Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog (11 page)

It did not matter that we
had
just walked for two miles and
that
we
were exhausted.
Buddy still had tons of energy and he took off like a speed demon, cross
ing
our extremely busy street and
r
unning
in the dark away from our house.
I d
id
not know where I learned all of the obscenities I
screamed
, but they were coming out of my mouth full
-
force.
I could have sw
orn Buddy was definitely going to get
hit by a car that night.

My heart was racing. I
had to make a quick decision whether to run
after him or go in
side of
the house, get the keys
,
and drive to find him.
As mad as I was, I was devastatingly upset.
Not that we could have foreseen a cat
lounging by
our front door, but
that
we should have known better
than
to let a hyperactive,
insane
pup off of the leash in the front yard.

As I proceeded to go into the house and grab my car keys, out of nowhere
a
flash of fur
came
running toward me.
My sadness and worry quickly
transformed
into anger once again
,
and I started screaming at him.
Since I ha
d
never previously
raised my voice
at this dog, he immediately knew he was in deep trouble.

He ran straight past me, through the open door,
past
the living room, into the kitchen
,
and way back into the corner of his crate.
I did not have to say a word.
He knew he had made a bad decision
, but his
instinct and desire to chase
had
outgr
own
his fear of how much trouble he would get in.

Brandi
was calm as could be while she watched the
entire scene unfold.
At first she had
attempted to follow him, but promptly came
to us
when we called her.
She ha
d
always been the ultimate perfect angel.
If every dog w
ere
destined to
behave
like Brandi, I could guarantee
that
we would own about five or six
if not more.

This was just one of many nights that were stressful
as we
tr
ied
to contain Buddy.
Admittedly, I did
not have tons of patience with certain people, but I ha
d
the utmost patience and tolerance when it c
ame
to dogs.
Put me in a room with ten people and I w
ould
be annoyed in five minutes.
Put me in a room with ten friendly dogs and I w
ould
be in my glory.

Buddy, however, continually tested us to the fullest of his ability.
Even I was at my breaking point.
I could not think of
enough
ways to outmaneuver him.
Any time we thought we had his tactics
all
figured out, he would learn our tricks and then outsmart us again.
Growing up, we had many dogs, but none even came close to having Buddy’s idiosyncrasies
,
and none
of them
behaved as badly
.
I did not know how we were going to handle both.

While observing some people with their dogs, it is often a
question
of who is training who
m
.
It is not uncommon to see an owner with their arms extended, holding on for dear life, while their dog runs wild.
Unfortunately, I was becoming one of those owners.

Moving forward, training Brandi was something of a chore. This was not because Brandi was bad,
but
because Buddy, although mischievo
us, was an extremely smart dog. During our sessions,
I
tried
to teach Brandi to sit and had my training treats
handy. Buddy would join in and sit
on command.

When I tried to ignore him and
focus solely
on
Brandi, he
growled
,
moved
a little closer
,
and
sat
again.
I could see the wheels spinning
in his mind, saying
,
“I
am
sitting
.
G
ive me a treat!”

He was doing
exactly
what I
had
asked
only
I was not asking him
. Brandi would then
expect
a treat as well and simply could not or
would not con
centrate until I gave her one
. This went on for days.
I
tried
to lock Buddy in a separate room, but then Brandi
just focused
and obsess
ed
upon looking fo
r her best pal, Buddy. 

Buddy
was no help as he would yelp and bark from the other room, causing Brandi to
continuously
search
for him until I let him out.

It got to the point where I actually opened up a beer at
twelve o’clock
in the afternoon.
I ha
d
never had much of a
drinking problem, but you might
have thought differently when Michael called me from work to see how things were going.
I answered the phone with a slight
slur in my voice telling him that all was going well. My technique, however, did work.

From that day forward,
I developed a bit more patience and was actu
ally able to find training enjoyable. Of course, beer was no longer necessary.
Brandi actually learned to sit, lie dow
n, roll over, and give her paw. She easily mastered the commands for “come” and “stay.”

The one trademark move Buddy could not handle her doing was his high five.
Whenever I tried to teach her that, he would
move closer to me, growl, and offer
me his high five, first his left paw, then his right.
He would also
make an attempt to
block me from teaching Brandi.

I let him keep that as his own personal trick since that was the first
one
I had ever taught him.
He never
appreciated when
another dog
would do it
.
Any time I would ask another dog for a high five he would growl, come closer to me
,
and give me a high five.
That one was his.

The two dogs became inseparable and actually
began to
look forward to training.
If I brought out a cookie, they would immediately sit,
give a
high five/give
a
paw, beg, lie down, crawl
,
and
then roll over.
I did not even have to
issue
the commands anymore.
They just did it automatically.
Training became fun for all of us.

Once we got the important commands down, Michael and I were able to teach them little tricks here and there.
Michael taught Buddy
the popular trick of guessing
which hand the cookie was in.
He always figured it out on the first try.
Brandi, not so much.
It took her a few
attempts
.
She
wa
s beautiful but not as smart as Buddy
, which
wa
s most like
ly the reason why she was so well-behaved and easy to train.

As for Buddy, w
hen I say I literally had “blood, sweat and tears”
during our beginning training sessions
, I truly did.
His mouthing, while playful, was extremely painful
,
as
he did have strong,
adult teeth.
It sometimes left me with bruises
,
and occasionally he
even broke
the skin.
He was playing the entire time, but he did not realize his own super strength.

It was tough to break this awful pattern, since his previous owners
had
handled this by
letting him gnaw on a
bone
as a way to remove his mouth from their arm.
Buddy
continued this habit,
thinking that he
would get a treat and did not comprehend that he was actually doing something bad
.

I’ve heard some people say to shove a
fist down
a dog’s
throat to stop him,
while
others
advised us
to bite
Buddy
back.
We
chose not to do either
, but we did take one word of advice which was to shrill
y cry
“ouch” as he bit down.

This
suggestion
seemed to have
worked the best as he
soon
understood that he should
not bite all the way down
,
and h
e
learned to mouth in a gentle way.
He never bit down again after a few sessions of this technique.

Michael would tickle Buddy’s tongue if Buddy went to mouth him too hard.
This, as funny as it sounds, worked like a charm.

I
had
never realized
that
there were so many
different tactics
to learn about training a dog.
Basically, any dogs that I had previously owned while living at my mother’s house were taught to sit, come,
and
stay
,
and that was
the extent of the training
.
We never had any issues like the ones we were experiencing with Buddy.

With Buddy, we had to think way out of the box if we were going to make
it
work.

Each aspect of training had to be car
efully planned out,
and we always needed to overcome
new
obstacles with this dog.
While that sounds easy, it was probably one of the most exerting things we had to
accomplish
, both physically and mentally.

Even walking him was a strenuous activity as he was in
credibly
strong and pulled like a
tempestuous
beast.
Amongst the
items
that
were
given to us in our “Buddy care package” was one of those medieval choker collars.
It may sound inhumane, but we had no clue how to deal with
his behavior
.
We put the collar on
him,
and it seemed to
facilitate
his walks.
Even though he still pulled a
lot,
he was a little bit
more manageable
.