Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog (20 page)

She
went
to training as much as time allow
ed
and got somewhat better in her ways.

She
wa
s definitely a sweetheart of a dog,
but was dumped in the desert by her previous owners and had to search for her own food. The end result was that she could be a bit possessive when it came to eating.
I suppose
that was what happened
when
dogs are needlessly abandoned.

Some of my training
techniques were
not conventional, but occasionally it d
id
work.
Buddy was almost considered well-behaved, and he was a completely different dog from when we first adopted him.

For Toffee, one of her
main issues was that you couldn’t pet her on the back, as she must have injured it
during
her days on the street.
The x-rays show
ed
a fusion of some vertebrae
,
and if you touch
ed
a certain spot too hard she
would
scream in pain.
It d
id
not necessarily hurt her if you pet her gently, but she would freak out when someone would try to pet her there.

With that, I decided to associate her back getting touched with something good.
That something good consisted of a treat (Toffee
wa
s extremely food driven) along with me singing her a song that I made up
—
now available on the Internet for .
ninety-nine
cents.
This
wa
s the one instance in my life where I ha
d
an audience that appreciate
d
my horrible, off-key singing, but she love
d
it.
(I was just kidding about my song being available.  I would not torture anyone like that).  
She
finally
allow
ed
us
to pet her back with no issues.
Her ears still perk
ed
up, but she d
id
n’t lash out and try to nip at
us
to stop.

She
would
, however, run to the cookie jar afterwards or look at you weird if you d
id
n’t sin
g.

The lessons I learned
we
re that if you ever ha
d
a dog
with some
behavioral
issues, and you read all of the books and t
ook
the training classes and
we
re still having a problem,
you shouldn’t
hesitate to think outside the box.
That s
ometimes conventional
thinking
d
id
not always work.

In certain situations, you
ha
d
to think
of the
specific reasons for
that
particular dog’s issues and work with them on an entirely new level.
Every dog was different.

Another trick
wa
s to use the same training techniques as you would for a two
-
year
-
old child.
For instance, Buddy’s worst punishment
wa
s being alone.
So, if he
wa
s being bad, we lock
ed
him in his room (his crate) for a few minutes and le
ft
the room.

All it t
ook
wa
s a few minutes.
Dogs
lived in the moment, so there wa
s never any need to extend this to any longer than ten minutes.
He w
ould
then come out of his crate a little bit better behaved.
He most likely
would
act up
again later but we would just follow
the same routine.

Funny enough, after a while of him acting up, he
saw
us get up to punish him and
would run
to his crate on his own
.

As bad as Buddy
wa
s, Brandi
wa
s the exact opposite.
Throughout the years with Brandi, I do not recall one instance where she needed to be punished.
She would, however, go into her crate on her own when Buddy was sent to his and come out
only
when he was allowed to come out.
She
was
also known to let Buddy out of his crate
somehow
while it was
still
locked.
I do not know how she did it, but similar to how she used to let
herself
out, we just
surmised
that she adore
d
him and t
ook
care of him
—
and that she
wa
s Houdini
.

Dogs are amazing in the way they depend on and learn from each other.
Brandi learned a lot from Buddy
,
and Toffee learn
ed
a lot from both Buddy and Brandi.

From Brandi she learned not to mess with
Brandi’s
toys or there w
ould
be hell to pay.
Brandi w
ould
not bite, but she pushed Toffee to the ground when Toffee tried to take her toys, and Brandi just stood over her until Toffee learned not to mess with
her
.
Then
she crie
d
every time Brandi
went
near her, although she
did love
to sleep with her.

Brandi
,
on the other hand
,
preferred
to sleep by herself in the corner of the bed, next to no one.
This in itself ma
de
Toffee cry
be
cause Toffee want
ed
to cuddle with her.
Go figure
.

From Buddy she learned how to play with toys and become another cuddle dog.
When we first got Toffee, she was not used to be
ing
kissed
,
hugged
,
or
played with.
After being with us
she
grew to
love her toys
and
to play, though you still ha
d
to be careful of her bumps on her belly and injuries on her back
—
another
disadvantage
of being dumped and abandoned in the desert by her
previous
family.

Lastly, from Toffee, Buddy learned to
open doors that we closed half-
way.
Thanks
,
Toffee!

There is nothing like having true friends to rely upon every single day.

Though we
have
love
d
all three, Brandi
wa
s too perfect to write about
as
she never d
id
anything wrong.
She
wa
s the epitome of the most perfect dog.
It
wa
s amazing how adopting a dog at six months ma
de
all of the differe
nce in how well she behaved
.
Although, I think with Buddy, he just ha
d
it in him to be wild.
Even if we did adopt him at an early age, I
believe
he would still be somewhat crazy.
Toffee
did
plenty wrong
,
but she
wa
s not as crazy as Buddy
.
I have not met many dogs who
even come close to sharing his energy level
.
He
wa
s in a class all by himself.
I have owned dogs my whole life, and
yet
never had to work so hard
to
get
one to listen and obey
—
especially when they kn
e
w exactly what it
wa
s that I
was
saying to them.

There
we
re, however, a lot of
endearing
things about Buddy
. These are
things that most people who kn
e
w him
never
s
aw
or
would
believe.
For instance, when it c
ame
time to nap with Buddy, there
wa
s nothing like it.
People only s
aw
him when he
wa
s jumping, barking
or
misbehaving.

While he
wa
s sleeping, he literally like
d
to be spooned (I know, sounds kind of weird), but he love
d
to be hugged and cuddled while he sle
pt
.
He love
d
to nestle his head right under
my
chin
.
All of his mischievous activities during the day
we
re forgotten during the night.
It ma
de
it
all
worthwhile.

In addition,
it was interesting to watch him as he wa
s always strategically thinking.
For instance, w
e went on a walk one day down the trail from our house
;
this time he was on a leash.
The trail
was partly paved,
and then off on either side there
we
re plenty of rocks (of course, that is apparent in Vegas), cactus
,
and other types of wild
brush
.
Sections
of this trail
veered
off into the canyon and preserve, where coyotes r
a
n in the distance
,
and some jackrabbits occasionally zip
ped
by in front of us. This le
ft
us walking up hills on dirt paths.
It
wa
s a great hiking trail and c
ould
be as strenuous or as moderate as you would like.

It was on this trail that Michael walked over off to the side to smell a beautiful purple wildflower on a cactus
.
Buddy wanted to
follow
, but I did not let him.
I had no reason for not letting him; I just did not feel like wa
ndering
over there.
We thought nothing of it and continued walking for about two miles and then turned back, this time with the dogs off of the leashes.
As we passed that same cactus, Buddy
roamed
off of the path and smelled the exact same flower that Michael smelled an hour prior.
He had to do it just because I would not let him earlier
.