Off the Leash Crazy

She’s cute, she’s cuddly, she’s smart and she’s rude, under socialized and under exercised. The pup I counted down the days to bringing home is more than a handful she’s off the rails. Not to sound cliché, but she puts Marley of Marley and Me to shame, though right now she is perfect. She’s asleep in her crate. 

The SPCA spayed her last Wednesday so her exercise options have been limited to mental exercise i.e. training and walks, even those have been limited because she is pulling. The most pressing problem behavior is she thinks my entire family is a chew toy. This behavior needs to go or she will never have the opportunity to hang out with my school-age daycare children. First order of business is learning the “Off” command as well as reintroducing or introducing from what I can tell, basic training. Since last Thursday, all four humans are able to get her to sit on command and two of us are able to get her to lie down and one of us, me is able to get her to follow the off command. I am no longer a chew toy.

She has no clue how to interact with my older dog. She ignores Josie’s cues that her behavior is inappropriate. Working with a trainer is in our near future, but first we have to get rid of the urinary tract infection and parasites, both common ailments for shelter dogs. My family and I have already started the clicker training. I’m using the clicker because it in my opinion helps with marking the behavior I want to see more quickly and efficiently. In less than a day we had her responding to the off command and sitting with a hand signal as well as the command to sit. Inadvertently I created a hand signal for off. Holding my hand up and flicking my hand back and forth. Hard to describe, but if you’ve ever shoed your kid away, you probably know the gesture I am talking about. The signal works, she gets off whatever she is attempting to get on.

Since physical exercise is still a few days away, we will challenge her mind and make her work for all of her food. Hello stuffed Kong’s, hide n seek for her food and tons of basic training with lots of puppy pushups, sit, down, sit, down and so on. Today we fit her with an Easy Walk Harness and work on loose leash walk to burn some of that pent up energy.

Until next time, Woof!