Nokes (Our Dog)
July 11, 2007
Last week we worked almost every night with Nokes on his different training exercises. The trainer had said that she felt like we should repeat puppy training class, and we weren’t too thrilled with the idea. I want my dog to be very obedient, but how much do I want to pay for it? I am sure five years down the line, I may say “Why didn’t I just pay the extra money and do it over again?”, but right now I don’t feel that way. We signed him up for the intro class which we will probably start around the beginning of school.
He is funny, when he knows you have food, he does pretty good. But there are times when it is like you have never taught him anything. Two class periods ago we thought he was going to mop the floor with the other dogs. It was sitting and staying, which he has done since he was really small. Well, there were some issues with him being the “dominant” puppy, or so the trainer claims. She says he was a strong one in the litter, which I don’t really get from him. A lot of that she is basis on his posture, and not how he acts. I don’t think he is overly dominant, not at least compared to other dogs I have seen. But, I do have to give her some credit for whatever training she does have.
On Friday he will go to be neutered. We weren’t sure when to have it done, we have heard contradictory things. The trainer says that it is ok to have it really young, it is better in some instances because it is less of a process when they are young. But others have told us it is too hard on them at such a young age. One thing is for sure, if we get lucky and he chills out some among other dogs after he has it done then it will be worth it to have it done now.
Last Saturday Lady was over for the day, and it was a really long day. He didn’t leave her alone all day, biting at her ears, barking at her, climbing on her, and making some humping gestures. We had experienced this in their short one hour meetings before, but it never went away, unless they both laid down and slept. It was ridiculous and really tested both Sarah and I. We had to separate them quite a bit. Lady was really good about it, most of the time she would just take it, sometimes she’d play back, and sometimes she’d just bite Nokes’ face, shoulders, or take out his legs with her head, pin him dog and bite his legs.
We’re going to try to get him over to Christine’s soon, because time is ticking away for time to get them accustomed to each other. We’ll get the surgery done, and then see if anything changes over there for a night.
Nokes is still losing teeth, we can always tell when he does because he keeps licking his mouth presumably where the blood is coming out. We know to look for a tooth floating around in there somewhere. I was trying to get something away from him that he was eating on the 4th of July, and when I pressed on his mouth with my thumb his front tooth just gave and fell out. It was gross. Kind of funny too, because he’ll have two teeth growing out of one place, looking kind of like a mutant.
He has got some sizeably larger back teeth, they look like mini mountains. I mean feakishly huge like the other dogs would make fun of him in the yard asking why his other teeth hadn’t caught up to his molars yet.
We have gotten him one of those hard Nyla bones, full size, and he just loves that. He’ll spend a ton of time chewing it, quite often we find it bloody. I assume that he is towards the end of his teething period. But he’ll still managed to mangle the one end of the bone pretty good , schredded is more like it. But it keeps him busy, and that is what we care about most.
June 28, 2007
Over the last week, I have noticed how much more barky Nokes has gotten. He still has the same amount of energy, but between barking at the neighbor dogs which run the neighborhood, at the fireworks lit off frequently on our street, at kids outside, or at us inside bouncing around thinking that we are playing, it is getting to be a touch overwhelming.
On Tuesday of this week I was playing with him, he was bouncing around and he bit at my face and got a little scrape down my nose that bled like the dickens. Not happy, especially on my face, not a good place to have it.
He has some new toys, the newest being a really large and hard Nyla Brand Bone. We got it on recommendation from the training class, and he has loved it. It is such an adjustment for me, because our family dogs rarely liked bones, so for him to be running around the house with it, throwing it around, and scraping his baby teeth against it is a weird idea.
The other thing I just thought of, we just noticed this week that he has some weird teeth. They are coming out on the roof of his mouth, inside the perimeter of his normal upper teeth. I wonder if this is breed specific or not.
June 21, 2007
We have noticed Nokes starting to lose teeth, two tiny ones, but tonight he lost a major moler type tooth. Pretty huge, there is a gaping hole in his gums, so I hope something comes in there pretty soon. I know this is natural, but it makes you nervous how big that hole is in his gums.
June 16, 2007
Today we took Nokes over to Christine’s to meet with Lady on her turf. Things went well, it was playful. We let them out back and Lady just ran circles around Nokes and the barn. I have video of that. Then they came inside and wrestled, Nokes battled at Lady’s head and they kept mock biting at each other’s ears and head. They never really left each other alone until we took them on the actual walk, then they cared little about what the other was doing. It was short, just around the block because it was so hot, but I think any doubts I have are gone. I think they will have no problem playing good together later this summer.
June 14, 2007
Nokes had calmed down since I wrote about how uncontrollable he has become, but he has also started doing some bad dog stuff, destroying things around the house. We are at the stage where he understands what the trash is, and what it contains. That has just been in the last couple of days, so we have to shut doors, especially to the bathroom. He is funny, I’ll hear dashing footsteps upstairs, and come up to find him taking out the trash to the main areas piece by piece. He isn’t chewing them up as much as just getting them.
Then there was the big one. It was the week we got back from the Memorial Day weekend. He started hanging out in the basement under the bed. Well, we let him be down there one day without supervision for about a half hour. Well, for some reason he felt it important to get under the bed and start destroying the box springs lining. We have to watch him upstairs too. What he’ll do is bite and rip off pieces and either eat them or spit them out outside of the bed. We came down to find a perimeter of black lining around the bed. Cute and funny in away, but it pisses you off too. I know I would have felt different if it had been a couch.
That’s ok, he paid for it. The one morning last week he got sick, and kept throwing up. Well, in the end he pooped a big old black turd with all of the lining contained within. I am sure that felt good going down.
This week he has also started to chew on the couch covers if you aren’t watching him, as well as pants, underwear and other clothing. He has lost his first tooth somewhere, it is in the front of his mouth, so I know I am hoping that is the beginning of the end for the teething. That and we hope obedience class helps with that too.
June 9, 2007
Today was an exciting day for Nokes, the important thing to note was, towards the middle of the day he was asleep. Yeah! for us.
Sarah had taken the great initiative to check on the two doggie training schools we had referrals to. In the end, Saturday morning we decided that we would just take him to the Beech Grove training and call it good. It lasts for 6 weeks, and is once a week on the weekends. I wasn’t able to go the first session, I already had plans during the time it was going on since we made such a late decision.
Sarah learned some new things, she also got scolded because of our dog’s behavior. Once for letting Nokes “greet” the other dogs, which was probably warranted, the second, because he was sitting in Sarah’s lap, was not something we would have known and probably was uncalled for. But basically the two things she brought back for herself, you always need to give a command to also release your dog, which I already knew from training with my parent’s dog Bowen. We also both learned about dominance, and some of the things to watch for, like your dog getting up on you in any form. His paws cannot be on you. We learned some exercises to train him to let him know we are in charge, but he is also safe to let us take command.
Then, right after class, Christine brought Lady over again for a play date. She dropped her off for the dogs to hang out for two hours. Sarah was there by herself for most of it, and said they did alright. When I got there, I saw that they were running around the back, and playing, mock biting at each other and wrestling. It was pretty funny how Lady just toasted Nokes in terms of speed. She is really fast.
June 2, 2007
Today Christine came back with Lady to let the two dogs meet each other. It went…ok. I don’t think it was as nice as when Nokes met Hunter, probably because Hunter was in control because he was so much bigger. With Lady, Nokes is about the same size, but had the same amount of craziness. She did some growling, but towards the end of the 45 min session, they seemed ok with each other. Nokes kept batting at Lady with a paw to the nose, we naturally didn’t like that. The one funny thing that comes to mind, was the whenever Nokes when to sniff Lady’s backside, she just sat down. On cue, everytime, you could plan your day around it. I found this very funny, in Lady’s case, no really means no.
