April 25, 2007
Oscar's Story: Part II
The continuing saga about the adventures and misadventures of dog ownership...
Chapter IV: The First Month (or, A Rude Awakening)
By the end of the first week we had settled into a regular schedule, but that doesn't mean it wasn't without stress. For me, the roughest period was after the first week (once the initial fun wore off) until the end of the first month or so, as I came to realize how much work it is to raise a puppy. I don't have children, but I can't imagine it's that much different; constant watch and supervision, cleaning up after their mistakes, teaching them right from wrong and how to behave, worrying that you're not doing something right, etc. All in all it was a pretty stressful month.
I've always had dogs in the home, but they've never been puppies; as such, I didn't quite understand the degree to which my schedule would change. No going straight from work over to hang out with friends. No more sleeping through the night (or sleeping in on the weekends, for that matter). No more random vacations or excursions. During this period I had real mixed feelings; I didn't regret getting a dog, but I did really feel cramped by the burden.
To his credit, though, Oscar did his part to ease the transition by being well-behaved and receptive to instruction. As I mentioned in Part I, he really took to crate/potty training; after soiling his crate the first night, he has yet to do it since. It also didn't take long for him to get comfortable going in the crate on his own. I think it helped that I worked at home half the day, so that I could keep him in the crate but still be at home - I feel this helped prevent him from associating the crate with being alone. The picture below represents a major milestone, as it was the first time he laid down in the crate voluntarily while the door was open. You can see from his size that he was still quite young:
We also started training after a week or two, and he really took to it. By the end of the first month he had pretty well mastered numerous commands, including: Sit, Stay, Shake, Speak, Down, Crawl, Roll Over, and High Five. The two hardest (Come and Heel) I saved for when he was a bit older.
Chapter V: Getting Into Rhythm
By the end of the first month Oscar was old enough to hold his eliminations for half a work day, so I stopped working from home and switched into a new schedule where I would come home every day at lunch (this lasted until he was old enough to go the entire work day). As we overcomed initial obstacles, new ones presented themselves. We started regular vet trips for vaccinations, which presented a problem for him because he didn't take to car rides very well. He threw up on each ride, which apparently is common with pups. I felt bad for him, because I'm sure the manual transmission and shift shock weren't helping, but there wasn't much to do except wait for him to outgrow it (which he eventually did).
Another big challenge was the college football season. I'm a passionate follower of GT football and, to me, Saturdays in Fall mean football and tailgating. However, a 3 month old puppy presents a problem when you're trying to spend 12 hours or so away from home. After much thought I decided to bring him along with me to the tailgates, and crate him in the fraternity house during the games; this would give him a valuable opportunity to socialize with all kinds of other people. I would say it was a positive (albeit frustrating) experience; most people seemed to enjoy interacting with him, but honestly it was a major burden on me; I couldn't enjoy the tailgates because I had to constantly supervise him. Also, I felt like I was putting a burden on other people because he was often "in the way" and I would occasionally need other people to take his leash whenever I wanted to eat, etc. It never seemed to bother anybody but I still felt he was a bit too high-maintenance for tailgating.
Training continued to go smoothly during this period; he picked up on extended Stay (over a minute in length, with me not even in the room) and learned to Stand as best he can. We began working on Come, but I wasn't diligent enough about teaching this one early.
After several months of absolutely no behavioral problems, I started giving him some freedoms. When I first brought him home he was confined to the kitchen and bedroom only, and this continued for most of the first month. I slowly exposed him to the rest of the house and he never did anything wrong so he quickly had access to the whole house. The major freedom which I granted him at about 5 months was leaving his crate door open at night.
For the most part he was very responsible with the newfound freedoms, but strangely enough, there was probably a two week span where he misbehaved in several ways. Maybe he didn't quite know better, or maybe he was testing his limits, but either way he really pissed me off. First, after a couple weeks of leaving his crate open at night, I awoke one Saturday morning to a strange noise. Peering over the side of the bed I caught Oscar chewing on the wall. That's right, chewing... on the wall. I don't know how you chew on a flat surface but he did it. He had managed to scrape his teeth into the drywall, leaving a big ugly mark. I disciplined him pretty harshly and figured he wouldn't do it again - only to catch him do the same thing a couple weeks later. At this point I stopped leaving the crate open at night.
In a related incident, I started leaving him out of his crate and free to roam in the mornings when I was in the shower. All was fine for several weeks, until one morning I stepped out of the bathroom to see him gnawing on the wooden railing at the bottom of the staircase. Another day, another punishment.
All three of those incidents occurred within weeks of each other; I haven't had any other problems before or since.
The other big event that occurred at about 4 months was the opening of an off-leash dog park near our house. Nothing special, basically just a fenced-in grassy area, but it provided us two valuable things: a place where he could run off leash, and an opportunity to interact with other dogs. Since it opened we've been going at least once a week on the weekends. It's a great help to me because it allows him to burn off some energy, and also helped him understand how to behave properly around other dogs, including ones of different size and temperament.
Like most dogs he loves being outside, so here are a few pictures of him in his element. The first one I love, because it was one of the first good ones I got soon after he really learned how to point properly (which, interestingly enough, is instinctual for his breed; he was trying to point from the very first day I brought him home). I think a pointing pose is one of the finest looks for a dog:
When in the yard, Oscar is all about chewing on sticks. You can just see the happiness all over his face once he got ahold of this one:
You can find all my pictures in the gallery link on my page; you can also find plenty of pictures Adam has taken at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aparkerw.
So, I'm almost done with this saga, but I think I have enough for a third part. No better way to boost ratings than to leave you with a cliffhanger! Tune in later this week for the riveting finale, including some words of wisdom for potential future first-time dog owners like myself...
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