I have a teenager here at home. Oh my God. He is by no means as hard-working as Ella was, but he is still a teenager. That with selective hearing, test limits, be very fulfilled by itself, to forget everything you have ever learned, invent new ones, ugly habits… the list goes on.
A good example on ugly habits this is with ignorance barking. Boyo has realized that he has a voice, and he likes to use it when he is bored, or when he does not like a situation. He gets bored if we stand still because I want to talk to someone. Dislikes the situation he does when I have to leave Lilo to her mistress. Then he barks ignorantly so I feel like strangling him. And, for real, though not really. I'm going crazy. It sounds so sickeningly bad. It's like no dumb, cool shells of a large male dog. Sewing, for it is valid, ridiculous skulls that just plop out of him like frogs.
In normal cases I think I'm a pretty good math. Of course I have bad sides with me, like any other. I have short patience, for example. But on the whole, I think I'm pretty good as a teacher.
But then, seriously. Right now I feel like the world's worst teacher. It feels like my vocabulary in communication with Boyo consists mostly of no, stop, give a damn about that, stay, back and the like. It's not a bit fun. Add to that too little sleep plus the uncertainty regarding Lilo and her family, then you have an easily irritated Malinka. Yay. (The latter is said with dripping irony in cubic and square.)
To the benefits hear that it works. Eventually. But right now, not much is going into this dogfight. It's lucky for him that he's cute – I'm just saying that.
And here has we one of (get) disadvantages of Lilo being with us so much. I have very little alone time with my dog, which means that any training I want to do with him must wait. Of course, it can be argued that I can train him anyway, although Lilo is with. And of course I can do it. But it will not be the same, because he is very easily distracted – especially when she's with. Plus I do not get the same focus on him, because I have her in the other hand. I can 't leave her inside either, because she is not alone. All this means that the little habits he acquires risk staying there.
But it is as it is. Lilo's family needs help, and I can give it. I do not want Boyo to suffer from it, so I have to try to find a good solution to it. We'll see how I succeed, but somehow I have to try to have more alone time with him.
Both he and I need it.