We are now 2 weeks into puppy dogfatherhood and dogmotherhood. This has been a tough two weeks. Not only physically with the exhaustion from running around after a nippy demon that pees and poops everywhere. But also emotionally because under the physical exhaustion it’s hard to stay positive and not get wound up with the puppy and each other.
It is great fun playing with a puppy when they are playing nicely and he is super cute but we have also considered giving him back. That’s in those moments it’s usually because we are exhausted and need a break and it’s not something we seriously consider. Just read this and be warned that if you are considering taking on a new puppy it is a lot of work. Even for us who think we knew what we were getting into we have been surprised at the amount of work it has been.
But work does not equal bad. So by putting in the work now we will hopefully end up with a well-mannered and enjoyable dog in the years to come. I think I also should have invested in some dog treat companies because I suspect will be pushing up the share price of them all by the number we have been getting through.
Of course the most basic and easy commands to give a dog is to sit. It is very rewarding to have taken this bundle of chaos and managed to plant his ass to the ground for a moment or two with a simple command. It is very useful and a good start. But now we must embark on a full regime training games, commands actions and techniques that we have never had to think about before in any great detail.
If his parents are anything to go by he is going to be a big dog. Akita’s are powerful and they are loyal and guarding. Getting the training wrong or training the wrong behaviour into him abnormally could result in quite a scary dog to handle. So we are taking as much advice as we can from friends and professionals alike by employing a trainer. She has given us some games to play and techniques to follow to hopefully promote the correct behaviour so we shall see how we get on. But both of us sometimes feel quite overwhelmed and worried that if we do something wrong we’re going to end up with a powerful and potentially dangerous dog. Of course, everyone we have spoken to has said because we are worried about this, we will train him seriously so that this does not happen. It’s reassuring that people have faith in us even when we are feeling quite low like we will not be able to do it.
So far the commands we have managed fairly reliably are:
Sit – pretty straight forward. Can be just a hand signal single index finger pointing up.
Down – from sitting he lays down. Point down and run finger along the ground away from him
Here – with a point to come to a specific location either as recall or manoeuvering.
Ah! – loud noise to get attention and prevent from doing something like eating sticks, mud, blankets etc.
We’re currently working on these commands which are taking a little longer.
Daito – his name which should get his attention but it’s not very successful at the moment.
On – which will be a little useful in the future but mainly being used as the opposite to…
Off – to get off something like the sofa or a rug.
Nice – as a calming acknowledgement of something he has noticed. This is one of the games given to us by the trainer so that in the future when he notices something, it is thought of positively because we always say nice and give him a treat. But also because his natural instinct is to notice things and we want him to be able to disengage from that and return to giving us attention to decide how to deal with what he has noticed.
… This blog entry was never finished so I just published where I got up to! – Clearly I was too tired haha!