to bite at my clothes on the way. The more forceful I am at pushing her away and/or yelling at her to stop, the more frenzied she gets in jumping and biting at me.
Often, my intent is simply to walk into the house in the first place, or to walk to the garbage bin and back, or to walk to the mailbox and back. If I wasn't trying to play with her in the first place, then even if I get away from her successfully, it isn't a "time-out", it's a sigh of relief and I certainly don't want to go back out in 30 seconds in order to be assaulted again.

Staring up at the sky or ceiling works rather well at getting her to stop biting for that moment. But when I look down again, or try to walk, she usually starts biting again.

Sticking a toy into her mouth does not work. She drops it and goes right back after the clothes and limbs. Unless it's rope. She likes playing tug-of-war with the rope. But I have to be careful to keep the rope between her and me, so that the easier target for her is the rope.

Pushing her down on her side and holding her down for a little while sometimes gets her to stop biting; sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't keep her from doing it again later.

She doesn't *always* bite. But the more time I spend in her presence, the more likely she is to start trying to bite me.

I was planning to wear my long hot-pink t-shirt yesterday under a sweater. But then I remembered Zorro, and that if I wore that shirt, it would end up with holes in the bottom, since my jacket would not cover it completely.

On Christmas-eve day, I wore my nice velvety violet shirt. I forgot to protect with my old torn-up jacket before going outside to the mailbox. Zorro jumped up, bit, and I ended up with a hole in the shirt.

very strange

I was getting the "Error updating journal: Client error: Sorry, there was a problem with content of the entry" error because of the link I was trying to post. I was able to preview the entry in the preview window just fine, but when posting the entry, I got the error.

I tried changing the URL in various ways, but still got the same error. Trying to post a link to the top-level site (ezinearticles.com) gets the same error. The only way I was able to post the link without getting the error was to add an extra character to the beginning of the URL. So if you're trying to open the link, you'll need to remove the 'x' from the beginning.

Why is LiveJournal blocking ezinearticles.com??? I did a web-search but found no indication of that site being black-listed for any reason...

dog training

I had an idea! I can put Zorro on the tie-out cable, then play with her near the end of her reach. And then every time she bites, move out of her reach and try the 30 second time-out thing.