Custody of injured Dover dog delayed until owner's trial

More on Buddy, the Shiba inu who chewed up his own leg. The trial will be held on January 22 next year.

This posting is late because my mother was struck by a staph infection in Burnaby this past week. Luckily she's okay - but since she is 73 and not in the best of health, it was a near thing. We got reports from my cousin James, who looked after Shassi, that Shassi insisted on lying on a sweater of Mom's and arranging it herself. Tierce started looking for me in the middle of the night so that Mischa had to put him in the crate (Mischa was letting Tierce sleep with him in the bed again, silly man) at around 12 to 3, which is the time I usually come up to bed when I'm working late.

It's funny how these dogs, who couldn't care less if you're there, seem to miss you when you've gone. Maybe they're closer to humans than we think.

Today Tierce needed a good shaking. He took offense when I insisted that he pay attention to me instead of some crows who were walking around a parking lot. A flash of the fang and BAM! he was shaken and flat on his back, screaming like he was being slowly dissolved in sulphuric acid. I didn't look around to see who might be phoning the SPCA. A much more subdued Shiba walked beside me for about five minutes before turning into his normal macho self. This is definitely not a dog for the faint of heart but I will not have a dog tell me what he will or will not do.

Speaking of macho, Tierce is starting to become possessive of toys in the dog park. I haven't brought any there because I'm not sure it's a great idea. Unfortunately Tierce starts chasing dogs who have balls and sticks in their mouths and sometimes gets really snarly when they won't give them to him. Today he was having an argument with another 8 month old dog that turned into a shouting match and we had to separate them. So I'm starting to think that I'm going to have to give the dog park a miss and socialize him one-on-one with other dogs.

Tierce's obedience is abysmal - he ignores commands that he knows I can't enforce, like coming when called. We're going back to obedience classes in the new year. I've been practicing "Front" (come) with him, but I don't see it having much effect. We're keeping at it, though. And he does listen to me more than he listens to Mischa.

Tierce is doing better with the pulling - our run today went better than last time. I think it's because I'm stopping at intervals to play with him and that keeps his interest. I'm going to try this again and see if it doesn't help him keep focussed if he knows that he is going to get time outs to play and sniff things and have fun during a run.