Happy Festivus!

Break out the unadorned aluminum pole, it's time to celebrate Festivus! I'm a big fan of winter holidays, and this is a particularly silly one. It's a rejection of the holiday consumerism that pervades the month of December, and gets right to the heart of family get-togethers. That's right, I'm talking about the Airing of Grievances. Let's take a moment to talk about the ways in which companies have disappointed The Dog Geek over the last year.

Feats of Strength!

Kong, your Squeezz Crackle ball couldn't handle being squeezed and crackled.

Petsmart, your Puppies backwards-R Us treat spinner couldn't handle even a tiny amount of regular dog play.

Zack & Zoey, you turned out to be a regular Pet Edge brand, and not some adorably personable company with a charming backstory.

Loot Pets, you totally abandoned your geeky premise and sent us a regular dog-themed subscription box. There are tons of regular dog-themed subscription boxes out there, I got yours purely for the geekery. You got rid of the geekery slowly, sending regular toys instead of geeky toys, and fewer items in every box, until your finally abandoned the concept altogether, and that's when you lost a customer. It was a fun six months though, and those first few crates were awesome. The pet shirts never fit right though, you must all have super wide pug-shaped dogs or something.

Sileo, you did nothing for Ranger's fireworks fear. I think we're going camping for New Year's just to get away from the possible fireworks noise.

Company of Animals, your Pet Corrector needs to come with instructions about using it in the vicinity of other pets. It has a very non-specific, area-wide effect, so it "corrects" basically every single dog in agility class when some clueless student chooses to use it for their dog's leash reactivity.

Outward Hound, your dog backpack was awkward and uncomfortable and felt ridiculously cheap and flimsy. Like, I understand making things for a certain price point, but that felt like some serious dollar store shit.

Reviews.com...your research sucks. Bigtime.

Chuckit, your Floppy Tug was surprisingly non-durable.

Zukes, your Power Bones treats show a distinct lack of knowledge about the canine metabolism. I expected better of you.

Thank you for joining me for this little wallow in negativity. the Dog Geek will be back to the usual upbeat outlook following the Feats of Strength.

Our Sileo Experience

Well, we tried the Sileo gel prescription medication for canine noise aversion, and it did not help Ranger have a quiet Fourth of July. Sileo is fast-acting and promises calming without sedation. It comes in a syringe and it given 30-60 minutes before the anticipated noise. It may be given at two-hour intervals while waiting for the noise to stop.

Photo by Erin Koski

Though he was wearing his Thundershirt, safely cocooned in an interior bathroom, with his Through a Dog's Ear playing, and lots of white noise happening in the rest of the house, Ranger still panicked. He will hopefully be seeing Brisbane's amazing vet sometime in the next week, and we're hoping to get him on some anxiety medication as well as unraveling the cause of his ever-worsening limp.

I'm not quite ready to doubt the effectiveness of Sileo yet. Ranger has a lot of general anxiety in addition to his noise aversion. He also has some sort of chronic pain causing him to limp. If we can get those two stressors under control, it's possible the Sileo could help him get through the worst of the fireworks holidays.

Brisbane and Sisci were a bit worried but did fine with the air conditioner running along with their Through a Dog's Ear calming music. Ru and Annie didn't even notice the fireworks. I think the dogs and I might go camping somewhere without fireworks for New Years, just to give Ranger some peace.