I have three pretty mild-mannered children. I have known people with what James Dobson would call "strong-willed" children. I have watched them and seen their frustration mixed with love and have never quite understood the magnitude of their predicament--until now. My children do indeed frustrate me at times, but they are not my strong-willed issue. My giant puppy is the source of my angst. He is most definitely strong-willed and bull-headed and downright pushy.
Ranger is a delightful 67 pound five and a half month old Pyrenees/Akbash puppy as long as we are doing what he would like to do. If there is a deviation from what is his desire, he becomes a bear.
We are making sure we are the alpha dogs but we have to show him multiple times a day. He gets it for a while and then we start over. We have sought advice and counsel and demos from friends, trainers, the vet, and the internet. We are trying to be consistent and to be firm and also to praise him often for his good behavior. We have made progress, I believe, but he is far from "trained." He goes berserk when there is another dog anywhere and also with strangers.
Our vet recommended that we take him now that his shots are done, to the Petsmart dog obedience classes. I kind of blew off that suggestion, but I am reconsidering. I hope we don't get kicked out. Ranger has chew toys bigger than most of the dogs I see in the store.
We are slated to receive our barn cats this week from our State Farm agent. He has two adult cats who are sisters and they both had a litter of kittens around the same time. One momma cat likes to take her sister's babies and add them to hers and hide them. He is giving us a mom and her babies. They were supposed to have brought the kitties last week, but the one cat had stolen and hidden the babies again. We are waiting until they can wrangle up a mom and her babies and bring them over.
My guess is that they will bring the thief mother for us. That sounds about right to add to our wild puppy. Maybe Ranger will find a friend or two. Maybe he will love obedience classes and learn not to eat us.
I love that giant white cotton ball, and I am hopeful that the darling he is 75% of the time will come out and overtake the 25% that is awful.
Because I am new at this dog thing, I am amazed daily at the funny things he does and horrified by the grossness as well. That verse in the Bible about a dog returns to his vomit..... it is true. Ranger tried to eat a mouse he had caught in the yard and was unfortunately grossed out by the taste or feel of it in his mouth and he threw up. Then as we got the mouse away from him, he ate his vomit. Nasty. We have also noticed his affinity for cow poop and his own poop. If left to his own devices, he might just forgo his food and eat only poop. Talk about dog breath-- worse than that is poop breath. We have been reading about that too and have found that it can be from stress or it can just be a gross thing they do sometimes. Because of this particular gross habit, the boys have had to increase the frequency of their poop-scooping job in the yard so that Ranger has less opportunity to be a yuck-mouth.
I remember plenty of gross times with the kids and some outright acts of defiance. They and we have survived it and learned along the way. I hope the same for our relationship with our giant strong-willed member of the family.
Proverbs 26:11 "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly."
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