Dolly Graduates with Honors!
If you remember, a while back I posted about a coworker Nate and his fiancé Erin adopting a puppy, Dolly, from Precious Friends. This was before hot-tub Matt adopted his dog Charlie.
Nate and Erin are first-time pet parents, so I enjoyed giving advice on dog raising! I am happy to say that Nate and Erin did everything right. Sure they had issues with house training and being kept awake by puppy cries, but like all good parents, you keep on keeping on, right? Here is what Nate says about Dolly. This was a few weeks ago:
“First, Dolly graduated from PetsMart Puppy School on Saturday. She aced her final exam, which included sitting and lying down and staying in each position for 30 seconds. She also came to us on command and learned to leave items alone.
”But more importantly, Dolly miraculously matured overnight. Two weeks ago she began whining, ringing the bells and scratching the back door when she needed to go potty! Erin and I couldn't believe it! Now we're annoyed with the bell ringing, but I'll take that any day over peeing on the floor because she couldn't wait another second until we opened the door.
“I appreciate all the help and advice. Dolly's turning into a great dog.”
The first picture is one I posed when Nate and Erin first brought Dolly home. Look how much she’s grown, and look how happy she is!She even looks proud of her diploma!
Hot-tub Matt currently has Charlie in PetsMart puppy school, so I’ll give you an update on them as soon as I can. I’ll also have to get another picture, because I think Charlie is going to be a pretty big dog! But Matt can handle her, right? If not, I’m sure one of you wenches would love to help him out!
I wish all people who got puppies put the time and effort into raising a happy, secure dog as Nate and Matt are. If they did, shelters would be empty.
Have any of you taken your dogs to training? As you know, Scooter had 10 weeks of private training with Norman Skiba of K-9 training. He was harder on me than Scooter, but it did Scooter a world of good, really. It was worth every penny!I know you might find that hard to believe they way I complain about Scooter, but believe me, he's an angel compared to how he used to be, especially in regards to Peanut!
posted by Sandy at 5/17/2007 10:26:00 AM
Pet People
4 Comments:
I was wondering on how the pups and the new parents were doing and here is my answer! Glad to hear all is going well with them. A trained dog or cat makes for a happier home in my book!
I trained our two furry monsters myself. I say monsters because they woke us up at 5:00 this morning playing in the middle of the bed, and then having a game of tag through out the house once banned from the bed by me and the Saint! Wood floors and running animals do not make for a happy mommy at 5 in the morning! Anyway, it took lots of patient and time and effort on my part to train them but over all, I think my hard work was well worth it because we have two well behaved girls. Except for that occasional Crazy catch me if you can game in the wee hours of the morning… One thing for sure, I did not mind running the vacuum and pi$$ing them off this morning after that uncalled for wake-up call!
A few years ago, I put Zander in a PetSmart class, it turned out to be the biggest mistake ever! Zander was my second dog. I had trained my first, Abby, myself; but I thought a class would be fun. He was the smallest dog in the class with lots of bigs dogs. I think there were about 10 dogs in the class. Anyway he was doing very well at what they were teaching.
Each class the instructor would take us to the back corner of the store, kind of where it goes into the inventory area. The dogs would be allowed off their leash and free time to run around with dogs toys. Zander loved to play, unfortunately, one of his classmates, a pit bull, took a dislike to him. This dog came after Zander, and being the mommy I am, I scooped Zander up before she could get him. Instead, she got my hand. I was lucky her bite didn't break the skin but I had a couple of yucky bruises for a few days. The trainer had the owner put the pit bull back on the leash for a little bit and tried to put Zander and her on opposite sides of the play area. However, as soon as the leash was off, she came right after Zander again.
Needless to say, I was upset, but at the same time I didn't want to make a big deal out of it because it was obvious the owner needed some help. After that day, the pit bull didn't come back regularly to class and didn't get off her leach to play anymore.
The reason I say this was such a big mistake is before Zander took the class he didn't always listen well, but he had the sweetest disposition and was such a people lover. After the incident where the pit bull got a hold of my hand while I was holding Zander he had a huge change in behavior. He is now sooooo overprotective of me, that if anyone stands up in the house or gets to close to me he growls, barks and bites. He never behaved this way before. If I could go back we never would have signed up for the class to begin with. After this experience, we decided to train our other two ourselves.
Even though we don't take the classes at PetSmart (by the way our instructor no longer works there)we still shop there all the time!
Jennifer, I am so sorry for they way the training went for your precious Zander! Strange how one incident can affect an animal’s behavior in that manner. I wonder if there is anyway you can deprogram Zander from being so protective….?... We have not seen a cute Pom picture on the Blog in a while, about time you posted another one for us to enjoy. Your babies are so photogenic that I truly enjoy seeing them posing for the camera!
Of topic, but a funny to tell on Sheba this morning…
My sister in laws nieces (one of which I briefly met 4 years ago and one I have never met) spent the night with us last night. One is relocating to our area and I insisted they stay with us over a hotel for the night. They gladly agreed on some Southern Hospitality. I had their rooms all free from cat hair and closed the doors to keep the cats out of their rooms. The cats were so happy to have all the doors open again when Miss Tuttle left us and now mean ole mommy has, not one but two NO-NO rooms! Anyway, I found out this morning that during the night the Queen of Sheba scratched on the door to one room. Laura opened up the door and Sheba darted in and jumped in bed and slept with her! I was so happy to know she likes cats. How embarrassing that could have been for us had she not liked animals! Cheetah of course hid the entire time they were here!
How I wish II had Skeeter the "Cat Trainer" to train my girls. I do believe they would end your training ways Skeeter, they are stubborn with a capital S!!!!!!!!!! And Skeeter, Brittany has done taht before when we had company too so don't feel bad.
Jdt. so sorry about Zander's bad experience. I too wonder if there is a way to deprogram him with a pet phychologist or pet whisperer. In fact are there any of either of those around the county? Poor little Zander, at least he is trying to take good care of his Mommy, what a good boy.
Sandy, I think "All" of us wenches on here would be happy to help Matt with any problems,heh,heh.
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