Just a quick update on Wyatt: he's now 15 weeks old, going in at the end of the week for his 16 week shots. He's been to two agility trials, has handled being crated at the show sites just fabulously, loves walking around, greets everyone with his ears back and tail wagging, climbing on their laps if they let him. He wants to play with all dogs. He's in a beginner's obedience class that I moderate for him -- i.e., if there's too much stupid heeling around and around, I just quit and we go off into the corner and play tug. He's learning stays very nicely, I make him sit before his meals and give him an OK to eat. Very simple and effective. House manners are great -- he's crated in a large crate during the 5 hours I'm gone to work, but when loose, he goes downstairs and sits in front of the back door to be let out. He's still into the bathroom trash cans, trash cans in general and the laundry -- typical puppy. We just keep all the doors closed. He pulls on his collar something fierce -- I'm contemplating a no-pull harness but I've never bought or used one (to me it's a new-fangled invention....).
He's learning to go through jump standards with the bars on the ground, towards a target. He's learning to walk with his head up for future competitive heeling. He's learning to track baby tracks outside (I only make it out to the fields about once a week, if that). He's learning to walk on both sides following the movement of my arms, in various patterns like serpentines, to get him staying on the same side as my pointing arm/hand, for future agility work. He's done a couple of weekends in hotels using his baby vari-kennel crate for inside the room and he did very well, no accidents. He's outgrown them and we're now down to a medium-size soft-sided crate for the motel room which I'm a little nervous about because he could destroy it. He rides in the car with no problem, but then again the dogs get loaded into the car at LEAST once a day, and maybe 3-4 times on weekends, we're ALWAYS going somewhere; the van is their second home.
We continue working on outside recalls. I try to remember to load my pockets with Charlie Bears or other treats, and he comes running. I'm thinking about putting a long line on him for outside free walks very soon, as he turns 4 months, just to have a long handle. I use my 40-foot tracking line for that. He comes readily when he wants to, but he doesn't know that he HAS to come if he doesn't want to, and we're getting to that adolescent stage where he might want to play keep-a-way.
Somewhat dim pictures were taken at our training building.
Thank you for posting pics and giving us updates. I must have been away when you posted about losing Jesse, so I had missed that. I'm so sorry, but your description of how he went, here and in the thread about my Kai, really gave me a great deal of comfort.
And I love the pics of Wyatt and your descriptions. He seems like such a wonderful boy! Make me think of Kai when he was a pup....the Malinois are of course different than the GSDs but there is something similar in their puppy faces (though more intense in the Malinois!).
And a question, so what do you do when you take him to Home Depot? Do you hang around outside and get him to greet people? Do you take him in? How do you do the socializing with strangers stuff in these circumstance?
I'm hoping that sometime in the next year I'll have a pup I need to do this with, so I'd love to hear what you do.
And again, Wyatt is gorgeous! (And what a perfect name!)
Thanks, Lisa. I know Wyatt looks big for some reason in these pictures, but he's only maybe 3 inches taller than Finn now. Still a gangly 4-month old puppy....
We have several stores that allow dogs to actually come in. PetCo, another pet store, and Murphy's, Home Depot and Lowe's. Probably more but those are the ones that I deliberately took him to. I cut up stick cheese into a hundred cubes (slice sideways into 4 long pieces, then crosswise), and took those along in a small baggy or storage bag. When we went into Murphy's, even the check-out staff by the door came over to see him because he was so cute. I asked them whether they would feed him a small piece of cheese laid in the flat of their hand so that he could see it. He backed off at first but he's a chow hound and eventually leaned over to take the food. We walked around the store and I gave food to anyone who stopped to admire or pet the puppy -- just asked them to feed him. The noise of the store and rolling carts made him a little nervous. So the second day, I took him to Home Depot along with my other dog Finn, and together they strutted into the store with much more confidence. I asked people to feed Finn first, who took the food readily, tail wagging, leaning on people and schmoozing, then the puppy and by then he was starting to get the idea of the outstretched hand meaning food was coming. That night we had a club meeting and I passed around small pieces of cheese to everyone and had them bend down to feed him -- and by night's end, he was happily on other people's laps, tail wagging. On the third day we went solo to Lowe's, and he was MUCH better about the sights and sounds and people and he has never backed away from another person again. He's not the jump-in-your-lap kind of dog, but he's friendly, ears back, tail wagging and greets people warmly and happily, with confidence.
I would suggest that the more you have a breed of dog that might be aloof, reserved, spooky, or even aggressive, the more you have to do this kind of socializing, and do it young. Belgians are known to be all of that, some are very reactive, not all have the best of temperaments, so I go out of my way those first two months (8 to 16 weeks, critical period) to insure happy experiences with other people. Nihonken might be a little more reserved as well, maybe not spooky or aggressive, but a little cautious and I would sure recommend a committed socialization program for them.
Also, contrary to some advice about not "forcing" a puppy onto anyone, I found that if I picked him up and gave him to someone, he'd lick their face and bite their chin and then when put down again, he had made friends. But I knew that he had had a LOT of this kind of contact with people at the breeder's house, and so he was very used to it. I don't suppose that would work as well with a dog that had not been picked up as much.
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He's learning to go through jump standards with the bars on the ground, towards a target. He's learning to walk with his head up for future competitive heeling. He's learning to track baby tracks outside (I only make it out to the fields about once a week, if that). He's learning to walk on both sides following the movement of my arms, in various patterns like serpentines, to get him staying on the same side as my pointing arm/hand, for future agility work. He's done a couple of weekends in hotels using his baby vari-kennel crate for inside the room and he did very well, no accidents. He's outgrown them and we're now down to a medium-size soft-sided crate for the motel room which I'm a little nervous about because he could destroy it. He rides in the car with no problem, but then again the dogs get loaded into the car at LEAST once a day, and maybe 3-4 times on weekends, we're ALWAYS going somewhere; the van is their second home.
We continue working on outside recalls. I try to remember to load my pockets with Charlie Bears or other treats, and he comes running. I'm thinking about putting a long line on him for outside free walks very soon, as he turns 4 months, just to have a long handle. I use my 40-foot tracking line for that. He comes readily when he wants to, but he doesn't know that he HAS to come if he doesn't want to, and we're getting to that adolescent stage where he might want to play keep-a-way.
Somewhat dim pictures were taken at our training building.
And I love the pics of Wyatt and your descriptions. He seems like such a wonderful boy! Make me think of Kai when he was a pup....the Malinois are of course different than the GSDs but there is something similar in their puppy faces (though more intense in the Malinois!).
And a question, so what do you do when you take him to Home Depot? Do you hang around outside and get him to greet people? Do you take him in? How do you do the socializing with strangers stuff in these circumstance?
I'm hoping that sometime in the next year I'll have a pup I need to do this with, so I'd love to hear what you do.
And again, Wyatt is gorgeous! (And what a perfect name!)
We have several stores that allow dogs to actually come in. PetCo, another pet store, and Murphy's, Home Depot and Lowe's. Probably more but those are the ones that I deliberately took him to. I cut up stick cheese into a hundred cubes (slice sideways into 4 long pieces, then crosswise), and took those along in a small baggy or storage bag. When we went into Murphy's, even the check-out staff by the door came over to see him because he was so cute. I asked them whether they would feed him a small piece of cheese laid in the flat of their hand so that he could see it. He backed off at first but he's a chow hound and eventually leaned over to take the food. We walked around the store and I gave food to anyone who stopped to admire or pet the puppy -- just asked them to feed him. The noise of the store and rolling carts made him a little nervous. So the second day, I took him to Home Depot along with my other dog Finn, and together they strutted into the store with much more confidence. I asked people to feed Finn first, who took the food readily, tail wagging, leaning on people and schmoozing, then the puppy and by then he was starting to get the idea of the outstretched hand meaning food was coming. That night we had a club meeting and I passed around small pieces of cheese to everyone and had them bend down to feed him -- and by night's end, he was happily on other people's laps, tail wagging. On the third day we went solo to Lowe's, and he was MUCH better about the sights and sounds and people and he has never backed away from another person again. He's not the jump-in-your-lap kind of dog, but he's friendly, ears back, tail wagging and greets people warmly and happily, with confidence.
I would suggest that the more you have a breed of dog that might be aloof, reserved, spooky, or even aggressive, the more you have to do this kind of socializing, and do it young. Belgians are known to be all of that, some are very reactive, not all have the best of temperaments, so I go out of my way those first two months (8 to 16 weeks, critical period) to insure happy experiences with other people. Nihonken might be a little more reserved as well, maybe not spooky or aggressive, but a little cautious and I would sure recommend a committed socialization program for them.
Also, contrary to some advice about not "forcing" a puppy onto anyone, I found that if I picked him up and gave him to someone, he'd lick their face and bite their chin and then when put down again, he had made friends. But I knew that he had had a LOT of this kind of contact with people at the breeder's house, and so he was very used to it. I don't suppose that would work as well with a dog that had not been picked up as much.
Glad that his socialization and training are going so well.
More pictures please! hehe.