Clutter, be gone!

What does clutter have to do with dogs? 

It doesn't, but actually it does. Clutter can be a hazard to dogs. Dogs may get bored or anxious then chew up clothes, devices, or really anything you leave around. And if you handled it, you got your scented oil on it, so your dog can definitely hone in on that scent and find the object you handled.

Anyway, this post isn't about environmental management and dog behavior or about organization and dogs. It's just about clutter and living with a chronic clutterer -- but we'll come back to dogs in it. There are plenty of other resources on how to manage a dog's environment to prevent unwanted behaviors and how to use those methods in conjunction with training/behavior modification.

* * *

Since the time I was in college, my mother has been a chronic clutterer. Not as bad as hoarding, but chronic cluttering definitely had a negative impact on our life. There were times when the dining table was so covered with magazines, envelopes, and newspapers that there was no room for a guest to sit down and eat. My mother invited a coworker to dinner at our house right after an outing with her, and who ended up removing stacks of magazines from the table? Me. My mother had also been stacking magazines on the living room coffee table, and they were getting out of control. Some years later when my mother moved to my aunt's house to help her through a difficult family time, I visited and saw the same problem: stacks and stacks of books and magazines on the bedroom floor. I'm pretty sure my aunt just closed her eyes and tolerated it  or didn't even look in there since she needed the moral support during a difficult time.

The same thing happened years later when my mother had left my aunt's home and was living in the Santa Rosa area. Her apartment was filled with moving boxes. I had to say something to get her to do something about it. There was no place to move around or sit down. The situation didn't really improve much, though. One time I went to her place to water the plants while she was out of town, and there was clutter everywhere, including the dishwasher, which she was using as a cabinet.

There were many other examples of clutter. Keeping clothes and shoes from the '70s and '80s. Hoaring makeup and filling trays, drawers, and countertops with it. Never dusting any of it off and leaving it to pile up.

No room for pool supplies

Fast forward years later: over the 13 years my mother has been living with us off and on -- mostly on -- her clutter problem reappeared. Instead of using existing storage efficiently, she just fills it with bags, small jars, containers, etc. that she doesn't need. With cabinets filled,  she then started stacking bags in a hallway closet that we need to store pool chemicals and equipment. Where are we supposed to keep our pool chemicals and supplies?

Then she started to buy more and more appliances to stack in the basement wet bar. And because there was no room in the cabinets, she started to stack containers and other items on the counter. Years ago, we said we would build it out and convert it into a kitchen, but she said no. OK. It wasn't her decision, but we didn't take action on it. Then she bought even more appliances and bought a cart to continue expanding her stuff, as there was no room in the cabinet. 


Ultimately, we decided that this situation was enough and with funds in hand, we had the wet bar converted to a functioning kitchen with new appliances. It wasn't without argument. She had placed a big box in front of a toaster oven on the cart. When I told her to remove it, she balked and argued, claiming it was to protect the dogs. Um no. That cart with appliances shouldn't have been put there at dog level in the first place. Like my aunt, I tolerated the clutter ... for a long time. My husband and I tolerated it until we couldn't. The area may not even look that bad in pictures, but in person, you could see used, pinched-up paper towels, crumbs, food residue, containers, food stored IN the sink,  rags, cardboard boxes left for months in various spots, and more.

It was a mess and an eyesore.

Our contractor, who did our kitchen and bathroom remodels, taking notes based on my plan and the result.

Why I go with a contractor and not Home Depot

Contractor versus big box outsourcing and associated contractors

My advice is to always find a reputable independent contractor to do any major remodeling and renovation work instead of going to Home Depot and using their design services.

We are now in the phase of transforming a wet bar in the basement into a real kitchen. We decided to try three different approaches:

• Use the same contractor who completed our kitchen/dining remodel as well as a bathroom remodel.
• Go to Home Depot and have a kitchen designer as our contractor.
• Go through IKEA and use its design consultant as our contractor. 

IKEA:

Pros: When I emailed for a measurement appointment and in-store design appointment, I heard back from them in the promised 24-48-hour window. Someone sent up the home measurement appointment for me -- I was not able to choose the time or date -- and sent me a link to pay the $79 fee to the third party (Traemand).  The measurement service is $20 less than what Home Depot charges.

Cons: Completely impossible to reach the local IKEA to speak directly to someone about the project. The customer service line was often so busy during the day that I couldn't even get on hold for a rep; the system just ended the call and said to call back.


Home Depot: 

Pros: It's very easy to make an appointment online then go to discuss the project in-store and view samples. The third-party measurement service for cabinets was on time and very professional.

Cons: The kitchen designer we worked with over two separate in-store appointments -- let's call him Joe -- didn't even call us to let us know how long it would take for the installer to set up the appointment. Joe didn't call or email us after the measurements were done. No plans, nothing. Joe never bothered to follow up with us about the project. In short, he did not care at all that we wanted to drop $10-15K on this. In fact, we never heard back from him. Is this how you do business?


Licensed contractor:

There are no negatives. Our contractor is responsive, calls regularly, and gives us a very clear timeline of when stages will happen. The contract is clear. He sent his cabinet installer the day after, and she has worked with us before on a kitchen. The next day,  the 3D plan was done and emailed to us.  We have a start date.

People who want your business don't f*** around.

We will be getting much better-quality cabinets and work this way. 

Fitness, canine obesity, weight loss

This is a Greyhound on prednisone

 She has been on prednisone for almost two years. This is the effect: 

 

At the beginning of summer boarding, that's what she looked like.


This is not normal for her. Her weight at adoption was 49-50 lb; she is a small female. This is what she's supposed to look like -- this was her first spring visit with us. You can tell this is old, as we still had sod in the turnout pen.

And a view of her as of today, 6/27 -- she is seven years old:

Her waist is coming back!

July 4:

July 6:

Tuff Mutt Hands-Free Leash

Tuff Mutt Leash

The good: It's $23 on Amazon, so pretty cheap. I do love the slider attachment ring on the waist belt. The slider allows the dog to move from one side of you to the other instead of being stuck to a single fixed point on the belt. On other waist leashes with a fixed ring, the dog turns the belt -- not a big deal to some -- but this one gives more freedom of movement without the belt tugging. 

The sturdiness is very good to excellent. I can't complain! The bungee section is very strong. Maybe my dog is just a good loose-leash walker, but it takes a lot of pulling to stretch this bungee. I tried it myself just using my arms. 

I would need to test the bungee action on a large dog with serious high prey drive lunging after squirrels to see if the leash can even be pulled out to max length. (My guy is too old and hasn't cared about squirrels for years. I need to find a coyote instead.)

Two traffic handles are great.

The nitpick bad: Length. I know why a six-foot version of this leash doesn't exist -- momentum. I never use four-foot leashes, so adjusting to this shorter distance is on me. I would like the same features in a longer leash.  Pretty sure I can buy an extender, but my beach setup is going to be the Ruffwear Front Range harness back attachment and this leash. That gives me more stride room. 

Jiobit Review

Jiobit tracker is a new GPS tracker on the market.

www.jiobit.com

It's about the size of a Fig Newton and weighs very, very little. I don't even notice when it's in my pocket or added to my keychain. 

So does it work? Is it accurate? 

Yes, the TLDR (too long, didn't read) version is yes, it's worth it for your dog if you need GPS tracking in a super lightweight form.

I've used it in both live mode (live tracking with updates every 10 seconds) and regular normal tracking (position sampled every two minutes and plotted on a map timeline in Google Maps app). Live mode drains the Jiobit battery fairly quickly, so it should be used only for finding your lost dog once you get in the vicinity of his/her last known position. 

This is a Jiobit in its charging dock (USB connected to your computer or a USB outlet). Solid green means fully charged and ready. 

This is what the Jiobit looks like on a fabric house collar. I squeezed this collar through the loop instead of using the included snap-on clip. 

Note: this isn't a walking collar or flat collar. For flat collars, you should use the included snap-on clip or a swappable clip (I use a lock S-biner) to attach it. Or you can use the included fabric pouch with strap. 


The pouch is small and has a wide elastic strap to slide the collar through. 


I have not used the pouch -- I don't really need it. 

Tracking mode is regular mode, plotting location every two minutes. 

If you want to see what your path has been, you click on "Timeline" (bottom left) to open the map for details. See next image. 

This is a basic accurate timeline. We drove from school drop-off to Garfield Park, then walked inside the park and around back to the car then drove off. 

Someone remind me to walk by Pee-Wee Herman's house next time I'm near Garfield Park. I haven't seen that house in ages.



(Incidentally, the homes used in the horror movie Halloween are also in the area. Less desire to visit those.)

This may look a little confusing, but we drove down then back up the street marked Via Del Rey, and I parked on a side street where Coe and I started our walk near the elementary school. 


Next, we went down Alpha Avenue to check for coyotes then back up and looped back to the car after not finding any coyotes in that cul-de-sac area of Camino Lindo.  

This is live mode. We are walking around a large public park, away from the car parked two streets west. This shows position points on the map. (This map is not zoomed in all the way.)

I had this running on my phone while walking, and you can see where we stopped due to sniffing (shorter segments).

I started this route with close to 100% on my Jiobit battery, then as we walked farther with live mode active, the Jiobit battery went down to 76%. 

As noted earlier, live mode is best suited for trying to find a lost dog. 

I have no doubt live mode would bring me close enough to Coe for recall (voice and squawker) and/or visual spotting if he ever got loose.

Jiobit has geofencing. Ours is set to 100 feet, as the 200-ft. circle was a little out of bounds for our rectangular lot. When I go out with Coe and pass the safe zone, both my husband and I will get a notification of departure as well as arrival. This happens in normal tracking mode, so samples taken every two minutes, not in live mode. 

There is a potential two-minute delay of notification depending on the exact moment you leave the zone. 

This could be troubling or worrisome to some dog owners, but I don't think it's that big of a deal when you can see live tracking by switching to that mode. 

Anyway, this is what my notification screen looks like for the Jiobit notifications. 

You can add individuals to your care team so they can receive notifications from the app. This is very easy to set up, but the person has to download the Jiobit app. 

People asked me, "How big is this unit?" 

See quarter and dog tags for scale. The Jiobit is like a Fig Newton. 

Also shown are the additional clip if you want to clip this to a child's belt loop, backpack, jacket, etc.,  and the fabric pouch. 

The pouch strap is on the back of it over the insert flap and isn't shown here; it's black and will stretch for a wide flat collar probably 1.5-2 inches.



I won't go into detailed comparison about Jiobit's features versus other dog GPS trackers because the Jiobit website covers that in a chart.  

The lack of exact activity monitoring may put some people off, but we really didn't care about that -- and who knows? It may be added in a future app version.  

I know activity keeping is handy for people who want to track miles on their offleash dogs, so Fitbark is probably a better solution, but then you don't get GPS tracking for a lost dog. I just use the Health app on my phone. 









3/23/19:

Jiobit on two dogs on the same walk: 

You can see both are accurate of our route, but one is slightly more accurate based only on sampling point times. 

My husband and the other dog lagged in the beginning.

I do not work for Jiobit, nor am I related to anyone who does. I did not receive any free review units. We bought these as early adopters based on initial press feedback. The rule with tech is, don't be an early adopter! :-P   I'm glad to say Jiobit isn't buggy and hasn't given us any headaches as a version 1.0  of the product.