Video of Hero doing tricks

I can't figure out how to embed a video on Blogger, but here's a video of Hero doing his repertoire of tricks.

More new tricks

Hero is finally learning to "sit up" properly, on his hindquarters. He doesn't like doing it, though. If he isn't sitting just right, he can't balance, and then he gets frustrated and angry about it, and barks at me: Why do you persist in making me do this stupid trick? When he does it right, though, it's adorable. I'm going to try to get a picture of him doing it this afternoon.

Young dogs, new tricks

My dogs have learned all sorts of clever things in the past week or so. First of all, Hero has learned to fetch correctly. In the past, he would race joyously after a ball or frisbee, and run back to me with it, but refused to drop it unless I offered him a treat. But now he runs back to me and drops it-- after which I do reward him most of the time. The point is, however, that I no longer have to show him a treat to get him to drop it-- he does it automatically. I didn't actually try to teach him this; a switch just seems to have flipped in his brain.

I'm teaching Impulse the "feet up" command, where he jumps up and puts his front feet on whatever surface I indicate. He loves to do whatever Hero does, so I tend to run them through practice commands in tandem-- I have them both sit, both stay, both lie down, and so forth. The other day I told Hero "feet up," and Impulse looked at me so sadly ("I bet I could do that, Mom!") that I used the treat to lure him up, too. Since then he's done it perfectly, and seems very pleased by his new accomplishment.

I tried something new last week. I decided to try taking both dogs out for a walk together. It wasn't easy at first. Hero gets wildly excited, and tugs on the leash for a while, and Impulse gets wildly excited, and jumps all over Hero. So I had one dog pulling my arm out of its socket, and the other dog tangling the leashes together like crazy. But that only lasted till we got out of our neighborhood (a very short walk). Once we hit the path, they settled down and walked very nicely. It was funny to watch them; they walk shoulder to shoulder, like a team of Huskies. They're best buds, and it really shows. Anyway, from then on, the walk was easy, and I'm sure any neighbors who saw us coming and going wondered if it was the same pair of dogs. On the way out, they were maniacs, but on the way back in, they were perfect gentlemen!

Quarreling

My dogs quarreled today. The trash guys came, and I didn't have a chance to put the dogs inside, so I worked with the dogs and made them sit while the guy got our trash. (The dogs don't bite, but Hero does persist in making dashes at the trash guy and barking, which can be kind of alarming for the poor guy.) As the guy walked away, I grabbed Hero by the collar to stop him from doing his usual pursuit down the driveway, hoping to prevent a lot of barking, since it was early in the morning.

Hero was not pleased about being restrained while the man made off with his trash, and struggled to get away. At that inopportune moment Impulse decided it would be fun to jump up and bite Hero's ear. Suddenly Hero lost his temper, and because he couldn't take it out on his human, he took it out on poor Impulse. He broke loose of my hold on the collar and lunged for Impulse, growling and roaring in a very impressive and uncharacteristic fashion. Impulse recognized this as more serious than their usual games, and he rolled on his back instantly, yelping loudly and begging for mercy. Hero stood over him snarling for a moment longer, then listened to my voice telling him to knock it off, and ran off down the driveway to bark at the departing trash truck. Impulse got up and wagged happily at me, unharmed and unfrightened.

My boys have never quarreled like this, but I've seen similar behavior in other dogs before, so I wasn't really upset or concerned by it. The neighbor's dog got a new and exciting toy a few months ago (a Wubba Kong, which seems to be the Best Dog Toy Ever), and when all our dogs were playing together, another neighbor's dog decided the toy should belong to him, and that he didn't want to share it. He lunged at the first dog and gave that same growling, roaring noise that made all the other dogs drop to the ground and say, "Okay, you're the boss, take the toy!" But as loud and dramatic as it sounded, there was no bloodshed and no real biting involved. It's not really a fight, just a step up from the usual way dogs have of settling things.

I suppose if one dog shows this much aggression, and another dog resents it rather than backing down, you then have a real fight on your hands. But as long as one of them backs down, I'd categorize this as quarreling rather than real fighting.

Firecrackers

Hero disapproves of firecrackers. He's not afraid of them, exactly. We were outside this evening when someone in the neighborhood started setting them off, and he instantly dashed off the deck and raced back and forth across the yard, barking furiously. Clearly he thought the noise constituted a threat to his family, and he was doing his best to find it and drive it away. He wouldn't stop barking, so eventually I brought him into the house and put him in his crate while I made dinner. Every time a firecracker went off, he went into a paroxysm of angry barking, but I gave him repeated reassurances that it was okay, and eventually he settled down and ignored the noise.

I love this dog. I love that loud, strange noises don't make him afraid for himself, only concerned for his family. He's such a great dog!

My engines of destruction

I let the dogs out this morning, and kept an ear out for any sort of barking or snarling, but didn't keep a very close eye on them. Bad me. When I went out onto the deck to check on them, I found they'd removed a screen from a window (there are two low windows over the deck) and totally demolished that sucker. I think it must have had a loose corner, and somehow they managed to pry it right off the window, and then used it as a dog toy. It's dead. Quite dead. They bent the frame, tore off the lower edge of the frame, and ripped a lot of the screen itself off.

*Laughs* Those dogs. They are two furry engines of destruction. They both love toys, and it doesn't matter if the toys come from PetSmart, or are found conveniently attached to the house. If it looks like fun, they play with it!

Four on the floor

I'm working very hard with Hero on keeping all four paws on the ground when he greets people. He still jumps up on me occasionally, and the kids more often. We are all turning out back on him instantly when he starts to jump up. Then we turn around, tell him to sit, and reward him with a treat and praise for the polite sit. Already it's improving his behavior-- he doesn't like losing our attention when we turn our backs on him. And he has always been highly treat motivated.

I'm also trying to get him to stop mowing down the toddler. He loves the toddler (who's actually not a toddler-- he'll be four in February) and tends to greet him like an onrushing freight train. The toddler has been faceplanted into the grass more than once, which he not surprisingly dislikes. I've been avoiding this by the simple solution of keeping them separated, but sooner or later, I'd like them to be able to play together. Today I put out Hero and let him get his first bouncies out, then took the toddler out, holding his hand so he couldn't get far away, and made sure Hero didn't pounce on him. Hero actually didn't even try to jump on him, so I think he's improving on that front, too.

Hero does love his kids, though. He guards them with great intensity, and when they went back into the woods where he couldn't follow, he sat down and stared at them until they came back. And when the toddler's feelings were hurt by one of the older kids, and he sat down and howled, Hero came up to him and licked his face: Quit crying, kid, it'll be okay. I imagine dogs actually lick crying children's faces because they like the taste of salt, not in an effort to provide sympathy, but the toddler took it as a comforting gesture, and started to laugh, which made Hero's stub wag. As I said, he loves his kids!