For Whom the Bella Tolls. It Tolls for He.

Well, nothing says the end of writer's block like a title rich in bad puns!

For those who have been so kind to follow Mojo's progress and ask how he has been doing during my absence, thank you for sticking with me and rooting for him in the meanwhile.

It wasn't as if things weren't happening, because they were ... but they were becoming more subtle.  They were things we were noticing in retrospect rather than at the moment. 

There have been a few "biggies" -- Mojo now officially loves riding in the car and sticks his head out the window when we go places, just like a dog!  He also has been known to go upside down on the bed in the middle of the night, that cute little belly getting some fresh air.  Just like a dog!

But there were other doggy things that still weren't surfacing:

We've never heard him bark.

He's never whined.

He doesn't wag his tail.

And boy, oh boy, this dog LOATHES the word "come".  You'd think we were calling him with one hand, while holding a meat cleaver in the other.  He sort of slinks toward us, looking behind his back occasionally as if someone back there would give him a reason to run the other direction. 

And, much to our chagrin, he has to stay on-leash outside in our wonderful back yard because he still won't stop running in circles, ignoring all attempts to have him come inside.

Which brings us to the other things we've never seen him do:  he has never once sat down or laid down outside. 

Well ... never until today!  

Because last evening, we added a new secret weapon to our arsenal.

We've added the Bella factor.

That's right, folks ... we have finally found Mojo's trainer.  She's a two-ish year old yellow lab-ish firecracker who has taken on the responsibility of teaching Mojo the Art of the Dog.  50 pounds of energy and she's bringing youth into Mojo's old soul.

If Mojo is a piano chord -- rich in notes, maybe a bit on the melancholy side ... Bella is that sound you get when you slam both hands on the keys with all your might. 

She has tumbling skills, tackling skills, nibbling skills, rolling skills, and she's not afraid to use them.  Last night, Mojo tolerated her but didn't respond to her in any way.  Not even to resist some of the poking and prodding. 

Today, however, he FINALLY let his hair down and gave back a lot of what she was giving.  It was a joy to watch. 

The result?  Well, take a look.  I do believe that's Mojo sitting.  And laying.  By us.  Without a leash.  Outside.

Oh.  And he comes in when Bella does.  If he starts to look like he's not going to, we send her out and she brings him right in.

Independence Day, indeed!

We're probably not completely out of the woods yet; I think there will be moments when he'll feel overwhelmed by her and retreat to one of his safe spots, but I would love to be wrong about that.  He may not want to miss a thing anymore.

Up All Night

This is a tough post to write.

It's 11:30 p.m.  and Mojo's outside and won't come in.  He's been out for a couple of hours now, and he just won't come in. 

We've tried everything in our play book, but nothing has worked tonight.  For a while, when he first went off-leash in the back yard, he would be reluctant to come in and trot off in the other direction.  But you could cut him off at the pass, point to the ground and say "down", and he would lie down to be leashed for the walk in.  Lately, he has stopped doing that, but up until this evening, we could ultimately get him to come in.  Most of the time, he will just come in when we say it's time.  A little slowly, but still he'd come.

For what ever reason, with what ever is going on in his mind, he just wants to be outside.  He is wandering around, sniffing, pacing, walking the perimeter, occasionally passing by the back door, but any attempts to go toward him sends him running off in the other direction.

He doesn't seem to be scared, we know he hasn't been spooked, and he knows he's welcome to come in (we even propped the door open and given him space to come in a couple times -- this has worked in the past), but he's having none of it.

Without question, this is the most difficult time we've had with him since he got here.  I'm up writing this because it's hard to sleep with him out there. I rather doubt that Jay will get much sleep either ... and I know this is really really bothering Jay.  He has always been able to get Mojo to come in for him.

Mojo's safe -- the yard is securely fenced and we've left the porch light on for him -- but it's unsettling and frankly, it hurts.

We totally understand that he has a lot of bad past experiences that need to be undone.  I know that it will take a lot of time and repitition to literally alter his brain chemistry to forget the old and be repatterned with the new.

But what to make of this?

Going forward, it would seem he can't be off-leash in the yard, particularly at night.  At least for now.  We don't want him out there.  We want him inside, even on the bed with us while we settle in for the night.

Apparently this won't be a restful night here for anybody.

Leaps and Bounds

Well, I've been feeling neglectful of the blog, but when I walked into the bedroom to find that Mojo had gotten up on the bed by himself, I knew it was time to report in.

Every once in awhile, we've wanted Mojo to come up on the bed just to hang out with us and get some hands-on attention.  He seemed to like it once he got up there ... but getting him UP there was always interesting, because he wasn't buying in to the concept at all.

Jay can pick him up, I can't.  So for me to get him up on the bed took a 4-step approach:

1. Get under his armpits and lift up his front half while he manages to look utterly bored.
2. Scooch him over to the end of the bed while he cooperates not one whit.
3. Get his front legs onto the surface of the bed.
4. Get under his bottom and hope he'll put in a little effort at this point.

Once there, Mojo would be in hog heaven, and I use the word "hog" deliberately, because somehow, this 75-pound dog manages to consume an entire King bed.  No matter how many times he is swiveled to run north and south, within two stretches he's gone east and west and Jay and I are pretty much half on the bed and half out of covers.

Anyway, to have him so close, to watch him relax into us and even sleep so deeply that he would dream (and kick!) has been really nice.  We just wished he would initiate this kind of companionship himself.  We thought he didn't know how to get up on his own!

So imagine my surprise when I walked into the bedroom after work this afternoon to find His Highness curled up smack in the middle of the bed. 

It kind of makes us wonder ... what else does he know how to do that he's not telling us?!

In other news, we've found a toy that Mojo loves and now he engages in games of keep-away and tug-of-war with it.  I'd like to include fetch in that, but he's not bringing it back.  He'll go get it (most of the time), but forgets what he was supposed to do and wander off.  That's alright ... at least he's up for the game!

To Nap, Perchance to Dream ...

It's been a busy day around Casa Mojo:

Jay mowed the front 40 and the back 40 once it looked like the rain was going to hold off, and we're hosting our couple's Bible study tonight so there was some house cleaning to do, as well.  ("Clean" is a relative term here; when measured against many of the hoarder houses we work on in our business, it is clean.  Measured against any other standards, probably not so much.  The housekeeping gene my mom had clearly has skipped a generation.)

Anyway, moving the furniture around to add a few more seats in the living room put Mojo in a real tizzy.  He is a creature of habit, and builds them one very slow step at a time.  There is one place he lays down in the living room, and if that gets altered, he is perplexed and simply cannot decide what to do.  He kept coming out to look at the room, clearly willing it to be back the way it was.  Even though his spot is really not altered, the layout of the other furniture pieces is.  There has been a great deal of pacing on his part trying to work out his options.

As you can see, the option he has gone with is one Jay suggested: to hang out on the bed with him for a bit of a nap before company comes.

He won't jump up on the bed by himself (although after watching him jump into the van at obedience school, it would seem that logistically he could do it), but he will jump off.  And even when he is sleeping up on the bed, his breathing is very quick and and he doesn't go into a deep sleep.  I'm sitting at the edge of the bed typing this, and if I so much as move my foot on the floor, his eyes pop open.  It took about 10 pictures before I could catch him with his eyes closed (or close to it) because he was constantly checking to see what I was doing.

 I suspect this will change over time, once being-on-the-bed is a good habit instead of a New Thing.

But for now, he's getting in some extra bonding time, and counting the minutes until the living room furniture is put back WHERE IT BELONGS!

A Command Performance

Jay made an executive decision regarding obedience training, and it was a good one. 

The fact of the matter is, Mojo worships the very ground Jay walks on, and will do anything for him.  Well, anything that he is able to process at this point.

Me?  Not so much.  It's not that he doesn't like me (Mojo is unfailingly kind!), but I'm his second choice, certainly not the object of his affection.

And so, Jay thought it would be wise if I was the one who took Mojo through obedience training.  And we did some pretty good work together last night.

The goals were a reverse u-turn (or as we like to call it: "left"), and a sit and stay.  At first, "sit" was more of an awkward pose between sitting up and lying down, but as you can see in one picture, he kind of nailed it toward the end, even earning him/me two thumbs up from the trainer.  Compared to the chocolate lab who spent most of the evening upside down, or the terrier who preferred eating the training mats more than walking over them, I think we did quite well.  We even pulled off "stay" (most of the time).  "Stay" and "Pause" are kind of the same thing, don't you think?

Anyway, we made it through, although there was no denying that when class was over, he had real pep in his step as he bee-lined it back to Jay for the walk to the van.

But we did have an encouraging finale: when we got to the van, Jay said "go" and Mojo jumped up and in all by himself.  Up to this point, all entry into vehicles begins with a body plant to the ground and ends with Jay carrying him in.

Every day, another layer of mystery is peeling off of this wonderful dog.  We're just getting a kick out of being there when it happens!

Obedience School: He Aces the First Test!

So obedience school started on Wednesday. We're in a class for non-puppies who need to work on the basics, hence the name: "Basic Obedience".

In theory, we'll be learning how to sit, stay, come, and all those things.  But we have a bit of a hitch:  Mojo cannot be swayed by treats.  And positive reinforcement techniques are pretty much rooted in the concept that a dog you can bribe is a dog you can teach.

Hmmmmmm.

So, we either have to find a treat that Mojo finds utterly irresistible, or we may not accomplish a whole lot in class. 

On the plus side, the first session was dedicated to the art of leash walking, and Mojo was like the poster child for the technique.  There was serious envy in the room, on both ends of the leashes. 

We were also pleased to see that he wasn't fazed by the other dogs (and we have some very vocal pooches in the class), nor did he slink around.  He was fine. 

... we just have to figure out how to whet his appetite to learn all the other stuff he's supposed to learn!

Shop But Not Drop!

OK, this wasn't in the plans for today, but we went totally spontaneous on Mojo today and it had a really awesome outcome!

We went to the forest preserve and clocked another 2.4 miles, and this time he encountered people and several dogs and he handled it like a champ.  A stutter in his step, maybe, but he didn't cower, didn't shake ... he kept to heel and stayed tall.  Didn't even tuck his tail between his legs.

Then, on the way home, Jay mentioned the need to go get the proper leash for obedience class (we start Wednesday!), and we realized when we got to PetCo ("where the pets go") that Mojo could go in with us.  And we said: why not?

What a pleasant surprise!  He stuck very close to Jay, and if Jay stood still too long he had a tendency to go down on his belly, but we walked him all over that store and as you can see ... he looks about as bored with shopping as most guys I know.

One more notch on the old collar for Mr. Mojo.