No Diego No!

Having three young kids around the house can be quite a chore. That is, two human kids to leave their toys around and one dog kid to eat them. We're getting better, but Diego still has some trouble discriminating between his toys and the kids toys. It's a daily battle.

So Diego was laying around being quite mellow when I spotted a wine cork in his mouth. He wasn't chewing on it or spitting it out. It was just hanging out. It actually had become wedged on his big lower canine and wouldn't come off. So I had to yank pretty hard.

Luckily the crate training has been working much better and it seems to help him calm down when we can't spend any time with him (and give him a chance to be destructive). He's also taken a real liking to playing fetch with the tennis ball, which oddly he's hadn't shown any interest in until recently. Definitely a good thing to work off some of his puppy energy.

Travelling with Diego

We just took Diego for a solo trip to Houston over the weekend and learned a bit more about his behaviour. One thing, he travels quite nicely and is very quiet in the car even for a 3 hour drive. He hasn't had a pee accident in the house for a couple of weeks now and he didn't in a visiting home either. It did turn out he had an elevated white blood cell count in his urine so a bladder infection may have made him slow to recognize when he needs to go out. But now he'll start to whine and pace nervously when he needs to go out.

Another thing we learned is that he is scared of hats (at least when men are wearing them). We had to board Diego with my brother and his wiener dog over night, so it was good test of how he would do in a strange environment. Diego wouldn't go anywhere near my brother (who wears a hat a lot) and Diego wound up preferring the company of the wiener dog. He even wound up sleeping inside wiener dog's very small (open-door) kennel snuggled up with the wiener dog. Yes, Diego really loves the company of other dogs, much more so than humans sometimes.

So Diego still needs some work on fear/shyness in certain situation but we think he's past some critical junctions on house training and basic obedience. Also, I took him for a three mile run a few days a go and he never pulled the leash (loose leash healed the entire time). Good by Diego!

A Pro Assessment for Diego

We had quite a great doggie education session yesterday. Er, really it was about educating us; dog training really is about training the human, right? Greg Sharp from Gateway Dog Training came by and gave us a one hour assessment of Diego.

The coolest part about the session is realizing both how little and how much I already knew. The problem for me is in filling in the gaps in training stages and I got some great tips on some things I was leaving out.

Since Diego's anxiety issues were at key here and we spoke about that at length. In Diego's case it might better be described as "separation frustration" than anxiety. He simply has a strong need not to be left out of any action and be part of the pack. This is also reflected in the fact that he hasn't peed in the house in over a week, destroyed anything, and it getting somewhat used to his crate.

Another important aspect in controlling anxiety is to always be able to keep your dog occupied when you can't (espeically a pup, but my older dogs like something to do to). A great trick Greg showed us was to put a milkbone or other treat inside a Kong toy... Will keep 'em occupied for a long time. You can also shove some liver treats in a beef bone.

Happy training!

A report card...

Diego has definitely found his inner puppy and has really been enjoying his dog time since parole, surgery, and dog bite. He's fully healed and we're working on some basic obedience and house breaking. Here's a quick rundown:

Great progress:
* Sit
* Stay
* Playful with kids (he's a natural clown), never a sign of agression.
* On-leash healing. Diego doesn't pull hard when walking/running and will heal with constant reminder. He would make a great running partner. He's at least put in several miles with me helping me to train for the AT&T marathon.


Needs improvement:

• House training (still pees in the house)
• Crate training (has a bit a separation anxiety, but is getter better alone in his crate)
• Off leash healing - He will usually stick to another dominant dog when off leash. However, because he's so pack oriented he's never been inclined to run away when given the chance. If he runs out the front door all I have to do is close it and he runs back (out of fear I presume).
  
• Knowing his toys - He's still a puppy and unattended kids toys are free game as far as he's concerned.

Fun with Diego.

Here's a few pics and movies of Diego. He's come a looooong way from when I first met him.