Dog Psychology?

A five pound ball of fluff with cute little brown eyes... Grows into....... An almost 50 pound personality who is determined to rule the house. I have been completely committed to ensuring Wally has plenty of exercise. A tired dog is a good dog every book says. As Wally has grown and begun to come into his own as a dog personality however something began to occur that I did not anticipate. Wally decided he was in charge. I made our puppy into a spoiled brat who thought we were his minions to do his bidding. Much like children, it turns out each puppy has a different level of need for discipline, rules and boundaries. I saw nothing wrong with fawning over our cute puppy. Petting him constantly, talking to him in that choo choo choo voice, buying him multiple toys of all different types. All of this did not equal out to him becoming the most devoted dog ever. We now had a full fledged stinker on our hands. The last straw was a bite to my forearm as we were walking along he was excitedly jumping up and down nipping at my jacket... And, the growling when I told him to get off of the couch. Wally thought he owned the place. So I read the six dollar pamphlet I'd just purchased the week before on Being your dog's leader and having them love you for it and away we went to save our relationship with our pooch. Day one. We were not allowed to speak to, look at or pet Wally.. I realized I talk to that dog all the time. The day was so weird. Wally was completely subdued. Just looking at us and knawing a bone wondering what was going on. I took away half of his toys. Wally was essentially doggie grounded. We suffered through day one. We now have new rules to follow in our interactions. No fawning over the dog, no petting unless a command is given such as "sit" and the affection is the reward. We are in our third week of this treatment and Wally seems much calmer, does not growl anymore and actually listens. Being a pack leader isn't so bad after all.

Swing Low Wagger Tail and Eating Disorders

Wally has his first and hopefully last yeast infection in one ear. The vet informed me after giving me a rather accusatory look that these are caused by a variety of things. After which he grilled me about his food, play habits, swimming, sexual activity (just kidding) toys and any other changes that may have happened in the the past few weeks to trigger the infection. An ear cleaning, shot, new puppy food made from bison, and three prescriptions later, we left the vet armed to combat this thing that is good for making bread but very bad in wagger ears. Thankfully Wally will eat ANYTHING so getting him to take his twice daily pills is as easy as one, two and cheese. After six days of the medication and cleaning he is starting to look much better.

Something about eating disorders though..... I realized in obedience classes we have worked on sit, down etc. however, what does one do when their puppy turns into a wild jackal in the presence a garbage can or any other precious human food? My dog has an eating disorder.... Eggs flew everywhere, the floor was instantly covered in scraps. He tore into these as if he was a starved beast who'd roamed the prairies in search of food for days on end. Not a puppy eating a prescribed food made from BISON three times a day!!!!!!!!!!!! What do I do!!!??? I don't want him to become ridiculously fat from feeding him all the time. Yet, I don't want this food obsessed beast who will ravage a garbage can and growl at those who try to stop him. At least my sister's dog Bentley hides his eating disorder. He only binges when left at home with food on the counters. I wonder if he waits until he can't hear the car in the driveway anymore or if he just dives right into the glorious treats.

Ahhhhhhh the glories of dog ownership.

Wagger Days Cont....

Training classes have been going very well. Despite our good progress I've always been paranoid about Wally being "that dog" in class. You know the kid who is always getting sent to the principal's office? Carissa has been in school with one such kid since kindergarten. He is a great athlete, I bet in the dog world he would be some sort of pointer, you can tell he really wants to be "good" and he's adorable but ridiculously high energy. I think some of us are just born lacking the ability to get in line, not throw pencils and not poke the person next to us. Which leads me to "that dog". The owners of "that dog", roll into class a few minutes late most Saturdays at which time their 100lb yellow lab announces their arrival with a huge bark. They shuffle to their assigned seat trying to not fall over from the force of "that dog" the entire way as he wheezes from the pressure of the collar. He attempts to fraternize with the dog next to him, she is a pretty lady but socializing is not allowed in the class. Which reminds me I must write some details about our trainer and the rules. We have assigned seating!!!! Which is probably a well thought out plan for keeping some dogs apart. The lady forgets to zip her mom jeans each class. She does not put up with undesirable behavior from our canine companions. Disruptions to the learning environment by them is the equivalent of a girl walking in topless to an all boys school.. She would be the principal diving across the room to quickly shield the poor boy victims from the atrocity. The trainer quickly shuffles herself to "that dog's" spot and gives the lady lime juice for the barking, a rope toy for the boredom and all the while I'm wondering if "that dog" was tired now, what is he like before? The final straw must have been the owner of "that dog" refusing a halter which is a brilliant and very humane way to train your dog to lead with good manners if they are a predisposed puller. The owner even went so far as to just turn away and ignore a little. Our trainer must have had enough because I saw the lady shed a few tears and leave our dog class. She piled "that dog", and her daughter who looked rather sticky from some candy she was eating into her escalade and zoomed off. I never thought I would see someone get 86'd from dog class......... My paranoia around Wally becoming "that dog" lessened slightly because he's coming along very well.... I did however start to worry about pissing this lady off though.... I offered to sweep up the dirt I'd tracked in because I forgot to change from my garden shoes but she smiled nicely and said they'd had much much worse get tracked on the floor. I felt a little more relaxed but my eyes then happened upon the sign stating "A $5.00 fine will be assessed to all dog owners who allow their dog to "mark" the pole". Now I have a whole new worry, what if Wally decides to pee on that pole someday!!!!!!!!!

Wagger Days

In the past when I contemplated dog ownership, I observed actual dog owners and read about dogs but I never comprehended what REALLY went into living with a dog, really. I imagined taking a walk everyday which involved the mental image of a warm, sunny day, hound pal at my side walking on a slack leash. The reality of dog ownership in the northwest, perhaps half the daily dog walks will be in the freezing cold and pouring rain. I've accomplished the slack leash part by feeding treats along the way to make staying by my side the best thing ever, thank you to CJ.... We are now in month four with Wally and I wouldn't trade him for the world. I kiss his little dog head everyday and watching his ears ahead of me when we walk makes me laugh for some reason. I have to ask myself though, is every dog owner really spending this much time? Everyday I go home for lunch now to release the hound for a few and give him lunch. We went to the dog park last night and stood in the pouring rain, freezing while Wally chased around the ONE other dog, a really speedy Beagle whose brown belly was just an inch off the ground, ears pinned back as he ran. Wally's tongue hung to the side while he smiled and ran to his puppy heart's content. I wondered, what are all the other dog owners doing? What do they do with their dogs when it rains? I didn't see an inordinate number of people just walking their dogs yesterday. So where do these people go? If we didn't take Wally out, he would drive us absolutely crazy all evening long. Where is this secret indoor dog park that everyone goes to on rainy days? Do people just let their dogs sit at home and turn inside out all evening? Poor Wally would just go crazy. I find it hard to believe we are great dog owners. I just wonder what everyone else is doing?

Something to ponder, upon the completion of a contribution to our yard health, aka taking a poo, Wally goes into a MC Hammeresc four legged running man. I wonder, why the shuffle? Perhaps they wipe their feet in case the drop zone conflicted with paw placement? Maybe it all just felt good, who wouldn't do a little dance afterwards? I don't know... Another canine mystery.......

Wally updates

Wally is doing excellent at walking on a slack leash right by me. Eagerly awaiting a hot dog treat. The minute I run out of them however he knows..... He then becomes a crazy puppy again. I suppose all can't be "good" 100% of the time...

So I usually report funny things in my blog but today I am a bit under the weather and I've been having trouble writing for a few days anyways. So we're just going to go with it today. I am so glad we enrolled in the dog training class. Puppies are so much work and there are so many excellent strategies the trainer knows that I would never think about trying. One is for bite inhibition, holding binaca in your hand, when your puppy bites down on your hand, you give him a spritz. Doesn't hurt them but they don't like the taste so they associate biting you with bad taste.... Another is water and vinegar in a spray bottle. Wally was barking in the kitchen at us a lot, he gets very excited about all the smells while we're cooking. To control this we give him a squirt and say AHHHGGG!!! when he barks. He is doing that much less now.

Today on our walk I also figured out when Wally started going crazy and getting to the stage of wanting to bite and tug on my pants, I put him the "listening" position which is his bum on my feet and my arms around his chest. I then pet his ear and scratch his little puppy chest and he calms down a bit. He also seemed to start realizing that acting that way results in him having to sit there like that and he did not act that way the rest of our walk. Maybe there's hope yet? We're for sure signing up for the next round of training.

Carissa and Wally are struggling in their relationship. She is a kid in his eyes and should be a built in playmate. He just can't understand why sometimes she just doesn't want to play. He gets very upset with her. Then she gets upset with him and it all goes downhill from there. They'll figure things out though. I know we're going to miss the puppy in him when he's grown up but I am looking forward to our canine good citizen. :-)

A fine day

After re-reading my last post I realized I was having a very bad day. My fault, not Wally's, I don't think dogs have bad days. Everyday is exciting and fun for them to begin. I suppose cat food consumption could make for a rocky start but not ruin an entire day.

We discovered something great yesterday, Wally was very chew-frustrated. Despite purchasing over one hundred dollars in toys for chewing, squeaking and fetching none of them hold his interest for any length of time. So I decided to journey with Carissa to Fred Meyer in search of something new and exciting we could pick up to try. I spent about fifteen minutes reading labels to ensure the toy was manufactured in the US so Wally wouldn't take in any chemicals. Although we're still waiting for half a pencil, a pen cap, eraser, sticks, grass and possibly a bottle cap to pass, we don't want him eating formaldehyde. Carissa finally performed a mini-intervention and demanded we choose something. We settled on a package of pig ears. Cooked to perfection. Processed in the USA. Funny this would be most important to me. I've been making my best efforts to buy locally and know where my food comes from but WINCO meat is listed at the store to be from the US, Canada OR Mexico... Not one but three possible places. I wonder if one package of ribs could contain it's own little diverse pool of pork. Three nations of swine, harmoniously wrapped in Styrofoam and plastic wrap. Foreign relations specialists should take note. If one supermarket can make three nations of meat work together and talk us into purchasing them for pennies a pound, why can't we all learn to get along? I digress..... Back to the pig ears for Wally. When first presented with these triangles of roasted perfection, Wally picked up and dropped them for about five minutes. A bit confused yet intrigued. Then the flavor hit is canine cortex, he bear hugged the ear and didn't come up for air until the last morsel was sent in most likely too large of a size, down the hatch. We were gifted as a result with almost two hours of peace and quiet. Wally was happy, we were happy. Everybody was a winner. Things went so well I decided to let him have another this afternoon at lunchtime. For some reason, I decided to make sure he was okay with sharing his prized possession. We don't need a food aggressive pooch on our hands bogarting his pig ears. I took the ear once, Wally gave me a WTF look. I gave it back. He hunkered down over the ear, I attempted another exchange. Treat for pig ear. He let go a low wolf-like growl. He attempted to run away with his prize, perhaps Wally lacks moderation when it comes to pig ears.... We all have our vices..

Just a bad day so far.....

Sometimes I feel completely in love with Wally, close to how I feel about Carissa. The kind of love that makes you clean off a kids ice cream cone when it starts to melt on a hot summer day. Before Carissa, I used to watch mothers take their child's ice cream cone and lick off the slobbered on melting ice cream and just cringe. Shivering a little and wondering how a person could get to a place in their head where consumption of slobbery ice cream was acceptable. Granted nobody wants their kid to be the sticky, dirty kid but I understand now, you love the kid so much you don't care you're licking their slobbery ice cream. The other day Wally had dirt and possibly slobber on his little nose, I actually wiped it off with my hand without even thinking...

With great love comes great frustration. I remember some days getting to the point of counting how many minutes until Carissa's next nap time. I felt a similar level of frustration with Wally this morning. He started out at 5:30, we went out for a potty break. I am attempting to adjust his schedule to a 6:30 wake time so after our potty break I put him back to bed. Ten minutes later there was an emergency whine, back outside we went, I was lazy this time and didn't put on the leash. He took care of his business and proceeded to lay down in the yard and eat sticks. I didn't put on shoes but trudged across the cold ground anyway to retrieve him, gritting my teeth and reminding myself he's just a puppy. At 6:00am he again announced the day was needing to begin with a series of howls. I refused to get up at this point. At 6:30 I let him out of his crate, we went back outside for a potty break, leashed up this time. Back inside we went. I decided coffee was a must at this point in the morning. For some reason, anytime I'm in the kitchen, Wally thinks something good is being prepared for him. I have not once fed him "people" food but he whines and barks. I couldn't find the blasted lime juice to use for the barking, how I can lose a neon green round container is beyond me. Wally gave me a pleading look which I took for him being hungry but..... the look turned out to be one of "I need to take care of some business and since you aren't getting the point, I'll just go ahead and put it over here". I attempted to get him outside but he already commenced launch sequence. So we just ended up sitting outside for a minute to hopefully reinforce the thought of the potty is outside....... Back inside we went to clean up the mess..... When I purchased a case of bleach wipes last year from Costco I thought I was being a little ridiculous. Not now, I was accidentally planning ahead!

I showered, Wally barked, I dried off, Wally barked, I dressed, Wally barked. At this point, I was feeling like squeezing his head a little. I decided a walk was in order for both of us. We leashed up, I noticed how frayed the end of the leash was becoming. Wally chews sometimes while he's dragging the leash around the house. We were not outside two minutes before Wally stepped in mud and then jumped on my work pants. I remembered I was going to wear sweats on our walks from now on. Too late now..... Two more blocks in and he was pulling again. I attempted to bring him back with treats, he comes back only to take off again. Two more blocks and the leash snaps. Wally takes off with reckless abandon. He then realizes he is alone. Stops, turns back to me and returns at a low to the ground super-pup sprint. I looped the leash around his collar and resisted the urge to scream. We returned home, me more frustrated and him still full of energy even though he didn't want to walk anywhere. How can I wear the dog out if he won't walk?

I'm sitting here writing realizing I am the problem.... I love the dog but I am so frustrated with him!!! Puppy class Saturday, perhaps some extra sessions will be in order.