For several months it has been extremely intense with Lilo and her need to be with us, long periods full-time (including overnight stay, several weeks straight). Because I want to help as best I can, I have done it – for better or worse. One of the few downsides to having Lilo here so much, is to share Boyo's upbringing and the little training I want to do with him, has had to stand back. Why? Because I have a hard time focusing on him – not to mention how hard he has to focus on me, when she's around.
Boyo 2 days before the 11-month day
But now Lilo's family's situation began to calm down – pepper, pepper, take in wood. And it is my great hope that it remains calm, mostly for their sake, but also for me and Boyo's sake. Because now that he is a young dog and is completely unbearable to deal with, he needs me very much. We need our own time together, and I need to be able to focus on him in the parts where I think he needs to practice behaving sensibly. And I can't put into words how grateful I am that it seems to be returning to a somewhat normal everyday life.
Now he is young dog, Boyo, and terribly rude to deal with, so I won't invest in teaching him new things. But we will focus a lot on walks, among other things. Right now he has no idea how to behave on walks. To someone watching, it might not look bad at all, but I have a certain standard I want to keep, and when he was smaller he was super talented. Not so much, just no. He has forgotten just about everything, and some things drive me crazy.
A wise man advised me to keep a training diary, and to focus on one thing a week. The diary will be kept here in the blog (so you can laugh your ass off at how ambitious I sound when I talk about everything in theory, and how impatient and frustrated I get in real life 😀 ), and we'll see how accurate I get in my notes. However, I will focus on one thing a week – or longer, if I think it is necessary.
The first we will focus on is precisely walking. Partly the walking itself, but also something that Boyo is really bad at – contact with me. When he was smaller, he walked nicely, but was totally uninterested in keeping in touch with me. My dog is fluttery, unfocused and easily distracted into absurdity, and it is (especially in comparison to Ella) extremely difficult to make eye contact with him. I want this to change, so that's what we're working hard on now. Things are going a little better, but it will take time to get to where I want to be on that particular matter.
I have to too personally work on my patience. On the one hand, I have extremely long patience – when it comes to completing a correction, I can stand and wait for the result I want for basically as long as I want. On the other hand, when it comes to things I have to nag about, my patience runs out pretty quickly and I get both irritated and frustrated. So even though it may appear like this in the blog, I'm no angel when it comes to raising dogs.
However, I have figured out what I think I'll entertain myself and Boyo with. There are very few dog sports I am interested in, but there are two things I can think of to deal with – and at least that one is something I think Boyo would find hilarious. Dog parkour and pulling big tires, for example. Dog parkour is probably what feels most reasonable, because I don't own a super-sized tire (although I have several ancient ordinary car tires in the basement) nor any good device for Boyo to wear to pull. Dog parkour – there it feels like it is enough to use things you find on the walk. Extremely handy. Also something I have been busy with for a while with Ella.
For let’s face it. I have a German Shepherd. He needs to be activated and allowed to use the skull. And learn to be a better photo model. 😀 Poor Boyo, I constantly accuse him of not being as photogenic as Ella was – and neither is he. That was the thing (not) manages to focus on me for more than possibly a second at a time – you have to be quick with the camera to actually get a somewhat good picture.
So there is to work with, here at home. A good young dog that needs to be activated – preferably in a way that goes into his currently viscous gore to brain that is in a puddle somewhere other than inside his skull. 😀
Lucky for me that I have a cute dog. ♥