Laila Likes to Pull

Laila is a puppy. Therefore she gets lots of walks each day in order to maintain some kind of control in our house. But Laila is a big puppy and big puppies like to pull. She pulls me over to greet other dogs, she pulls to get closer to squirrels, and she pulls because frankly she's in the mood to frolic. Laila is now right around 50 pounds at nearly 5 months old.

Enter the harness. Today while we were at puppy school at PetSmart, we picked up a Sporn Non-Pulling Mesh Control Harness. Within approximately 10 steps, she had begun to chew through the part that connected to the leash. I went back to the house and sprayed Bitter Apple on it to keep her from chewing and that worked well enough.

The harness itself worked really well when she was trying to pull forward. It gets uncomfortable around the front legs, so the dog stops pulling. However, Laila also likes to pull to the side or she dilly-dallys behind me and it's like pulling a mule. The harness didn't help with any of those scenarios. The other problem that I had was that she didn't like the feeling of the harness fastened at her back (which I'm sure takes some getting used to) so she repeatedly barrel-rolled across several lawns. I'm sure we looked pretty interesting walking down the street.

I've heard that the Gentle Leader is good. Does anyone want to weigh in on this?

...Sigh, remember when she was just a little teeny baby and we didn't have this problem?

Groupon

I just found out about this cool site called Groupon. It features a deal a day (like Slickdeals or Woot), but it only features things that are in your local area. I checked out some of the past deals and wish I had known about it before. Some of the past deals for my area included Door to Door Organics, cheap pedis/manis at a local salon, and deals on yummy restaurants. You should check it out for your city!

Busy, Busy!

Wow, I've been exhausted lately! I forgot how much energy the first month or so of a school year can zap out of me! Ever since we went back to school, it's been go go go. I had about a day and a half to throw my room together after moving classrooms this year. For some reason, we had 2 (FULL!) weeks of Professional Developments before the school year started and Zero work days in the classroom. Yikes. Let's just say that my room is still not setup to my liking quite yet. This is what my room looked like about a week before I had students coming in!

Scary, I know. I'll have to post some pics of my room as it looks now.

My first two weeks in Kindergarten have been exhausting. I am soooo not used to kids crying to go home, pooping their pants, and generally not knowing how to do one single thing by themselves. There are parts I love so far (like the cuteness of 4 and 5 year olds) and some things that I'm having to adjust to (shoes constantly untied, not attempting to cover their sneezes etc.). 8:30-4 has never felt so long! Especially since we teachers have to pull lunch and bus duty on some days this year.

Have I mentioned that I've also started my Masters program? And we have a puppy? So...when I get home exhausted from school, I fall onto the couch and nap, right? Wrong. Walk the dog, feed the dog, homework, keep the dog from knocking things off counters! I've never loved the weekends so much!!

Oh, How Fast They Grow...

2 months...

4 months...

She doesn't look amused...