The New SMP (Smokey Management Plan)

Smokey and Cash met for the first time yesterday.
No problem at all for either of them.

I've been leaving Smokey and Max outside in the dog yard and the adjoining shed, both day and night. The weather is fine, they get along, and it's easier than bringing them in. Max has to be trapped to get a leash on him, otherwise you have to let him out of the dog yard on his own and then wait 20-30 minutes until he's tired of running around and shows up at the back door. That's very frustrating when I'm trying to go to bed. Smokey will go into his crate in the kitchen easily enough, but then he barks ferociously at all the other dogs in the house when I'm trying to get them out to the AC yard and back in so we can go to bed. He does it again first thing in the morning when Clay gets up. No one sleeps through Smokey's bark.

Maya photo-bombing the Smokey/Cash pictures. She may
get tired to me taking her picture, but she still doesn't like
me paying too much attention to other dogs without her.

Leaving them outside in the dog yard makes my life easier, but it's not helping Smokey. When he's out there with Max and Theo, the three shepherds play their stupid barking game, which is the behavior I need to train out of Smokey. Last night I brought Smokey inside again. He's really pretty good indoors. He met the new senior shepherd, Cash, and he was fine with him, although he didn't understand why Cash didn't want to play. He also didn't understand that Theo doesn't play that stupid game indoors. Cash had been using Smokey's crate in the kitchen, but Cash doesn't really need it. Smokey took it back last night but then went back into his barking behavior from inside the crate.

Serena and Smokey walked well together.

Today I did a series of three, two-mile hikes. Usually it's Maya plus one, or maybe two other dogs, but today it was Smokey who went on all three hikes. The first was Smokey and Serena, then Smokey, Maya, and Theo, and the third was Smokey and Serena again. Smokey isn't bad on the leash, I did some brushing on him when we stopped, and I hoped that six miles of walking would mellow him out tonight.

On the third walk this afternoon, I came up with a new SMP (Smokey Management Plan.)  I'm going to leave him outside at night, but probably bring Max in after evening feed. That will avoid the problems with Smokey in the crate at night and in the morning. But, I will then bring Smokey inside during the day where he can work on learning some better manners from some better behaved dogs. That breaks up the Max, Theo, Smokey cabal in the dog yard during the day. I can still put Theo and Max out there, and Trooper too on a nice day. Smokey needs to learn to do the stairs and then learn to chill in the office with Serena, Maya, and Sparky during the day. I'll take him out on walks and he'll learn some behaviors other than the stupid shepherd barking game, hopefully.

This was the first walk of the day. I didn't remember to bring
the brush along until the third walk.

Theo (right) is a good role model for Smokey, unless they
are in the dog yard together because Theo reacts to everything.

He's good about letting me brush him, which is good because
he's blowing out his entire coat.

I noticed while brushing him that Smokey is still thinner than
I think he should be. I'm worming him again and then will
add some Dyne (calorie and nutrient supplement) to his diet.