How to train a dog

What’s a web journal for if not admitting shameful truths? Before we got Gatsby, I was shown Cesar Milan’s show by a friend and fell for the attractive but completely erroneous idea that domestic dogs want “pack leaders” and that the key to successful dog training was all in a tone of voice, a cocked eyebrow, and confidence.

he sits like nobody’s business

Maybe it’s just a moral failing on my part, or maybe it’s that science has completely discredited that idea, but our experiments in dominance theory dog rearing were blessedly brief. Instead, we turned to the time-honoured approach of positive reinforcement. Then, like most dog owners, we proceeded to slack off and allow our giant dog up on the couch because it’s cute.

Lately, though, I’ve realized that duh, we can’t move to Amman with a mostly-trained giant dog. So we’ve been working on Gatsby’s problem spots – defending the family from strange noises in the hall, and being so! excited! to meet other dogs that he pulls towards them.

sleeping is his forte

After a bit of reading, we decided that clicker training might help us. The idea is that instead of reinforcing your dog’s behaviour with a treat (because it can be hard to shove a treat into their mouth the exact second they do the behaviour), you train them that a clicking noise means that they’ll get a reward, and click every time they do the behaviour. That way, even if Gatsby is far away from me, I can instantly reward him for something by clicking, and then walk over to him and give him a treat. Those few seconds are crucial, because dogs don’t understand consequences the way we do – I could reason with a human child that if they’re good now a treat will follow, but for dogs it has to be immediate.

By the third day of clicker training, workmen came into our apartment and Gatsby didn’t bark. A week in, and people are having drunken conversations outside of our door while Gatsby drools at my feet. He’s not at 100% yet, but I think with continued efforts, he’ll be an acceptable neighbour for our new home.

Pulling is a bit harder to work on, because the other dogs are obviously out of our control – sometimes they’ll meet him halfway, which to Gatsby means that the pulling worked. We’re hoping to borrow a friend’s dog so that one of us can stand still with the lure dog while the other approaches painstakingly slowly with Gatsby ad nauseum.

If I could ever send a message to my past self, I might point out that having a dog is expensive, frustrating, time-consuming, and covers everything you own with surprisingly sharp fur. But this giant adorable creature has somehow really cemented his place as a part of our family, so I want to make sure that he’s the best-behaved that his tiny brain can handle.

the greatest dane

he has a difficult life

It’s taken over two years, but I can finally say that Gatsby is starting to earn “the great” to go along with his name (he was “the adequate” for a long time; why we decided to name our dog after a reclusive cad, I’ll never remember).

The frustratingly slow progress we made has finally paid off in the form of a very relaxed, incredibly friendly dog who only very occasionally tries to wrestle. He doesn’t steal food off the table unless we’re out of the room, and he can go without going to the bathroom for 14 hours – much appreciated on many a frosty Sunday morning when we’d rather linger over our coffees.

He’s still a bit pushy when he wants his ears rubbed, and it can be uncomfortable to find him on top of your legs in the middle of the night, but all in all this giant beast has been a welcome addition to our tall little family.

26 before 27; or, man I’m getting old fast

If I’m lucky, by the time I turn 27 I’ll be living in another country (hey, only 5 years after I first applied for the job!). This year’s list reflects that. And some of them require a bit of context, which I’ll provide in the next week.

1. Cook a significant portion of Ad Hoc at Home
2. Go on a winter vacation
3. Finish paying all of our student loans
4. Go on posting!
5. Run a half marathon
6. Host an epic goodbye party
7. See a new Canadian city
8. Bake a pie for Pi Day
9. Cook duck
10. Get a wide angle lens
11. Go to a secret bar
12. Fill my closet with classics*
13. Have a “goodbye Canada” weekend*
14. Visit a new country
15. Eat my way through NYC Sept 28-Oct 2, 2012
16. Make red pepper jelly
17. Make cheese
18. Run a 5K in less than 30 minutes April 19, 2013
19. Host a fancy brunch party
20. Try a new sport
21. Send x-mas cards
22. Make eclairs
23. Take a class on something creative
24. Train Gatsby to get his Good Neighbour certification
25. Learn to drive standard
26. Go on a family hike October 8, 2012.

just another weird dog lady

don’t judge our hideous couch please

People often say when they have kids that they didn’t realize how much love they were capable of until their children were born, and I’m going to be that weird dog lover who posits that the same is true of my big oafish dog.

I didn’t love love him at first, what with the terrible behaviour and frustration of training (by which I mean, it turns out that big puppies act like regular puppies and it sucks because they’re so damn big). But Gatsby has gradually crushed my heart the same way that he crushes me in bed every morning.

I found out today that a while ago, the breeder from whence he came had an outbreak of canine influenza, and a few of their dogs died, and I effing lost it. I want my giant goof of a dog to live forever, please.

Watching me train my dog would be terrible television

It is with great joy (and some trepidation, lest I invoke Murphy’s Law by saying it) that I announce to the world that the Brain Fairy has arrived chez Gatsby.

To those without the dubious pleasure of owning a great dane puppy, the Brain Fairy is a magical being who arrives long after you’ve expended your patience (and savings) on your dog and have come to accept a far lower standard of dog behaviour and cleanliness than you ever thought possible pre-leash. Just when you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that you have the worst dog in the world, the Brain Fairy comes and delivers to your canine companion some much-needed and previously missing cerebral matter, granting him (in our case) the ability to listen and vaguely comprehend what you’re begging telling him to do.

In other words, Gatsby is finally (almost) living up to the “great” in “great dane.” That might still be aiming high, but he’s at least a good dane now, whereas for a long time he was sitting at mediocre.

He no longer jumps on me during walks, which is great, because it was super embarrassing for two reasons:

1. people who watched Caesar Millan would judge me for not being the “pack leader;”
2. if I was wearing leggings he would sometimes pull them down.

He does still very occasionally grab the leash and try to tug it a bit, but instead of those escalating into a full-on jump storm, he stops when I tell him to. It’s revolutionary.

This whole “listening to us” thing is what’s really new, and indicating the development of some new synaptic pathways in there. It’s as though before, we were like Charlie Brown’s teacher to him – just a random horn that occasionally said his name or gave him a cookie, and didn’t seem to like playing rough. Now, though, when we give a command, you can see the gears turning – albeit still very slowly (maybe they’re rusty?) – as he puts the words together and (often) does what we tell him (or something close).

Heeling will be our next big focus – he’ll usually trot along happily on a loose leash but still gets far too excited around lots of people or dogs. Danes are supposed to be aloof and not that interested in people, but Gatsby is the most sociable dog in the world. He can tell from 100 metres away if someone is itching to come up and tell us how big he is and pet him. Unfortunately, people are often so eager to pet him that they don’t listen to us when we tell them that Gatsby has to sit first, so I’m going to have to start being more rude to his fan club.

I’d like to get him off the prong and using only the martindale by the end of the summer – so people stop coming up and lecturing me about how I’m torturing my dog, and also so that he’s a step closer to the canine good neighbour requirements. I’m going to start doing dedicated heel training with him at times other than our walks, so he gets better at focusing on where I’m moving, and with any luck that will pay off.

All this to say that it gets better (sorry, Dan Savage, I stole your line). A giant breed puppy is a lot more work than a smaller dog, because it matters that he be well-trained, and they’re so much slower to mature than small dogs that even at 18 months, he’s still considered a puppy (and is still growing!). Real dog training is not instantaneous like it is on TV; it doesn’t even happen in the hour-a-week obedience courses in which your dog is the worst one there. It happens verrrry slowwwwwwwwly over hundreds of walks, thousands of recalls, and countless litres of drool.

that dog has expensive tastes

We just bought Gatsby a new dog bed. It’s water-resistant (and therefore drool-resistant), large enough for him to lie down on, very cushy (I tried it myself), and matches his fur.

He’s sleeping on our bed right now.

I swear, if he wasn’t so cute and awesome, I would be so mad…

 

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I wish the world was flat like the old days, so I could travel just by folding a map

It’s another new years post! I knew that nobody’s life would be complete without reading a summary of my year. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it short.

2011 followed the trend of 2010, which was being awesome. I learned a language (and learned a lot about myself in the process), went on an amazing trip to Ecuador, and finally started my dream job – nearly 3 years after originally applying.

Eric and I worked hard to train our puppy, and it’s been paying off – we just got back from a weekend getaway with my entire extended family, and everyone was full of praise about Gatsby’s totally adequate behaviour. Eric quit his job to become an independent consultant, a decision that he’s been glad he made so far.

Overall, it’s been a fabulous year. Here’s to 2012 following the pattern and being even more wonderful!

A dog and his girl

After wanting a Great Dane for about 5 years (ever since the first time I saw one in person, essentially), we brought Gatsby Starpower home last Thanksgiving weekend. The breeder’s last words to him that day were, “be easy. Be good!” Right away, he let us know that easy wasn’t in the cards.

Going from a farm to an apartment building in a downtown core was a big move for him. When we took him outside, he wouldn’t walk – only sit and stare at the world going by, tiny puppy brain clearly overloaded. Suitcases on wheels, high heels, bicycles, cell phones, people coughing – it was a lot for him.

After he got over his initial fears, he became more independent. Too independent. “You’re not the boss of me – you aren’t even my real mom!” was what I’m sure he would have said to me if he could talk. He nipped at mittens, scarves, leggings; his leash was a favourite toy. Like a teenager, he only wanted to walk way ahead or way behind us. And meanwhile growing bigger and bigger every day; I started to think that maybe I had gotten in a bit over my head.

From six months to a year, nearly every walk was punctuated by Gatsby jumping up, grabbing my arms in his mouth and putting his paws on my shoulders. I tried every kind of leash and collar, including putting a 3-foot long tube on his leash to hold him at bay. It worked until he outgrew the tube. People routinely stopped their cars to ask if I needed help. Once, a man told me to kick him (I didn’t, obviously!). He was never too rough; he just wanted to play. He was acting like every other puppy around, but he weighed over 100 pounds. It was exhausting.

now his favourite activity is snoozing

When we picked him up after his neuter surgery, he was noticeably more relaxed. Still full of puppy energy at times, but much easier to calm down when he got worked up… and he remembered the next time, “they don’t like this – I’d better stop.” Training started to stick. The brain fairy had arrived and sprinkled him with a modicum of intelligence; enough to get by.

A month after he got home, he stopped jumping completely. He hasn’t done it since late September, making our walks a fun activity instead of something to dread. He doesn’t try and claim the couch or our bed as his territory; instead he snuggles up and makes room for all of us. He politely greets people and (usually) other dogs on the street now; he sometimes gets a bit too excited but now expresses it by wagging his tail too much.

In short, this dog has totally stolen my heart. We spent the first 11 months we had him working non-stop on training and being frustrated by the total lack of effect that our efforts seemed to be having. In my darkest moments, I thought about whether we would eventually decide that it was too much, and if we might have to surrender him to the breeder; I was determined that it wouldn’t come to that, but there were times when I felt totally at a loss for what to do.

Eric and I determined that people must develop puppy amnesia. The first year was so much work, so immensely frustrating, there should be no way that anyone would ever repeat the experience. But if it’s only the first year that’s bad, and then it’s followed by 10 years of enjoyable dog ownership, then it’s understandable that time would have rendered those early days in a more forgiving light.

the best kind of lap dog

We won’t be getting another puppy, because it is my understanding that Gatsby will be with our family forever. But for those of you who are considering it, brace yourself for a shitty year, and look forward to the amazing dog you’ll have by the end of it, who loves to curl up on your lap (causing your lower body to fall asleep in the process) and snooze after a long walk by the river in the crisp fall air.

Mediocre Dane

As some of you know, Eric and I welcomed Gatsby Starpower to our family last October.  Over the past 10 months, this now 120-lb puppy has been the source of much amusement, even more frustration, and one pair of destroyed Blundstones.  Raising a dog has definitely not been as easy as I thought it was, and it’s been really eye-opening in terms of realizing what I am (and am not) capable of.

Simply put, Gatsby is pushy.  He’s a very good natured, goofy, dog, but when he wants something, he pushes (or pulls) for it.  If he were a toy poodle, we would honestly have the best trained toy poodle in the universe – but he’s a Great Dane, so it’s downright frightening sometimes when Gatsby wants something (not in a scared-for-my-safety way, but more of a scarily-impressive way).  He’s still mouthy, and although he doesn’t bare down, we’re still working hard on that because a Great Dane mouth is not something you want on your arm.  He jumps occasionally still too, which again, is an annoying but ignorable trait in a small dog, but when his front paws reach my shoulders, it’s a behaviour that has to go.

He’s improving – slowly.  He backtracks sometimes, and it’s often our fault – we get lazy with training, we rile him up, we loose our cool and give him a reaction (which is usually what he wants, but is hard to not do when there’s a dog that weighs almost as much as I do trying to waltz with me).

We recently attended a seminar on recall training, but it was helpful in that it touched on a lot of other things too – walking, pulling, general misbehaving.  We’ve started taking training more seriously, as well – we now feed him his entire dinner by the (very messy) handful, doing collar grabs and playing hide-and-seek.  We’re also being firmer about him getting a time-out the second he jumps or mouths (which is where he is right now, in fact).

Maybe that’s why I was a bit harsh in the title… Gatsby is at least an Adequate Dane, and I think that by our first anniversary with him, he’ll be nearing Good.  He is only one year old tomorrow, after all, and big dogs take a long time to mature.  When we go on vacation (next week!!) he’s going to stay on the breeder’s farm, where he will enjoy playing with the other dogs, benefit from her amazing training tips, and get neutered and a gastropexy surgery.  I’m hoping that with less testosterone in his system, as well, he’ll chill out a bit more and stop acting out so much.