Well, after the great afternoon walk, both dogs fell asleep. Einstein in his papa san & Linus in his cave. After the naps, we made a successful potty excursion (I really wish I didn't know this much about their wast elimination.).
After coming inside, Linus made a dash for his cave & curled around the post. I stared down at him. I remembered waiting all day yesterday & letting him explore at his own pace. I told myself that it was time to let that repeat itself. The heck with it! He was going to hang out with his pack whether he wanted to or not, gosh darn it!
I pulled him out of his cave & carried him around in front of the couch. I sat on the floor & kept blocking him from running back in. He could have gone any other direction. Even running around the coffee table, behind the couch, & back into his cave but he kept trying to run through the gap & I kept blocking him. I just stuck my leg out in front of him. No yelling. No shoving. Just the leg blocking the opening. He finally crouched down so I reached past him & grabbed the pillow & pushed the front half of him onto the pillow.
He eventually gave up & fell asleep. Cute photos over on flickr.
I gave both guys a Greenie when they woke up again. Watching Linus struggle to eat it & thinking about the way that he is on walks, I realized that lack of people socialization meant more than just being afraid of people. He didn't know how to hold the Greenie with his paws like Einstein did. He kept shoving the Greenie against the love seat & shoving it with his nose until it wound up in his mouth. It was fairly pitiful to watch but I also saw him working at figuring out how to do it. Instead of giving up in frustration like I probably would have, he just kept working at it until he finished it. Einstein had long since inhaled his & was hanging out in the front window watching the world go by.
Linus also keeps stepping on his leash. He'll stop & look at me, I'll make approving noises and he'll keep walking. If he's stepped on it with his front paw, then he's stuck because he doesn't realize that it's his paw keeping him firmly in place. All he needs to do is pick up his foot but he doesn't know that & freezes in places out of confusion.
Einstein learned these because he got lots of walks & lots of treats when he was a very young scamp. All of this helped bond us together & make him happy to see people, treats, & leashes. I do the happy bounce up & down squealing thing with Einstein because he's happy to see me. He jumps & dances & barks & sometimes runs and grabs a chewie to show me because he's happy to see me. While we were exchanging this rite of completely happy silliness, Linus (who had been in the front of his crate when I opened the door) retreated to the back of his crate & didn't want to come out when I opened the door. If I hadn't reacted that way, Einstein would have reacted negatively. Linus reacted negatively because I did that.
These are very different boys we have. That's OK. There's a lot of love & happy silliness in the Vanderbilt household & we're more than happy to teach new pack members. Hopefully without scaring the crud out of him.
Today feels like a two steps forward & one step back kinda day. :-)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment