Puppy Head

[MyPemCharlie]

Puppy Head is my new nickname for Charlie. It reminds me that Charlie, at 8 months, has an almost grown body and a itty-bitty puppy brain. Puppy Head takes lots of patience and "do-overs".

Those of you "regular" GoCorgi members know that I've spent a couple of months retraining myself to teach Charlie the "right way" to walk nicely on a loose leash. He's been doing really great for over a month now.

Today we started out on our neighborhood walk, and at the end of the culdesac, we saw a large Golden Retriever off leash with no human in sight. Haven't seen him before. (Great! A new roaming unsupervised dog.) The dog-aggressive terrier who loves to charge at us growling with teeth bared was also out unsupervised...charging at the new dog. We've gotten used to getting past the terrier, but now two unleashed dogs to get past the end of the block.

We stopped several houses away from the other dogs, for me to try to calm Charlie down, stop the lunging forward, and ignore the dogs. My next door neighbor (now behind us) then comes out and her (very nice) two Labradors go bolting out the door. Now we're surrounded with four unleashed dogs, which was way too much excitement for Charlie to not be lunging in every direction. I let Charlie sniff the baby chocolate lab but he started growling and snarling at the puppy. Not fair for everyone to be off leash except Charlie. I must be a bad mom for keeping my dog on a leash.

Since I couldn't leave my own block without a challenge, I put Charlie in his car kennel and we drove to a little "on-leash" park a few miles away. We hadn't been there since before I started retraining on loose leash.

Well, the loose leash skills Charlie has learned so well on our familiar neighborhood walks did not transfer to the park with all the new sights and sounds and smells! Lunge, lunge, lunge, pull, pull, pull! Charlie was all hyped up and I was initially frustrated until I had the thought about his still immature brain and limited attention span. I calmed down, looked at him happily and said, "Puppy Head!" He looked at me like "Is that a new command???"

Fortunately my skills did transfer, so I got "happy" in the face of the new challenge and did not let him pull. Mantra: "Training Puppy Head is Fun!" We certainly spent a lot of time standing still, or walking in about-face directions. He got treats and "Good dogs" for making even two or three steps the "right way", and we stopped on the grass for "Sit, Stand, Down, Paw, Side, and Over"...things he does know how to do better than "Heel".

I love Puppy Head. Today was certainly an opportunity to test my own levels of patience and persistence. I'm sure there will be many more.

[glencorgi]

Good going Chris and "Puppy Head." <LOL>

Debbie

[Peggy]

Sounds like you did great Chris! Hang in there with your "Puppy Head". He will grow up some day.

Peggy

[LaRogue]

I think your sense of good humor is probably translates, too and your training is going to progress in leaps and bounds with such a good attitute. I have to add, your story just cracks me up and I look forward to hearing about your days events! Continued good luck with the training!

[MyPemCharlie]

Puppy head and I went for our walk with a neighbor and her new shelter dog today. Charlie again forgot all of his training and tried to pull and tug almost the entire time. I told my friend that we would be stopping and starting a lot, and she might want to walk ahead and we'd catch up.

Her shy, previously neglected and abused shelter dog (jack russell mix) was much better behaved on leash. How frustrating!

I'm sure training Puppy Head to walk nicely with another person and dog is much the same as leash training with him alone, but if anyone has any multi-dog walking tips I'd love to hear them! My friend was recently laid off and until she gets another position, she'd like to take Willie and go out walking with us.

[colbycorgi]

we have the multi-doggie walking issue too....but we hope to have rectified some of that by getting them both the same length leash as they chewed the 4 foot one of cammies to bits....i accidentally left on the floor...thank god its lupine, free replace, now they both have 6 feet a piece to tangle me in....ill let you know if i come up with any solutions....until then....we march on!!!