My son went out of town for the weekend and I'm watching his dogs, Josie and Bonzai. Observing their personalities and the dynamics between the 4 dogs is interesting.
Josie is a 3 year-old beagle mix that my son got at a rescue shelter. She has to be the most well-mannered dog I've ever seen. My Bear loves fruit and any time I make a smoothie, he's at my side, waiting for his share of strawberries and bananas. Josie was near us on the floor, just looking at us. She didn't beg, just watched us with interest. I offered her a banana, which she sniffed, took delicately in her teeth, and dropped on the floor next to her as if to say, "thanks. I don't really like these but it was nice of you to offer."
Josie is a mopey animal. They should call her Eyeore. She likes to sit close to you on the floor or couch and press hard against you. She also has a tendency to sigh, with a long, indrawn breath through her nose and then a loud exhale through her mouth. She sounds like my mother just before she'd raise her eyes to the sky and say, "God give me patience!" Josie pretty much uses it in the same context. My son tells me that if he and his girlfriend are talking too long at night when Josie wants to sleep, she'll sigh at them.
She likes to sleep with her legs rigid, sticking stiffly straight out, eyes half closed. The first time she spent the night I thought she died. I was freaking out wondering how I was going to break it to my son that his dog passed away in my care. Luckily, she moved.
Bonzai isn't a year old yet but he's the tallest of the group. His mother was part boxer but we don't see any boxer in him. He's brindle and white and built like a greyhound but with a bigger head. He likes to wrap himself around your back and lick the back of your neck. When he plays he makes sounds like a woman yelling. Yesterday I ran out of the shower thinking there was someone in my house. In retrospect, wet and naked probably isn't the best way to confront an intruder.
He's very submissive, which is just as hard to deal with as a dominant dog. Yesterday he slipped past me out the door. I called his name and he dropped to the ground and showed me his stomach. He got up, I grabbed for his collar, and he dropped again. I let go, he took a step towards me, I reached for him and down he went again. It took us four tries to go the 3 feet back into the house. Meanwhile, the other dogs were watching through the window. I think they were laughing.
The three big dogs really like each other. Aki, the maltese, hates them all. He spends most of his time in my lap, trying not to get trampled or knocked off of the couch by wagging tails. Bonzai chases him around like he's a toy.
The coolest thing about dogs is how they want to be with us all the time. (It's also the most annoying thing about them). I love watching tv with a dog on my lap, another by my side and still another next to us. Night time when everyone is relaxed and sleepy is the best. What other creature loves us that much?
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
My Dogs Are My Kids part 1, Ode to Lucky
I'm reading a book called, "30 Days to a Well Mannered Dog" by Tamar Geller. It's an interesting book about canine and human behavior, although I think 30 days is kind of ambitious unless you are an expert dog-trainer or have nothing else to do for a month or have smarter dogs than mine. Anyway, she says that research shows dogs have the emotional maturity and reasoning skills of a human toddler. That's so funny, because my husband and I have always said that Bear acts a lot like our youngest grandson.
When you live with a dog you really get to see its personality. We had a rescued greyhound that was just like a teenager; sulky, demanding, and moody.
My husband and I had been talking about getting a watchdog and then I read an article in Reader's Digest about the dog racing industry that turned my stomach. Yes, I'm a sucker for dogs. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and rescue a retired racer.
When I told the foster about our reasons for wanting a dog, she gave me a look and told me not to expect too much watching from a greyhound. As it turns out, they almost never bark, something I appreciate much more now that I have a small, yappy dog and a big dog with a loud, booming bark.
As a breed, greyhounds are extremely intelligent and retired racers are amazingly forgiving to humans for the misery they've had to endure. They are also highly anxious and sensitive, both emotionally and physically. Some day, when I don't travel as much, I'd like another one.
We named ours Lucky because we were conceited enough to believe he was lucky to find a home with us.
When you get a retired racer, they are like a clean slate. They know nothing about living in a human home and can't even do basic dog things. Keep in mind most rescues are at least 2 years old and more successful racers can be as old as 3 or 4 before they are no longer considered useful, so these are not young dogs. It's really dismaying to take one home and realize they don't know even how to eat solid food. The dogs are kept muzzled most of the time and are fed a kind of gruel that they can slurp up without opening their mouths enough to bite. We had to soak his food in water for weeks before he learned how to chew.
When we first got him, I took him to my parents' house so they could meet him. My dad was eating a sandwhich when we arrived. He draped a slice of lunch meat over the dog's muzzle and Lucky just stood there, drooling, not realizing he could eat it.
Everything scared him at first: the t.v., the blow-dryer, the doorbell. He was very tall; I could pet his head without bending over. Most of his height was legs and he looked like he was on stilts. When someone would come to the door, including when my husband came home from work, he'd run and hide behind the dining room table. You could see his back over the table and his legs under it, but since he had his head hanging underneath and couldn't see us, he thought he was invisible to us as well. Some watch dog.
He didn't know how to navigate steps. I pulled my back out in the first few days because I was trying to take him to the basement with me and he fell through the railing. I had to hold 80 pounds of dangling, squirming weight with one arm while I held on to the railing and eased us down far enough that it was safe to let him drop. He never really did get the hang of stairs. He'd walk his front legs down as far as he could and then jump the rest of the way. In the basement that meant running into the wall each time but he seemed satisfied enough with the results.
The rescue warned us that greyhounds have blood vessels close to their very thin skin so they are very sensitive to hot and cold. I found out just how sensitive the first time I gave him a bath. I used warm, not hot, water. As I was rinsing the soap off of him, he started getting a glazed look in his eyes. Then his head started wobbling a bit and the next thing I knew, he'd fainted. I had to spray him with cold water to revive him. From then on I'd use water just warm enough to prevent my fingers from going numb and sometimes he'd get that look and I'd have to switch to cold water to bring him out of it.
Watching him after he took a bath was hilarious. Like many dogs, he'd get super excited when he got out of the tub and would run around the house shaking off the water. He wasn't very good at shaking, though. He'd start his shake in the front and by the time the shake got to his butt, his back legs would leave the floor and flail along with the rest of him. He looked brain damaged.
I never had to train this dog. He just picked up words from listening to me talk to him. "Sit" wasn't something we worked on because with their long legs and heavy fronts compared to their behinds, greyhounds aren't built to sit very well. It was interesting to learn about some of our own habits just by watching him respond to them. At night when we'd turn off the t.v., he'd run to the back door, knowing it was time to go out before bed.
Everyone who has ever lived with me knows that I do not get woken up well. Before I'm fully awake I'm kind of mean. Lucky learned this about me quickly. If he had to go outside at night, he'd whisper/whine in my husband's ear and then walk quietly out of the bedroom. Once he got to the hallway, though, he'd usually wake me up anyway from the sound of his toenails clicking on the hard wood while he did his happy dance. But he really did try to be considerate and let me sleep.
Once he felt comfortable, he was a very affectionate dog. He'd stand over my husband's legs while he sat in a chair, leaning the top of his head on my husband's chest. He seemed to think he was sitting on daddy's lap. He understood who "mommy", "daddy", and "Jason" were. He also knew what stuff belonged to whom.
Once time my husband decided to tease the dog by sitting Jason on his lap and patting him and saying "good, Jason, good Jason." While at the time it was cute and funny to watch the dog whine in distress and try to nudge Jason off of his dad's lap, Lucky got his revenge later on. That night, he found Jason's favorite book and tore out individual pages and scattered them around the living room. It took about 25 or so pages before he'd spent his anger.
He did the same to me. If I did something to upset him, like leave the house without him, I'd come home to find (unused) tampons scattered all over the living room. Each would have just a couple of puncture marks, so I knew he'd spent his evening walking from the master bath to the living room with just one at a time, biting down on it just for added benefit.
He had some major anxiety issues. Any time he was confronted with a new situation or change to his routine, he'd shed. And I don't mean a few hairs would fall off of his body. Years ago there was a commercial for a vacuum cleaner that showed a cat standing on a carpet and then you'd see a kind of explosion of hair and then a naked cat standing in the middle of a hair pile. With Lucky, it was kind of like that.
He'd also chew at his back until he had a huge, oozing sore, which was gross and scary at the same time. He'd lick off any ointment we'd put on it and we couldn't bandage it. I forget now how we solved the problem. He probably just found another way to work off his neurosis.
Many racers are trained on live "bait", aka other small animals. A rabbit could run right under Lucky's nose without him reacting in any way, but if he saw a cat or small, fluffy dog watch out. One year we took a trip to Okinawa and left Lucky and our other two dogs with some customers who operated an unofficial kennel. They would have 20 or more dogs staying loose at their house (which was amazingly clean with no dog odor. I wish I knew how they did it). I brought a crate to keep him away from any small, fluffy dogs that might be there, but when I arrived, I saw a cat walking around. As it turned out, they had five.
"Ummm, I didn't know you had cats," I said.
"The cats will be fine. They know how to stay away from the dogs," they answered.
Unfortunately, this was not the case. One day while they were taking Lucky out, one of the cats decided to come out and watch. Lucky snatched it and reportedly shook it in an incredibly vicious manner, killing it. We had two other dogs there at the time as well, a pair of rott-shepherd mixes who were big but still not even a year old yet. The female saw the murder and apparently thought, "so that's what those things are for!" and killed another one. A third ran away, traumatized by the death of the other two.
I found all of this out when I called home to see how things were going. Luckily, the sitters had my parents' number because they were going to take them all to the pound if no one picked them up. While I understood that they were upset by the loss of their pets, I was a bit affronted by this because it wasn't like I could just leave Japan to fix the problem.
I still find it unfair that they blamed me for this situation. In my eyes, they accepted responsibility for the care of their own and other people's animals for compensation and should have taken into account that dogs and cats are natural enemies.
Of course, when I point this out to them, I was told that it is a learned behavior for dogs to want to kill cats.
I disagree.
Every dog I have ever had, including those I've raised from puppyhood, have wanted to kick some serious cat ass. And I have never once grabbed a cat by the throat, throttled it in front of my dog, and said, "Watch this! Kill! Maim! Destroy!"
When you adopt a racer, the rescue checks to make sure you have a fenced yard. Greyhounds don't spend a lot of time running; mostly they spend their day sleeping. The problem is that if they do get loose and run, say to chase a squirrel or something, they go so fast and so far that by the time they stop, they are lost. Lucky got loose a couple of times. We'd find him when he finally got hungry and tried to go into someone's house. When we'd get him home, he'd act pissed at us for a couple of days, presumably for not finding him faster.
At one point he started messing in the house while we were gone so we put him in a crate. Unfortunately, racing dogs aren't let out of their sleeping areas when they have to eliminate so it didn't bother him to lay in his own excrement.
All these behaviors came to a head when we moved. The private school my son was attending was less than nurturing and the public school in the area was out of the question, so I started house-shopping. I spent months looking at houses in the school district we wanted and probably looked at 30 or more. Compromises needed to be made. My husband didn't get his garage and Lucky didn't get his fenced yard. And since we'd just poured all of our disposable income into buying the house, we didn't have extra money to put a fence around over an acre of property.
Lucky did not take well to his new home. He started having diarrhea every time we left the house. It got to the point where he'd hear the car and just get in the bathtub. We couldn't tie him outside because he knew how to slip out of his halter, plus he couldn't take the heat or the cold and Cincinnati has only about two weeks of that perfect spring and autumn weather.
The only back door to the house went through the white-carpeted living room, so I'd take the dogs out through the front. Lucky ran past me more than once and nearly into the traffic on the busy road in front. I was frustrated and worried for his safety and made a decision I regret to this day. We decided to find him a new home.
I found someone who worked for the vet who had a small farm and had rescued several greyhounds. It seemed like the perfect solution, until a week later when we got a call to pick him up at the vet where he was being sewn up after a fight with the other dogs.
I called the rescue where we got him and explained the problems and that we couldn't keep him any longer. They were less than sympathetic. Basically they told us we shouldn't have moved, which was pretty unreasonable of them but now I wish we'd tried longer. Where was the Dog Whisperer when we needed him?
I'll never forget the day we gave him up. We agreed to meet the volunteer in a parking lot. Lucky was so excited to be going bye-bye. He did his happy dance all over the place. He got out of the van and happily sniffed around the parking lot. Then he saw the man come up to us and his tail immediately went between his legs and his head drooped. He knew.
I cried all the way home and I'm crying as I write this. He was around 2 when we got him, he lived at our old house for at least 3 or 4 years and it's been 13 years since we moved. Greyhounds live a long time, but I'm pretty sure he's passed on by now.
I hope some day I see him at that rainbow bridge so I can tell him I'm sorry.
When you live with a dog you really get to see its personality. We had a rescued greyhound that was just like a teenager; sulky, demanding, and moody.
My husband and I had been talking about getting a watchdog and then I read an article in Reader's Digest about the dog racing industry that turned my stomach. Yes, I'm a sucker for dogs. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and rescue a retired racer.
When I told the foster about our reasons for wanting a dog, she gave me a look and told me not to expect too much watching from a greyhound. As it turns out, they almost never bark, something I appreciate much more now that I have a small, yappy dog and a big dog with a loud, booming bark.
As a breed, greyhounds are extremely intelligent and retired racers are amazingly forgiving to humans for the misery they've had to endure. They are also highly anxious and sensitive, both emotionally and physically. Some day, when I don't travel as much, I'd like another one.
We named ours Lucky because we were conceited enough to believe he was lucky to find a home with us.
When you get a retired racer, they are like a clean slate. They know nothing about living in a human home and can't even do basic dog things. Keep in mind most rescues are at least 2 years old and more successful racers can be as old as 3 or 4 before they are no longer considered useful, so these are not young dogs. It's really dismaying to take one home and realize they don't know even how to eat solid food. The dogs are kept muzzled most of the time and are fed a kind of gruel that they can slurp up without opening their mouths enough to bite. We had to soak his food in water for weeks before he learned how to chew.
When we first got him, I took him to my parents' house so they could meet him. My dad was eating a sandwhich when we arrived. He draped a slice of lunch meat over the dog's muzzle and Lucky just stood there, drooling, not realizing he could eat it.
Everything scared him at first: the t.v., the blow-dryer, the doorbell. He was very tall; I could pet his head without bending over. Most of his height was legs and he looked like he was on stilts. When someone would come to the door, including when my husband came home from work, he'd run and hide behind the dining room table. You could see his back over the table and his legs under it, but since he had his head hanging underneath and couldn't see us, he thought he was invisible to us as well. Some watch dog.
He didn't know how to navigate steps. I pulled my back out in the first few days because I was trying to take him to the basement with me and he fell through the railing. I had to hold 80 pounds of dangling, squirming weight with one arm while I held on to the railing and eased us down far enough that it was safe to let him drop. He never really did get the hang of stairs. He'd walk his front legs down as far as he could and then jump the rest of the way. In the basement that meant running into the wall each time but he seemed satisfied enough with the results.
The rescue warned us that greyhounds have blood vessels close to their very thin skin so they are very sensitive to hot and cold. I found out just how sensitive the first time I gave him a bath. I used warm, not hot, water. As I was rinsing the soap off of him, he started getting a glazed look in his eyes. Then his head started wobbling a bit and the next thing I knew, he'd fainted. I had to spray him with cold water to revive him. From then on I'd use water just warm enough to prevent my fingers from going numb and sometimes he'd get that look and I'd have to switch to cold water to bring him out of it.
Watching him after he took a bath was hilarious. Like many dogs, he'd get super excited when he got out of the tub and would run around the house shaking off the water. He wasn't very good at shaking, though. He'd start his shake in the front and by the time the shake got to his butt, his back legs would leave the floor and flail along with the rest of him. He looked brain damaged.
I never had to train this dog. He just picked up words from listening to me talk to him. "Sit" wasn't something we worked on because with their long legs and heavy fronts compared to their behinds, greyhounds aren't built to sit very well. It was interesting to learn about some of our own habits just by watching him respond to them. At night when we'd turn off the t.v., he'd run to the back door, knowing it was time to go out before bed.
Everyone who has ever lived with me knows that I do not get woken up well. Before I'm fully awake I'm kind of mean. Lucky learned this about me quickly. If he had to go outside at night, he'd whisper/whine in my husband's ear and then walk quietly out of the bedroom. Once he got to the hallway, though, he'd usually wake me up anyway from the sound of his toenails clicking on the hard wood while he did his happy dance. But he really did try to be considerate and let me sleep.
Once he felt comfortable, he was a very affectionate dog. He'd stand over my husband's legs while he sat in a chair, leaning the top of his head on my husband's chest. He seemed to think he was sitting on daddy's lap. He understood who "mommy", "daddy", and "Jason" were. He also knew what stuff belonged to whom.
Once time my husband decided to tease the dog by sitting Jason on his lap and patting him and saying "good, Jason, good Jason." While at the time it was cute and funny to watch the dog whine in distress and try to nudge Jason off of his dad's lap, Lucky got his revenge later on. That night, he found Jason's favorite book and tore out individual pages and scattered them around the living room. It took about 25 or so pages before he'd spent his anger.
He did the same to me. If I did something to upset him, like leave the house without him, I'd come home to find (unused) tampons scattered all over the living room. Each would have just a couple of puncture marks, so I knew he'd spent his evening walking from the master bath to the living room with just one at a time, biting down on it just for added benefit.
He had some major anxiety issues. Any time he was confronted with a new situation or change to his routine, he'd shed. And I don't mean a few hairs would fall off of his body. Years ago there was a commercial for a vacuum cleaner that showed a cat standing on a carpet and then you'd see a kind of explosion of hair and then a naked cat standing in the middle of a hair pile. With Lucky, it was kind of like that.
He'd also chew at his back until he had a huge, oozing sore, which was gross and scary at the same time. He'd lick off any ointment we'd put on it and we couldn't bandage it. I forget now how we solved the problem. He probably just found another way to work off his neurosis.
Many racers are trained on live "bait", aka other small animals. A rabbit could run right under Lucky's nose without him reacting in any way, but if he saw a cat or small, fluffy dog watch out. One year we took a trip to Okinawa and left Lucky and our other two dogs with some customers who operated an unofficial kennel. They would have 20 or more dogs staying loose at their house (which was amazingly clean with no dog odor. I wish I knew how they did it). I brought a crate to keep him away from any small, fluffy dogs that might be there, but when I arrived, I saw a cat walking around. As it turned out, they had five.
"Ummm, I didn't know you had cats," I said.
"The cats will be fine. They know how to stay away from the dogs," they answered.
Unfortunately, this was not the case. One day while they were taking Lucky out, one of the cats decided to come out and watch. Lucky snatched it and reportedly shook it in an incredibly vicious manner, killing it. We had two other dogs there at the time as well, a pair of rott-shepherd mixes who were big but still not even a year old yet. The female saw the murder and apparently thought, "so that's what those things are for!" and killed another one. A third ran away, traumatized by the death of the other two.
I found all of this out when I called home to see how things were going. Luckily, the sitters had my parents' number because they were going to take them all to the pound if no one picked them up. While I understood that they were upset by the loss of their pets, I was a bit affronted by this because it wasn't like I could just leave Japan to fix the problem.
I still find it unfair that they blamed me for this situation. In my eyes, they accepted responsibility for the care of their own and other people's animals for compensation and should have taken into account that dogs and cats are natural enemies.
Of course, when I point this out to them, I was told that it is a learned behavior for dogs to want to kill cats.
I disagree.
Every dog I have ever had, including those I've raised from puppyhood, have wanted to kick some serious cat ass. And I have never once grabbed a cat by the throat, throttled it in front of my dog, and said, "Watch this! Kill! Maim! Destroy!"
When you adopt a racer, the rescue checks to make sure you have a fenced yard. Greyhounds don't spend a lot of time running; mostly they spend their day sleeping. The problem is that if they do get loose and run, say to chase a squirrel or something, they go so fast and so far that by the time they stop, they are lost. Lucky got loose a couple of times. We'd find him when he finally got hungry and tried to go into someone's house. When we'd get him home, he'd act pissed at us for a couple of days, presumably for not finding him faster.
At one point he started messing in the house while we were gone so we put him in a crate. Unfortunately, racing dogs aren't let out of their sleeping areas when they have to eliminate so it didn't bother him to lay in his own excrement.
All these behaviors came to a head when we moved. The private school my son was attending was less than nurturing and the public school in the area was out of the question, so I started house-shopping. I spent months looking at houses in the school district we wanted and probably looked at 30 or more. Compromises needed to be made. My husband didn't get his garage and Lucky didn't get his fenced yard. And since we'd just poured all of our disposable income into buying the house, we didn't have extra money to put a fence around over an acre of property.
Lucky did not take well to his new home. He started having diarrhea every time we left the house. It got to the point where he'd hear the car and just get in the bathtub. We couldn't tie him outside because he knew how to slip out of his halter, plus he couldn't take the heat or the cold and Cincinnati has only about two weeks of that perfect spring and autumn weather.
The only back door to the house went through the white-carpeted living room, so I'd take the dogs out through the front. Lucky ran past me more than once and nearly into the traffic on the busy road in front. I was frustrated and worried for his safety and made a decision I regret to this day. We decided to find him a new home.
I found someone who worked for the vet who had a small farm and had rescued several greyhounds. It seemed like the perfect solution, until a week later when we got a call to pick him up at the vet where he was being sewn up after a fight with the other dogs.
I called the rescue where we got him and explained the problems and that we couldn't keep him any longer. They were less than sympathetic. Basically they told us we shouldn't have moved, which was pretty unreasonable of them but now I wish we'd tried longer. Where was the Dog Whisperer when we needed him?
I'll never forget the day we gave him up. We agreed to meet the volunteer in a parking lot. Lucky was so excited to be going bye-bye. He did his happy dance all over the place. He got out of the van and happily sniffed around the parking lot. Then he saw the man come up to us and his tail immediately went between his legs and his head drooped. He knew.
I cried all the way home and I'm crying as I write this. He was around 2 when we got him, he lived at our old house for at least 3 or 4 years and it's been 13 years since we moved. Greyhounds live a long time, but I'm pretty sure he's passed on by now.
I hope some day I see him at that rainbow bridge so I can tell him I'm sorry.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
sometimes I just need to bitch
There are some nights when people annoy me so much that I can't sleep from the unsatisfied urge to slap them upside the head.
For example, I had a woman bring her two children to the dojo. The little girl really wants to do karate, but that doesn't seem to matter. The mom wants it for the son, who is a rude smartass. She wants him to learn the discipline that she is failing to teach. He, on the other hand, doesn't want to learn either karate or discipline.
She came to us because of our 30 day free special. OK, if you are reading this and don't know yet, I'm going to let you in on an insider marketing secret - there is no company that offers free products or services just for the joy of giving away free products or services. The freebies are an enticement for customers to try what the company is offering. While we will cheerfully and absolutely give someone free classes for a month, we offer it with the hope that the person will like what they see enough to trade it in for a discount on a regular program. shhhhhh
I explained the program and discount to her slowly, using graphics to illustrate. English is her second language, so I had my husband explain it again in Japanese, despite his and her protests that her English is fine. After several explanations, she decided that she wanted to think about it and let the kids try another class. Perfectly fine. Sometimes people need to see a little more. Sometimes that's their polite way of stopping the conversation because they aren't interested. I don't push it. In fact, I'm a terrible salesperson because if they don't come back I don't contact them again. I want students who love us, not who I've bullied into joining.
She came back. The kids took class. Afterward I asked her if she wanted to sign up. She had to think about it some more. Sure, no problem. She came back again. I again asked her if she'd made a decision. She said she'd sign up after the month free. I reminded her that she either got 30 days free or the discount, but not both. She acted surprised. She said she'd sign up at the end of class. Except, at the end of class I had to teach, so I told her I'd catch her next time. By now she's had over a week to think about it.
She came back, ready to sign up. I got the paperwork together, she looked at it, pointed to the price, and asked, "what's this?" I told her it was the monthly tuition. She looked shocked. "Oh!" she said, "I thought that was the price for 6 months" which came $31/month. for a family. or $7.50 per month per person.
I felt the words "are you fucking stupid or what?" rise to my lips but luckily I was able to bite them back. I couldn't stop the "we wouldn't be able to stay open if that's all we charged" from coming out. I'm sure it showed on my face because she said, "I just thought it was a really good deal." I had to walk away. It's been 24 hours and I'm still incredulous. And the kicker is - it took her a week and a half to decide that even that ridiculously good deal was worth it. At this point, if she changed her mind and did want to sign up, I'd probably tell her no because every transaction ever with this woman will turn into a headache. (SLAP UPSIDE THE HEAD)
Another example - about once a week some Zumba instructor gets on the message board to complain about how greedy their bosses are. They take a job getting paid the same hourly wage as board-certified, college-degreed nurses in my area and think they are doing great. But then one day, they realize the class has a lot of people, they multiply the numbers times the class fee and decide it equals them being cheated.
I never hear someone flipping burgers at McDonald's saying, "Man, I sure am making a lot of burgers. I should get a percentage of those profits." or the mechanic at the dealership saying, "I fix a lot of cars. This dealership is taking advantage of me for not giving me a piece of each one I fix."
Instructors feel that they are getting cheated because the boss is making "x" amount of money, yet they don't seem to take into account things like rent, utilities, and risk. I have yet to hear an instructor say, "I didn't have many people in my class tonight so I told my boss to pay me less." (SMACK UPSIDE THE HEAD)
And then there's this week's favorite. I got a message from a random instructor on facebook who wants to "co-teach" my class and even gave me a date that works for her. I love when other instructors come to my class and I always invite them to teach a song or two. But I really feel that they should wait until they are invited, especially if I don't know them and have never seen them teach.
I explained that I already co-teach with someone on a regular basis and have another instructor in training that also does a song or two but that she was welcome to do 2 songs. I also explained that I needed them in advance since we use a cd for that class. She told me she'd just bring her own sound system and when I said no to that, she said she'd send me a list. ummm...a list of 2?
So I'm sitting here wondering how often this happens with other professions. "Hey Mr. Lawyer! I'm a lawyer too and thought I'd come out and work a trial with you!" "Hi Doc! I'm a surgeon too and thought I'd show up and help you out with a surgery some day." or "Hello, there, Chef! I like to cook so I'm going to come whip some stuff up in your kitchen for your customers."
When you think about it like that it sounds really weird, doesn't it? (SLAP UPSIDE THE HEAD)
I feel slightly better.
For example, I had a woman bring her two children to the dojo. The little girl really wants to do karate, but that doesn't seem to matter. The mom wants it for the son, who is a rude smartass. She wants him to learn the discipline that she is failing to teach. He, on the other hand, doesn't want to learn either karate or discipline.
She came to us because of our 30 day free special. OK, if you are reading this and don't know yet, I'm going to let you in on an insider marketing secret - there is no company that offers free products or services just for the joy of giving away free products or services. The freebies are an enticement for customers to try what the company is offering. While we will cheerfully and absolutely give someone free classes for a month, we offer it with the hope that the person will like what they see enough to trade it in for a discount on a regular program. shhhhhh
I explained the program and discount to her slowly, using graphics to illustrate. English is her second language, so I had my husband explain it again in Japanese, despite his and her protests that her English is fine. After several explanations, she decided that she wanted to think about it and let the kids try another class. Perfectly fine. Sometimes people need to see a little more. Sometimes that's their polite way of stopping the conversation because they aren't interested. I don't push it. In fact, I'm a terrible salesperson because if they don't come back I don't contact them again. I want students who love us, not who I've bullied into joining.
She came back. The kids took class. Afterward I asked her if she wanted to sign up. She had to think about it some more. Sure, no problem. She came back again. I again asked her if she'd made a decision. She said she'd sign up after the month free. I reminded her that she either got 30 days free or the discount, but not both. She acted surprised. She said she'd sign up at the end of class. Except, at the end of class I had to teach, so I told her I'd catch her next time. By now she's had over a week to think about it.
She came back, ready to sign up. I got the paperwork together, she looked at it, pointed to the price, and asked, "what's this?" I told her it was the monthly tuition. She looked shocked. "Oh!" she said, "I thought that was the price for 6 months" which came $31/month. for a family. or $7.50 per month per person.
I felt the words "are you fucking stupid or what?" rise to my lips but luckily I was able to bite them back. I couldn't stop the "we wouldn't be able to stay open if that's all we charged" from coming out. I'm sure it showed on my face because she said, "I just thought it was a really good deal." I had to walk away. It's been 24 hours and I'm still incredulous. And the kicker is - it took her a week and a half to decide that even that ridiculously good deal was worth it. At this point, if she changed her mind and did want to sign up, I'd probably tell her no because every transaction ever with this woman will turn into a headache. (SLAP UPSIDE THE HEAD)
Another example - about once a week some Zumba instructor gets on the message board to complain about how greedy their bosses are. They take a job getting paid the same hourly wage as board-certified, college-degreed nurses in my area and think they are doing great. But then one day, they realize the class has a lot of people, they multiply the numbers times the class fee and decide it equals them being cheated.
I never hear someone flipping burgers at McDonald's saying, "Man, I sure am making a lot of burgers. I should get a percentage of those profits." or the mechanic at the dealership saying, "I fix a lot of cars. This dealership is taking advantage of me for not giving me a piece of each one I fix."
Instructors feel that they are getting cheated because the boss is making "x" amount of money, yet they don't seem to take into account things like rent, utilities, and risk. I have yet to hear an instructor say, "I didn't have many people in my class tonight so I told my boss to pay me less." (SMACK UPSIDE THE HEAD)
And then there's this week's favorite. I got a message from a random instructor on facebook who wants to "co-teach" my class and even gave me a date that works for her. I love when other instructors come to my class and I always invite them to teach a song or two. But I really feel that they should wait until they are invited, especially if I don't know them and have never seen them teach.
I explained that I already co-teach with someone on a regular basis and have another instructor in training that also does a song or two but that she was welcome to do 2 songs. I also explained that I needed them in advance since we use a cd for that class. She told me she'd just bring her own sound system and when I said no to that, she said she'd send me a list. ummm...a list of 2?
So I'm sitting here wondering how often this happens with other professions. "Hey Mr. Lawyer! I'm a lawyer too and thought I'd come out and work a trial with you!" "Hi Doc! I'm a surgeon too and thought I'd show up and help you out with a surgery some day." or "Hello, there, Chef! I like to cook so I'm going to come whip some stuff up in your kitchen for your customers."
When you think about it like that it sounds really weird, doesn't it? (SLAP UPSIDE THE HEAD)
I feel slightly better.
Monday, September 5, 2011
confessions of the meanest mom on the world....part 2
In part one I confessed the Draconian measures I used to punish my son. errrr...the kid who would have been my son if I was allowed to talk about him.
I can't leave out how hard we made him work all his life.
When I was a child, my dad owned a meat shop in Findlay Market down in Over-the-Rhine. As soon as my brothers, sister, and I were tall enough to see over the counter, we were put to work. We stood on concrete all day, waiting on customers, wrapping packages, preparing meat for display, and cleaning pans and equipment. On Saturdays, "all day" meant 5:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. My dad was the kind of boss you'd see on a reality t.v. show called "Demon Bosses from the Bowels of Hell". He wasn't actually nice to any of his employees but he felt especially free to scream criticisms at his family. After all. we couldn't quit.
I believe that chores are an important part of growing up and becoming a responsible adult. I also believe that children should contribute to the overall welfare of the family as much as they are able. But since my son only spent about two non-sleeping hours per day during the week and Saturday afternoons and Sundays at home, I didn't think it was fair to expect him to do housework and yard work. Instead, in the tradition of helping out with the family business that I was raised with, once he got his black belt, he had to help with karate classes.
He didn't help all night long, just with certain classes that needed more staff or to help out a student who was struggling or learning something new. In other words, it didn't take up a significant amount of his week. I didn't pay him like an instructor. I paid him like a child doing chores. He claims he got $1/class. I'm pretty sure it was more than that, but it wasn't a whole lot more. Unlike when I worked for my family, he got to keep it all. I didn't expect him to buy his own toys or clothes or pay for his own entertainment.
His indignation over this forced labor at slave wages became apparent recently when my 8 year old grandson started "working" for us. This came about because said grandson wanted and ipod touch or something and his mother insisted he earn it. He came up with the brilliant plan of helping Oji (grandpa) at the dojo.
Knowing that both his daughter and his wife would strenuously and painfully object if he simply gave the kid the money or went out and bought him the device, he hired him to help with our classes for 4-6 year olds for $3/class. While this doesn't sound like much, the classes are only a half hour and in his case, "helping" involves watching the kids and pointing to the proper foot if they were standing the wrong way, holding bags for them to hit, and helping them put their pads on for sparring. My husband was so tickled at how hard he was working that at week two he gave him a $2/class raise.
My stepdaughter just rolled her eyes and shook her head but my son was outraged. I had to explain to him that he was doing chores back then. That we don't make grandchildren do chores because they don't live with us and aren't paying for their upkeep. And that his father wasn't allowed to just give the grandson the money straight out, so at least he made him do something semi-responsible for it. I think he was mollified but I'm not sure. He still doesn't think it's fair but I assured him that his father will ridiculously indulge his kids, too when he has them. I call it incentive.
I've had to have this conversation with him a few times. When he was 18, graduated from high school, and still living at home, he still didn't have a job outside of the family business. We paid him significantly more than when he was a child, but in his view it wasn't enough. I had to make a list of all the household expenses - mortgage, utilities, insurance, food, etc. and told him that as an adult roommate, he should be paying 1/3. When I added it all up with what I was paying him in cash, I realized I was paying him too much. I considered asking for a refund, but he was already offended enough.
Eventually we helped him open up his own business. He has worked hard and made it grow every year, even during one of the worst recessions in the country's history. He bought his own house before he turned 23 and has started a retirement fund. I'm super proud of him.
Maybe I did something right.
I can't leave out how hard we made him work all his life.
When I was a child, my dad owned a meat shop in Findlay Market down in Over-the-Rhine. As soon as my brothers, sister, and I were tall enough to see over the counter, we were put to work. We stood on concrete all day, waiting on customers, wrapping packages, preparing meat for display, and cleaning pans and equipment. On Saturdays, "all day" meant 5:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. My dad was the kind of boss you'd see on a reality t.v. show called "Demon Bosses from the Bowels of Hell". He wasn't actually nice to any of his employees but he felt especially free to scream criticisms at his family. After all. we couldn't quit.
I believe that chores are an important part of growing up and becoming a responsible adult. I also believe that children should contribute to the overall welfare of the family as much as they are able. But since my son only spent about two non-sleeping hours per day during the week and Saturday afternoons and Sundays at home, I didn't think it was fair to expect him to do housework and yard work. Instead, in the tradition of helping out with the family business that I was raised with, once he got his black belt, he had to help with karate classes.
He didn't help all night long, just with certain classes that needed more staff or to help out a student who was struggling or learning something new. In other words, it didn't take up a significant amount of his week. I didn't pay him like an instructor. I paid him like a child doing chores. He claims he got $1/class. I'm pretty sure it was more than that, but it wasn't a whole lot more. Unlike when I worked for my family, he got to keep it all. I didn't expect him to buy his own toys or clothes or pay for his own entertainment.
His indignation over this forced labor at slave wages became apparent recently when my 8 year old grandson started "working" for us. This came about because said grandson wanted and ipod touch or something and his mother insisted he earn it. He came up with the brilliant plan of helping Oji (grandpa) at the dojo.
Knowing that both his daughter and his wife would strenuously and painfully object if he simply gave the kid the money or went out and bought him the device, he hired him to help with our classes for 4-6 year olds for $3/class. While this doesn't sound like much, the classes are only a half hour and in his case, "helping" involves watching the kids and pointing to the proper foot if they were standing the wrong way, holding bags for them to hit, and helping them put their pads on for sparring. My husband was so tickled at how hard he was working that at week two he gave him a $2/class raise.
My stepdaughter just rolled her eyes and shook her head but my son was outraged. I had to explain to him that he was doing chores back then. That we don't make grandchildren do chores because they don't live with us and aren't paying for their upkeep. And that his father wasn't allowed to just give the grandson the money straight out, so at least he made him do something semi-responsible for it. I think he was mollified but I'm not sure. He still doesn't think it's fair but I assured him that his father will ridiculously indulge his kids, too when he has them. I call it incentive.
I've had to have this conversation with him a few times. When he was 18, graduated from high school, and still living at home, he still didn't have a job outside of the family business. We paid him significantly more than when he was a child, but in his view it wasn't enough. I had to make a list of all the household expenses - mortgage, utilities, insurance, food, etc. and told him that as an adult roommate, he should be paying 1/3. When I added it all up with what I was paying him in cash, I realized I was paying him too much. I considered asking for a refund, but he was already offended enough.
Eventually we helped him open up his own business. He has worked hard and made it grow every year, even during one of the worst recessions in the country's history. He bought his own house before he turned 23 and has started a retirement fund. I'm super proud of him.
Maybe I did something right.
Friday, September 2, 2011
confessions of the meanest mom in the WORLD part 1
My favorite commercial right now is for a car. A dad is standing by the passenger's side window, giving driving directions to his daughter, shown as a tiny little girl of about 4 who is fidgeting with impatience. The camera shows him holding out the keys and cuts back to a teenager snatching them away, nodding her head, ready to go on her own adventures. This commercial brings a tear to my eyes every time I see it.
I'm not allowed to talk about my son anymore on facebook but hypothetical situations about random, unidentified people are ok. So as the hypothetical parent of an imaginary son (from now on referred to as IS), I can totally relate to that weird time warp that happens when the eyes in your head see an adult but the eyes in your heart still see a child. I've been warning him since he was an infant that he'd always be my baby. He doesn't get it. He rolled his eyes at me a few weeks ago and explained that he was an adult which disqualified him from still being my baby and proceeded to remind me of his age and give me his resume of accomplishments to prove that he's grown up. I pinched his cheek and told him how cute he was.
It's interesting to hear how remembers his childhood. His memories are so different from mine. I remember him as an active, noisy kid who loved attention and got to do pretty much what he wanted. He, on the other hand recalls a Dickensian existence where he was punished for everything and forced to work hard labor for menial wages.
When he sees a child acting up at a restaurant, or grocery store, or even at the dojo he'll wax nostalgic about how in the good old days when HE was growing up, he'd have been beaten over such behavior. How he lived in fear... fear that the wrath of his parents would rain down upon him if he was ever disrespectful or misbehaved. Not that he's overly-dramatic or anything, but really?
Yes, I did believe in corporal punishment, but beaten? When he was 2 and still in diapers, and threats, counting to three, and time out didn't work, I'd swat his butt. He would turn and look at me and ask, "are you serious?" He'd only cry if I said yes. I tried saying no once to see what would happen and he laughed at the joke and ran away to play. Clearly the swats didn't hurt anything except his pride.
About once every 6-12 months as he was growing up, I'd have to haul him to the bathroom when we were out in public and smack his behind until my hand hurt. If someone tried that with a kid today the kid would probably be taken away and placed in foster care, but back then you were still allowed to decide how to discipline your child. It worked like an exorcism. For months, his inner demon disappeared and I was left with a sweet, cooperative child most of the time.
I don't remember his father ever striking him. At least not as punishment. Every couple of years as he got bigger and a little stronger, he'd try to challenge his dad while sparring at the dojo, much like how the male students who have grown up with us try to challenge our sons now. I'd see feet fly past the window and hear a crash and the building would shake. The same thing used to happen with his brother. It usually took a couple of times getting knocked down before they'd be convinced it wasn't just a fluke and their dad could do that to them all day if he wanted to. Then they'd nurse their bruises and go train harder in anticipation of the next time, when they'd beat him for sure. Sometime around their 20's they got smarter and quit trying. They still don't fear their dad as much as they fear their sister, but they have a pretty healthy respect for him these days.
By the time I.S. was 7 or 8, I stopped the physical punishment all together. First, I wasn't strong enough for it to have much effect. Second he was intelligent and I could reason with him about consequences. Third, he was used to sparring in the dojo and was getting pretty tough. New measures were needed.
As a kid, he basically lived at the dojo. He'd come home from school, eat a snack, change his clothes, and then we'd head over. When we moved to our second studio, part of the build-out included a private room of his own where he could watch t.v., do homework, play with friends, play video games, or just hang out.
Punishment took creativity. We couldn't ground him because he didn't go anywhere. I didn't want to take away his tv or games because that's what kept him out of our hair while we were working. I became a big proponent of killing two birds with one stone and combining punishment with things he needed to do anyway.
Talking back, Mr. 7-year-old Mouth? That'll be 200 push-ups. The first time I tried this tactic it became a contest of wills. He was so pissed at me that he kept losing count, and since stubborn is his middle name, he'd start over. I eventually relented and told him he could stop, but he only grunted a "nope" and kept going. I think the plan was to show the world what a mean mother he had. A couple of instructors from another school stopped by, watched him awhile, and asked me what awful thing he did to deserve that many pushups. While eavesdropping on the conversation he lost count and had to start over for about the 4th time. I told him he'd probably done well over the 200, but he was determined to count from 1 to 200 in order or die trying. Our guests gave me a pitying look.
Acting up in grade school? That'll be Seisan (his routine for competition) 20 times a day until Nationals. He still complains that I made him do that but he got so good at it that he hasn't practiced it since and can still win tournaments with it.
Cursing? Spitting? that will cost $1 each time. It 's amazing how quickly he could break a habit when he had to pay cash.
He recalls getting in trouble at school in second grade for writing "fuck" on the blackboard while he was in line to leave for the day. I made him write something like, "I will not write bad words" one hundred times. As he relived the experience during one of his rants, he was shocked to learn that I thought it was kind of funny at the time. "I thought you were really pissed!" he told me. I just shook my head and answered, "you have nephews. What happens when they see you laugh at that stuff?"
During his teen years, the big threat was that if he got in serious trouble we'd send him to stay with his grandmother in Okinawa. She lived in Kumejima, an island so small that you can drive completely around the perimeter in a couple of hours. When we visited one year it was big news that they got a traffic light. Imagine a town the size of Bright, IN and stick it in the middle of the ocean with one ferry a day going in and out. You don't need a car because there's nowhere to go and it seems like everyone who lives there is either over 70 or under 10. Pure teenage hell.
The worst punishment he ever got was with the Steak'n'Shake incident. I won't go into details, even though I think the scare I got that night should give me a free pass to tell the story as often as I want. When the phone rings in the middle of the night and you hear, "this is the Colerain Township police department. Are you the mother of I.S.?" your heart stops and the blood rushes to your head at the same time.
He was fine, at least until he got home. The adventure ended when he burned rubber right in front of a police car. and with a certain type of beverage right in the front seat of his car. They believed him when he said it wasn't his, so they left the discipline to me.
This time he was grounded. For a very long time. But the most amazing thing happened after that...my mother called me to beg for mercy on his behalf and yell at me for being too hard on him after just ONE WEEK!!!! This is the woman who wanted to send me to rehab (I wasn't even doing drugs) because I was dating a guy she didn't like . Who WAS that woman and what did she do with my mother? For the record, he didn't remain grounded for the entire 3 months. Once I felt he'd gotten the message and I could trust him he got to drive and go out again. He never did anything stupid like that again. or, at least, I never got a call in the middle of the night from the police again.
I'm not allowed to talk about my son anymore on facebook but hypothetical situations about random, unidentified people are ok. So as the hypothetical parent of an imaginary son (from now on referred to as IS), I can totally relate to that weird time warp that happens when the eyes in your head see an adult but the eyes in your heart still see a child. I've been warning him since he was an infant that he'd always be my baby. He doesn't get it. He rolled his eyes at me a few weeks ago and explained that he was an adult which disqualified him from still being my baby and proceeded to remind me of his age and give me his resume of accomplishments to prove that he's grown up. I pinched his cheek and told him how cute he was.
It's interesting to hear how remembers his childhood. His memories are so different from mine. I remember him as an active, noisy kid who loved attention and got to do pretty much what he wanted. He, on the other hand recalls a Dickensian existence where he was punished for everything and forced to work hard labor for menial wages.
When he sees a child acting up at a restaurant, or grocery store, or even at the dojo he'll wax nostalgic about how in the good old days when HE was growing up, he'd have been beaten over such behavior. How he lived in fear... fear that the wrath of his parents would rain down upon him if he was ever disrespectful or misbehaved. Not that he's overly-dramatic or anything, but really?
Yes, I did believe in corporal punishment, but beaten? When he was 2 and still in diapers, and threats, counting to three, and time out didn't work, I'd swat his butt. He would turn and look at me and ask, "are you serious?" He'd only cry if I said yes. I tried saying no once to see what would happen and he laughed at the joke and ran away to play. Clearly the swats didn't hurt anything except his pride.
About once every 6-12 months as he was growing up, I'd have to haul him to the bathroom when we were out in public and smack his behind until my hand hurt. If someone tried that with a kid today the kid would probably be taken away and placed in foster care, but back then you were still allowed to decide how to discipline your child. It worked like an exorcism. For months, his inner demon disappeared and I was left with a sweet, cooperative child most of the time.
I don't remember his father ever striking him. At least not as punishment. Every couple of years as he got bigger and a little stronger, he'd try to challenge his dad while sparring at the dojo, much like how the male students who have grown up with us try to challenge our sons now. I'd see feet fly past the window and hear a crash and the building would shake. The same thing used to happen with his brother. It usually took a couple of times getting knocked down before they'd be convinced it wasn't just a fluke and their dad could do that to them all day if he wanted to. Then they'd nurse their bruises and go train harder in anticipation of the next time, when they'd beat him for sure. Sometime around their 20's they got smarter and quit trying. They still don't fear their dad as much as they fear their sister, but they have a pretty healthy respect for him these days.
By the time I.S. was 7 or 8, I stopped the physical punishment all together. First, I wasn't strong enough for it to have much effect. Second he was intelligent and I could reason with him about consequences. Third, he was used to sparring in the dojo and was getting pretty tough. New measures were needed.
As a kid, he basically lived at the dojo. He'd come home from school, eat a snack, change his clothes, and then we'd head over. When we moved to our second studio, part of the build-out included a private room of his own where he could watch t.v., do homework, play with friends, play video games, or just hang out.
Punishment took creativity. We couldn't ground him because he didn't go anywhere. I didn't want to take away his tv or games because that's what kept him out of our hair while we were working. I became a big proponent of killing two birds with one stone and combining punishment with things he needed to do anyway.
Talking back, Mr. 7-year-old Mouth? That'll be 200 push-ups. The first time I tried this tactic it became a contest of wills. He was so pissed at me that he kept losing count, and since stubborn is his middle name, he'd start over. I eventually relented and told him he could stop, but he only grunted a "nope" and kept going. I think the plan was to show the world what a mean mother he had. A couple of instructors from another school stopped by, watched him awhile, and asked me what awful thing he did to deserve that many pushups. While eavesdropping on the conversation he lost count and had to start over for about the 4th time. I told him he'd probably done well over the 200, but he was determined to count from 1 to 200 in order or die trying. Our guests gave me a pitying look.
Acting up in grade school? That'll be Seisan (his routine for competition) 20 times a day until Nationals. He still complains that I made him do that but he got so good at it that he hasn't practiced it since and can still win tournaments with it.
Cursing? Spitting? that will cost $1 each time. It 's amazing how quickly he could break a habit when he had to pay cash.
He recalls getting in trouble at school in second grade for writing "fuck" on the blackboard while he was in line to leave for the day. I made him write something like, "I will not write bad words" one hundred times. As he relived the experience during one of his rants, he was shocked to learn that I thought it was kind of funny at the time. "I thought you were really pissed!" he told me. I just shook my head and answered, "you have nephews. What happens when they see you laugh at that stuff?"
During his teen years, the big threat was that if he got in serious trouble we'd send him to stay with his grandmother in Okinawa. She lived in Kumejima, an island so small that you can drive completely around the perimeter in a couple of hours. When we visited one year it was big news that they got a traffic light. Imagine a town the size of Bright, IN and stick it in the middle of the ocean with one ferry a day going in and out. You don't need a car because there's nowhere to go and it seems like everyone who lives there is either over 70 or under 10. Pure teenage hell.
The worst punishment he ever got was with the Steak'n'Shake incident. I won't go into details, even though I think the scare I got that night should give me a free pass to tell the story as often as I want. When the phone rings in the middle of the night and you hear, "this is the Colerain Township police department. Are you the mother of I.S.?" your heart stops and the blood rushes to your head at the same time.
He was fine, at least until he got home. The adventure ended when he burned rubber right in front of a police car. and with a certain type of beverage right in the front seat of his car. They believed him when he said it wasn't his, so they left the discipline to me.
This time he was grounded. For a very long time. But the most amazing thing happened after that...my mother called me to beg for mercy on his behalf and yell at me for being too hard on him after just ONE WEEK!!!! This is the woman who wanted to send me to rehab (I wasn't even doing drugs) because I was dating a guy she didn't like . Who WAS that woman and what did she do with my mother? For the record, he didn't remain grounded for the entire 3 months. Once I felt he'd gotten the message and I could trust him he got to drive and go out again. He never did anything stupid like that again. or, at least, I never got a call in the middle of the night from the police again.
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