Raising a puppy is lot of work--and I mean--A LOT OF WORK. They're cute and all but no one ever tells you that they're basically the unholy union of an infant and a toddler (until now so you're welcome). They wake up early with more energy than should be legal, they confuse the carpet for grass and they teethe, leaving you looking as if you've gotten into a street fight with a badger. Yeah, that's right, a badger.
It's a lot, but I can also tell you it's wonderful, rewarding and incredibly fun so I thought I would share my wisdom. I got my dog Jasper in May of 2017. He was 8 weeks old and I fell in love. He's almost a year old now, and I can happily say he's a happy, well-behaved pupper.
***DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A CERTIFIED DOG TRAINER. THESE ARE MY EXPERIENCES SPECIFIC TO MY DOG. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS CONSULT A PROFESSIONAL***
These are the four main things I've learned to keep in mind while living with, and raising Jasper in order to harness the wonderfully smart pupper I know he is.
Communication: This one is entirely from watching almost every Zak George video ever made. Dogs have been bred to work with humans which basically means your dog is predisposed to listen to you (reassuring right?). The catch is, you have to make sure they understand what you're asking. Now, there are obviously times where you're purposefully building communication--but it's always happening. They're always watching you, your behavior, and correlating it with their own, and you're doing the same the thing. It's how you get to know each other.
What this helped me to do was think of him more as child than a dog (which sounds strange but just stay with me here). It helped to me adjust my expectations. Instead of looking to have a dog that just listened to me--I wanted to have a dog that understood me. So what I expect from Jasper is not that he does everything perfect 100% of the time, but that he understands. While I want him to walk away from the thing I asked him to leave, I'm ok that he just moved his head and isn't smelling it anymore. I just want him to try--to know his attempts are valued, even if they're not everything I had hoped, because what I've found is that encourages him to try even harder next time.
Exercise: This one is like common sense but it's something I struggle with sometimes. Walking outside where the people are is not really the dream for me, but the less excess energy your dog has, the more malleable they're going to be. This is more than just walking, running, or playing fetch--it's also playing games with them, training them--exercising their minds. If they're getting physical exercise and problem solving on a regular basis they're going to have less energy to sit around and think of how much of a running start they'd need to jump over the gate to get to that cat box.
There are game tutorials all over YouTube, but something I do on a daily basis that kind of hits on this (and every time I do it I just know I'm creating a monster so I really don't recommend it) is that whenever we're playing fetch and my terrible aim lands the toy is some weird place that's not necessarily easy but possible for him to get to--I let him get it. He always looks to me to see, but once I nod him on he knows he can get it and he has to figure it out. Sometimes he can't so I go get it, but most of the time he does and he always looks so proud of himself after. There's nothing like that prance back. It's adorable.
Patience: Now this one is super obvious but it's also super hard. Everyone, including dogs, learn at their own pace. Anyone else remember in school when you just weren't getting something for some reason, like it just wasn't clicking, and you could tell your teacher was secretly thinking "Oh my god you're stupid" and then you just gave up? I do. Math was not, and will never be, my friend. Sometimes it's hard to take a deep breath and walk them through something you've gone over. For Jasper, potty training is the best example I can think of and something that tested me the most. He took FOREVER. It got to the point where I thought it was never going to end. I live in an apartment so we didn't have time to go all the way downstairs sometimes, so we used pee pads and hot damn this child could NOT figure out how to pee on the pad all the way. It was always on the edge and always leaked off. No matter how many times I put him in center, no matter how many opportunities I gave him to go outside he just didn't like it. He wanted to go inside half on the pad, half off. I thought I was going to clean up after him everyday for the rest of forever (P.S. Let's all take a moment to mourn the spot bot that DIED--that just said life is too short and crapped out--yeah that happened).
But all I could do was give him the opportunity to go outside. Getting mad, or making it a negative experience wasn't going to accomplish anything positive--so all I could do was keep on keepin' on, and it was hard. Not to say I wasn't disappointed and he didn't pick up on it because I'm sure he could sense my soul die a little every time we came back from outside only for him to rush to a pee pad, but I didn't make it a thing, and eventually he got the hang of it and I'm proud to say we're good now.
Take Responsibility: This is important because you have to remember that they're a dog, and you're a human. Your dog isn't misbehaving because they enjoy watching you squirm (even if it feels that way sometimes I promise that's not the case). If they're not listening to you that means you're having a communication issue.
When Jasper isn't behaving I try to sort out why, and I ask myself 3 questions:
Have we done enough practice?
Was this really important to me?
What am I making rewarding?
Sometimes I realize I'm expecting too much, too soon. If we haven't done enough training, it means he hasn't had time to generalize that request to that particular situation. That doesn't mean I let it go, but it means I have to take a step back, show him what I mean, and remind him.
Sometimes I realize that a command just really isn't that important to me so I'm not training him properly solely because I don't care. For me, it was jumping. I didn't, and still don't, really care if he jumps on me. I just don't. So, when I was teaching him not to jump I was inconsistent, and, lo' and behold, he wasn't getting it. Of course the bigger he got (he's nearly 70 pounds) I was getting a little concerned (only because not everyone is going to appreciate 70 pounds of Jasper jumping at their face to say hello), so I had to re-evaluate my approach. I changed the way I thought about it. I thought of it more as a trick he could do sometimes rather than something he had to do all time, and taught him "four paws". He still has trouble when he's super excited (which goes for most things), but we're working on it and he's making good progress. I just had to realize I wasn't committed to that command, which was on me.
Finally, I have to look at what's rewarding to him in that particular situation, because obviously it's not listening to me. If I've gone through everything else and he's still not behaving I have to ask why isn't this rewarding to him? A big example of this for Jasper was Time Out. When he was little, and being unreasonable, I would put him in the pen in the kitchen. Now, looking back, I realize I should have realized this was not the way to go about this because the two minutes recommended did nothing. He laughed at two minutes. He needed 15-20 to detox his brain of naughty thoughts. So I wasn't really reading that signal, but hey, we can't win 'em all. Anyway, as mentioned, Jasper is 70 pounds--so, when he's being unreasonably bad, is he willingly going to just go in time out because it's the right thing to do? *insert maniacal laughter here* Fuck no. Of course not. So, I'd be trying to pick him, he'd be trying to bite between bouts of running around the coffee table like a demon. It took me weeks to realize that that whole production was rewarding to him. For him, it was like extra special play time. It was keep away without the hassle of remembering the toy. He was having a ball while I was losing my mind trying not to cry wondering where I'd gone wrong--and he was having fun. I had to find a better way to handle when he wasn't listening. I have since learned that I just have to leave. Go in my room and shut the door for a few minutes and he instantly stops. Poof! No more demon Jasper. I just had to realize what I wanted to be effective wasn't. Did I want to go in my room and shut the door? No. But it worked, and now he's not bad like that anymore *knock on wood*. I just had to realize the actual problem, which wasn't him--it was how I was handling the situation.
In the end, everyone and every dog is different, this is just what works for me and Jasper, but I still feel the ideas and intentions would be universally applicable and helpful to consider.
If you have any questions I would be happy to answer them as best I can. Again just keep in mind I am not by any means a professional--this is purely from experience with my pupper.
Always remember to be kind and that I appreciate you.
Sincerely,
Cori
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