Your dog good with touch pads?

@ChompyGator Two questions:
(1) what’s stopping you?
(2) what kind of “various augmented communication devices”? Without doing any actual research on this, I’m clueless but interested.
(3) are you from Florida? (oops, one question too many)

@ChompyGator What @phendrick said! Do eeeeet!

@phendrick There are now many apps for augmented alternative communication, which turns any phone or tablet into a device. There are dedicated devices like a Go Talk, or if you are looking for lower tech, you can use icons, or a touch board. It’s a way for those who cannot talk or write to, at the least, let their needs/wants be known. As for using it with my dog, I decided our time was better spent running around at the dog park.

@ChompyGator We don’t go to the dog park much. Off leash, she usually runs around a lot, away from me, but then wants me to chase her to bring her back. I’m too old for that.
Our last dog was a Bassett mix, super intelligent, but would also ignore me when I called her. The vets were impressed that when she was near blind, I could walk her, tell her to “go right” or “go left”, or tell her to “step up” or “step down” for a curb. For a walk, I could tell her “front door” or “back door”.She knew a total of maybe 30 phrases. About her only sin was killing stray critters in the back yard, including two possums and one thing I wasn’t sure if it had been a possum or a cat. I miss her. RIP.
Yesterday, current doggy escaped twice. The first time, I was going to walk her, but once off the chain, she jerked the retractable leash out of my hand, grabbed the canister with her mouth, and ran off swinging the whole thing around. Just having a fine time. She crossed the street, which is usually very busy, and ran to the strip of land the city calls a park, toward another person walking his dog. I know she wanted to play, but she is so aggressive she scares other dogs, even those bigger than she, and their owners. That owner made his dog lie down, and held him down. My pup soon lost interest. I figured trying to catch her was useless, so I went home, closed the left-open front door against the cold, and brought out some treats. By then she was missing me and came to the front porch, safely. I went out, said “TREATS”, and she came up to me, and I grabbed the leash, gave her a couple of treats, and we went for the walk.
Later, about twilight, I heard a loud “thunk” from outside, figured it was something she did, and went out. Her chain (she chews up ropes or leashes when left on her own, and pulls up tiedowns) was no longer fastened to the ornate metal post thingy holding up the corner of the roof over the front porch. I found her around the other side of the house, with the chain wedged under the front tire of my car when she went around it. She had jerked the chain hard enough to have pulled the sliding catch free. (She has pulled chain links open, before!) All this from a 45-pound female over-grown pup. At our last back yard, she used to pull bicycles around by the tires, had dismantled a wooden swing hanging on an A-frame, moved a bucket full of bricks halfway across the yard, and pulled the large front wheel off a wheel barrow (and lost a washer and a nut from the axle).
She wears me out by pulling me hard when I walk her. I’ve tried the walking harnesses, but they didn’t work with her. She learned to back out of them.
If I had the money, I would definitely send her to reform school.
Maybe, just maybe, she might get mature enough to realize that the more she cooperates with me, the more she gets what she likes. She’s about 27 months old now, but I’m told that for many Labs, that’s not even the middle of puppyhood.

TL;DR: My pup is a handfull, but I have hope. I hope she lives long enough, she invites disaster.

@phendrick I had a crazy did once. Part Catahoula(?) I thought she was a cattle dog mix. Anyway she had to be tethered because we had 2 1/2 acres in the middle of farm land and she could leap right up and over the 12 foot high chain link fence with barbed wire at the top. Just right up and over without hardly touching the chain link and completely missing the barbed wire. I was sure a farmer was going to shoot her. She could pull up tie downs for 200+ lbs animals. She was about 40 lbs. She liked to chase me around with dead things.
I now have an insane Weimeraner and a decent German Shepherd. They love the dog park, and I can’t even spell it or they know what I am talking about. Neither has ever Tasmanian deviled a crate to nothing like that last dog. I did have to get a particular type of collar for walking them, as I have a SLAP year in my shoulder and they weigh 100lbs each. I really learned a lot about the best ways to deal with them, both are rescues with a history of negative behavior, from Jeff Gelman on YouTube. The mutt boy I’ve had since he was young used to be the bad boy, but is now the angel. But I have been stuck home for 3 years as a result of a work injury, so I have had a lot of time to work on them all. I hope that I have made some semblance of sense. I’m terrible at typing on my phone, and my Traumatic Brain Injury makes any communication difficult, so really this is the worst of 2 world’s… I apologize to anyone who read this far.

TLDR: Don’t read that, it’s not worth it. I like dogs.

@ChompyGator Sounds like I got off easy with mine. She’s snoozing beside me as I type. (Also, methinks she has gas again – I did cut out extras tonight, except for a small piece of ham from my sandwich after she gave me those puppy eyes.

I’ll check out the video. Tnx.

@ChompyGator Ooh! Lots of Jeff Gelman videos on YT. I’ll start with this one

tomorrow – I’m going to sleep now.