October 24, 2013 Life with A.J. continues to be an adventure. (I’m starting to really dislike that word.) The latest “adventure” is his counter-surfing. He’s gone up with his front feet on the counters a few times. We caught him twice and let him know that’s not acceptable. But he doesn’t seem to care while …
Author: ajthespringer
A.J. is my dog. One of the things I did while on an extended break from my career as a technical writer and editor was adopt this totally crazy and adorable dog. He's provided me with an incredible amount of frustration and entertainment. And as you can see, he's also provided me with a large amount of writing material. I'm back at work now, but plan to keep the stories coming - maybe just not as often.
Mounting Frustration
October 10, 2013 Absolutely no progress. I’ve been taking A.J. to a personal dog trainer. I’ve been working with him. I’ve tried everything on our walks. Nothing is working. No progress at all. We went for a walk this morning. He did pretty well. He didn’t pull very much, and when we walked past a …
Working on Walking Calmly
Note: As I look back on this journal entry, I see that my future probably is not in dog psychology. A.J. is a very energetic Springer Spaniel who needs tons of exercise and interaction. So while some of what I was guessing at in this entry was probably accurate, a lot of it was just …
Funny A.J., and More Day Camp
September 13, 2013 Last night A.J. did a very weird thing. Before going to bed I took his collar off and set it on the floor beside his bed. Just after I got into bed I heard him get up and I heard his collar jingling. I crawled to the end of the bed to …
A.J. Goes to Day Camp
September 11, 2013 Yesterday ended as a bad, bad, A.J. day. The day started well. A.J. had his first day at doggie day camp. I brought him in at 9:00. I got to watch on the webcam from the lobby as they took him into the room with about a dozen dogs already there. He …
No Such Thing As a Day Off
September 9, 2013 A.J. had a good early morning. Now he’s crazy. He woke me up around 6:15. I got up and let him out, waited 5 minutes, then let him in again. He laid down on his bed and went back to sleep. (Well, he didn’t go right to sleep. His foot still hasn’t …
Frustrating Day
September 7, 2013 Today hasn’t been a great A.J. day. He was up around 6:30 and refused to settle down again. (Did I mention that today is Saturday?) I sent him out and went back to bed. About 5 minutes later he started to bark. I didn't want him to bother the neighbors that early in …
A Little Too Much Excitement
September 2, 2013 Sky left this morning. It was a rough weekend for A.J. The two dogs had come to a pretty peaceful existence. A.J. occasionally tried to play, Sky of course would have none of it. We left them alone together several times and while they both obviously spent their time on the sofas …
A.J. Meets Sky
August 31, 2013 A.J. got to meet Sky yesterday. Sky is a dachshund who belongs to A.J.'s Grandma Lucy (my mother-in-law). She and my brother-in-law Chuck are here for the three day weekend and brought Sky with them. A.J. was so excited, he loves playing with other dogs. Unfortunately, I've never really classified Sky as …
The Cone Only Works When Its On
August 25, 2013 On the plus side, A.J. was home alone for five hours today and was perfectly fine. On the minus side, I took the cone off so he could eat easier and didn’t put in back on right away. He scratched all his scabs off and was bleeding pretty badly. I had to …
AJ the Springer 