Dog training sagas
Like I said, I'm going to try to update more often, especially since things are going so slowly at work lately. Besides, like I said earlier, it looks like I'm being productive to the untrained (and carefully avoided) eye. At least, I hope it does. You never know with my boss. He's quicker than I give him credit for sometimes.
Anywho, two weeks ago Doug and I adopted another dog from the humane society. Don't worry, pictures are coming soon. She's very cute and sweet. She has a big heart and just loves attention. She is very willing to please, as well, and gets along wonderfully with Limerick. We needed someone for Lim who would back off when he told her to back off, and we wanted a female because there tend to be fewer dominance issues when you have two dogs of the opposite gender as opposed to two dogs of the same gender.
We looked at four dogs at the humane society, and finally settled on a dog named Treasure. We have since renamed her. Jacqui and Laura, Doug's mom and sister, had Limerick outside the Humane Society building for us and we took each of the four dogs to see how they interacted with Limerick. The minute they saw each other, they both went into a play bow and haven't stopped yet. She backs off when Limerick wants her to back off and loves to be chased. This works perfectly because Limerick loves to chase things. We named her Sonnet.
The humane society told us that she was between one to two years of age -- a teenager by dog standards -- and house broken. She still needs to spayed as well, which they will do for free or pay towards having it done at another vet.
They weren't entirely correct about certain things. Namely, she's not between one and two years of age, she's only nine months old according to the vet. Still very much a puppy. Also, guess what? She's not housebroken. Let's just say I'm very happy that we have hardwood in most of the house because if we had carpets, they'd probably be ruined by now.
Now, I've never housetrained a puppy. When we got our dog Manchester when I was a kid, I was two and wasn't really involved in the whole house-breaking thing. Sonnet's previous owners did not give her any limits and that is obvious. She jumps, she nips, she has accidents and doesn't quite have the coordination or the thought to miss the humans when she's running around the house. Doug has several bruises (as do I) from her and she nearly took me out the other day by body slamming me behind the knees. She's about 30 pounds, by the way.
Now I understand that this is typical puppy behavior, but it frustrates me nonetheless for a variety of reasons. First of all, I didn't want a puppy because of this stuff. But, the fact that she's nine months old and hasn't learned this stuff concerns me because, while you can teach a dog new tricks, it's harder when she already has bad habits ingrained in her as opposed to starting fresh. Second of all, I was NOT expecting these issues when we took her home, and I'm little frustrated with the Humane Society Rep we worked with for not giving us a heads-up about this stuff. Granted, it is possible they didn't know about the mouthing or the jumping; she's only been there for a couple of days. Third of all, she doesn't respond simply to "no!" or the scruff pull correrction because she has never had limits set for her. We use a firm, loud voice and she thinks we're playing and tries to nip our hands because someone obviously thought that was cute at some point down the line and rewarded her for it. She is so attention-starved as well that even the negative attention we give her for corrections she takes as a reward, so I have to restructure my entire correction procedure, which is difficult when *I* have certain habits ingrained in *me*.
But, on the upshot, she's very eager to please and learns quickly when she's thinking about it. There has been a decent amount of progress in the last two weeks. So, in order to put a realistic slant on this whole situation, I've decided to start a training journal so that I'm not just remembering the negative things that are happening with her. With any luck, that will help to start alleviate some of this frustration.
Anywho, two weeks ago Doug and I adopted another dog from the humane society. Don't worry, pictures are coming soon. She's very cute and sweet. She has a big heart and just loves attention. She is very willing to please, as well, and gets along wonderfully with Limerick. We needed someone for Lim who would back off when he told her to back off, and we wanted a female because there tend to be fewer dominance issues when you have two dogs of the opposite gender as opposed to two dogs of the same gender.
We looked at four dogs at the humane society, and finally settled on a dog named Treasure. We have since renamed her. Jacqui and Laura, Doug's mom and sister, had Limerick outside the Humane Society building for us and we took each of the four dogs to see how they interacted with Limerick. The minute they saw each other, they both went into a play bow and haven't stopped yet. She backs off when Limerick wants her to back off and loves to be chased. This works perfectly because Limerick loves to chase things. We named her Sonnet.
The humane society told us that she was between one to two years of age -- a teenager by dog standards -- and house broken. She still needs to spayed as well, which they will do for free or pay towards having it done at another vet.
They weren't entirely correct about certain things. Namely, she's not between one and two years of age, she's only nine months old according to the vet. Still very much a puppy. Also, guess what? She's not housebroken. Let's just say I'm very happy that we have hardwood in most of the house because if we had carpets, they'd probably be ruined by now.
Now, I've never housetrained a puppy. When we got our dog Manchester when I was a kid, I was two and wasn't really involved in the whole house-breaking thing. Sonnet's previous owners did not give her any limits and that is obvious. She jumps, she nips, she has accidents and doesn't quite have the coordination or the thought to miss the humans when she's running around the house. Doug has several bruises (as do I) from her and she nearly took me out the other day by body slamming me behind the knees. She's about 30 pounds, by the way.
Now I understand that this is typical puppy behavior, but it frustrates me nonetheless for a variety of reasons. First of all, I didn't want a puppy because of this stuff. But, the fact that she's nine months old and hasn't learned this stuff concerns me because, while you can teach a dog new tricks, it's harder when she already has bad habits ingrained in her as opposed to starting fresh. Second of all, I was NOT expecting these issues when we took her home, and I'm little frustrated with the Humane Society Rep we worked with for not giving us a heads-up about this stuff. Granted, it is possible they didn't know about the mouthing or the jumping; she's only been there for a couple of days. Third of all, she doesn't respond simply to "no!" or the scruff pull correrction because she has never had limits set for her. We use a firm, loud voice and she thinks we're playing and tries to nip our hands because someone obviously thought that was cute at some point down the line and rewarded her for it. She is so attention-starved as well that even the negative attention we give her for corrections she takes as a reward, so I have to restructure my entire correction procedure, which is difficult when *I* have certain habits ingrained in *me*.
But, on the upshot, she's very eager to please and learns quickly when she's thinking about it. There has been a decent amount of progress in the last two weeks. So, in order to put a realistic slant on this whole situation, I've decided to start a training journal so that I'm not just remembering the negative things that are happening with her. With any luck, that will help to start alleviate some of this frustration.