It's Not All Chaos

I just realized that I do a lot of talking (complaining...) about how nuts everything is and while there is a lot of craziness, there is also a lot of pride and accomplishments.

LeeLoo is growing so quickly and not just physically. She's smart, super smart, she has us trained pretty well and is learning some tricks herself.

She's doing amazing with housebreaking, she goes straight to the door whenever she has to go. Although she also goes to the door when she just wants to play outside, but at this point it's all about saving the carpets so a few extra trips outside are fine by us. She's holding it all night now, from around 9:30-10:00 until between 5:00 and 6:00. She's learning not to bite us hard when she's playing and not to bite the face at all. It's amazing even to us how quickly she picks up on her trick training.

We usually try to add something new about once a week, until we're sure they have it down but this little girl is like a savant and I'm thinking she can probably learn two a week. First we started with the absolute basics, "sit" she picked it up right away. Then we introduced "lay", that one took a bit more luring, she's not a lay around dog. Today, I introduced "paw". Now I figured it wouldn't be really difficult, she's a pawer but I sure didn't expect her to have it down after 3 tries, but she did. So we took a little video of her showing off her skills. I'm thinking tomorrow we may start working on "come".

Housebreaking makes sense to everyone, but some people aren't quite sure that the other stuff is worth the effort. If you're interested, I know a lot of people don't know why we teach these "tricks" but there are some really valid reasons to do so.

1. Dogs are extremely intelligent creatures and they need to be stimulated mentally. Learning new commands helps facilitate this. Watch a dog that knows a lot of tricks, mentally running through the list in their heads figuring out what you want them to do if you doubt that it stimulates them. Dogs were originally bred to work, they need a job or jobs to keep them happy. Danes were bred for guarding and hunting boar, both of which involve problem solving skills. Now we live in the country, but we don't have acres of woods for them to patrol, nor do we have wild boar roaming around the neighborhood so it's important that we keep them problem solving even though they aren't doing what they were bred to do.

2. Training your dog, gives you both a lot of time to bond with each other. It helps to create a bond of trust. You spend one on one time enjoying each other. You are focused on puppy and puppy is focused on you.

3. A well trained dog, especially a giant dog will make for a long and happy relationship not to

mention making your life easier. Most dogs that are sent to shelters or end up tied outside are sent for "behavioral" issues, that translates to a simple lack of training. There is no such thing as a bad dog, only bad owners. Sit is that go to obedience trick, but why? Puppy is intent on jumping on company, begging for food right in your face, wants to play by being all over you, a simple sit command halts all that. It's usually the first thing they're taught and probably the most used without even realizing it. Then paw, lay down, roll over, etc. those are great for grooming or examining your dog. Try lifting a leg of a dog that weighs more than you when they don't want you to. Stay and come a lot of people have trouble with these and often they aren't well taught, however, they are probably the two that can save your dog's life, recall on command can prevent your pup from getting hit by a car or taking off and getting lost and stay can prevent traffic or other hazard accidents. We always do a few others that while may not be of vital importance for everyone are something every Giant breed owner should do. "Get in" for the tub, I sure can't lift them into the tub. "Drop it" because we've had them catch stray cats, bunnies, bird, etc. although we usually use it during fetch. The other thing we always work on is that they don't take food from strangers, we had a dog poisoned once when someone gave her a deer bone soaked in antifreeze (through the fence and we weren't outside), it was horrible and I don't ever want to go through that again!

So stay tuned for LeeLoo's accomplishments. Like any proud mama, I'll be sharing everything she learns.