The weekend was good. We only had a few mishaps. For example, I convinced myself that the stupid dog has no idea that he's supposed to be chewing on the bone, so we went out and bought some of those edible veggie/meat bones (not rawhide), and gave him one of those. I thought he would learn that chewing on THAT SHAPE was good! I was encouraged and simultaneously dismayed when he inhaled half of one of the bones in under 3 minutes. We took the other half away from him to save for a rainy day, or perhaps his first little stay in his crate with the door shut. The next morning tiny cardboard pieces of the package of the remaining bone were found scattered outside our bedroom door. We couldn't find the rest of the package or the other bone. In the afternoon Greg heard an odd crackling sound when the dog stepped into his bed, so he picked it up and lo and behold there was the plastic part of the bone packaging - hidden. The bone was not found, I have a feeling it never will be.
On Sunday we took the dog to a nearby shelter's Social hour. Greg swore it started at 10:30, but of course when we called on our way there they said it started at 10:00 a.m. We got there half an hour late and were greeted with a vision of a room chocked full of dog. There were 2 mastiffs, a doberman, 2 chihuahuas, several other mutts, a cocker spaniel, a springer spaniel, a golden doodle, 3 pitt bulls, a sheltie and those are just the ones that I can really remember. Our little one shoved his tail so far between his legs I wasn't sure we'd ever see it again, and he snapped at any one who came near. The very kind women running the show encouraged us to relax behind a fence partition and feed him treats when other dogs came near, so that's what we did. For the first ten minutes we calmed his growling and got him to reluctantly wag his tail and stuffed his face with treats.
They told us he looked ready, so we let him off leash and took him out of the fenced in area, only to have him turn right back around and march is butt back into the protected area.
We got him out and walking around and almost successful kept him away from the more rambunctious dogs. He totally wanted to sniff every doggy butt in the place, but was (rudely) unwilling to allow the same treatment. The mastiffs were sweet and tolerated his jumpy skittishness, the golden doodle wouldn't stop barking at him. The cocker spaniel and sheltie were interesting to him, but there were plenty of dogs he seemed terrified of. We tried only to step in if we thought we saw something brewing, and even then we only stepped in with our bodies to block a confrontation.
About 10 minutes after he started his panicked introduction to the room of dogs, he started RUNNING at high speed through the room, chased by a large doberman.
Yea. I'm not going to lie, my nerves were already a little strained at this point, and now I see my little dog high tailing it around the room 2 feet in front of a big black doberman.
As calmly as I could, which was pretty much not calm at all and probably came out more like a squeak, I told Greg to go get him. We circled the room, but man our dog is fast. We couldn't catch him, and we couldn't get between the dogs. The humans in the room - other dog owners, the shelter's dog trainers and dog behaviourists - started converging on us saying "AWW! He looks so much better now! Look at him run! They're playing!"
Yea right lady. They're playing, my ass.
But instead of panicking and tackling the doberman, I concentrated on relaxing and really reading the situation. Though our chicken of a dog was yelping every single time the doberman got close enough to touch him with her nose, at one point, he paused and got down into the play stance and so did she and then they darted around each other and were off to the races again.
Apparently he was having a great time, while simultaneously making the sound for "HOLY CRAP SHE'S TOUCHING ME!!!!!!" over and over and over again.
By the end of our time there, he was still acting a little crazy and still yelping. He was still snapping at dogs that tried to - God forbid - sniff him. But his tail was wagging, and he took the time to smell other dogs, and he wanted to play with the sheltie, the doberman, and a very loving pitt bull (if you know what I mean). The 'socializing' hour schedule is messed up because of Easter, but we'll be taking him back in mid-April when it happens again. I think it was really good for him.
Then again, we won't be taking him back if I kill him first.
Why would I kill him you ask? Oh, well the Chew-Toy-of-the-Day today was the very middle of our Living room area rug.
The very center of it.
He'd scrunched up the rug so he could get his fool mouth around it and then chewed a silver dollar sized hole right in the center.
Brilliant.
I want to start crating him while I'm gone during the day - I agree with you all, I think it's the only way. We have a crate, he's been eating his meals in it, but he's still very cautious about it - unless I'm throwing Bacon/Cheese flavored treats in there.
Since he goes completely in voluntarily for those treats and doesn't seem upset while he's in there, tonight we're going to close the crate door and keep him in there until he's quite for a minute or two, then we'll let him out. We may do that a couple of times this evening if possible.
I'm SORELY tempted to just force him in there before I leave in the morning, but I recognize that would be a bad Idea. It doesn't mean I don't really really want to. We will try to do this gradually, we will try to do this right.
But I can't be held responsible for my actions if I find a larger than silver-dollar sized hole in the rug when I get home. I put a towel over the rug, I gave him a kong with not-completely-frozen-but-very-very-cold peanut butter in it, and when he made his way to the rug hole in front of me, I corrected him.
That's good enough, right?
Right?
Right??? (is there an echo in here?)
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1 comment:
hahahaha I actually laughed out loud when you were describing the scene a the doggy social. It does sound to me like he was having a good time :) We often take our dogs out and let them run around with the neighbours dog. They do the SAME high speed run thing and my yorkie yelps like mad. He also yelps a lot when he's playing inside with our other dog. I think it's an excitement thing rather than fear :)
As for the chewing... christ. That's a tough one. The only advice I can give is to doggy proof the house. Take everything - ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING - (except things you can't hide, like the sofa) and put them out of the dogs reach. Like the bone thing for example. Never trust that a dog can't get into a container or cupboard at their level. They will surprise you 100% of the time. You have to put it in a locked room or waaay up high where they have no chance of ever getting at it (putting it in something sealed like a sealed container or ziplock bag WHILE up high doesn't hurt either).
I honestly don't know what I'd do if I had a dog who chewed my things, I'd be pretty ticked off... have you gone through some of Cesar Milan's videos to see if he has any tips on how to curb chewing?
As for the crate, I know it's temping to just shove him in but you'll definitely regret it later hehe you need to make him love it if it's ever going to work.
Have you thought of a name yet?
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