A TMI Post about Peeing and NARBs

If you don't want to read about TMI things regarding dogs, then this post is not for you. I am bringing both of these things up today because he has done them both today and they are fresh on my mind.

The first thing that I'm going to talk about is excited peeing. Miles doesn't do it in front of me, or in front of Rob, for that matter. He does it when he's in front of people that he doesn't see often, or for people to whom he is submissive. He doesn't pee much, and the doggy day care lady (for whom he is submissive), Christine, says that it will likely pass after he is neutered. T-Minus 9 days. We call them the sprinkles. According to this article, he will likely grow out of it - it's most prevalent in puppies, because they don't have full bladder control until they are a little older, sometimes even up to a year old. He does it most when he is excited to see people - for instance, my father-in-law this afternoon, all over his shoe and driveway. He's generally pretty good about not doing that, though, unless he gets really excited...AND, there's a new thing that he does when he's REALLY excited that just recently developed in the past couple of weeks - he SMILES! Much like this (except more subtle and less vicious looking - photo courtesy of http://gotsmile.net):

Anywho, he's pretty adorable when he does it, and we try to praise it so that we can get him to do it on command. He knows that it's not a bad thing so he's doing it more often, which ABSOLUTELY cracks me up.

The next thing that I'm going to talk about is a little crass, but it's the NARB (look at #1 and #3 to get what I mean). This happens at two specific times:

1. After breakfast. What can we say, he gets overly excited by food.
2. When he's really, really excited. Like, every time I pick him up from daycare.

It also sometimes just happens when he's just sitting there. He'll start whining every time, as if to say "WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MEEEEE?" He just waits it out, and then he's fine. This will likely also stop happening once he is neutered, so we're not too worried about it at this point.

In other words, our Miles is growing up! He still cracks us up every day (for instance, right now, while he is seemingly trying to build his own little fort out of a cardboard box)! He's currently about 40 pounds - our vet says that once he hits six months, his growth will likely slow significantly (and it has already started to - he's gaining about 2 pounds per week currently, slowing from 4-6 when we adopted him), and he will be at approximately 2/3 of his total weight at that time. My guess is that he's going to be 56 pounds, all told. It could be a little more, but I'm holding fast at the 56 that I put in the family pool. :)

Our favorite thing is to introduce Miles to a new sound, because when we do, he does this, from side to side:

He's such a good boy.

Puppy Class - who knew it would be a test in patience?

Oh, Miles.

Miles, Miles, Miles.

The first puppy class last week went GREAT. He was an example for lots of good behavior (like "wait", all of the basic commands and such). We got GREAT feedback from the trainer, saying that he needs to work on "shush" the most, so we've really been working with him on that. It always takes consistent work, which I have been really, really trying to do.

Today's was a different story. He was a total turd the whole time - we're talking jumping all over the place, barking more than ever, and generally making it look like we're heathens who never work with him on anything, ever. But, that's to be expected, I suppose - we were working on polite leash walking. What a perfect day to cover this topic, also, because he nearly pulled my arm off getting into class, and I am certain that I've been seconds away from broken fingers at numerous points this week because the leash was wrapped around them when he suddenly decided he wanted to pull as hard as he could.

He's definitely in his adolescent phase at this point - testing boundaries, to see juuuuust how much he'll be able to get away with. I know that's what this is all about, and I'm trying to be patient, but I had a very hard time with the patience thing this morning. But, what made me feel better was that he wasn't the only one like that - there was another dog there who was being just as bratty. Must be a full moon or something.

I also know that a few things will or have happened in the month of June:

1. We moved. He was having trouble adjusting - he's basically been sleeping all week. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it has taken him almost a full week to adjust. He's been doing pretty well with it, though, considering that it was a pretty big change in space and such.

2. As of Tuesday, he will officially be enjoying the final week with his nuts. That's right, we're getting him neutered on the 28th. This will be good on so many levels, not the least of which is excited peeing. But I also think he'll be a lot easier to teach because he'll be a little more mellow.

So, once we get past those things, it will be smooth sailing from puppyhood to doghood.

Also, I realize that by and large, puppies run the full gamut of the spectrum as far as difficulty raising them is concerned, and if him being bratty once in a while is our biggest problem, then we're doing GREAT. He really is such a good boy. :)

It's time for Puh-Puh-Puh Puppy Class!

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.