Dog Parks!

So for some reason growing up I just had the impression that dog parks were disease infested dirt pits where half-untamed dogs run wild and revert back to their wolf pack instincts. Now that we own a dog and do research we found that socialization a puppy with other humans and dogs is essential. It helps in building a stable temperament and good behavior for your dog in the future. Low and behold, we live within miles of the "first off leash dog park of the Milwaukee County." The Granville dog park.

We first saw a big hill and decided to run Dexter up it. When we arrived on top we looked around and realized this place was huge. The hill was more of a ridge, which curved through the woods and had benches scattered throughout. We made our way to the first bench which had 4-5 people sitting watching the same amount of dogs play around. If I have to say anything about dog parks it's that the people there are Incredible! I felt like I had joined some new society of pleasantville and everyone was quick to give us tips and help with any questions or concerns. Dexter doesn't know his recall (or come) command too good yet, so we had planned to leave him on leash the whole day. The other dog owners convinced us that he would stay with the pack and we should unleash him. We did and he impressed us. We expressed our fear that Dexter's herding instincts had been making him very "bitey" and he was infactuated with humping everything. Our new friends were very helpful and they explained that this is why the socialization is so important. What we may not have been able to do through training, Dexter would soon learn through the pack mentality. When Dex got too bitey, the alpha dog would rear back and pin him to the ground. Letting him know when he had cross the line.

They left after 30 minutes, and we continued on. The next group of people said that a high-quality snack that the dog rarely gets but loves is great for dog parks and she gave us a handful of hamburger which kept Dexter listening to us a lot more then the kibble we had brought.

We continued on, and were on our way out when we found yet another good Samaritan. This one seemed to be the park's fairy godmother. She knew half the dogs by name, showed us the spots to avoid (a bridge dogs could escape through, an area prone to coyotes, etc), the spots the dogs loved, and informed us that our previous plans of leashing Dexter actually harmed more then helped because he'd felt constricted in the pack.

We ended up meeting a ton of great people, and I am pretty sure Dex learned A LOT more about respect and obedience from the other dogs then we could have taught him in a week.

Alligater dog waits fawr victimz!

GoGo Gadget: Conformity!

A random act of events occurred in the last 12 hours which ultimately ended in my submission to the internet's newest fad, twitter. I don't feel tooooo hypocritical here because I don't think I ever bashed it outright. But I do admit I thought it was a bit crazy in the beginning.

The act of events went as follows: As I was making dinner I was listening to my favorite podcast[Penny Arcade] as our heroes discussed Gabe's obsession with being a techy slut and jumping on the Twitter bandwagon as soon as possible, WTMJ4 ran a special on Twitter in big business, and the final step was yesterdays episode of South Park. Kanye West has had a history of quickly responding to media via twitter. I was curious about what he thought of last night's South Park where he was bent over and made their bitch, or gay fish, rather. My answer? Sign up for twitter and find out. Sadly, further research shows that Kanye's account was fake and response to Colbert therefore meaningless.

Bottom line, if anyone wants to tool it up with me, join up. I linked my twitter account to my facebook status though, so odds are following my twitter would be redundant.

Thank you, that is all.

Pet Peeved

Ok, lately I have stopped my masochist ways and started running indoors until the temperature returns to >40 degrees. This means I have basically began living in the gym again. Which is a splendid place and actually brings lots of thoughts to mind for possible blogging. There is one in the front of the line though. It drives me batty, crazy, through the roof. It is women (mostly, sometimes guys) who jack the incline on their treadmill, which alone is not offensive. The offensive part is when they hold on for dear life while they work out.

....................

Let's think about this, from a physics standpoint. You are maxing the incline so that you are running a steep hill, its a hill workout and gravity is now fighting your progression from point A to point B. Also, you need to lean forward, adjust your weight from falling backwards, and some new muscles get worked. Ok, all those benefits, are negated when you hold on to a stationary object such as the treadmill.

If you want to envision this on real life, lets say I am running down a road, then I see a massive hill jutting out in front of me and I go for it! So then now, what if someone on a 4-wheeler drove up in front of me, and gave me a bar and rope so I was now able to use his 4-wheeler like a water-skier. All I have to do at this point is move my feet up and down and the ground travels beneath me, making the hill workout easier then actually running. I mind as well just lean back and drink a caucasian at this point.

So there, thats it, I see a half dozen women in front of me at the Y, all practically able to touch the ceiling if their raise their hand. And they are all holding on to the reigns of the treadmill for dear life. I want to walk up to them individually and slap them in the face and ask them WTF they think they are doing. But then I just realize that people in the gym is people in the gym, regardless of their incorrect ways, at least they are out here and being the minority in America.

Oh, and by all means, I could be wrong, I am not a physical therapist, or trainer. If you can debate my points here please comment below.

I won't let it get to my head

So, I rarely, and I mean rarely, see commentors, much less visitors, to my blog that I don't directly know. So it came to a surprise when I got a special comment on my phantom police jammer post. So, naturally, I decide to drill down into my traffic analyzer, provided for free by google. That's when I was completely blown away. In the last month, 50% of my viewership has been thanks to that post (120 page views, 88 unique IP's which is nearly the exact double of how many people have visited my homepage in the last month). It is already the third most popular page on my blog to date, and its only been available 1 month. (actually, now that I look at it, I am posting on its 1 month anniversary. Pun not intended.)

Top 5 pages of all-time (of my blog)

I noticed that google was actually a big source of my page views, so I used one of the keywords that had been successful, and low and behold, the answer!

Check him out!