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Holy crap, Pepper is SUCH a good dog. You can tell exactly why her last owners had trouble with her (she is kinda destructive): not enough exercise and discipline. Oh, and we've revised our estimate of what she is. My latest theory is an Australian cattle dog/German shepherd. She has the coloration of the former and the size, stance and gait or
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And yeah, I really dislike a lot of Cesar Milan's methods--I liked them until I read a lot from actual animal behaviorists, and then I decided he was full of dumb--but he's fucking right when it comes to the "exercise" bit. Everyone is always asking us why our dog is so well-behaved. Well, a big chunk of it is that he aims to please (it's the pit in him; bull terriers aren't exactly known for that). He really, really wants us to be happy with him. It also helped that we lucked out and found the exact perfect trainer to take classes from.
But if we haven't taken him to the dog park and exercised him HARD, he definitely gets doggy ADHD. A short walk (mile or so) will take the edge off, a long (multiple miles) walk helps, but what he really *needs* is to run his fool head off chasing a tennis ball a minimum of once every 48 hours. Every 24 is much better. Being able to wrestle with another dog to the point of exhaustion is also a plus, when we can find a dog that wants to play that way.
Last night, Enik and I took him to the dog beach and threw the tennis ball into the water as far as we could with one of those "Chuck-Its" that extends your throwing arm a fair bit, so you can imagine that it was OUT THERE. He would run full-speed through the water until it was too deep, then swim out to get the ball, bring it back. Lather, rinse repeat for 45 minutes. Oddly enough, last night and this morning we have a calm, happy little guy who's more than content to sit at Enik's feet mouthing his Kong.
Most of the people that we see at the dog beach during January and February when only the "hard core" folks are there also have active, athletic dogs. Lots of vizlas, weimerainers, pits, Aussies (cattle and shepherd), dobes, and a few retrievers. Most of the dogs you see on the beach in those months are also incredibly obedient and well-behaved.
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