Miles is now past the 16-week-let's-expose-him-to-everything-humanly-possible window of time. He's not nervous around the cats anymore (well, sometimes), he's not nervous around people at all, nor is he nervous around other dogs. Those were really the big three things that we wanted to instill in him - that he needn't be afraid, because they're not harmful to him, in most cases...and if they are, we're there to protect him.
Lessons all learned. Check. :) I officially feel like a good puppy parent.
Except when it comes to getting him to obey me under most, if not any, circumstances.
Right.
So, it may come as no shock to any of you that Rob is the alpha of our pack, according to Miles. As such, Miles worships the ground he walks on, and everything that Rob commands, he does, right then and there. Rob can even take him outside OFF LEASH (at four months old, I KNOW! Unheard of!) and he obeys about 90% of the time.
Miles does none of those things for me.
He was even chasing Bernie this morning, and I tried to command him to come, and he wouldn't. Bernie was not appreciative.
Anywho, the woman that runs Doggy Day Care is also a dog trainer. Just from the way the dogs obey her (she can get Miles to sit at the door WHEN THERE ARE OTHER PUPPIES WAITING FOR HIM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF IT), she's highly qualified. So, it stands to reason that she's going to be an excellent puppy class teacher. She said that because of Miles' breed and how focused pit bulls can be to their goal (whatever it is), it's always good to bring them to puppy class, where there are distractions and he has to listen and can't touch or play with any other puppy. This is good because this is the arena in which Miles needs the most work. The thing that hooked me on this class was the story that she told me:
There was a woman who was going to start coming to doggy day care right around the same time Miles was. They were about the same age, and she was also going to start him on puppy class pretty soon after she started doggy day care. The dog ran out of the house and got hit by a car because there was a distraction and he wasn't listening, and he died. At that moment, I realized that I would be -totally- devastated if something like that happened to Miles, and as his owner, it's up to us to protect him from things like that. We already do a pretty good job, but we can do more. So, I'm really happy that we're doing this class.
She also all but insisted that I be the one to take him, as he listens to Rob, so it'd just be silly to have him there.
So, first class is tomorrow at 9am, and I can't wait to see how Miles does. He's such a good boy.
My mom had a puppy who was also hit by a car the day before he was to start training. It was the absolute saddest thing to happen to our family. He was a spaniel mix (cocker, springer) and was the cutest thing. So tragic.
ReplyDeleteI can't even imagine how awful that must have been! :(
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