Still a Growing Boy

What a difference six weeks can make!  The photos taken in the grass were taken on November 14, and the snow photos were taken on December 30.  Not only is Cowboy getting bigger, he's also getting darker!  I'm sad to see all of his pretty light gray merle coloring going away; I loved those markings.  It shouldn't be a surprise since him mother is a solid (and dark) merle and his father is a black tri. But who knows, he may lighten up again before he turns a year old. 

At nine weeks he is 16 inches tall and weighs 23 pounds  Only a couple of inches shorter than Kizzy and two thirds her weight.  Kizzy was the runt of her litter and much smaller than the rest of her litter mates but I like her size - small enough to still be a lap dog but big enough not to get stepped on.  Cowboy's mother only weighs 32 pounds but dad is 53, and it appears (so far), that he might be small like his mom, which is ok with me. Of course he'll have at least one more growth spurt before he's six months old so it's really anyone's guess.   Right now his legs are so long that he looks more like a 
   jackrabbit than a puppy. 

   He now knows how to push the big silver handicap buttons - 
   although he's still too short to reach the real ones, but I can
   hold the one I have at home up at my waist level and he jumps
   up to push on it with his front paws.  We're now working on
   the small blue boxes with the red buttons - he has to learn to 
   push on the button with his nose.  He has the concept but now 
   has to learn to push it hard enough to make it "click", which 
   would signify that the door will open. 

   He's also learning to come and sit in front of me when I call 
   him, in preparation for some obedience lessons. He already 
   knows "sit" and "down" on hand signals, and sit on 
   command.  We're working on down with a voice command. 
   Leash manners might be a ways off yet - every time I put him
   on lead he grabs hold of the leash with his teeth.  That in itself
   isn't really all that bad, except he wants to play tug-of-war with 
   it, and almost pulled me off my feet on the snow.  Standing   
   still is very difficult right now as well, as all he does when you 
   touch him is wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.  It's all about play at this 
   stage of the game.

Being a typical puppy, everything has to go into his mouth and he wants to eat everything!  His favorite toys are the cardboard tubes from the paper towels; never mind the nine dog toys scattered about the house.  I'm constantly picking up little pieces of cardboard from the floor, but it's ok since he only chews them up and doesn't eat them. Any food dropped on the floor is immediately claimed.  You know that three second rule?  It doesn't work when you have a one second dog...  Oh, and he likes lemons.

Success!

So far the new feeding technique is working!  Cowboy is not only learning to slow down some when he eats, but is also learning a bit of obedience with the "sit" and "wait" commands.  The first two meals were a little touch and go, but by supper he not only would sit and wait without me even telling him, but I was able to call him off of the bowl with the cheese!  No growling, no snapping, and I was even able to pet him a little bit while he ate.  YAY!  

Now What?

Well the food protection turned into food aggression this morning, and in a repeat of yesterday, he not only growled at me, but snapped as well when I touched him on the top of his head while he was eating.  I know that there are those who would say, "then don't touch him when he's eating."  However, he is already a very dominant oriented dog, and needs to learn that *I* am alpha, not him. What that means in doggie terms is that I have first claim to all of the food in our "pack". He is just under 14 weeks and there is already far too much testosterone floating around in him.  

I've had dogs all my life, and have never had one that was food aggressive, so I am somewhat at a loss as to how to deal with this.  He eats three cups of food a day, but eats like he is starving to death, inhaling it like a vacuum without even chewing.  Because of the way he eats I worry about bloat, so his food gets soaked with water before I give it to him.  He has been wormed three times and eats separately from my other dog, so there is no issue of her stealing his food.  Quite the contrary, he would wolf his own food down and then bully her out of the way so he could eat hers as well.  This behavior is very recent - he did not do this when I got him, and I cannot figure out why this has happened.  

But after speaking to a professional dog behaviorist, I will try something a little different. First of all his meals will be taken back to three times per day.  Instead of giving him his entire meal at once, I will sit on the floor with his bowl in front of me, but the food in another bowl out of his reach.  He will have to sit and "wait" while I put only seven or eight pieces of kibble in his bowl at a time, leaving my hand next to the bowl.  When I give him the ok, then he can eat the food. When he has eaten it, he has to sit and wait again until I say ok.  Interspersed with the kibble, I'll give him a small bit of cheese to see if I can draw his attention away from his bowl. It will take some time, and I'm well prepared to be snapped at again, but something has to be done to modify this behavior.  If we don't do something about it now, it will cause problems when he's full grown. 

Chow Hound

Oh dear, we have been having some serious food issues of late.  Cowboy has started "guarding" his food, and even if I just walk past his pen he hovers over it like an old prospector protecting his gold claim.  And yesterday when I reached down to pet him while he was eating (which I've done before with no ill effects), he growled at me!  I cuffed him hard for that, and rolled him - and then took his food away and locked him in his crate for half an hour. When I let him out and gave him back his food, we had no further incidents. 

Let It Snow!

Cowboy LOVES the snow!  He eats it, rolls in it, and pounces into the drifts and then face plants himself so that the only thing you can see are his ears. I make snowballs for him to chase and he runs under the trees with them in his mouth and leaves them there.  He has a collection of snowballs under the spruce!  I pulled an icicle from the roof of the kennel and gave it to him, and I think that was the best toy in the world!  
 

Simple Pleasures

Oh, the joy of the empty cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels - or a plain sheet of paper. These are now Cowboy's favorite toys.  He can rip them to shreds and not get in trouble. I am now combing the carpet every evening for tiny bits of paper and cardboard, so at least when I get up in the morning the floors will be clean.

Vaccines Anyone?

Cowboy was due for his next booster shot, but being that he is so wiggly I have to make sure it's one of those rare times when he's calmer than usual.  This morning he seemed to be more low key than what is normal for him, so I loaded up the syringe and sat on the floor next to him.  Pulling up a small amount of loose skin, I placed the needle close to him and was preparing to inject the vaccine - when he suddenly jumped up and wiggled sideways just as I was inserting the needle.  The result was that I poked my thumb instead of the puppy.  It wasn't much more than a pin prick, and I had a good hold on the plunger so there was still plenty of vaccine for him, and after I cleaned and sterilized the needle and he did get his shot.  On the upside I now don't have to worry about catching parvo or distemper... 

 

Just a growing Boy

Cowboy is now twelve weeks old and I am slowly (painfully slowly), seeing some signs of settling down in him.  He seems to bother Kizzy a little less – of course it probably helps that she’s getting tired of his pestering and nailed him a few times this past week.    

He is spending more time out of his pen and for the most part does very well, although I do have to keep an eye on him to make sure he isn’t getting into something he shouldn’t be – like electrical cords, or shoe laces.  He does love my soft leather slippers and I have to keep them up out of his reach if I’m not wearing them.  I’ve never had a dog that was so obsessive before.  Shoes, socks, food, toys, it really doesn’t matter; he wants them and no one should have them.  I’ve had to cuff him more than once for aggression with things he should not have.

He can leap up onto the couch now too; oh joy.  Night before last  I was stretched out on the couch reading a book and he leaped up onto me, looking as pleased as can be.  Since he settled right down and went to sleep.  I did allow him to stay, but as soon as he started getting too rambunctious – off he went.  We did this a few times because he jumped right back up and wanted to play.  He will learn that the couch is not his playground and will only be allowed up there if he behaves himself.  As is typical with him, I have to scold him several times before he finally gets it – I’m sure however, that he is only testing me to see what I’ll let him get away with.  What he doesn’t know is that I raised and trained four Siberian Huskies, and there is no dog more stubborn than they are. An Australian Shepherd may be very smart, but I am far more stubborn than he is! 

Today at Puppy Playtime he finally showed more confidence and did not hide under chairs but instead played with three other puppies and even allowed other owners and the trainers to give him commands (for food of course!)  But he did very well and I was proud of him.  We did go out into the “big dog” pen at first, as there were only about six other dogs there, but as more of the bigger kids arrived we moved back to the “little dog” pen. 

Afterward I stopped at Murdoch’s to check on an item I wanted and he was absolutely overwhelmed by all of the people and children there.  He’s never really been around small children and wasn’t too sure about them, but every one of the kids who wanted to pet him asked first!  Yay for those parents for teaching their children to respect the animals and not go charging up to them helter skelter!

To top that off, there were reindeer IN the store!  Fenced off but still – they were a bit frightening to a little pup and he barked at them.  Had I realized they were there I would not have stopped, and I picked him up and carried him out.  I’ll check on that item another time. 

He got his third second booster today; one more in four weeks and a rabies shot, and then he’ll be good for a while.  We’ll have to stop at the vet in the next day or two to get an accurate weight, and so he can feel comfortable there for when he goes in for his rabies vaccine.

We are still having issues with food.  He has to learn that I can take food away from him whenever I want, but that he will also get it back.  As I pull his dish away he throws his face into the bowl and literally inhales the food.  It was suggested to me that when I take it away, I should put some special treat in the bowl so when he gets it back he has something better.  Tried this three times with small liver treats but he didn’t ever care that there was new food in there.  He just attacked the dish and inhaled more food.  After the third time of me taking his food away, he picked up the dish and turned it upside down then sat and glared at me as if to say “There, now try to take my food away.”  I must get creative…

All in all we are finally getting to a place where he and I are beginning to understand each other, and that he knows I am alpha; at least over him.  He is beginning to show signs of dominance over Kizzy.  She doesn’t seem to mind much, unless he steps on her, and then she jumps up and bites him.  But he on the other hand, is not biting so much anymore – thank goodness!

A Month of Difference

I think things are beginning to sink into Cowboy’s little brain.  While he’s been very good at sits and downs, and can push the big, silver handicap button, those have been pretty basic and repetitive exercises, and he loses all capacity for everything else. But today I was actually able to call him off of Kizzy’s food dish – with food in it – and he even brought me his toy and let me take it from him!  In exchange for a treat, but still a huge step for a puppy that has been very possessive of anything he has in his mouth.

The past couple of weeks he’s been very apprehensive at puppy playtime; which surprises me as he is so rambunctious with a friend’s puppy. They bounce around and wrestle like crazy, and she’s bigger than he is.  But yesterday, even though he still ran under the chairs occasionally, he actually came out from under them part of the time to play with the other puppies.  And then I heard him yelp and he started limping pretty bad.  I thought perhaps he would hobble around for a minute and then charge back to the other pups but he didn’t so I cut is short this time. I didn’t think it was anything serious but just in case, I didn’t want to aggravate anything. By later in the afternoon he was just fine, racing around the backyard like a maniac.

This afternoon I had to go into town for a few hours and left him in his crate.  He usually barks incessantly if I leave him – with our without Kizzy, but today as I walked out the door I didn’t hear a peep out of him.  Of course that’s not to say he didn’t scream once I drove off, but at least he was quiet as I was leaving.  Maybe he’s figuring out that I am going to be back and he is not being abandoned…

When I got home I decided to give the carpet in his pen a cleaning and took him out to spray carpet cleaner on it.  He got to run loose in the house for a few hours and did very well!  I kept a close eye on him and had to scold him for grabbing hold of an extension cord (it was not plugged in), and trying to chew on the kitchen rug, but other than that he behaved himself and I was very proud of him!

His new favorite toy is a plastic water bottle.  I took the lid off and let him tear around with it for about an hour and a half, until he chewed a hole in it and bit off a small piece – then it went away. 

Looking at some of the photos I took of him in the past month I couldn’t believe how much he’s grown!  What a difference four weeks makes!  

Growing Like A Weed

Cowboy is growing quickly!  In four weeks he's grown four inches and gained seven pounds.  I won't be able to lift him up over the gate for much longer. 
I'm not sure if his growth is typical for an eleven week old pup - he still seems pretty small to me.  But maybe he'll be on the smaller side; his mom was and if he only tops out at 40 pounds or so I certainly wouldn't mind that at all.  

He's growing enough that he can get up on the furniture however, as he proved to me yesterday. As i was fixing supper for him and Kizzy, my other Aussie, he got so excited that he leaped right up onto the recliner!  He started eyeballing the counter top too, and I just know that he is calculating just how far of a jump it would take to get onto the counter.  He is too smart for his own good!  

For the first couple of weeks I made sure he learned to wait at the top of the back steps until I told him it was ok to go down, because he'd tried leaping off of the porch his second day here!  I was so very worried that he'd injured himself but he just kept right on going.  But now when I let him out, he still stops and waits for me, and turns to look at me as if to say "Now? Can I go down the steps now?" And then when I let him go he takes off like a rocket, racing all over the yard. He is incredibly fast, and not the least bit afraid of climbing over things or going under, and can already jump over Kizzy (she isn't very tall though)..  A new back deck is leaning against the side of the house, waiting for better weather to be installed and he races back and forth through the "tunnel"  - he'll be a good agility dog! 

And apparently teething causes a puppy's ears to do all sorts of strange things. At eight weeks his ears rolled back just like an Aussie's ears should.  But now they stand up straight, fold at the tips like a Border Collie and sit right up on top of his head like a Sheltie. Drives me crazy and I can't wait until they get back to looking like Aussie ears again.