A rite of passage at Bedlam Farm for dogs is meeting the donkeys. Donkeys are guard animals, and they could easily kill a dog like Gus until they figure out he belongs here. When Lulu saw Gus, her ears went back and she started to charge. We were right there and stopped her and brought Gus over to her so she can get his smell right, Fanny checked her out as well.
It takes about two months before a donkey will fully accept a dog, all of our dogs have undergone this Bedlam acclimation ritual. Donkeys will try and drive off anything strange that comes near the sheep – stray dogs, stray cats, coyotes, foxes.
Gus came on Friday, and we are very happy with him and the results of our training and with him.
He is housebroken now – eight-week-old puppies don’t have much bladder control, so accidents will happen – he waits to go outside, eliminates quickly and is much praised and has had no accidents in the crate of any kind over the four days.
He peed once in my study when he first came in, that was two days ago. He is with me there now dozing.
We take him out frequently (one of us gets up at 3 a.m. to do it) and he is now used to going outside. Eliminating is a tradition for dogs, and an instinct. Once they start eliminating in the same place, they will keep doing it. Bless the crate, Gus is the fastest housebreaking we have ever done with a dog.
In the crate, Gus is cozy and secure. We put treats in the crate and feed him in there, and he no longer whines or complains at being left. He goes in willingly and sleeps through the night. We have lost no sleep (other than getting up voluntarily at 3 a.m., which we don’t have to do much longer).
Gus has done no damage of any kind to our house and belongings, mostly because we don’t given him the chance.
We have toys and things for him to chew on handy, and he is already used to chewing on his things, not our things. Again, the crate and the pens outside have been helpful, we have a place to put him when we are busy or distracted. Again, chewing on things is a tradition. If young or new dogs are not confined, they will find trouble.
If they are never in a position to chew your shoes or table legs, then after a couple of months, they just won’t.
Gus is in the crate for short periods during the day – naps or when we are out of the house – and sleeps there at night on a towel scrunched up.
Gus is leashed trained, he walks easily on the leash, he took to it quickly. If you do it soon, it is easy.
Gus “comes” about half the time when called. He has about 70 per cent name recognition and doesn’t yet have the cognitive skills or attention span for comprehensive training or a lot of remembering. But he is doing remarkably well. He walks with us off-leash quite naturally. When I say his name, he makes eye contact, a good sign.
Gus is intelligent, he pays attention and solves problems. He is certainly as smart as the border collies.
Gus is beginning to bond with Red and Fate and likes to hang out with them. He loves Red in particular.
Fate will be more complex. There is no playing yet.
She has stopped growling and barking at him, and is beginning to look playful around him and permit him to come near her.
From the first day, Fate gathered every toy and bone she ever had into a pile beneath the dining room table and guards it intensely.
This will take a week or so and requires patience – I sharply corrected her when she came up and growled at him. Once in awhile, Fate needs to be reminded that she is not the Queen, she is not in charge. She gets it.
I think they will have fun together if I stay out of it. A cardinal rule of mine is that dogs will invariably work things out given the chance, human intervention make is much harder for them, unless a life or serious injury is threatened.
Gus eats one cup of puppy food a day in thirds – one in the morning, one at noon, one at night. I take up all the water after 6 p.m., which makes it easier for him to sleep through the night without any accidents.
Gus is affectionate. I bring him upstairs to sit in bed with us sometimes, and am showing him how to be calm – I call it calming training. As I write this, Gus is sleeping on my right foot, like the other dogs, he has already grasped that my study is a place to be quiet. Red is sleeping right next to him, Fate is with Maria. When he gets too excited, I put him in the crate with something good to chew on, or I simply hold his collar until he stops squirming and lies down. That is just how his mother would have corrected him.
Gus is being socialized. He probably met over 100 people this weekend, and all of them were affectionate and loving to him. A good way for him to enter our world, and I will keep it up. He met children, older people, men and women, loud people and quiet people. He’s been to the hardware store, the Round House Cafe. He is used to having every part of his body touched, including his paws.
Dog training is much simpler than the books and videos might suggest. The TV trainers make a lot of money making dog owners feel stupid. They are not stupid, they are just uncertain.
You get back exactly what you put into it. If you get a dog only to make a moral statement and for no other reason, and refuse to understand them or learn about their basic nature, you are guaranteed to have stresses and problems. Every breed has different instincts and capabilities. Research pays off.
Any dog from almost any background can be trained, but to varying degrees, depending on their background. I do not ever refer to my dogs are “rescues” or suggest that they were “abused,” even if they were. For one thing dogs can’t talk and we often don’t know what happened to them, but beyond that, dogs do not need to see themselves as pitiable or dependent beings.
They don’t see themselves as “abused” or “rescues,” my life with my dogs is a contract. I treat them lovingly and well and I expect them to treat me with dignity and respect me as well. I can’t imagine a worse mindset for training than to see my dog as a pitiable creature deserving of sympathy instead of clarity. Dogs are our partners in life, not our pathetic wards. Even little Gus is not a furbaby, he is a dog, just like a border collie or a mutt or a Lab.
The trick is not only in what I do, but also what I don’t do. Gus doesn’t have the attention span or mind development to fully embrace commands. Puppies are distracted and limited in what they can learn or remember. I follow where he is. He got the housebreaking in a snap, he is starting to sit and come more readily. I want to go slowly and deliberately.
The training is brief and positive, short bursts of clear and single word commands.
Lots of people don’t mind having dogs with problems, but I want to have a great dog and for the dog to have a great life with me, and with Maria. This dog is a natural for therapy work.
Seeing Gus so at ease while a huge donkey sniffed him carefully was very telling – this is a grounded and secure animal. I will continue the report card.