The dog blog

Thursday, June 25th. We've had our new puppy Kooper for almost 2 weeks now. He is a 2 month Australian Shepherd. We had done quite a lot of research about the breed, visited with another Aussie owner and talked extensively with the breeder. We chose Kooper from the litter when he was just a month old based on what appeared to be his nice, calm nature and his beautiful colouring. However, since picking him up and bringing him home he is showing the true Aussie in him. That is, high energy, strength and intelligence, constant gnawing and chewing, frequent nipping and the occasional angry snarl and bite. It also appears that we have the potential for quite a large dog as opposed to the medium size more characteristic for the breed. At this time, I think he thinks he's the boss, perhaps enjoying his new role having come from more dominate pups at the breeders.

We had our first puppy training on Thursday night. I think it went quite well, no human or puppy was hurt, he didn't pee or poop on the floor and he wasn't barking uncontrollably. The little guy was so tired afterward though, all that play time and constant pulling on his leash. I could probably say Kooper was the most entertaining of the 7 dogs present. He definitely tried to assert himself, but was overpowered a few times by an older and larger labradoodle. Nice that he got a bit of a reality check. The one takeaway from the trainer on how to deal with his biting and nipping was consistently use food as reward for all good behaviour (playing nice, sitting and lying, waiting, leaving temptations alone etc).

Friday didn't end well. We tried some of the new ideas, but today it seems that every time we were playing with him it quickly came to an end when he began to bite. We even saw some true doggy aggression today with nasty growls and far from playful biting. We knew it would be difficult, but we didn't expect such a level of biting issues and aggression. We know its not his fault, and it must something we were doing wrong. We felt we are approaching his training as best we could, applying what we were reading and learning from other dog experts. We were putting a lot of energy, time and effort into his training and we seemed to be only making matters worse. My wife and I were very stressed out and I admitted that I was thinking that perhaps we'd made a mistake. It appears that Kooper felt the stress and sadness in the air and was very quiet in the evening.

One of his good traits is his nightime behaviour. He is quite easy to settle down now at night and there haven't been too many peeing accidents. Sometimes we'll sleep for a while beside his pen and we're testing the crate at bedtime on occasion as well.

We had a good Saturday, we probably gave half of his food today as treat rewards for obeying simple sit, wait and down tests and for leaving certain objects alone and listening to corrective instructions. We had family visitors in the evening and it went well with only occasional nipping.

I also had my second puppy driven stranger meeting in as many days on Saturday. On Friday, Kooper was the perfect chick magnate, attracting two attractive ladies over for a chat. And then on Saturday, I'm sitting with Kooper at the front of the house and one of our neighbours drives by and pulls his car into his driveway. Now this gentleman lives across the road and I've never met him. He always appears very serious, never noticing me or any of our family - quite an unfriendly fellow. He is however, a dog owner. On this day, he sees Kooper and I and as soon as he's parked his car, comes across the street to meet us. And what a nice man he is, I found out he's also from England and we talked about our dgos for a little while. Kooper lives up to being a true dog icebreaker.

It's Sunday morning now, the good news is that he lasted over 7 hours without needing to pee in the night. This morning's energy spurts were all fun and games but perhaps we let them go on a bit too long, so he's been getting rather nasty a few times this morning. He's having he morning nap now and the house is quiet. We'll pick up the new treat training when he wakes up and keep a close eye on his mood.

We are also starting to understand his daily moods, his eating and pee and poop timing and recognizing when he's over stimulated, when he needs some crazy time and when to just let him be. Hopefully, Kooper is starting to understand how we work too. We noticed that Friday was not a usual day as I worked from home and the kids were off school, so maybe that had some effect on his behaviour. Let's hope we don't have many more days like Friday.

Our new addition to our family is already changing our family in many ways. There are many challenges, but I can clearly see the positives and beginning to see the progress with his training. He has been part of our lives for just 2 weeks, but the emotional bond is already there. We love our Kooper.