Rebel Without a Cause

No matter times you practice sit-stay, leave-it or wait, there comes a time in every dog owners relationship where your dog seems to have forgotten everything: adolescence. From puppies to adolescent dogs, your dog spends nearly 2 years as an adolescent (8 months to 2+ years old). During this time, your dog develops a mind of his own and beings testing and pushing previously established boundaries and limitations. Families watch their once fluffy, 15 pound puppy quadruple in size and go from rolling around the carpet to tearing apart the living room. This frustrating time is reflected in the average age of dogs surrendered to animal shelters; 8 months to 2 years old. While it may seem impossible to remain calm when your dog is bolting through your neighbors yards and teasing their dogs, its the best thing you can do. Remain patient and go back to the basics.

Ubu is just over a year old and brilliantly displaying how disorderly he can be. One day he was healing off leash on trails with us and the next he was bolting through the woods playing tag with us...for hours. A few months ago he started chewing and we have since then tossed out all of his toys except a soccer ball and a nylabone. My girlfriend and I pride ourselves as being high energy outdoor enthusiasts, but even Ubu outruns us everyday. In the midst of hurricane Ubu it is challenging to embody calm assertive energy. Always look to other members of the pack for support, take a few breaths and look at the situation as a learning experience. Instead of introducing new training techniques to a seemingly unruly dog, go back to the basics. Set you and your dog up for success by coming back to simply commands like sit, stay or heal. Keep in mind your dog lives in the moment and despite his destructive rant with a box-spring the day before, today is a new day.

In the calm of the storm, Ubu often surprised us with progress. Just before Ubu’s 1st birthday we took a trip up north to Lake Placid, NY for a weekend of hiking, camping and kayaking. Even though Ubu would walk in the water up to his waist, he was still very cautious about proceeding into deeper water. After a long bike ride I stopped at a pond and tossed a few sticks in the water for Ubu to fetch. Each time I threw the stick further and at one point Ubu kept going and started swimming! Since then, Ubu avidly retrieves his dummy in any body of water. Feeling confident about Ubu’s progress we decided to take Ubu kayaking with us. To our surprise he jumped right into the kayak and we took off. Once we hit the middle of the lake he decided he wanted to jump out and then decided to climb back into the kayak. From there he decided the bow of the boat was more comfortable for cruising.

Needless to say, raising a dog from 8 weeks of age through adolescence is both challenging and rewarding. Right now we are looking forward to Ubu’s 3rd birthday and in the meantime we make sure he gets more than enough exercise and enforce his boundaries.  

Roll Over

Anyone who has met Ubu they know that he loves to do tricks, especially roll over and play dead.  Today I would like to teach you roll over.  Typically these tricks are easier to teach to your dog when they are a puppy but a dog of any age can learn new tricks.  Back when Ubu was just a few months old I was interested in teaching him to roll over, so I did the first thing that I typically do when I have a question; I Googled it.  One of the first results was a YouTube video that was titled “Dog Tricks : Roll Over Dog Trick”.  In this video dog trainer Kim Amatucci gives a great explanation on how to teach your dog to roll over. Instead of explaining it through writing, take a look at the video below presented by a professional! 

Finally here is a video of Ubu showing off his trick.

Exercise, Discipline Then Affection

Not having grown up with dogs the idea of training a puppy seemed daunting and tiresome, which I came to find out was a fairly accurate assumption. After the thrill of experiencing 100 things in 100 days with Ubu had passed, the need for correcting his “cute” habits became apparent. In speaking with fellow dog owners, almost everyone would drop the Dog Whisperer’s name, Cesar Millan. Shrugging it off like it was just another dog trainer with a television show, my girlfriend and I never even caught an episode much less picked up one of his books. That is until Ubu stopped letting us cut his nails and my girlfriend came home from work one day gabbing about how a it was our energy and mindset, a tired dog is a good dog, on and on it went. I wasn’t sold on Dog Whispering just yet, but after the first few chapters of Cesar’s Way my perspective on not just dog training, but on my overall relationship with my dog changed.

A Tired Dog is a Good Dog

Cesar Millan came to the US from Mexico with the goal of becoming a dog trainer. After experiencing and observing how dogs as family pets fit into the American lifestyle, his career path changed to focus more on dog psychology. As the opening line of his television show, The Dog Whisperer states, “I train people and rehabilitate dogs.” Through his books and his television show, Cesar has enabled dog owners throughout the world to understand the importance of being a pack leader and provided them with tools to do so. From this, not only is the dog able to become balanced, but the family or pack is able to experience balance as well.

Within the first days of reading Cesar’s Way I began to catch on to Cesar’s techniques that would act as the foundation in my ever growing relationship with Ubu. The three that I found the most important include:

1. Calm assertive energy
2. No eyes, ears, touch (when meeting a dog)
3. Exercise, dicipline then affection

Before diving into Cesar’s theories and techniques, Cesar’s Way  first breaks down the origin of the modern day canine in an effort to reiterate to humans that dogs do not communicate, learn or interact the same way that humans do with one another. Once we can wrap our heads around the fact that the family dog is not a child but instead a dog, your pack will begin to experience balance.
Unlike humans, dogs strongest sense in their scent along with energy. If you are working with your dog after a long day at work you feel stressed and short tempered, your dog will reflect your energy. In nature, dogs live in packs and follow the lead of a single pack leader. The pack leader embraces clam assertive energy and the members of the pack respond with calm submissive energy. In turn, it is important to create this environment in your own home with your pack (family).
When meeting a dog either for the first time or your own dog when you walk in from work, keep in mind the sense that dogs use to communicate and calm assertive energy. Continue to walk forward using the technique, no eye contact, no talking and no touch. Dogs will immediately begin to respect you as a pack leader and look to you for direction.
Before launching into a training routine with your dog make sure you are practicing calm assertive energy and your dog is well exercised. Practice this mantra; exercise, discipline then affection. It is a dogs nature to work for food and affection and by practicing this routine, you are creating more situations for you dog to see you and respect you as the pack leader! 

Exercise at the Ski Hill

Check out  Dog Whisperer videos on YouTube for more examples:

http://www.youtube.com/show?p=ygVF8eWNrAk&tracker=show6

100 Things in 100 Days

My girlfriend and her mother drove 4 hours north to a town just outside of the Adirondack Mountains to pick up our new puppy, Ubu. In the midst of all the excitement my girlfriend left his travel crate at home and purchased all of his new puppy accessories (leash, collar, toys) a few sizes too big for him. Smiling at my girlfriends fluster, the breeder put together a makeshift bed for Ubu with a towel from the litters kennel and snapped a green cat collar around his neck. With the scent of his mother close to him and a 4 hour drive to his new home, Ubu was beginning his life with us.

So now what? Aside from cuddling and friends visiting to play with our new puppy, what were the next steps? In addition to purchasing size appropriate toys and a leash for Ubu, we also picked up a copy of Animal Planets, Puppy Training and Care book. A short read with real life examples and pictures, we found Animal Planets, Puppy Training and Care book extremely helpful. Aside from the general puppy prepping, food basics, vaccinations, grooming and emergency care, the text also stressed the importance of your puppies first 10 weeks of existing in a human’s world. From hairdryers to car rides and harnesses to sweaters, these are all unnatural to the canine species.  Without exposure and socialization to various elements, your jovial puppy may grow to be an unbalanced dog. So what was next? Take your dog everywhere with you and do everything with him; 100 things in 100 days.

It is important to note that 100 things in 100 days means just that and not 100 things in 1 day! Start small and remember that less is more. Although our goal is to expose the dog to various sounds, textures, smells and experiences it is critical that you don’t cross the fine line and overwhelm your dog. During Ubu’s first few days in our home we put child gates up and restricted his access to our kitchen. In addition, Ubu slept in his crate, not in our bed and continues to sleep in his crate to this day. When tackling the 100 in 100 list, remember that exposing your new puppy to other dogs and public environments could be detrimental to its health depending on where he/she is at in his vaccination regimen. Maintain an open dialogue with the breeder and the dogs Veterinarian to best understand what is healthy for your dog. With that being said, after a week of acclimating we took Ubu to Millersport Small Animal Clinic in Getzville, NY for a second round of shots and general physical. There we learned that getting your puppy used to people touching his paws, ears, hind legs and teeth on a daily basis is a great way to make him feel comfortable during the grooming process. Day 8, 9, 10; trim toes, poke ears with cotton swab, stick fingers in mouth to feel teeth.     

During this process it is It is unnatural for humans not to revert to our nurturing, maternal/paternal instincts and begin coddling in puppies when they feel scared or uncomfortable, but after reading Cesar Millan’s book, How to Raise the Perfect Dog, we learned a lot about dogs as animals and how to socialize a puppy leveraging dog psychology. For example, your dog won’t always be thrilled about new experiences such as kayaking or meeting large dogs. As the pack leader in these situations it is important to remain calm in assertive so that your puppy will learn to trust you. Instead of cooing, “it’s okay cutie” to your dog, remain calm and keep moving your puppy forward through the exercise.  

Both training and socialization are critical components of your puppy’s development. After completing 100 things in 100 days, repeat. Continue to nurture your dogs disposition by constant socialization. After all, following puppy hood is adolescence in which they seem to forget everything they learned…


A snapshot of Ubu’s 100 things in 100 days

Meeting my girlfriends parents dog, Tucker

Wanting to jump out of the Kayak

At the farmers market

Playing in a bocce ball tournament

Getting used to harness

Meeting the girlfriends parents

Meeting a bear, I mean Newton the Newfie

Sleeping...

Picking Ubu

Nobody said it was going to be easy....

And it wasn't.  Ubu, a one year old Brittany Spaniel has been apart of my family since he was 8 weeks old.  At times he has drove me crazy but he makes up for it with all the great times we have together.  My girlfriend had wanted to get a dog for a while, she had always grown up with dogs and was used to them always being around.  I had different feeling about it as I had not had dogs growing up.

So we started to look into it and went to the SPCA and look at dogs online.  There were some we liked and some we didn't but nothing that really got us too excited.  We also did a lot of research online trying to find the right breed.  We took quizes like Animal Planet Dog Breed Selector and the Dog Breed Info Center Search.  Every time the search results were very similar with various breeds of retriever, setter and spaniels.  One morning we were out for a run and we ran by a beautiful Brittany Spaniel who was just hanging out in the drive way off leash.  When we ran by a second time we decided to stop and say hi, at that moment we decided to look for a Brittany.

A couple weeks later we found a breeder who had just had a litter of Brittany puppies.  We went and visited them and instantly feel in love with who would become Ubu.  If you are interested in Brittany Spaniels check out Animal Planets Dog Profile, the Brittany Wikipedia page or check out the video below.