Orly & Cali practice self-restraint, waiting quietly while I fix their dinner.
The Thinking Dog is off this week. The human is traveling for a work conference (& a lovely seder dinner with her mom in North Carolina). The Thinking Dogs themselves are home with dog sitters.
This is a first-time event for Orly — both being left(!) and having a sitter. Cali has stayed with sitters before, but it has been a long time.
We’re using Trusted Housesitters for the first time, based on recommendations from two trusted friends who house-sit through this organization and who have both cared for Thinking Dogs in the past (Cali and Jana).
Both girls took to the the sitters immediately, cuddling, telling them secrets, going on walks, and encouraging them to play. I liked them too. I’ll give a full report in a future post.
Meanwhile, I wanted to share this silly article from the New York Times: If Dogs Played Wordle.
Naturally, the only one who succeeds is … the golden retriever.
I hope that you had or are having a wonderful Passover, Easter, or other spring holiday!
Orly never wants to be left out of anything. Her FOMO — fear of missing out — is extreme; she’s a true adolescent of this digital age, even without any social media accounts (that I know of …).
She has to meet everyone we pass on a walk, canine and human alike. She’s fascinated with children. She must explore every inch of everyplace.
I’m balancing teaching her manners, like greeting new friends without mauling them, with wanting to encourage safe exploration.
At home, she pokes her nose into everything. No corner of the back yard has escaped her explorations, which unfortunately include lots of digging. Inside too, she’s curious. She’s only allowed into the living room with adult human supervision, and she’s very curious about this forbidden room.
Even the very familiar kitchen offers exploration opportunities any time I open a cupboard or drawer. I’m constantly warning her to move her nose before I close anything, racing to get the trash bag out of the bin before her nose goes in, and tripping over her when she sidles over to watch and sniff what I am doing.
Her favorite is the pull-out spice rack. She’d spend hours with her head buried in its many scents if I would let her.
I love that she’s so curious about the world. I love even more that she’s investigating and learning using only her nose. Not once has this young puppy, who’s been teething for weeks, ever chewed on furniture, kitchen items, or any of my belongings. She does chew sticks and pounce on leaves outside (and there’s the digging …). And of course she has many, many toys.
Cali and Koala explore the neighborhood with their sensitive noses
When I last took Cali to the groomer, I noticed a row of bottles of dog perfume near the checkout. Clients could choose a scent and spray their dogs when they picked up their clean and trimmed pups.
Eeewww, I thought, that’s a terrible idea.
Then I saw an article about “the best” dog perfumes. Promoting them to cover “wet dog” smell.
We need to be clear on why this is a terrible idea.
Dogs’ sense of smell is hundreds to thousands of times more powerful and sensitive than humans’. If you spray something on your dog in a significant enough quantity that you can smell it from any distance at all, even snuggling distance, your poor dog is being overwhelmed by the scent.
That’s bad enough if it’s a scent that dogs like, such as, say, dead fish or fresh deer droppings. But a fake chemical scent intended to smell like, who knows, a floral bouquet or clean linen (whatever that smells like) or mangoes … just no.
The dog’s primary and preferred method of exploring the world is scent. This is how dogs recognize friends, potential friends, and for dogs other than Cali and Orly (for whom there are only those two categories) potential foes; it’s how they decide where to lead me on our smell walks and which disgusting (oops, I meant delightful) dead things to roll in at the dog beach.
I’ve always thought that the reason nearly all dogs race outside to roll in the grass (if you’re lucky) immediately after a bath is that they are trying to get rid of the scent of the shampoo. I look for unscented dog shampoos — and rinse really, really well. I think dog shampoos should smell like freshly cut grass or sea breezes… or nothing. Cali would choose other scents, I am sure.
Adding a sweet, fruity, floral, or other scent — “sugarcane island” and “cookie crush” are real options — on top of that is torture for the dog. It overwhelms her sensitive nose and interferes with her most basic means of experiencing the world. Like the annoying tag jingle, she can’t escape it. And it’s completely unnecessary: Your clean dog smells great just as she is — once her fur is dry, that is!
Orly & Cali practice self-restraint, waiting quietly while I fix their dinner.
I’m working on teaching Orly good manners and self-restraint, difficult concepts for a 5-month-old, insanely friendly and curious puppy.
On walks, and (very frustratingly) at puppy playtimes, she’s eager to meet people, any people. She shares this trait with Cali. And, being an ill-mannered puppy, she expresses her enthusiasm in part by jumping on them.
Cali was never a huge jumper, and when she was little, I was working at a dog school where everyone enforced the no-attention-if-you’re-jumping rule. So teaching this to her was fairly easy.
Orly is not Cali.
Orly loves jumping on people. And, while most of the people we encounter on walks and who ask to pet the puppy are polite and wait, as asked, until Orly sits, there are always exceptions. Same at puppy class: Most of the people ask her to sit or ignore her when she jumps.
Most.
There are always the ones who cheerfully assure me that “it’s OK,” or they “don’t mind.” As they pet her, tell her how cute and good she is, all while she’s jumping on them.
I want to growl at them, “It’s not about you.”
Instead, I muster my most patient, polite self and say, “I’m trying really hard to teach her not to jump. When she gets attention for jumping, that teaches her that jumping is allowed.”
That’s a basic summary. Here’s more of an explanation.
Puppies learn patterns. They also love being petted and praised and given treats. When they see a pattern of do y action; get rewarded with food, pets, and affection, they will keep repeating y action. That’s as true if y is jumping on a person as it is if y is sitting politely.
What Orly learns each time someone pets her when she jumps is that y can be either.
And, because she’s a 5-month-old puppy with poor impulse control and because she’s out of her mind with excitement over the prospect of meeting a new person, jumping is very likely to happen. Sitting quietly takes some thought — unless and until sitting quietly becomes deeply fixed in her mind as the one and only way to get to meet new people. (That’s what dog trainers call a “default behavior,” the behavior that the dog does by default, without having to think about it.)
Why do I care so much about this?
Well, the people who “don’t mind” that she jumps tend to be young or young-ish, able-bodied adults. Puppy Orly is unlikely to knock them over or injure them. And they’re out for a walk or at a puppy class, probably not wearing their best clothes.
Once she’s learned from you that it’s OK to meet people by jumping, though, she’s going to use that approach with anyone she feels like meeting, and that’s a problem.
What if they are 3 or 5 or 85 years old? Or unsteady on their feet? Or afraid of dogs? Or wearing nice clothes because they’re going to an important meeting or a nice dinner? What if, once she learns it’s OK, she keeps doing it in a few weeks or months when she reaches her full size and 55-65-pound weight?
Orly could hurt someone by knocking them over or scratching them. She could cause damage. Or she could simply frighten or bother someone who, whether they like dogs or hate them, doesn’t want to be jumped on.
So, to all of you well-intentioned, dog-loving people who “don’t mind” when my puppy jumps on you, it’s not about you or about this one time. It’s about not building the pattern — the pattern where she understands that it’s fine to jump on people.
It’s about not undermining my efforts — and other puppy owners’ similar efforts — to raise our puppies to be dogs who are a pleasure to live with, to walk, and to introduce to people. People just like you who want to meet every puppy they see — without getting mauled. Please help us by waiting until the puppy sits to pet the puppy.
Two clear signs of early spring in my neighborhood are long lines at the Big Dipper, our local ice cream stand, and weather warm enough for me to consider a visit with the girls.
A recent Saturday with sunny, mid-50s weather was just the opportunity for Orly’s first Big Dipper outing — and Cali’s first visit since her early December birthday.
After a very long walk, the four of us — I had a friend lined up, as extra hands would definitely be needed — headed down the street.
The line was long. Friend settled in at a table with both dogs, and I stood in line. Cali, as is her style, lost patience after a few minutes and kept straining toward the order window. Orly people- and dog-watched and waited, not sure what to expect but quite sure she would love it.
Our turn arrived. I returned to the table bearing small scoops of huckleberry ice cream for the humans and dog cones (always vanilla) for the girls.
Orly could not believe her luck!
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Cali downed her cone in seconds, also typical for her. Orly licked, bit, licked, bit — unsure of how to process this wonderful new treat. Cali stood by impatiently, not understanding how it could take a dog so long to eat a bit of ice cream.
3-month-old Orly loved her play tunnel the first time she saw it
Orly is a confident puppy. She’s curious about everything — and afraid of nothing.
Those are generally good traits. Fearful dogs are challenging to train and to live with, and the very fearful or anxious ones sometimes lash out with their teeth when they feel threatened.
But Very Curious Puppies bring their own challenges.
Orly loves to explore. She’s fascinated by open cabinets and closet doors. More than once, she’s explored deeply into the basement while I was starting laundry and nearly gotten trapped behind a closed door when I finished.
I always have to warn her to move her nose before I close a cabinet or open the back door — since her nose is millimeters from the moving door. She investigates trash bins and empty boxes and pounces on every moving leaf or stick outside.
She’s also willing to try anything. She’ll tug and dig into the biggest toybox to find a buried treasure, climb on a wobble board or wobbly cushion at puppy kindergarten to test her balance, investigate any noise or movement … and walk up to anyone, human, canine, feline, or sciurid (squirrel), eager to make friends. She’s certain that they all want to be friends and will welcome a jumping puppy offering kisses and a wildly wagging tail. And she’s fascinated by the birds who frequent our feeder — they seem to know that she’s harmless.
I’m sure that this level of confidence is the result of both excellent genetics and her fabulous early puppy exposure and socialization. Her first 9 weeks were spent safely exploring and experiencing an enormous variety of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures.
What she doesn’t have (yet) is impulse control or much common sense. I have to be sure to keep a close watch on her, especially outside, so she doesn’t investigate anything unsafe. I have found, though, that once I warn her off of something indoors — electrical cords, say, or chomping on a chair leg — I don’t need to tell her again. For some reason, she does not apply the same discretion to digging and chewing on things outdoors; we’re working on that…
I recently enrolled Orly in a second round of puppy kindergarten classes at our local — excellent — dog training center, Sit Happens.
Aside from her somewhat distracting obsession with the puppy in the mirror, Orly is doing well in her classes. She’s repeating not because she’s a poor student but because she’s still such a puppy!
She’s not able to focus for a full hour of class yet, but she benefits from the training. Puppy kindergarten includes lots of playtime and the teaching is broken up into small chunks, with rest breaks (or play-with-the-puppy-in-the-mirror breaks) so the puppies’ brains can process what they are learning.
Many of her buddies from the weekly puppy playtime also attend kindergarten. She gets to play with them before class, which tires her out just enough that she can focus on the training.
The trainers rotate through several topics that puppies need to learn, like paying attention to their humans even when they are in a room full of other puppies and people; walking nicely on a leash; settling down when they are excited; exploring and trying out new things like walking on weird surfaces or stepping on something that wobbles; and not taking treats or other food they find on the floor.
When Orly gets a little more grown up, she will probably take a more conventional puppy / dog manners class where the hour-long sessions include more training and less playing. She’d like to earn her Canine Good Citizen certification — I’d like her to learn some impulse control and improve her manners.
Meanwhile, though, she’s pretty happy being a puppy in kindergarten!
I recently saw an article about 6 things that puppies are often mystified by or even frightened of: Vacuums, mirrors, TVs, brooms, phones, and ice cubes.
Ice cubes had me scratching my head a bit, but I haven’t given Orly an ice cube yet, so we’ll leave that one for the summer. Just a note: Dog ice cubes in my house are made with coconut water; when I’m going all-out, I prepare pina colada ice cubes, which are coconut water with mashed banana. The girls get them as a treat, sort of popsicles without the stick, on hot days. Look for an update this summer (and remember that summer starts pretty late here in Montana) …
On to the other five.
Orly loves television. She especially loves shows with animals, but she’s been as fascinated by Don’t LookUp and St. Vincent — movies we watched recently — and The Crown and Maid as she has by All Creatures Great and Small. (No judgey comments about our viewing choices please.) She does pay even closer attention when there’s a dog or another animal on screen, but she seems to know it’s not real. She’s not looking for the dog or anything like that.
Brooms and vacuums are just fun, as far as she’s concerned. She can chase and pounce on them, until her mean mom chases her away.
The phone … when I am talking on the phone, Orly has already figured out that I’m distracted and she can try to get away with things; same goes for video meetings. It’s the phone-as-camera that gets her interest. Again, no fear, but it’s hard to get candid shots of Orly: Whenever I hold my phone up and point it in her direction, she mugs for the camera.
That leaves mirrors.
Orly’s puppy kindergarten has mirrors on one full wall. A few weeks ago, the pups were taking a break while the humans were getting information. Orly wanted to keep playing, and the other puppies were actually behaving. But! She discovered a new puppy … in the mirror.
She invited this new puppy to play. They play bowed to each other a couple of times. Orly apparently got bored with this and wanted to move to the next level. She nosed the other puppy, then batted her with a paw; the mirror puppy followed her lead. Soon the puppies were playing pat-a-cake. Orly was having a blast; the other puppy parents were soon watching and laughing … which was not ideal, as we were still in class.
I’m not sure when puppies figure out that the puppy in the mirror is their own reflection, but I think it’ll happen soon, maybe at age 5 or 6 months (Orly is 4 months old). Maybe Orly will figure it out around the same time she realizes that that tail she keeps chasing is attached to her own body …
Orly loves her Kong. The bouncy red toy signals food of course. She’s gotten adept at emptying them far more quickly than I can fill them. When she was about 3 months old, she figured out that if she backed the Kong into a corner, it would stay still for her to dig deep into it and extract every last bit of food. She doesn’t even need to hold it in place with her paws!
I can still slow her down if I pack the food in tightly. If I simply mix her kibble with peanut butter or yogurt, she empties the Kong in under a minute.
But if I soften the kibble with warm water and then really stuff it in there, I can keep her busy for several minutes! When that gets to be too easy, I will escalate further: Freezing the softened-kibble-stuffed Kong.
We’ve branched out beyond Kongs, too. She has a big orange treat ball that slowly gives up bits of dry kibble as she rolls it around. (Cali loves that one too.) She’s got the longtime champ, Squirrel Dude, a purple Kong knockoff that is much harder to empty. We’ve got some newer toys, too: The West Paw Toppl is well loved by both Cali and Orly. I have offered them that one with frozen yogurt, though that can get messy and is a better option during outdoor-snacking weather.
The food toys slow down her eating and also tire her out a bit (nothing really tires her out these days) and keep her entertained. I use them for her puppy lunches, often in hopes of keeping her busy while I have work meetings. It rarely works; she finishes emptying her toys long before the meetings end.
I enjoy watching her figure out new ways to empty her treat toys, showing creativity and intelligence as she solves the problem of extracting food from a moving object.
