Mac is under house arrest for the next week

Okay, I know it's been awhile since I've blogged here, but that's only because I've been using my other blog a heck of a lot more lately. I've got a cute video to share though of Mac, our puppy. Speaking of Mac, I'm afraid he might fail puppy school. We had a bit of an accident this past Wednesday. I was bringing him back to the house after going to enroll in doggie daycare. We had just gotten home and I was parking the car when the accident happened. I had transferred into my chair and Mac was sitting on the backseat. He usually is pretty good about waiting until the door comes open and the ramp is down before getting out to go into the house. Well things happened so fast that I still don't know what happened. All I know is that one minute the door is opening and things are fine and the next my puppy is yelping in pain worse than I've ever heard him do before. At first I figured somehow I accidentally rolled over his tail. When I looked though and realized it wasn't his tail but that his paw had gotten pinched in the groove of the door where the ramp unfolds I freaked out and as I was trying to help by putting the ramp back up that made things worse. I bent down to try and help him with his paw and he was so panicked that he accidentally bit me pretty good.

I ran inside and called Dan who got me calmed down enough for me to be able to go into the bathroom and start washing off the blood. He called my mom for me so she could come take me to the ER since he couldn't get off work right then. I calmed down enough to call Melissa who also rushed over. Mom took me up to the minor emergency center that is closest to the house since after washing my hand it wasn't as bad as we thought. We got in fairly quick. I was more worried about if Mac was okay, but I knew Melissa was seeing to him and was in good hands. I had to get a tetinus shot which if you've never had one, hurts like nothing else! They soaked my hand for a good 15 or so and dressed the bite wounds. The PA was very friendly. I was most upset that they were required to call animal control and report it. In essence, Mac is under house arrest now until next Saturday because of the bite even though it was my fault. I think it's a bit over the top, but I understand they have to be careful just in case.

So it was a very bad day for the puppy. Oh not to mention he had his first run in with a moose that same morning in our backyard so he already was in a hyped up state to begin with. Since he can't leave the house, we've had lots of time to train and really reinforce good behavior. We went out the next night and bought a shock collar. I didn't really want to until this happened, but I really can't have this again and want to correct his behavior before he gets any older. I like the one we got because it has two buttons on it that give off either a bad tone if he does something he's not suppose to or a good tone when he does what he is suppose to. The 4 levels of shock we only use when he really isn't listening or gets into something that we really want to correct right away like eating the cat's food. So far we have only had to use the shock part pretty sparingly.

Luckily my hand is healing up quite nicely now. I know Mac felt really bad about what happened because he has been very good since Wednesday. I think also he knows that I would never do anything to intentionally hurt him so now whenever something does spook him he comes right over to me and sits or lays right by me. Since he is under house arrest though looks like he might have to miss puppy graduation unless I can somehow sneak him out. It's only like a day or two prior to his 10 days. We'll see.

Meanwhile, here's a cute video we just uploaded to youtube of Mac drying himself off after one of his recent baths. Very funny!

Self Drying Dog