You want me to what? Get in there? Are you nuts…? Kenai, 30 wks old
Thursday was categorically an off day for Kenai, from his recall skills going AWOL, to his brother’s “I bite thee” games unZipping little big man’s sense of decorum. BB got himself snatched up by ample neck skin and shaken seasick. Didn’t hurt him at all, but it was made abundantly clear big brother was not in the mood to be tolerant. BB the Ignorant didn’t seem to get the point, so I was on my toes sending the middleweights to their respective corners of the kitchen and living room most of the day.
Needless to say, Kenai’s outings to the doctor with me and the café in the evening were not glowing successes. He was whiney and uncooperative. The low pressure system sitting on top of us turend out to be the culprit. My 7 ½ month old puppy was stiff legging around like an old fart, the knees and hocks of his hind legs hot and sore.
Thankfully I’d found a fantastic topical pain reliever a few years back and he would feel better enough to want to play for awhile. It’s called Traumeel, and there’s nothing on the market that even comes close to it’s effectiveness. No burn, no stink, no heat, no cold sensations, just heavenly relief.
So irritable Kenai returned to his gentle self after his liniment treatments, though hardly enthusiastic to go places. I’ll take gentle, and cut him slack on the outings: all I asked of him was to walk nicely, don’t pull the leash, and stay out of the doctor’s way. He lasted just 10 minutes in the restaurant, too uncomfortable to hold a down stay on a hard floor. That’s okay, my love. I understand. Next time.
Friday the long legs were not so sore, but his recall skills were still sadly mislaid. This is not good. He flat refused to come, let alone come heel, leave it, or dammit either. Dammit is one of those unofficial ‘commands’ that slips out from time to time despite my best efforts. Dammit means your beautiful brown bum is about to be stuffed and mounted on a wall if you don’t STOP IT RIGHT NOW. Not even Dammit broke whatever spell had him turned sideways. Bad hair day it was not, that was shades of defiant.
Kenai’s prickly behavior continued all day, with his brother BB mostly. It came to a screeching halt when he had the #$@# to nip my lip while breaking up the snippy snappies over the expen. I don’t know that he meant to get me, but enough was by God enough. Not a word was said, either. I just grabbed him up and bit down on his muzzle with a growl warning of imminent death. He wilted and his brother cried from 2 feet away. That was the end of the teeth for the rest of the day, at least from him.
Having re-established some boundaries, he settled himself down, maybe pouting just a tiny bit. Peace was returned, and the nasty puppy garbage was gone. He didn’t even protest while I clipped and filed his front toenails. He often tries to pull a foot away, until I tell him he’s going to hold still. Not a twitch this time. I left his back feet alone, for another day when he’s more comfortable. He was a good boy about the front ones.
By Friday evening, BB’s rambunctiousness was getting on my nerves too. Mom hadn’t taken him out for exercise at all, so you take a guess at how wound up he was. I broke down and ran his bent puppy bottoms all over 2 acres, hot or not. Kenai has a fit when I take BB out instead of him until Mom stands on him about it. And since my 2 year old niece was here since Thursday night, I gave him a ham bone to gnaw. Wouldn’t want him to bump into Em on his way by between the door and the window.
Give Slobber Lips a real bone with meat on it, and he doesn’t get up. He’s like a tiger on a carcass—nothing short of rampaging elephants will move him. I take it from him when I come back in, considering he can remove over an inch in 15 minutes when he’s really perturbed. He’s not as likely to get his bowels plugged up with bone chips as his little bro did, but I don’t want to find out how much it takes.
One of the distinctive things about Kenai is what I call his ‘sergeant stripes’. His front legs have areas where the hair grows in slightly different directions, creating subtle stripes where the skin shows. Fitting his understated nature, you have to be looking closely to notice them unless they’re pointed out. He’s my little non-com, and occasionally my little nin-compuppy.
Saturday morning was a trip to the puppy store for food. He pulled. So back to the car for the gentle leader, and whoopee the pulling stopped. That store is across from a large shopping mall, and I got a wild hair… into the mall we went, bold as all brass wearing a bright red vest. It wasn’t too busy, so we had the chance to work with a little less distraction than he’ll get at Christmas time. Boy did I give Kenai a workout!
He had to be on his toes and paying attention, because I didn’t give him time to get weird about all the smells and sounds. Wrecked my legs, but it was worth it!!We practiced slow, left, right, stop, sit, down, leave it and all the basics, but I introduced a new concept too: down one step and stop. He will use that during the future bracing work when he’s done growing.
I made sure to relax my neck muscles, head up and shoulders back, and just keep going. Once I stopped and waited him out because he was determined to sit sideways, but other than that, little mister non-com marched like a trooper! He wanted to rubberneck, he wanted to shy from passersby and noise, he wanted to go get attention but we were on the march and he didn’t have the chance.
One thing I’ve fully settled in my head is that there’s no more attention from people in public—not taking off the vest anymore. It seems to be confusing him, why sometimes he gets petting and other times, most of the time, he doesn’t. If someone is showing interest, I need to just keep walking. I did find a way to deal with the “approachers”, the kindly folks who ask if they might pet him.
This is an unusual sort of thing to me, the “no you can’t pet my dog” thing, and a total 180 from my previous dogs. So I’ve been kind of struggling with how to accomplish it so it’s is a learning experience and a good one for all of us. Okay, call it a good southern upbringing, but I have to be really angry get curt, let alone rude to someone. Still, I need to stop the petting while vested.
If I’m at a counter or something where I cannot keep moving past, I can correct Kenai for breaking his sit or down, and that almost always gets an apology. Then I can say, ‘no actually, it’s a good thing, because part of his training is to not respond when someone approaches him. He wouldn’t get to learn that if no one approached, right?” It’s tough for puppies to learn to ignore people. Life is hard when you’re a working stiff!! Woof woof.
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[...] David C. wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThis is an unusual sort of thing to me, the “no you can’t pet my dog” thing, and a total 180 from my previous dogs. So I’ve been kind of struggling with how to accomplish it so it’s is a learning experience and a good one for all of us. … [...]