Doxie News

Duuuude! I have been working so hard to get this done. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been slaving. And I was all into doing the site in Drupal instead of Wordpress because of some of the interesting features Drupal has. I had the site up, and themed, after days of work. I mean days like up ’til midnight, it’s been crazy. Drupal theming is a trip and configuring the website is, well, an adventure. Anyway, then I realized Drupal was just not going to work out. Drupal is too green and the risks were too great. So just when I should have been finished I started all over again.

I quickly took the site down so that Google wouldn’t index the pages. Then I plopped (that’s the technical term) a Wordpress site up there and copied the content over manually. Then I spent I don’t know how many days developing a theme. So anyway, I just tore apart Wordpress’s default theme, got it down to a minimum, reconfigured and replaced almost all the HTML, and basically started from scratch. Yesterday sometime I was down to this, web people will know what I mean.

*
{
    margin: 0px;
    padding: 0px;
}

And it was full speed from there. I’m a little hyper because I’ve been working like mad. Anyway, the site is up. I hope you enjoy it.

They smelled Kody and he let them, then later Kody snuck a few sniffs himself. He was acting very good for a small dog around big dogs. Later Kody wanted them to play with him but they were not that interested. He was trying to taunt Lola while she was resting on the couch and she was not having it. She gently let him know to back off and he did.

Today gave me a real good feeling about Kody and other dogs. I had been a bit concerned, but I think it’s just that he needs time to warm up to the idea, and there can be no leashes involved, which is pretty much what pro trainers say.

I’ve learned that all this stuff just takes lots of repetition and time. We learned “stay” in the last session and haven’t even started on that yet. He already knows “wait” and stay is only mildly different from that. And we need to do some remedial indoor practice on “sit”, “down”, and “stand”. He usually gets those right, but sometimes when distracted he’ll mix them up and doesn’t do “stand” very well at all. But I know it will be easy enough to do.

I now feel horribly guilty about my Cesar Millan phase. As a start to learn about dogs and how to think about them, he’s great. But I would advise no one to use his methods. But then with all the warnings on the show he doesn’t either, apparently. Trying to take Kody on long walks at such a young age was a total mistake. That’s way too much input for a dog who hasn’t even been alive very long. And the leash tugging just made him angry. Now we don’t go very far at all, but he can be successful and happy, and I’m happy too. He barks less at people and dogs. He gets to sniff around a lot more and when I can see he really wants to, I just let him. In time he will be used to the world enough that simple bushes and grass and ducks won’t distract him from me, but for now, those things are sometimes still fascinating. He’s happy. I’m happy. And those were my training goals.

If you have not done training with your dog, I highly recommend Riverdog. If you already think your dog is well behaved, the you’re going to be astounded after Riverdog.

Kody is very high energy. He has a hard time sitting still if not told to do so. But when asked to wait, he does it better than any of the other dogs. We practice that all the time, though. He waits for just about everything at home. I was able to get him to wait while outside while I walked all the way around him. He also waited through me jumping, fake sneezing, and just doing wacky stuff. It was awesome.

He also is getting much better at “right here” which is kind of like heel but not quite as serious (heel means something very specific in advanced training, so we don’t use that word). It’s the command we use to get them to walk on a loose leash. Kody had a lot of times where he was doing the right thing and walking next to me, but only with a treat to lure him. But that’s good progress.

We also did exercises for what to do when your dog passes another dog in public. All sorts of ways to distract them, including a little dance where you lure them with a treat, spin in front of them to switch sides and finally give them the treat you lured them with when they are on the other side of you. It sounds confusing, but it’s cool, it will amaze the other dog owners! Kody did really well, the other dogs were more distracted than he was. I’m starting to see that a lot of the things I’ve done are really paying off. With Kody it takes longer to see results because of his energy, but he’s started to pass up the other dogs in many ways, which feels really good.

My favorite dog food:

• What happened to week 3?
• Kody may go to a week long training program.
• And sign up for the second class of group training.
• Making training really fun is key.

So what happened to week 3? Well, we got to training and I let Kody out of the car. He proceeded to bark like a mad dog. So much so that I really couldn’t take it. I had to just put him back in the car and leave. I was so frustrated.

After I got home and calmed down I sent them an email telling them what had happened and asked for help. So this week I had an hour session before the regular group class. Kody didn’t bark so much today, unfortunately. We had to tempt him with another dog, and even then he didn’t bark until the other dog did. But it was enough for me to learn a couple of things.

We talked about getting him into a more intensive class. Kody is absolutely great at the training for sit, down, and that stuff. But he has a couple of issues. One, Kody is not comfortable around other dogs. This would be a week of him going every day, all day to training. He would be trained by experts and even have off leash time with other dogs in the safest possible environment. Ironically, kind of like Cesar Millan’s Dog Psychology Center. The goals of this would be to help me with loose leash since he’s so energetic and primarily to help him get comfortable with other dogs. Success would be being able to go to the dachshund meetups with him.

The problems I’ve had trying to get Kody used to other dogs center around my not being able to control the other dogs. So I may have three good experiences, but then it just takes one dog off leash to ruin it.

Tonight in class we started working on come here. And the handouts we got talked about how come here and loose leash walking require that you be more interesting than the dog’s environment. So just now when I wanted Kody to wake up real quick for his final potty of the night I went over to the leash and just started trying to interest him. I totally got him to come over by just making fun sounds and getting him interested. I realized that I’ve been so clinical about everything when it comes to walking and training. Down to business. But him thinking I’m more fun makes everything better. I mean, I’m fun at play time, but I hadn’t been at walk time and so he was interested in just about everything else but me. Cesar punishes (albeit gently) for that, but if they just want to be around you, they’re much easier to train.

• Kody doesn’t bark as much, more excited for training.
• Class moves fast, is awesome.
• Learned new technique for loose leash walking.
• Cesar Millan doesn’t give practical solutions.
• Kody’s going to be a well trained dog.

Tonight was our second week of training and it was kind of awesome. Kody was a lot calmer going in than last week and was more excited than scared. The trainer tried to do an example with Kody but he was a little nervous and just wanted to come back to me. Next time I’ll try to have her spend some time with him before class.

I like this class because they don’t waste time. They basically teach you the techniques and you do the work at home. We did a few exercises there, but most of it will be more time intensive training that wouldn’t be practical there anyway.

I was surprised I was the only one making my dog wait for food. I think others are free feeding because they claimed their dogs weren’t that excited about food. Um, if your dog is getting fed once or twice a day they will be at least relatively excited for food. Kody is very excited for his first meal, but that one is cooked by me. At Kody’s second meal of dry food, he may not be urgently wanting food but he always comes over and is excited for the presentation enough to sit for it.

We learned a lot tonight, but most importantly we learned loose leash training. I was hoping it would be a technique I hadn’t seen and it was. It’s also very likely to work because it involves luring with food. It will take plenty of work but should also be fun. And it definitely won’t cause tantrums.

One interesting thing they covered is to make your dog “work” for all the things he likes. Like he should sit or something before getting a new toy, or before hugs and kisses, before play, or whatever. This is what the Cesar Millan says, too. But Cesar claims not to train, and without training I’m not sure what the dog would do each time. Just be calm submissive? And how would you communicate this to him? This is one of the many ways Cesar leaves his readers/watchers without enough information to make his advice practical or totally effective.

As I get more into this, I’m learning in general how to train and live with my dog better. I thought I knew so much going in, but I’m happy to say I’m learning a ton and stuff I haven’t read or seen on TV at all. I’m a little surprised by that actually. Anyway, I think that Kody’s going to end up being an incredibly well trained dog, which to be honest wasn’t exactly my goal.

The other dogs were about the same as Kody, whining and trying to jump up on their owners. Kody was probably actually calmer than the other dogs. They all started whining after just sitting for the first 20 minutes or so.

We learned sit, down, and stand. Kody did well, I think all the dogs did. Their method answered one of my main questions which was how to go from down to sit effectively. And stand was new, but Kody did great. I think he maybe actually did better than the other dogs at the actual exercises because I had worked with him so much before. Everything just worked.

I’m watching this show called The Greatest American Dog. It’s good except they’ve chosen over half the people that are only mediocre at training their dogs. If they really wanted obedient dogs and knowledgeable owners they could have easily found them. One woman was doing stuff wrong that I learned tonight in my first class. They seem to do a lot of things wrong. And some of them get overly frustrated either yelling at their dog or just losing control. I’m glad I saw it before going to class because all I knew was I didn’t want to act like those people at all. (And I didn’t.)

The show also features Victoria Stilwell who is awesome.

The only time he barked is when we experimented with having him off leash around another dog. He only barked when the dog got close. They just said to let him get it out which he did in about thirty seconds. It was nervous/excited barking, not snarling or something. Then he was a mix of curious and sitting at my feet for protection, but not scared really. He didn’t introduce himself to the other dog, though.

Here’s where things get weird. Because in the 5 minutes or so that he was there he didn’t introduce himself to the dog, the trainer decided he was un-socialized around dogs. Meaning in the trainers words “he wouldn’t have a lot of doggie friends.” But he did a play posture at one point but they weren’t paying attention when he did. I think he was just nervous, the other dog was small, but still twice his size. And I can’t believe after all the going to the gym every day and playing that he did with his brother and all the socializing behavior they did (smelling crotch, lifting leg to allow other to smell crotch, smelling butt, aren’t dogs wonderful) that he isn’t socialized to dogs. These dogs are small and have a hard time getting used to bigger dogs. But Kody walks by a big dog every time we go to the gym and is fine.

Well, I hope I’m right. She is a trainer, but I don’t think they have enough evidence for what they say. And it made me so upset that I couldn’t sleep and I searched the internet for any sign of truth that dogs that didn’t have major diverse dog interaction when they were small had this type of thing happen. It’s nowhere. The dog whisperer talks about socialization, but never says an un-socialized dog can’t be socialized. In fact, his whole schtick is about doing just that. And I just have a very hard time believing that my dog ending up so calm so quick is not socialized. That’s ridiculous.

It was very upsetting to me because as you all know I tried so hard to give Kody everything he needed and tons of bonus stuff. And the idea that I would have messed up on this kills me with guilt. But my vet even recommended he stay away from unknown dogs until all shots were completed which would have been well after the 8-16 weeks socialization phase. I would think if there was some super important thing someone would have told me.

Anyway, as we were walking out to the car we passed two big dogs. Kody didn’t even act scared. Even the trainer said, “Wow, he didn’t seem to mind them.” The point is, 15 minutes around other dogs and Kody is calm. Socialize this!

On a bright note, I was very impressed. Aside from the fact that I think that one opinion is wrong, I really like the people and the place. So Kody and I are going in for Obedience 101 every week. I’m really looking forward to him getting used to other dogs in a safe environment. And I hope, and I bet that after a while, Kody will get comfortable and end up playing with some of them.