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Sunday, July 20, 2014

More interesting than dirt.

I don't recall where my hubby said he heard it but the quote was "To train your dog, you have to be more interesting than dirt."  We, as humans have finally graduated to more interesting than dirt.  Overcoming Rogue's attachment to the other dogs has been a struggle for us.  We let her spend too much time playing with them and not enough playing with us.   We've changed that and been rewarded by a lot better behavior.

We've come a long way with some of her very dangerous behaviors.   Door darting is almost a thing of the past.   Every time I leave for work, I send her up to her favorite spot by the window so she can watch me leave.  This also works with guests.   What a huge relief to not have to worry about the fastest puppy I have ever seen darting out when a door to the outside is open.  She really loves watching people out the window so this was an easy trick to teach.

Don't forget to bring me home dog treats.

Out of the house, she's practically perfect.   Curt takes her to work and uses her as a demo dog especially when he has other deaf dogs in his class.  He's starting to have a reputation for training them now and several local rescues recommend him for all dogs, not just the deaf ones.  She's delightfully social but still very jumpy.   I don't know how we're ever going to get her over that particular fault when she is constantly being rewarded for it by the people she jumps on.  The usual response is, "Oh, that's okay, they have a dog at home." 

But that's NOT okay.  It's not okay with me that you are encouraging my dog into bad behavior.  It's like telling someone else's child that they can have candy if they take off their shoes and run around barefoot because you'd let them do it at your house.  So we work and we struggle and we praise the heck out of anyone who actually makes her sit before petting her. 

She just turned 8 months old and no, we haven't had her spayed yet.  The amount of research around the spay/neuter debate is staggering, but we've always felt it's a very personal decision and people should choose when or if to spay/neuter their pets by what's best for them.   We want Rogue to come into a full heat so we know she's fully mature and then we're going to talk to our vet about just removing the uterus and leaving the ovaries for the hormones they provide.  I'll have more info on that as we get closer to that time.

And now it's summer, and we are eternally grateful for the pond in the back of our house.  It means that no matter how hot it is, we have a great and safe way to exercise the dogs.  It turns out Rogue loves to swim, not just to jump in and get a toy and bring it back but just to swim around in the water and occasionally chase the ducks.

Now, while the pond is separated from our street by a fence, across the way, there is no fence, so how do you keep the deaf dog from swimming to the other side and going running off?   You can't recall her if she's not looking at you.  And so, after several versions of this idea, here's a video of what we eventually went to.  


I was a little concerned about the longline in the water and the dogs getting tangled in it, especially since we  often have four dogs in the water at once, but they do very well and are never swimming unsupervised.  We occasionally have to get Rogue untangled from obstacles on land, but so far, thankfully, this works.  She gets to swim as much as she wants and we know that we don't have to worry about her getting too far for us to get her.

Rogue loves water of all kinds.   She loves 'helping' Grandpa with his chores and playing with the hose.

Swimming is great exercise for growing puppies because it's no impact.  It also burns off a lot of energy and helps their endurance and strength.  Thirty minutes to an hour of swimming and we get a relaxed happy, snugly puppy.



It's nice to finally be getting more enjoyment than frustration out of her.  She's clearly maturing and we're getting our communications with her down.  She still wants to play the chase me game any time we want to get a harness on her for walks or for swimming but it's no longer that she doesn't want us touching her, it's that she wants HER game before we go.  Yeah, we're working on that, but it's a lot easier to manage.  

Seems like such a short time ago we got our first picture of her at two days old and that frantic call from the breeder.  We've got a long way to go but at least, for the moment, we seem to be doing things right.