The new baby
I feel like I just had a baby without the pregnancy/birth.
We rescued (not from a shelter, but it's still a rescue as far as I'm concerned) a 5 month old Dachshund mix on Thursday. After about a day, we decided on the name Rynn. So far it's been an educations and a half, and I've been using up a lot of energy. It's gotten me up and out of the house at least!
The people we got her from never socialized her, never gave her shots, and never wormed her. She is about half housebroken, doesn't understand the "down" portion of stairs, and is just totally wigged out by the world right now. She's like a small-town farm girl that got kidnapped from her house and dropped into downtown Manhattan with no map and no explanation. She was totally infested with fleas when we got her - I basically told Kyr not to put her down for love or money, and the first thing we did when we got home was to strip our clothes, bathe her twice with flea shampoo, shower ourselves, and toss every scrap of clothing we'd been wearing in the washer.
If I wanted a training challenge, I sure as hell got one. But I'm pretty confident that with some consistency and some effort, she'll be an awesome dog. I already have my mind's eye set on getting her Canine Good Citizen, and definitely agility. Leash training is progressing, from not wanting to walk on one at all to eagerly following along with me. She still has fits and starts, and strange people/noises/sights freak her out. My goal is to push her boundaries as safely as possible until she has her shots and is spayed.
So far I have a good handle on socialization. It's just going to take time and effort. She's learning that the world is full of pretty cool people, sometimes people that bring her food!
The major issue is her attention-seeking behavior. She whines a LOT. I mean a LOOOOOOT. It would be like a small child bursting into tears and asking WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE every time you don't want to look at them. She latches onto you and will be up your ass every second if you let her. I've been basically pushing her off or outright ignoring her any time she whines. She has to be quiet and calm for me to play with her or call her to me. Once she has calmed down and is not focused on me, or playing with a toy, then I'll call her over for some loving.
I'm so glad I've been studying up on positive reinforcement. She is smart as hell, she gets concepts quickly, it's just going to take consistency to break some of this behavior and turn her into an awesome agility dog.