Patient Jack

Patient Jack 

As we get older, it can be harder to keep training and owning young dogs or just any dogs for that matter.  I had a recent experience that showed that as long as you have desire, you're never too old.

In March I had gotten ill and just could not seam to kick it. What ever the heck I had kicked my butt and kept me down for the better part of five weeks.

Before I got sick, I had been taking Jack to training 3 to 4 times a week and working him at home and in the shop during the day as well. When I got ill all that came to a quick halt.

Jack absolutely lives to work.  It doesn't matter what we do as long as we do something.  We call it “doing a thing”.  The 'thing' can be stretching, bending, doggy push ups or an agility class.  Anything, as long as we work.

I tried to keep him engaged and his mind working but because I was ill we had a LOT of down time.

This bug I had lasted for the better part of 3 weeks and we had just gotten back from a show that had taken another 2 weeks from his regular training so he and I had been out of the loop now for nearly five weeks. That's a lot of time for a young dog to wait to do what they love best.

Without something to keep them occupied and interested, dogs will find different things to do.  Some dogs sit around and enjoy the time off but that's not what most dogs do.  Most dogs get bored and find different things to do to entertain themselves.  Different things like chewing, hopefully just on appropriate things like moose antler chews.  If you're unlucky, your dog may find destructive things to chew on like shoes, furniture or even the walls of your house or just dig in the yard.  Or they might just shut down and mope, ignoring you like they think you're ignoring them.

Jack's not a couch potato or a prone to moping, though.  Jack's a more direct, and in-your-face kind of a boy so boredom is likely to lead to destruction.

So what can we do when we feel we're not up to doing much of anything?  What I did was I got a bowl of Jack's food and put it next to me on the couch (I use his food because there will be a LOT of treats.)  Then we found behaviors that we wanted to reward.  Simple things like when he relaxed next to me for about ten minutes he got a 'good boy' and a kibble. 

Or maybe I would encourage him to pick things up for me.  Things like a Kleenex, a pen, his ball or anything else that I might drop.  This took far more time to master but we definitely had the time.

We also worked on the quiet command.  That again took time and often required a higher value treat.

We worked on the 'kennel up' command from three rooms away followed by 'kennel up' and stay in his crate. That was a fun and fast learn because he was more active, running into the other room where the crate was.  When his 'stay' was solid we did a 'relax' and then come.  (The 'relax' command is a 'down' were ever he is in the house followed by coming to find me once I released him from the 'down'.)  We would just keep varying the jobs randomly.  Pick up, lay down, quiet, kennel up.  What ever I felt like or Jack needed more practice doing, always watching to see that he wasn't getting bored or frustrated with any task.  None of this is very exciting but it is work for him to do.  He needed a job and it was nice for me to have his help.

Jack and I both stayed out of trouble this way during my illness and we both got to learn things.  At the end, I had a boy that listened a bit better and nothing was destroyed or chewed that wasn't meant to be.  It's good to be prepared when you have high energy dogs.

Keep training and enjoy all the time you spend with your dog.  They will return it fourfold.