Social Ineptitude,Patience

This is the Blathery Part.
My Blaze puppy is socially inept. I am so embarrassed. You know how animals will take on the personality of their owners? (I haven't had a puppy, since I was an idiotic 18 year old. Poor guy. Sorry, Pooh. Wrong name to give him, too.)

ANYway. Blaze has inherited my lack of social skills with my own kind. She's an idiot, with other dogs. People? Fine. Dogs? I'm still figuring out how I warped her little mind. Guilt? Oh, just shoot me. I felt so badly for her on holiday Monday.

Cathy G., my artist buddy and fellow blogger, is also a pet-sitter. Here's her web-site, which she hasn't learned to link to, on her blog. Darned artists:)
Web-Site

So, Flip and Blaze got three canines for company on Monday. Cathy brought her own "Jade", a TALL hound/lab? cross female, "Wilson" a fat yellow lab male, and "Pluto" the most adorable old black spaniel male. He likes to swim. Not for very long. He's a bit senile. Oh, well, BOY dogs!!

Jade had a little tiff with Blaze last time they were here. (Jade was rescued from Mexico, not by Cathy, and is missing one half of one ear. Jade's been around.)
Jade!

Blaze was annoying her, and Jade finally had to roar "Enough, you stupid puppy!" Jade scratched Blaze's back. Cathy sez Jade has gotten better with puppies. Trouble is, Blaze is kinda too old to be forgiven this puppy behaviour. I threw Blaze in the pond several times, (i.e. I threw FrisBee) to wear her out before the old farts got here. Blaze's annoyingly young.. My baybeeee.

Blaze just zoomed around the rest of us like a danged electron. Totally obsessed with herding Wilson. She ignored Jade, and it was mutual. Blaze kept her evil little snarl face on, whenever she could, like when she was stalking Wilson. Then, she'd zoom around again. Like an orbiting electron, pinging.

Blaze wasn't into sharing, but Wilson, the big lab just laughed at her. I only own half the dog toys in southern Ontario. Wilson did NOT want to go home. Poor Blaze, she has no friends her own age..
Pluto is 13 this year, the dear old spaniel, he didn't do much:) He always wades into the pond, for one swim, then he's done. Pluto is quite aromatic.
Jade,the hound/lab/who knows what she is, likes to patrol the pond edge for critters.

Flip, as usual, didn't do much either, other than yell at us to throw FrisBee in the water, just far enough that she could wade, and get filthy:) Her life's work.

Wilson!



Wilson was hysterical. Lab/WATER mindmeld, he broadjumped the WIDEST part of my canoe, from a standstill, scared the crap out of me. JollyBalls, large and medium, made him so hahppy! Wilson chased the medium JB all the way across the pond the first time, Blaze in hot pursuit..
Right after this, Cathy looked away, and the broad jump happened.

Nice hippie hair, eh?

Blaze would NOT retrieve anything, except FrisBee, once, the rest of the time she herded Wilson. She was a total nutbar, and I feel guilty about that.

Wilson has the crookedest legs, like a StBernard. berry bow legged. 8 years old, looks fat, but isn't? Lots of skin, very big all over. Not tall, but broad. A swimming/retrieving/loving fool.

This is the important part.
Sorry for the completely canine content, but it does (really) have a point, which extends to all animal training.

Where does my guilt come from? Because it's only my own training (and lack thereof) that has caused this problem for Blaze. Just as with any animal, routine/schedule/"normal" is crucial for them. If "normal" for them is never seeing another dog on their property, the situation changing can be a shocker. The converse is also true.

My Flip, when she first arrived from her kennel/sheep farm environment, was completely unglued by each new "normal", which included meeting people on our first walk on my property. The next-door neighbour kids dropped by, and completely freaked her out. She'd NEVER met people on walks, out in her remote part of the country. Flip adores people, adores kids even more. But not in that situation, it was strange to her. Flip can get along with any dog, she'd been around dogs all her life. Flip was freaked out by the fact she was only dog, when we first got her. Seeing Millie helped her out a lot..

My Blaze has not been around dogs. I did my best, but I know it isn't enough. I was frankly too nervous of using dog parks in the city. Her first encounter with another strange dog, (I can hear Cesar Milan saying "Live in the moment" and he's right), as a puppy, was in a big-box hardware store. This gigantic GSD, ancient, barked her poor ears off.
Strike one. I wish Flip had been there.

Blaze's first encounter at dog park, still as a (slightly older) puppy, involved my foolishly letting her go loose, (Flip and sister's dog Millie were there) and she was surrounded and skeered shitless by the pack of already there dogs. Blaze was badly introduced to dogs.
Strike two.

This scared her owner.
Strike three.

Blaze also went aggressively "after" a puppy she'd just met, at Sega's shop. Right around strike one time. I'd mentioned the "attack" to my dog "trainer" at the time, and she'd immediately shown me how to make Blaze scream in pain. Blaze never went near the trainer for the rest of the course. Neither did I. See, I was at dog "training" school, to show her other places and situations and dogs. The emphasis was placed FAR too firmly on no interactions between the dogs, at all. Like none. Frustration=aggression=all kinds of interesting behaviours.

tangent.. Horses and their buddies..

So, in ANY new situation, you have to be ready, but not braced for the worst to happen. It usually does, if you anticipate it.

Blaze has the same face with new dogs as she did with that giant old GSD, a nervously excited snarl. She's just like me. I don't snarl, though. But I'm ready..

We far too often expect our animals to instantly adapt to anything not normal that happens. We assume because we "know" that the situation is safe, that the animal will, too.

Animals/people cannot adapt instantly, but they can all learn.

That's where patience comes in, and the awareness of what the animal is experiencing. Is it normal?

The REALLY IMPORTANT PART.
You have to keep changing up the normal. Otherwise, you get stuck in a rut of behaviour, which will only dig itself deeper.


Whoah. That's enough blather. I am not even sure if it makes sense. Nothing new, there..

I have NO good current pictures of my two girls, in the same shot.
This usually happens.
We're listening!!


What was That??