We started the morning with a session of lots of street-crossing practice in my neighborhood.
Then, we went to the dog park1 for the last time of Doggie’s stay with me. His confidence has continuously grown from one day to the next, and today, he started playing! All the dogs in the compilation below are unfamiliar to him. I think it’s safe to say that when Doggie gets greater freedom at home now, he’ll be chill around new dogs (who he hasn’t had access to while being mostly confined due to his suicidal street-crossing maneuvers.)
A relaxed car dog
After practicing sidewalk behaviors and socializing all morning, we headed back to Naucalpan around noon. Doggie slept through the car ride – an hour is just the right time for a juvenile Mal to recharge!
The handover session
I spent the afternoon with Doggie’s humans for a thorough handover session. It was great to see how happy and excited Doggie was to see his favorite people again, and how excited and newly motivated they were to keep working with him! Eduardo had already shared my videos and explained things in theory to his sister and dad. When I got there, everyone was already on the same page.
First I showed them what Doggie and I had practiced in person, and then they took turns working on all the different steps. With a little help, Doggie did great for everyone – both stopping at curbs until released with “¡Libre!, listening to his leave it/stop itcue (¡Alto!) and his sit cue, fetching toys in the field next to the sidewalk without stepping on the street and tugging on a toy instead of the leash.
We ended with a few theory tips about how to help Doggie relax around Eduardo’s young nieces and nephews.
Speaking of nieces and nephews: there is only thing I regret not having done while Doggie stayed with me. When the neighborhood kids asked to pet my dogs when I was out with Chai and Doggie, I said no. I’m used to saying no because Chai is not a fan of being touched by strangers. I missed out on this opportunity for Doggie to refresh his puppy memory of interacting with children. He’d have benefitted from it, especially now that I’ve heard that unlike his dad Drago, Doggie hasn’t been allowed around Eduardo’s nieces and nephews so far. That said, I hope that with a plan in place, he’ll get to be around them in the future either way!
Trueques
My new windshield wipers aren’t here yet – but soon! I love when we’re all helping each other through exchanges of knowledge or things rather than money. It feels more personal and fun. Eduardo’s family knows they’ll always have a dog trainer in their corner, and I know I’ll always have someone who knows about cars! When they need someone to look after one of their dogs, I’ll be here for them – and when I need someone for Game, she’ll be welcome with her bonus family there. It takes a village!
The weeks ahead
Doggie is still a juvenile baby raptor, full of energy and the need to go-go-go. Eduardo and his family will continue implementing the training I started and up his exercise and play routine a bit. We’ll reassess in a few weeks. If necessary, Doggie will spend another week with me in the end of September where I can make him my priority before being tied up with FDSA from October 1st, or I’ll come back for another session or two (it’s unfortunately a bit of a drive.) The hope is, of course, that Eduardo and his family will be able to work with him themselve going forwards, with only minor hickups! But with juvenile Mals being juvenile Mals, you never know.
The benefits and risks of living life off leash
I’ve talked about this on several occasions in the past, but this is a good opportunity to share my own point of view again.
Doggie’s best life, the one we all want for him, is one that is like his dad Drago’s: being able to roam freely. Drago was able to do this from the day he came home to Eduardo. Doggie, as a small puppy, fearlessly wanted to play-jump on strangers and cross roads. This led his humans to restrain him more than their other dogs in order to keep him and everyone around him safe, and that, in turn, caused Doggie to be difficult to live with because he had lots of energy and not enough places to put it.
It is of course risky to allow dogs off-leash freedom around cars. None of us are kidding ourselves about this. It is also a question of life quality. Not everyone has yards, cars, time to drive to dog training facilities and hiking trails, or dog parks within walking distance. They aren’t the only ways of giving powerful, high-energy dogs their best lives. I’d venture that being around one or more family members all day long, getting to hang out while they are attending customers, playing on the field with neighborhood dog friends or the dog’s humans and toys whenever nothing else is going on, and going on long off leash walks or learning new tricks as soon as Eduardo gets home from work at night make for a damn near perfect life of freedom, exercise, enrichment and dog/dog as well as dog/human social interactions! Our hope is that Doggie is a few steps closer to having this life now too.
I’ll update you on “what happend next” with Doggie and the other rebelde puppies as soon as I get around to it … The backlog of what I want to share is large – but slowly, step by step, I’m making my way through it! I want to continue transparently sharing the ups and downs of their lives with you all!
If you’re in the Global North and part of a particular slice of the dog world, you may be apalled by the fact that Doggie is going to a dog park to socialize. The local dog culture here is different, and so is the dog park culture. The way I live and work with dogs changes depending on where in the world I am. ↩︎
This morning, a friend followed us around the neighborhood and took videos of our work for Eduardo, Doggie’s human. We practiced and recorded all the skills Doggie had practiced. Below are two of them, showing things I haven’t shown in my previous posts.
Stop and sit at the curb
The first video is the goal behavior for our city puppy: Eduardo’s greatest challenge has been the fact that Doggie isn’t afraid of cars and hasn’t learned to stay on the sidewalk. He could be roaming freely if only he learned to respect sidewalk boundaries. Doggie’s other high-energy challenges come from the fact that Eduardo’s family doesn’t have a yard, and that unlike their other Mals, Doggie is the kind of dog who will run back and forth across busy streets – and they live in a busy car neighborhood. To keep him safe, he has been confined or on leash – and that has made it hard for Doggie to keep his teeth and paws to himself whenever his humans have time for him!
The goal behavior is for Doggie to stop at the curb even if the human gets going and even if food is dropped (not on video, but we’ve worked up to this successfully), and sit before being released. I still use a sit cue (¡Siéntate!) in this video, but as Eduardo and his dad and sister keep working on this, it will eventually become an offered sit. The sit is a safety behavior in addition to stopping: once it is well-rehersed, if one behavior breaks down, it will be the first one – sitting – rather than the second one – staying on the curb. A dog who stands on the sidewalk rather than sits is better than a dog who jumps in front of a car!
I’ve only worked on this behavior for a week. While we’ve generalized to many sidewalks, Eduardo and his family will need to continue working on it to really turn it into a habit. In the video below, I show how to help Doggie if he steps off the sidewalk before his release cue (¡Libre!)
We also went into the dog park again (no video), where Doggie’s confidence around new dogs had grown even more than on day #5, and my friend took a few pictures of Doggie and me – I want memories of Doggie’s time with me! This one is my favorite:
After a longer outing, we headed back home where Doggie practiced staying home alone with the girls while I went back out for a lesson with the young gentleman below:
The manual for being a juvenile Mal
Doggie was being a good, relaxed boy for the rest of the day … until I had a video consult! As the manual for being a juvenile Malinois requires, he woke up just in time to unplug my Internet not just once, but twice. Unfortunately for Don Doggie, he got tethered before he had a chance to kick my clients off the call a third time.
We ended the day – our last day together! – rolling around the couch in an attempt to get all four of us in a picture … with varying levels of success!
Juvenile Mals are a lot of dog first thing in the morning! As of today, we’ve found a place for Doggie to put his early-morning arousal: as soon as his day starts, he gets his tried and true fleece tug pacifier to hold on to. I keep the other end of it in my hand so he can’t loose it.
Chai’s on a retractable leash first thing in the morning, and Doggie would like to chew her leash – but if there’s his fleece tug, he’ll choose that instead, no questions asked. It’s got to feel a lot more fun to bite down on! So this morning, our first loop consisted of Doggie tugging/holding on to the toy almost nonstop – it feels like holding a kid’s hand as we walk – while Chai does her own morning things on the retractable leash. Then I went back and switched adult dogs. Game is always off leash in the morning, and by the time we got to her loop, Doggie had down-regulated enough for me to leave the tug in the apartment without getting jumped on, humped or my feet chewed.
Doggie explored and sniffed alongside Game, sat for treats, checked in for praise a lot and did his morning peeing and pooping. Superstar! All of this off leash for him – only Chai is currently leashed in the morning (until we’ve got our cat chasing sufficiently under recall control – we’re almost there!)
Thoughts on Mals and Border Collies
It’s been a lot of fun to remember how intensely worky juvenile Mals are! Chai, the last dog I had at this age, has been super chill in comparison. Part of it may have been that she constantly had diarrhea at that time and may have felt physically weaker. A lot was still new for her at 5.5 months, so she may have had less muscle and satiated on stimulation more easily because of it – who knows! Hadley, the Border Collie I raised for an ex, was certainly higher maintenance at this age than Chai, but no comparison to any of my Mals or even to Phoebe.
The Malinois I’ve raised are different from the Border Collies I’ve raised (I haven’t raised a lot by any means, so these observations really only apply to my own dogs and a few puppies of friends I know well.)
When Game and Grit were puppies, I had a yard and a 2-person, 5-dog household (for Game’s first 6 months and Grit’s first 1.5 years.) Game took a colleague’s weekly puppy socialization class, we trained all the foundations at home, and anytime she wasn’t sleeping or working with me, she’d find herself a playmate in one of our other dogs.
When I went to Thailand after, we didn’t have a yard, but the dogs certainly got a lot of physical and mental stimulation: weekends running at the beach, and during the week, I slowly worked Game up to twice daily treadmill runs of 30 minutes each (Game did an hour in one go), we went on short neighborhood walks every morning and evening and occasionally Game worked at chilling under the table when I went to a corner food place for lunch. We also spent time at the Siam Crown training fields and yards most days where the dogs got to run free on a giant property and we trained a little. I worked on tricks around the agility equipment with Game and we did bitework foundations, and we played and trained (and the dogs swam) around/in Siam Crown’s saltwater dog pool. Sometimes in addition and sometimes instead of Siam Crown, we went to walk banana plantations and swim in irrigation canals, watch huge monitor lizards and look for Thailand’s beautiful snakes, or walked around some of the temples of Sam Phran and interacted with free-roaming dogs. Grit and Game played a lot with each other, and Game also had a Mal friend who was her age and a Boston Terrier friend.
At home, Game also worked on nosework almost every day.
Every single calory she didn’t earn in training came from a Kong, Squirrel Dude (basically a more difficult Kong) or was a frozen raw meat bone – chews to keep her busy.
When we moved to Guatemala, we had a yard again. Game’s physical activities included lots and lots of mountainbiking and uphill bikejoring, long daily hikes and running with my car because I lived on an almost traffic-free dirt road. The training activity of our choice at this point was sniffing out fake cadaver scent in huge outdoor areas. She also went almost everywhere with me, from visiting friends to getting my hair cut and eating out to being my demo dog when I worked with in-person clients.
Up until last year, whenever I didn’t have a yard, I spent around 3 hours outdoors with Game every day (in addition to a little bit of training or informal play) unless we did A LOT of intense brain training.
When Chai joined us, Game and I started doing a bit less – it was made up for by lots of play between the two, especially when Chai was a puppy and juvenile dog. Then Game was busy with her puppies who sure took lots of energy. I’ve built her stamina back up after. She continues not needing quite as much exercise anymore and being a chill and content dog in the house, but she also has a treadmill again for days I’m sick or can’t take her out as much as we’d like to for another reason.
None of the Border Collies were as physically strong and intense as the Mals when they didn’t get their cognitive and physical needs met. Hadley sure had issues as a puppy, but they expressed themselves in less destructive ways. Mals get “angry” or destructive. Border Collies get depressed or neurotic.
There sure are similarities (two working breeds who generally like cooperating with humans), but they are SO different too. It’s hard to put my finger on the key difference. Being serious, as a personality trait, seems stronger in Mals – including in goofy ones like Game. Game is un-serious for a Mal. There is still more of a “this is serious business and I am working on this” vibe to working with any Mal I’ve ever met, while my Border Collies and most other Borders I know well have had a more playful vibe. They too could train all day long, but they seemed more light-hearted.
Mick may be an exception; he was always serious, and his single interest in life was sheep. Or maybe Mick was the rule and Hadley and Chai are exceptions. Who knows! Maybe there is no rule. I like that thought best!
Urban adventuring with Doggie and Chai
For our training walk, I took Chai and Doggie to our usual park. Doggie needed 2 or 3 reminders at the curb – it’s still a new behavior, AND I just added Chai to the mix, and also ducking out of sight behind parkeded cars to reminding him to keep an eye on me – but he did SO well that I had him off leash for the entire walk today! He’s doing fantastic and learning fast!
Dog park adventure
I took Doggie and Chai into the dog park again. Doggie reciprocated dogs greeting him and showed interest in a 4 months old Border Collie puppy (who was so much smaller than him! It’s wild!) Either the fact that we came back to a familiar space, as opposed to it being new yesterday, or the fact that Chai was around as well (or both) helped him approach other dogs. There were more dogs here today than yesterday, and Doggie ventured further from me and even stole a ball, and showed real interest in the Border puppy.
There was, however, also a situation in the dog park that was a bit much for Doggie: people wanting to interact with him while there were also All The Dogs around (see the video below.) I let him find out that he was safe for himself.
Depending on the dog, I’d handle situations like this differently. For example, I would not have put the much more sensitive Chai into this kind of situation – to this day, I’m very adamant about her not having to deal with strangers reaching for her. Doggie’s confidence, even when he’s insecure, is far greater and he doesn’t spiral up in greeting scenarios – so I let him find out what it’s like to walk up to and be greeted by people and dogs for himself. You can see in his body language in the video below that these aren’t stress-free interactions, but ones he is perfectly able to handle nevertheless. He is also free to leave and does so (I didn’t catch the second time on video.)
In a different situation today, Doggie checked in with me on two occasions when a dog barked at him. This, I’d venture, is a tentativeness-based response. I reinforced the check-ins and will facilitate some more meet-the-dogs outings in the next few days. I can see how he’s coming out of his shell at the dog park. If he lived here with me permanently, I’d take him there every day for a month or so and expect him to then be back to his puppy self around dogs, simply by meeting lots of different ones off leash every day.
Everything we did not chase today
No bike chasing, kids chasing, trying to play with the broom of someone weeping the sidewalk or chasing of passing dogs or even Chai when she was crittering … I’m very proud! The only one who got briefly chased a bit exuberantly was the Border Collie puppy when we met them again outside the dog park, and Big Doggie was like, “Hey, I KNOW you!” and ran towards the puppie who took flight. I was able to call him off with his “pup-pup-pup” recall. Its strength keeps impressing me.
Doggie earned A LOT of food out and about AND found a large junk of chicken for dessert. A successful outing! Chai, for her part, only found bones. But then again, she came across an entire bolillo last night. It’s not as if the streets had been stingy with her either.
Arousal behaviors and calming down
Barking and drinking
Doggie likes to talk: barking is part of his attempts to get Chai to play, and before we established “sit to ask for stuff,” he vocalized while shoe-biting me too. Game also used to like to vocalize when she had opinions at his age.
Doggie is also an arousal drinker: when highly excited, he’ll drink a lot. Adolescent Chai used to be that way too. I am seeing Doggie’s arousal drinking go down already as he settles in with us more and more every day.
Clarity
I can’t ask him, but get the impression that clarity and structure also make a big difference in terms of Doggie’s arousal. (Part of this may be my confirmation bias, of course: I get the impression that worky dogs in general do best with clarity, which makes me likely to attribute positive behavior changes to increased clarity.)
Down-regulating
Doggie’s down-regulating after coming home from today’s outing to the park was fantastic too. He only followed me around the apartment for two or three minutes, curious what I was up to. Then he laid down to rest. Briefly after, he got a second wind and tried to get Chai to play – but before long, he peacefully passed out on the couch.
Closed doors
As of yesterday, Doggie is able to stay behind closed doors, for example when I go to the bathroom, without scratching them. Goodest boy!
Late afternoon outing: kids and adults, bikes and bread, running and yelling …
There was A LOT going on around the apartment towers tonight; from someone selling bread out of their car and announcing it loudly to someone selling random little snacks at pop-up tables to what felt like all the kids running around and yelling or riding bikes all at one, and all the adults taking strolls between the buildings. I don’t think I’ve seen things here THIS busy before (I’ve only lived in this neighborhood for a few months and am still learning about it.) We walked a little, then I picked Doggie up and carried him past the main commotion because I didn’t want to risk him running after a kid. I had forgotten the fleece tug, and I didn’t want him to practice chewing on his leash or pulling either. Conveniently, he’s still easy to pick up and carry, and just like we practiced when the puppies were tiny, he’ll go limp in my arms and relax.
We went to the part of our space that has all the wild, giant large-leaved plants and tall grass and bushes. Everything was still wet from the rain, and Doggie got the best kind of zoomies (while mom Game found THREE avocados that had fallen off a tree and ate them all. Lucky girl!) Doggie had a great time zooming, and in between bouncy, high-speed loops, he’d come back and sit to ask for a treat.
Two dogs in two different windows saw Doggie running laps and barked at him. His response to this was to come and check in with me. He’s a little tentative when dogs are yelling at him.
On the way back to my place, he gave one bark towards a suddenly appearing person who was moving away from us and took off towards them, full-on “I’m a big and powerful Mal, look at what I can do!”, tail high and confident and arousal-hackles up. I called him; he turned on a dime to come and eat his scatter.
This was interesting to observe! Either Doggie was wound up from his zoomies OR he is getting used to this environment and starting to regard it as “his,” so if someone we haven’t invited comes into our zoomie space, we tell them who’s boss. The bark-run towards the person looked like an adult Malinois response, not like a fear-based or conflicted behavior to me. From what I’ve seen (he’s a big, friendly boy,) if I let him run up to a person in this state of arousal, he’d probably end up jumping and asking for attention once he got there rather than continuing to bark – but I don’t know since, of course, I called him back instead of letting him scare the person.
As we were almost back home, four kids playing some game came running and yelling towards us from four directions at the same time. I put Game on Doggie’s leash and picked up Doggie. On the way out, a little kid on a bike fell right in front of us (we were being good and eating a scatter rather than going to investigate), but running kids at this age, this speed, this number and this noise level … not exactly a scenario I want to add two Malinois to! Doggie gave one soft bark as the kids kept coming super close and running right around us, yelling. I held on to Game’s collar and we waited until the craze had moved on. Both dogs continued their walk back home without giving the kids a second thought.
I wonder what it’s like to grow up here. I suspect it is fun: this apartment complex has to have 6000 or more inhabitants (which is more than the entire town I grew up in.) The reason I know it’s at least 6000 is that it is part of some city neighborhood-something initative, and only housing projects of 6000 or more people get to be a part of this initiative. The supposedly biggest housing project in the city has (numbers vary) between 8 and 9000 inhabitants, which is twice as many as the town I grew up in. It’s wild to think how many people fit into such a small area if you just make your buildings taller instead of urban-sprawling all over the place!
Turn taking
Doggie did great staying on his suitcase when I worked with Chai in the same room today. He’s really coming along nicely! I’m happy with his day.
Doggie was a bit of a desperate maniac when I finally released him from his prison this morning. I opened the door to the outside world for him to see what would happen (I need coffee before or while taking out the dogs these days; my brain won’t brain otherwise.) The open door is something he’ll need to learn for his humans, who worry he’ll take off. It’s safe here since we live on a plot that’s part of a high rise housing thing with a giant shared “yard” in the end of a dead-end street. His humans live right on a car street, which makes the same thing a lot more dangerous.
Our start into the day: getting to lo leave and choosing to stay; meeting a stranger and a new dog and imitating Chai’s toy games
Doggie did great: took himself out to potty, stayed close and came right back in. He sniff-explored within sight of the door and kept coming back in to check on me until I had transferred the coffee into my thermos mug (thank you, Chris) and was ready to head out.
I let Doggie observe Chai’s morning play session, and he picked up on it and started running along with her and showing signs of trying to imitate our game! Smart boy!
He also curiously approached1 the person who feeds the pigeons around here every morning. The birds flew off and the person waved the feed-bag (a big black trash bag) in his face and told him to get lost, and he calmly deferred and came back to me. Lovely job there, Doggie! I’m focusing a lot on observing at this point to find my best training angles.
We also met our first free-roamer this morning. The dog came over to greet us because they didn’t know Doggie yet (they know Chai and Game), and he was completely neutral towards them, just like he’s been with the various strange humans we’ve seen. I’m very happy with this – so far, the only thing I’d like to be different is that I wish I had gotten more sleep. I’m glad our first two days are a weekend where I have less non-Doggie things on my plate!
Time to train!
All three pups have settled down as I’m typing out my morning notes2, so Mr. Doggie is going to get a training session next! If possible, I use sessions to reinforce being chill (rather than reinforce bouncing-off-the-walls with training.) I’ll use half his breakfast and then the other half for the outing I’ve planned for later this morning. The preliminary plan for Doggie’s second day and, if it works well, the days ahead:
+ Short morning outing with either play or exploration. + Non-Doggie work until/while he’s calm and sleepy. + First training session of the day for part of breakfast. + Work until/while he’s calm and sleepy again. + Longer outing by himself or with Game and/or Chai to observe, move his body, play, potentially train in public. + Work until/while he’s calm and sleepy again. + More training. + Work until/while he’s calm and sleepy again. + Depending on the day, more training or right into the … + short evening outing. + Calm down and bed time.
Day #1, session #1: revising the suitcase (“¡Maleta!”) and adding distractions
Remember: the goal is for Doggie to default to staying on sidewalks/stop at curbs unless/until released to step off. I’m using the suitcase to explain the basic principle that differences in surface height have meaning.
Doggie did fantastic this morning! Not only did I work up to opening doors and going out of sight while he stayed on the suitcase; I even added Chai as a distraction in the end of the session.
Now Mr. Doggie is chilling out again. I like how quickly he was able to down-regulate after the session. This may be either because he didn’t get a lot of sleep last night or because his morning needs for moving and thinking have been met. Either way – I’ll take it!
The longer outing
We walked to “the”our” park in the next neighborhood over. It was as busy as it gets on Sundays! I had Doggie wear a head halter because I’d seen him pull badly on a collar. He didn’t pull at all, but carried his leash in his mouth and occasionally shook it or gave a tug. No feelings about the head halter at all – he walked in it as if he had done it all his life.
At the park, I let him off. He ignored or politely greeted all dogs we met. He was interested in a sweets-selling stand and tempted to jump on one person who carried a bag of food (our old “Pup-pup-pup!” recall worked again!) He curiously approached about 3 people who encouraged him for pets. He ran after a soccer ball kids played with, but once again called off the moving ball with “Pup-pup-pup!”
Outside of this, he often chose to stay close and make physical contact with me – not out of fear, but because he was clearly over the moon we were out and about together. It feels great to see how strong the early puppyhood relationship we built is showing up so many months later!
On the way back, we worked on “Espera” – “Libre” – “street is lava” with several street crossings. Doggie picked things up fast!
Back home, he quickly relaxed on the cool tile floor. Excellet job, little one!
Toy play!
We’re starting to build interest in interacting with balls! When Doggie doesn’t seem interested in cooperative play – Game to the rescue! I ended the session below the moment I noticed he was about to opt out. Ideally, we’ll never beg our dogs to play (if at all, the other way round!)
The video angle is a bit weird, and in addition, it’s a wide angle video – but you get the idea!
… I don’t remember what else we did that day – not enough note-taking! But I do remember Doggie being very, very cute:
Sweeter dreams!
After a longer evening outing with Game, his second night was already calmer than the first one.
To clarify: letting my off-leash guest approach busy strangers is culturally acceptable in Mexico City (except for certain gentrified and foreigner-heavy neighborhoods.) People will communicate with the dogs they run into rather than expecting the owners to do it for them. ↩︎
The note-taking I’m talking about in the present tense here happened on September 1 – unlike my pre-publish editing of this post, which is happening on September 28, 2024 (right now). My blog posts will often involve some time travel. ↩︎
Last week, I visited Doggie (red collar boy) and his folks. He’s turning into a beautiful dog – strong, full of energy and fearless. He recognized Game and me at once and immediately tried climbing in my lap. Doggie is the puppy who went to live with his father Drago in Naucalpan in Mexico State. Towards the end of week 8, he had been the barkiest of all puppies and the second bitiest one (first place in terms of land-sharkiness was my favorite girl Chispa).
I hadn’t seen Doggie since he moved out, and it was SO cool to meet him again!
Eduardo and their dad mentioned that they’ve been struggling to keep Doggie calm: his energy is boundless and they haven’t let him off leash because unlike their other dogs, Doggie hasn’t picked up the concept of staying on the sidewalk. They have no yard and he doesn’t have the other dogs’ freedom to run, roam, play and train in the public field next to their house because it borders a street. For the same reason, he doesn’t get to go on off leash errand around town.
When leashed, he’ll bite and tug on the leash a lot, and he has learned to get attention by biting shoes and pants. Eduardo’s dad showed me the “battle scars” on their arms: what is to be expected from a bitey little landshark interacting with someone whose skin isn’t young and flexible anymore.
They mentioned that Doggie’s needs for exercise and stimulation were among the highest of any Mal they’ve had (they’ve had quite a few.)
I can’t help but feel proud of the boy: he’s exactly what a Mal should be. But I could see they were struggling to meet his needs, which in turn caused Doggie to struggle to relax. They haven’t found an affordable trainer nearby to help them out. Since I’m not nearby enough either (it’s about an hour’s drive, depending on traffic), we agreed that he’d stay with me for a week, and then we’d do a handover day. If they needed more help, I’d be able to make time or take him for another week in September.
No one has mentioned their puppy getting car sick. I know for sure that at least 2 of them never have; with the other 3, I haven’t had a chance to ask. Our numerous early puppy car adventures may have paid off (or it maybe it’s entirely genetic.)
A week later, I picked up Señorito Doggie without Game and Chai. He was calmer than he had been on my last visit – they had made sure to take him out for a walk before I got there. We drove by my place and I added Game and Chai to the car. Then we headed to Bosque de Aragón. I put a tracker on Doggie (just in case I needed to unexpectedly collect him somewhere) and let them all loose in a big field.
Testing who Doggie has grown up to be at Bosque de Aragón!
He was amazing. He was more interested in staying close to me than anything else, even though he took the world in with interest. For the first 15 minutes or so, he was SO happy to try making physical contact at all times as we walked, tail high and proud, wagging nonstop, shiny eyes! It took some walking until he had convinced himself I wasn’t going anywhere, and started exploring with the others.
It was the weekend, so a little more than usual was going on at Aragón. We walked off leash past joggers, other dogs, ducks, children, a skate park, food stands, bikes, giant animal statues and four-wheeled pedal cars. Doggie was a superstar. He fearlessly followed me up a bunch of stairs (the kind Chai had struggled with in the beginning), fell off on the way down and just kept going like nothing had happened. He remembered his puppy recall (“Pup-pup-pup!”) and turned on a dime whenever I called. First impression: he’s growing up to be a little superstar!
Doggie has the kind of environmental confidence I’ve been hoping for with my extreme early socialization! With this particular puppy/juvenile dog, at this particular moment in time, it looks like I have accomplished this goal. Nothing fazed him – he was neither repelled by nor overly attracted to interesting people and dogs: he had seen it all.
I’m biased, but isn’t he beautiful?
I did, of course, get some shoe biting and jumping for attention – he had learned this skill well since we’d been apart and was generalizing to me lightening fast! For the time being, I picked him up anytime he bit my naked feet (because I wore sandals and it hurt) and set him down again a few steps later. It was management, not training, since he didn’t mind being picked up at all. As we had worked on in the last … I think two weeks with me, in a variation of Julie Daniels’ puppy protocol, he just relaxed and went floppy in my arms to be let down again. When he felt like it, he’d take another run at my feet right away.
This is an interesting observation to me because for many puppies, picking them up can be used as a harmless punisher for unwanted behavior (because they don’t like being picked up.) Not with a puppy – at least not with this puppy – who has been picked up a lot by a lot of people, and built all the positive associations to it!
Back home: a break
Hard to believe, but true: even 5.5 months old Mals fall asleep eventually!
#1 training priority: respect sidewalk boundaries by default
After Doggie resting and me working on non-Doggie stuff, he got his first formal training session for training goal #1, the first priority for his humans: the concept of staying on sidewalks. Before we could work on this out in the world and with actual sidewalks, we needed a few things in our toolkit:
A shared language
A food marker (¡Sí!)
The concept of shaping and/or luring
The concept that offered behaviors pay off (R+)
The concept that “keep doing what you’re doing” pays off
A release cue
The concept of boundaries having meaning
The above would be true for any dog I worked with. In Doggie’s case, I only have a week to teach him what I would otherwise take my time with – perhaps several months. This means I’ll add other elements to our communication to speed up his learning, even if I wouldn’t usually use them. For this particular project, I added
as part of the shared language:
The understanding that offering behaviors can turn off environmental stimuli (R-/escape conditioning in the sense of: if I plug in my seat belt, the car will stop beeping at me.)
The concept that avoiding certain behaviors keeps certain environmental stimuli turned off (P+/avoidance conditioning as in: as long as I don’t unplug my seatbelt, the car will remain silent.)
R- was going to be key in speeding up the learning process. I was confident I’d be able to teach the goal behavior in a week and generalize it to all sidewalks with its help. You’ll find out whether I was right in the posts to come!
I was also sure that I could use R- without emotional fallout for Doggie, in a way that would increase clarity much faster than if I didn’t use it. Maximizing clarity fast would get me results fast. Getting results fast would result in increased life quality for Doggie in the years to come – so my pragmatic math was simple: of course I was going to use whatever I needed to in order to help Doggie archieve the life quality and freedom I wanted him to have.
I taught all parts of our shared language over the course of 3 sessions in the absence of distractions with the help of a suitcase: the suitcase served to explain the basic concept that changes in surface height – such as steps and sidewalks or, in this case, suitcases! – can be meaningful.
Here’s our very first suitcase session. I first attempted to shape Doggie, but since he didn’t know how to chase treats, I quickly went to luring instead. I love teaching dogs to shape, but for our particular project, I knew I’d be faster if I just lured my target behavior and then rewarded.
After the session above, I introduced our release cue (¡Libre!), a cue for going on the suitcase (¡Maleta!) and the P- element (the “floor is lava” game, aka an equivalent to the seat belt beep in a car.)
#2 training goal: an alternative way of asking for attention
Doggie had already learned to get attention by biting shoes/feet and jumping on his humans. I was going to offer him an alternative: sit to ask for what you’d like! I marked and reinforced all his sitting with food and attention that first day.
Typically, this is all I’d do. I’d redirect to a chewable item and withdraw attention for biting and jumping until it just stopped happening. However, since we were on a time crunch – a week, and I wanted to see no more shoe biting at all! – I added …
another part to our shared language:
A punishment marker (¡Alto!)
Not only did jumping and biting my shoes no longer work to get attention – it now produced undesirable consequences. Not results Doggie hated (there’s no need for that); just something he was not looking for under these circumstances, similar to Sarah Stremming’s “milk, not water” analogy. This was simply something we worked on throughout the day, all day, starting on our first day together – as soon as we had gotten home from Aragón, where I had learned that picking up wasn’t undesirable enough.
Luckily, Doggie only bites his humans’ shoes, but not the shoes of strangers – that would have made things a lot harder!
By means of the undesired consequence followed by helping him into a sit if he fell back into his old habits, he started offering his first sits for attention that very evening. I was proud of my smart little snuggler! Apart from biting shoes and feet, he is actually a very snuggly puppy – as long as the attention he needs is provided!
Sound sensitivity?
We had a loud thunderstorm that first evening, and Doggie couldn’t have cared less. I’m SO glad that so far, as far as I know, none of the puppies show noise sensitivities. (Again, I know this for sure about two of them, but haven’t had a chance to ask about the remaining 3.)
That said, Game only became noise sensitive after having moved to Guatemala – so if she’s passed on some of those genes and my early noise-desensitization did not do the trick, it may still develop for the rebeldes later in life. So far so good though!
The first night
… was difficult night for Mr. Doggie. I wondered whether he had separation issues in general (his humans hadn’t mentioned it) or whether being back with me in a place he wasn’t familiar with (this isn’t the apartment or house he grew up in) was just too difficult to sleep through the night. He had a hard time not sharing the bedroom and woke me up a few times.
Game is currently the only dog with bed privileges, and she likes her peace at night. Chai voluntarily puts herself to bed in an open crate in a different room when she’s ready to sleep. I had Doggie sleep in Chai’s room, but he found it difficult to settle there. I was pretty sure Doggie would sleep peacefully in my bed, but just to be safe, I’d want Game elsewhere if he was there. That didn’t seem fair to her. I decided to give Doggie sleeping in Chai’s space another try our second night rather than giving in to his snuggle wishes just yet.
Update: I asked, and was told Doggie didn’t have separation issues at home. That’s great to know! I’m glad he doesn’t. This greatly increased the probability that he’d settle more and more peacefully in Chai’s room in the nights to come!
I haven’t documented too much this week because I fully expected the puppies to come, and I wanted to safe my video editing spoons for after! But turns out … Game is taking her sweet time! We made it through the entire week without puppies. However, I’m happy to report that we checked off all our goals once again. Game saw one dog friend (Dina) twice and three different human friends, and she got to swim in a lake, which she very much appreciated! She’s got to be so warm; I bet cooling off feels good!
Here’s some silly little shaping. We’ve started hold an object twice in the past but I never finished training it, and since it’s a fun and low-key activity, I’ve started over with chin rests and a pole. Look at this happy girl!
Toy play, limited
The last few days, I haven’t let Game play with toys at the park because when doing so, she has no sense of self-preservation and I don’t want her to smash her big belly into a tree. She is opinionated about this and has complained when Chai got to play and she didn’t, since this is Not Fair. Lucky girl; Chai inevitably misplaces a toy at the park every time we play, so after being patient, Game gets to do that part: find the toy (she will search for as long as it takes and ALWAYS find it) and carry it all the way home.
Behavioral changes
On Wednesday, she said no to the breakfast wobbler but ate the food when I took it out of the wobbler. Otherwise, her appetite has been ravenous and her temperature pretty stable. As of yesterday, I’ve been taking it twice rather than just once a day.
Behaviorally speaking, Game was grumpy Wednesday morning – the same day she said no to the food toy.
On Thursday, she ambled after a squirrel and was back to normal.
An upside-down couch Game (Tuesday.)
Today (Saturday, March 23) is the first day Game has been restless. She has been digging her blanket fort into the preferred shape throughout the week, but spent relatively little time there. Today, she’s been there more often than in the past and is also changing positions more often. Since we are expecting a small litter, today may be the day she is finally starting to really feel these growing puppies! She is also taking up more and more space in my bed every day. I don’t know how, but while she used to be One Malinois In My Bed, she is now Three Malinois In My Bed. That makes it a bit harder to sleep for me because I now feel as if I was sharing the bed with four dogs rather than two. But hopefully, soon, we’ll be down to two again (unless Game decides to have her puppies in my bed, in which case I may move into the blanket fort myself.)
Preparations!
I got …
+ Calcium tablets. + Two more puppy toys. + Anti-parasite spray for the surroundings. + Anti-parasite shampoo (because the 2-day-old-puppy-safe Frontline spray seems to be sold out everywhere). + Another rawhide refill.
Game and I finished re-watching the Puppy Culture film.
I outlined my socialization plan for the weeks ahead. I have a preliminary overview/outline for the first 8 weeks as well as a more detailed plan for each week. I’ll be updating it as we go and share a summary after each week, hoping to spread the puppy joy to everyone reading along!
Special scavenging treasures
Crunchy street bones.
A croissant.
A slice of pound cake (all of the above on the first two days of the week! Lucky girl!)
Chilaquiles (or something that looked that way anyways)
Special meals
Beef shank with marrow bone and kibble soaked in raspberry leaf tea (as of Saturday, March 16, Game gets a shot of raspberry leaf tea with her dinner. It’s tasty!)
Canned food and wet food “sobres” of different brands with her Panacur.
Yogurt with Panacur.
Training cheese and hotdogs.
Chicken and spinach/garlic pasta.
Eggs with olive bread soaked in raspberry leave tea and tomato.
A slice of pizza margarita.
Frozen Kong with soaked kibble.
News
I won’t keep a puppy myself because I kept Chai. Drago (the sire’s) owner has decided whether they want to keep a boy or a girl this week! Eduardo wants a boy! Here’s to hoping we’ll get at least one boy; I’m looking forward to watching him grow up alongside Drago!
Worries? No, thank you.
Game is already a little overdue, but I’m not going to worry until I have to. If at all possible, I want a natural birth at home so neither Game nor the puppies get the early stress of giving birth at a vet clinic or having a C section. As long as she’s within the window of possible natural birth and behaves happily and normally, I’ll wait and not subject her to another check-up. We still have several days that are within the range of normal (when you don’t do an ovulation test but count from the day of mating, this window is bigger than it would otherwise be. Sperm can remain fertile in the genital tract for up to ELEVEN days (says this source; most others I found were not scientific articles and said 5 to 7 days). If the 11 day study is correct, gestation may happen up to 11 days after mating! Friday was 66 days after the second mating – so the typical 63 days plus 3. Not a big deal yet.
Our color tracking chart!
I fixed the day counter on this one – turns out I had skipped a day the last few weeks. Oops. Higher math and I are not exactly friends.
We started the week meeting Daniel and Dina – dog and human friends, check! Game wasn’t particularly interested in playing with Dina apart from being happy to see and greet her (Chai, for her part, was very much interested in running with her gal), but loved getting lots and lots of scratches from Daniel. These last few days, Game has become extra social even around new dogs: she’ll wag and greet and lick snouts/have hers licked. This is interesting; I would have expected the opposite as her due day gets closer. But Game’s social side is blooming these days!
Saturday morning with Daniel and Dina.
What isn’t blooming is her love of exercise: being heavier than she ever was in combination with unusually (well, we know that climate change means the unusual is normal) warm days mean that Game has now decided she will no longer do her supposedly healthy endurance trots. That’s okay with me; the queen gets what the queen wants! These days, this is snuggles, sleeping in my bed and lots of food. As I’m typing this, it is Sunday, a little after 4PM and Game just requested (and received) her dinner two hours early. She continues enjoying food toys and training sessions – but not too, too much running around, thank you very much.
Exceptional treats and scavenging
Monday, March 11, was the first day Game didn’t want breakfast (but insisted on her other meals). On Tuesday, she ate half her breakfast and, as usual, a full lunch and dinner, and by Wednesday, she was back to normal. Yay! I hope that’s the only discomfort she ends up feeling.
Two of this week’s extra meals: beef shank with marrow bone, a side of rice and a touch of parsley and a fish-and-rice bowl with avocado sprinkles.
Exceptional scavenging finds of the week:
Chilaquiles
Yellow and blue tortilla chips
Crunchy fried tortilla
Cake frosting
A big puff pastry
Little training sessions
Among other things, one particular shaping project for our daily little training sessions was a spin. These are, I believe, the first two full spins Game has offered! Pregnant dogs learn new things too. Isn’t she super cute? That belly really shows (particularly because you can still see where it was shaved for the ultrasound) and her movements look … well, let’s say less athletic than usual. Panting – also not something she’d be doing usually, but carrying that baggage around changes things! Love the waggy tail and how she is having a great time in any case, pregnant-bellied or not!
This week’s outdoors adventure came with water fetch!
It’s warm and carrying that big belle is heavy. Game has slowed down, but few things are better than a good swim, rolling in the dirt and a slow trot around the lake!
Jacaranda bliss!
Preparations
+ I re-watched the first parts of the Puppy Culture video. Some notes on it below:
Supposedly (no sources were mentioned), puppies turn out to be “more docile” (quote from the film; I am not 100% sure how they’d operationalize “docile”) when you stroke the dog’s belly a lot late in the pregnancy. So I’ve been focussing our snuggle sessions more on Game’s belly – if and only if she consents, of course. I assume that as long as she enjoys it, it can’t hurt, whether it actually does something for the puppies or not.
The colostrum – the milk produced in the first 24 hours after giving birth – is how the puppies get maternal antibodies against anything she is immune/vaccinated to. (I had forgotten about this fact and used to think they already get these antibodies when plugged into her system in utero.) The wild thing is that the puppies’ bodies are only able to absorb these antibodies without breaking them down (and losing their benefits in the process) in the first 18 hours of their life! So getting colostrum in the first 18 hours matters. The maternal antibodies will protect them in their first few weeks of life. This is important to me since I am going to prioritize socialization, i.e. the puppies are going to be exposted to visitors and go places etc. before their first vaccine.
Activated sleep: fun fact! Tiny puppies twitch in their sleep. That’s because in their first two weeks of life, all puppies do is sleep and eat. The twitching is caused by electrical stimuli and it trains their muscles to get stronger as they sleep. What a big difference between altricial (born before they are fully developed – for example, puppies are born with their eyes and ears sealed shut) and precocial species (like horses who’ll run around and eat independently within hours after being born!)
+ I connected with Jessica Hekman to find answers to some questions that will help me with my socialization plan.1 I want to focus on human and dog socialization – the rest, you’ll pretty much get for free in a Mal, but I want these puppies to get the best chance at being able to be family members in addition to whatever else they’ll grow up doing. I’ve taken an Avidog breeder course, I’ve got Puppy Culture, took Jessica’s Genetics/Environment FDSA class, read the linked papers, Carol Beuchat’s genetics class, read the linked papers there and watched all of Jessica’s FDSA webinars on biology and personality. I still have questions:
I know puppies can’t hear or see when they are born. They find their way to each other and to their dam by means of detecting heat. But are they able to smell right away? (This will impact my socialization strategy: if they can already smell different dogs and different people, I would not only handle them myself and have Game interact with them before they can see and hear, but also have other humans handle them and introduce other dogs even when they are still blind and deaf. As a dog trainer, I have seen so much behavioral fallout that when it comes to behavioral benefit/health risk assessment of fragile puppies, I come down heavy on the side of the most socialization possible, no matter the health risk. Personally, I’d expose puppies in my care to physical risks anytime if it set them up for behavioral success.2 Jessica believes they can smell – which means I’ll want to already introduce humans and dogs other than me in the first and second weeks of life (other dogs will be tiny dogs or be held so they can’t step on the puppies.)
BUT – and this was the second question Jessica helped me answer: I know that Game may be protective of her litter. Probably not against close human friends, but potentially against dogs she doesn’t know extremely well. In order to avoid the puppies being exposed to Game’s potentially negative response, I would remove Game when introducing other dogs or humans who aren’t close friends of Game’s. But of course Game would smell the strangers – human or non-human – on her puppies when I let her back into the room. So my question to Jessica was: will she be stressed by this smell on her puppies? Will this stress translate into her milk, and if so, will milk satiated by stress hormones do more harm than socialization does good?
I don’t know where to look for this information, and it has probably not been studied in dogs. Jessica assumes, based on her knowledge of the scarce research that is out there, that only chronic stress would be passed on to the puppies in Game’s milk.
These were the only two questions I still had that Jessica could answer – sadly, there are hardly any studies on puppy socialization.
That’s why I’m skeptical of Puppy Culture3 protocols, for example: yes, there are expert interviews, which is all good – but where are the sources? Show me the studies! Some things said in the Puppy Culture film are incorrect – for example, they suggest we not comfort a scared puppy in order to avoid reinforcing their fear response. We know it is not possible to reinforce fear though. They also introduce their “adult recall cue” by doing the new cue/old cue technique in the wrong order: instead of saying the new cue (in the film, it’s “Come” before the old cue (in the film, the breeder’s high-pitched puppy recall), they say the old cue first and follow it up with the new cue.
Knowing things like this, expert interviews are not enough for me to trust that what is shared in Puppy Culture is necessarily the best or only approach. I want to see papers or get the information from someone I know won’t say things that haven’t been studied. Jessica is scientifically rigorous, and I am glad that I found “it has not been studied in dogs, but based on what we know about other animals, it is probably biologically/physiologically/neurochemically this way”-type answers to two of my questions with their help. Thank you, Jessica! And thank you for not sugarcoating things we do not know for sure!
+ I got raspberry leaf tea (supposedly helpful in the last days before giving birth) – I’ll add a shot of it to Game’s food starting tomorrow, on the first day of week 5 (day 62/61). This has not been scientifically studied, but since I don’t see it doing harm, why not. Plus I like tea myself.
+ I got an x-pen that I’ll use to take the puppies to parks and other public places, and to protect things I don’t want them to get into at home.
+ I got a re-usable puppy toilet and an extra rectangle of fake grass! Almost everything is ready!
Denning news
On Friday, March 15, Game joyfully dug into the pillow-duvet-blanket fort I’ve built for her. I’ve showed it to her every day and spent some time watching my drama TV shows with her (and without Chai) in there every day since I’ve finished it, and on the last day of this week, she finally seemed convinced that it might be a good place to have puppies. Yay! (She can have them anywhere she wants, but it would be most convenient there. That way, I won’t have to throw out my couch or my mattress after they’ve been soaked in fun bodily juices!)
The week’s color tracking sheet
As of Wednesday, I’ve been tracking Game’s body temperature. Supposedly, it goes down by 1 degree 24 hours before giving birth. I’m curious if that’s actually true!
If I made another tracking sheet, I would update this one further: the second line in the left column would go, since outstanding scavenging is further down on the list already. And I’d put “temperature” in as a pre-printed field. As it is, I will stick with this sheet since I’ve already printed it twice – and I won’t need a third one since a dog’s gestation period is 63 days! Wheee!
Let me add this here: Jessica – and I appreciate this very much – would refuse to give anyone advice about socialization (“not a dog trainer, not a behaviorist, but a scientist.”) The socialization I will be doing will be partly informed by how Jessica has answered my questions about “what do we know – what does science say,” but it will always be my socialization decisions (I am saying this specifically in case some of them turn out to not go so well). Jessica would not say, “Do or don’t do this.” I so appreciate people who know what they can and want to have informed opinions on and who will not present personal opinions as facts. So let me just reiterate: Jessica is not the kind of person who would tell me what to do with a 2 week old puppy. That’s all me. Jessica would just say something like, “In rats that get licked by their mothers in X way, it has been measured that at Y weeks, there is more of Z brain chemical present. Here is the study.” Jessical would absolutely not say, “I believe you should do XYZ with your newborn puppies.” She would say, “Watch Puppy Culture or consult a behaviorist. I am not a dog trainer.” And I very, very much appreciate this. The dog world has so many people with SO many opinions based on just-so stories that are presented as facts. Having opinions is absolutely valid. Claiming they are facts is not. My puppy socialization will be based on my personal opinions, which I am forming based on sparsely available facts and my dog trainer bias (I constantly see behavior challenges, but not medical ones). ↩︎
This is how I, personally, want to do this. It is not based on a rigorously studied protocol, but on my opinion, and I am NOT saying you should do this with your litter. You do you, not me! It is absolutely valid to prioritize physical health or aim for the balance that is right for YOU! We do not have enough evidence to know what the best approach is (and I doubt there is a single best approach anyways.) So I say, like in many things in life, we all do our own best and let others do theirs. And we don’t get upset about the fact that of course, different people are going to do things differently. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Enjoy my puppies – and in case the way I do things upsets you, go enjoy something that brings you joy instead! ↩︎
While I am skeptical of Puppy Culture and do not consider it “the one and only perfect way of raising puppies” due to certain factual errors in the film and the lack of resources, I very much appreciate the film and will be using many of its ideas. It is without doubt an excellent puppy starter, and as a future puppy owner, knowing the person raising the puppies followed Puppy Culture protocols is undoubtedly a green flag. For a first-time puppy owner, I’d also recommend checking out Puppy Culture materials. Perfect or not, it comes with A LOT of truly excellent information and fun ideas! I also know that making factual errors happens – I made one in the puppy book I wrote, too. When I asked for it to be corrected or a “please note that …” leaflet to be added to the book, unfortunately, my publisher told me they could only do this for the next print run because it would be too expensive otherwise (disappointing!) Anyways, my point is: while healthy scientific rigor is great, we can also learn from things that aren’t perfect. ↩︎
Day 53 – May 29, 2023: moving day and settling in!
We started with a morning walk & pee with Game at Las Islas. I then took care of moving stuff while Game and Chai stayed home alone at our old place in Coyoacán for about 2 hours.
We then made our way to our new and more central stomping grounds together. Most of my friends now live within walking distance, which is AWESOME!
The three of us explored the new neighborhood together.
Settling in
Left:Game found the couch!Right: I love that I don’t own a lot of shit. Moving is easy when everything you own fits in a suitcase and a backpack!Well, I guess technically now I have a mattress and a couch as well. Sigh.I am NOT a fan of owning things that size.
All is well now that we’ve unpacked and made our new space comfy: Game has settled in on the bed and Chai on the couch!
A new environment; it’s dark outside … and Chai is unfazed by strangers climbing through the window!
The Internet-install-service people showed up at night – and wow, Chai was totally unfazed when they climbed in through the window! I love it!
Strangers climbing through windows? Shrug.
After there finally was Internet, I only had time to quickly grab some pastries from a fresa bakery nearby. Yummy but overpriced – that fact aside, they have a GREAT comic on their wall. Read it from right to left:
Read from right to left. This is the artist’s Instagram with more of their work!
Game, Chai and I went on a night walk together to wrap up the day and do some more neighborhood exploring. First impression: very walkable! I like!
In everybody pees news
I want to teach Chai (who is not housetrained yet) to only go in the shower in the new place as well. So far, we had one pee in the living room which I interrupted by picking her up and putting her down in the shower. She finished there. Which brings us to our first shower training tally:
Living room: 0.5 Shower: 0.5
All other pees happened outside, prompted by Game. For now, Chai will sleep in the bathroom AKA her luxury kennel and I won’t be counting her overnight pees in my tally.
Day 54 – May 30, 2023: our first full day at the new place!
Chai went on a morning walk with Game and then on an adventure to one of the parks in the next neighborhood over (less fresa aka posh; more our vibe). Chai wanted to go into the dog park, so we did – but we left quickly because it was a bit overwhelming for little Border Collies. However, we had two excellent encounters with off leash dogs and Chai on a retractable leash1 right after!
Doing well meeting nice off-leash dogs in the street!
We also went to two corner stores to pick up the basics (such as toilet paper). Chai and Game waited outside both of them without complaining!
Good dogs waiting for me out of sight outside a convenience store!
Chai and Game stayed home alone in the afternoon, and later got to play with a visiting dog friend. Chai also did great staying in the bathroom while I had visitors: countering FOMO since 2023! I’m proud of her for not always needing to be part of the action.
In everybody pees news
Today’s everybody-pees tally for when I was home with the bathroom door open:
+ Shower pees: 2 + Living room: 0
(Is it possible that she is learning THIS fast?!)
(1) Why is Chai wearing a retractable leash? Because I’m experimenting with it (it’s been a while since I last used one) and Chris gave me his to play around with – thank you! So far, I’d say it works quite well and I like it a lot better than the old Flexi leashes that had a string that could cut you rather than a leash-leash like this one.
