Early on, I often considered giving up the dog. I would’ve been sad of course, but figured I’d get over it. Maybe it wasn’t that serious, but it was on my mind every day after the first couple of days. Then it became every other day. But lately, I’ve noticed I haven’t had those thoughts.
It was mentioned in one of the books that this happens. I lurked in forums and saw that others having those thoughts. There was one guy who didn’t realize how much work it was going to be. He didn’t know he’d have to spend more than a few minutes a day taking care of his dog. I’m not like him. I was prepared to spend a lot of time with Walter, but he seemed like the worst dog ever.
A lot of the improvements just happened over time. I started to understand his body language a little better, and we settled into a less hectic routine. Housebreaking turned out to be less of a problem than I expected. After the first weekend, he wasn’t peeing inside unless I failed to get him outside in time. The books say the fastest way to housebreak him was to set up him for success. At first, that meant taking him out every hour. That turned out to be a real pain in the ass though. I’d stress out when he wouldn’t piss or shit, because I knew we’d be out again in another 45 minutes. The worst were the night time breaks, because I would get so irritated if he wouldn’t go before bed. Eventually, I just accepted that waking up at 3 was part of the job.
He’s almost 7 months old now. The books say puppies can hold it for about an hour per month of age. I still give him many chances to go outside though. He pisses about 4 times and shits 2-3 times a day.
Since we started going to the dog park, he’s become a lot easier to live with. This could be age too, but I think socialization’s been really helpful. He’s a little calmer around other dogs, though he still barks and lunges at new ones. That’s his on-leash frustration. My trainer says it’ll take time to improve that because training opportunities don’t come so often. She suggested I take him to a regular park and try to work on it when other dogs pass by. A dog park would be too difficult to train him because he’ll want to play with so much temptation.
Maybe the biggest improvements have been mine. I’ve become more relaxed since training classes and dog park visits. I don’t get as stressed over dog care and training because I’m seeing how other owners and dogs are. It turns out I’m not as bad at it as I feared.
I’m still not sure if Walter has separation anxiety. I think I overreacted to his whining before. If I never knew about SA, I never would’ve been so stressed over it. I think he was just young. Now, he still whines sometimes, but he doesn’t look as crazy when I get back. He used to go nuts, worried I’d leave him again. He’s still a little overexcited when I get back, but he’s easy to calm down. The best is when I take him to the dog park first. He gets so tired, he doesn’t seem to care very much that I’m gone.
I should’ve started with a pro trainer right away. When I think about the first two months, I can see I made a lot of mistakes. I learned a lot from the books and videos, but real lessons would’ve helped so much. The books aren’t training my dog, so I had to make adjustments, and sometimes my adjustments were wrong. Overall, I’m satisfied with my progress and happy with Walter’s.
Comments on this entry are closed.