"Shio goes after every single piece of paper on the street like a tax attorney during audit season." - Justin Silver, Dog Enthusiast and Trainer
Unfortunately, the paper he's chasing is loose debris on the street during his walks and not the green kind.
As part of the aftermath of "Freedom for Shio," we have noticed he has picked up the habit of chewing on the floor -- there are now markings of his teeth on the bamboo floor of our apartment all over... In order to prevent this from happening further during the day when he is in the crate, we have redesigned his crate:
Hopefully, Shio will no longer be able to pull the cloth from under him to expose the floor for further redecoration...
(Needless to say, Ting is pretty pissed about this new hobby of Shio's...)
The first thing you see when you walk into our apartment is Shio's wire crate sitting the living room. You could only imagine my surprise when I opened the door on Friday evening after a long day of work and saw the door wide open with no Shio inside! Where was Shio?! I took a couple of steps in and saw Shio hanging out on the couch in the middle of a glorious mess he created during the afternoon. He saw me and instantly ran over to greet me and let me know how proud he was of the interior re-decorating he did that day. Turns out that the replacement dogwalker I used that day decided not to put Shio back into the crate when they came back from their afternoon walk.
After surveying the damage, we found that we lost one throw pillow, two separate corners of a wall and several different spots on the floor to teething. Needless to say, J and I were not happy campers and will not be using that dogwalker again... ever.
On the up side, Shio has excellent bladder control.
Shio and Co. will be supporting Kobe and Co. in the NBA Finals.
Prior to getting Shio, we have read that Shibas do not like water. So, we made a conscious effort to expose Shio to water as early as possible, including giving him a bath the first night he arrived home.
Despite our efforts, the Shiba in Shio is too strong for us to fight -- he now hates water. He will walk around wet spots on the pavement, he will walk right by buildings to avoid getting wet in the rain, he will pee right outside the door of the building to avoid having to get wet when it is raining, and when we try to give him a bath, he will take every available opportunity to attempt an escape.
To give one final test of Shio's hatred of water, we tried to get him to dip in the lake at Bear Mountain 2 weeks ago. And yes -- he hates water alright...
So now, when it rains, Ting will exercise Shio in the hallway...
Shibas will be what shibas will be...