Real life. Blech.

I ordered a new USB cable for my camera, so I should soon be able to post amusing pictures of my amusing dogs. Yay!

In the meantime, here is an oldie. I love how happy Mr Fin looks in this pic. Isn't his face squishable and kissable?

Due to somewhat extraordinary circumstances, we are now living with an absurd number of dogs and cats. (Because, um, the three dogs and fourteen cats wasn't enough for us, I guess.) My brother's dogs (and my brother, actually) (and a few other people, for that matter) (and some more cats) are in my [finished] basement, and my dogs are upstairs. We are having Bitch Issues, so they're being crated and separated for the foreseeable future, and possibly forever. With all of the turmoil and upheaval, none of the dogs have been getting the structure or stability or attention or exercise they require on a daily basis. All my dogs are crazy with stress. I've been doing what I can, but it's not nearly enough, and we all need to sit down together and figure out a better way to exercise and train them all and make life better for everyone.

Poor Polly is the one who has to spend the most time in the crate, because Tuni screams incessantly whenever she's in there, and it's truly an unbearable sound. Polly is a social butterfly who adores being with people, so this must feel like a terrible, terrible punishment to her. Finley isn't getting enough hard exercise, and he's turning into a wild beast. When he plays with Tuni, he's a spinning, leaping machine. She's not too happy about it, for the record. He knows he's not allowed to get too close to her or bounce all over her, so instead he just runs up and then spins and spins.

Yesterday, he spent all afternoon following my six year old niece and attempting to mount her. I don't buy the standard line that it's dominance behavior, not from him. He's majorly overstimulated and frustrated. We went out to the back yard and had a great zoomie session, and he felt a lot better after that.

The most concerning is his reaction to the other dogs, who occasionally have to walk past his crate. He is having massive amounts of barrier frustration, and barking enough to bounce his crate around like one of those old-style cartoon dogs in a doghouse. I am hesistant to rush introductions between Fin and my brother's pit, who is kind of a jerky, undersocialized adolescent, but I am worried that if I don't introduce them, the barking and hyperarousal will become a conditioned response, and his frustration will escalate into aggression. I am also concerned that the frustration will generalize to all his interactions with strange dogs.

I think that if we do intros out in the yard or on a walk and if we do some click&treating, he'll calm down. I sure hope I'm right, because otherwise, uh... having not one but TWO sets of dogs who can't interact would kinda suck.