Kenai, 40 weeks old, waiting for his stick to fly!

This pic is from Kenai’s early morning run, out in the dew and brisk air just as the sun was coming up. I’m sorry it’s blurry, my hands have tremors again, oh but it’s still a gorgeous shape. Shame his eyes didn’t show up too well–he was having himself a blast!

There isn’t much by way of outings and training to report on this week. His legs are sore, and I’m fighting the monsters so to speak. We’ll pick back up when we’re feeling a bit better. My brother will be gone (she promised) no later than next weekend, so I’ll be getting my health improved soon.

We still have home obedience to perfect, less than halfway through his puppy hood. Rarely is there “nothing” to work on when you’ve got a puppy! From walking on a leash, to leaving the tempting slippers alone.

The blog stats show tons of search engines with questions about leash walking. Isn’t it odd that something as simple as going for a walk with your buddy can actually be tremendously complicated? There’s a play between what you’re feeling, what the dog is feeling, shifting and changing with every new sight and sound. A dog that walks perfectly on one block pulls on the next!

It seems every trainer, be it professional or average dog owner, has their own method of getting to that loose leash hike. Beneath all the tips and techniques is the veiled heart of the matter: the underlying relationship between you and your pup. Whatever kinks in that hose are present at home, are exascerbated in a higher stimulant environment.

Take Kenai the Obstreperous-About-Field-Recall for example: this quiet giant responds to hand signals when we are upstairs in my bedroom, when we are eating out at the cafe, and is almost automatic about coming to stand where I can put my hand on his shoulders to get up. But he hits that high grass, and our relationship changes. I’m still figuring out why, 10 months after he was born!

Now that he’s getting close to adolescence, I’m dealing with moments where he wants to test the boundaries again. I have to be more firm than ever before. Growing up! Like a human teenager, he’s looking for his place in his world, wondering if he can change it.

That dynamic of leadership isn’t confined to squirrelly moments. When a dog senses a weakness in your approach to say, the block where the charging dog lives, they respond to it by either becoming anxious or becoming stronger. When a dog is anxious about THAT aisle at the pet store, your calm unconcern as you march through it without stopping to be unsure, will be reassuring more often than not.

Times that I’m uncomfortable about whether or not I’ll make it to the bench to rest, I find Kenai’s shoulders walking just a touch ahead of me–he’s the confident one at that moment. It’s a fluid and unending dance between the inherent instincts of two different species…

Kenai began his puppy life as a boy that didn’t really need any training to confidently toddle along beside me wherever I was. The severity of his grief about his missing brother two months later meant he had to relearn how to heel from the ground up. Living creatures change, moment to moment, experience to experience.

Kenai’s brother BB lives in a clash between Mom’s not wanting to be bothered unless she’s in the mood, and his own pushy insecure demands for attention. They both are highly reactive, and neither is willing to give! Kenai can’t wait to hop in the car, and often can’t speed up getting out of the car at home.

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I love to pry into the emotional philosophy end of things, but I guess that doesn’t always help when you just want your pup to stop pulling on the leash… let’s see if I can be more practical:

EXCITED DOGS: Kenai still has that tendency to become excited, absorbed in an environment, and do what he pleases. For the distractable dog that isn’t anxious or fearful, the best remedy is exercise before a walk. Wear the little lovable beastie out before you go for a walk. Fetch, frisbee, swimming, treadmills, jogging, bicycling, you name it as long as it is tiring.

When they start prancing and pulling on your walk together, pick up the pace to the point that the dog doesn’t know which way you’re going or when you’re going there! They have to pay attention to you when you are on a secret mission, marching like a soldier.

The days I do that to an excited Kenai, (occasionally my legs are in good shape), he doesn’t have an opportunity to fixate on that marvelous kid playing, let alone have the chance to go join him! Once he’s good and tired, and been through an environment at a fast clip, then I can demand he sit still while I look at something and get it.

NERVOUS DOGS: Some pups are not confident, fearful of things, anxious about strangers, or just don’t like this place or that. Mildly timid dogs just need some fun exercise, and calming down time to adjust before you ask them to trot along beside you right into the park. Waiting in a parking lot or asking your friend to quietly ignore your pup until she comes up to them is sometimes enough.

More fearful dogs need a gradual and controlled exposure to what frightens them, with either your relaxed nonchalance to reassure them, or your happy curiosity to encourage a little bravery. Nervous dogs need to trust you to protect them as well as love them before they can let go of anxiety. Confidence on your part will work wonders, once you find that “sweet spot” of soft authority they can relax around.

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It seems there are more problems these days between dogs and people. Maybe it’s just more easily seen. I don’t know. But the relationship between human and canine has been very much altered, from a working dog with a purpose to an idle companion. Once we expected dogs to earn their keep, and now we expect them to make us feel better.

Perhaps we’re expecting too much of them. I’ve often wondered that with Kenai, who has to live with my anxiety problems, and never really being without my presence. I think there is these days a lot of friction between a dog’s instinctive need for a quiet, stable leader and our tendency towards emotional neediness.

We’ve made our lives terribly stressful, so insanely busy multi-tasking, so worried about our finances, so driven to get-r-done so we can get-r-done with several more things. We do, and dogs be. Maybe we could do a little less and be a little more?