Sometimes I'm really genuinely scared that I'm going to screw my dog up---and not in a having bad manners by jumping up on people sort of way (which he is well on his way to right now) but in the I'm going to let serious behavior problems develop because I don't know what to do about them sort of way.
There are several examples of this. Zim resource guards a tiny bit. He also sometimes will just suddenly growl-bark toward your face in a sort of snappy way. I actually got bit this way earlier today. Now, I think he was going for my hair (he likes to chew on hair) but I'm honestly not sure and it's the not knowing that sort of freaks me out. Sometimes I really just don't know what's going on in his little head. Is this a temper tantrum that should be gently but firmly curbed? Is he trying to play and thus just needs to be shown that playing like that is unacceptable? Is this some sort of aggression that needs to be dealt with? Frankly, I don't really think it's the latter but I do sometimes wonder. What if this is something serious that I'm missing because I have no frame of reference for what "normal" puppy behavior is---normal Shiba puppy behavior, which is high idiosyncratic because Shibas just aren't a normal dog breed.
So what do I do? Well, for now Fathead and I have resolved to keep trucking along. We've been trying to teach him "give" and I think we're starting to get somewhere and as far as the other stuff goes, we're just trying not to encourage any bad behavior. If he barks instead of doing the trick asked for, the food goes away. He barks at me when he's near me, then either he or I goes away. Hell, maybe I should start putting him in time out in the bathroom when he does that. I'll have to mull the last one over. On the one hand, it's where we keep him at night so having bad associations with it isn't something I want---on the other hand he seems to have grown to hate it where he was fine with it at first so I really wonder if that can make it any worse.
Do puppies go through an ornery stage at 3 months? I know there's adolescence but I feel like I'm getting some of that now. Is it a stage? Is it that he's finally settled into to being in a new place and now feels free to be a brat and try and run the show?
Either way, only thing to do is to keep doing my best. Really, he's kind of a dream of a puppy. He certainly isn't the "terrorist" that I've sometimes heard Shiba puppies described as. It's just little bouts of unpleasantness. He'll probably grow out of a lot of it (or he'll respond to our training) and will turn into a very nice adult dog.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
The Best and Worst of My Baby
What I Love Best About My Shiba:
He loves me lots. He likes to sit on my lap and will wait for me on the landing when my husband is up with him in the morning but I am not yet up. Moreover, when I was sick a week ago with a kidney stone and basically spent the whole time in bed, he spent a lot of time on the landing outside our room waiting for me and was so happy to see me when I finally came out of our room.
He loves people. He's super excited every time he sees a person.
He's good at the vet. He was even fine when they took a fecal sample from him O_O
What I Don't Love About My Shiba:
Resource Guarding. He does this with some very odd items (so far just little soft wadded things like a wad of tissue or the soft little ball things on the end of a cat toy). Moreover, it's been hard to teach him "give" to help fix the problem. At first I tried trading and he was too interested in the treat. Then, just now I tried trading a greenie for a hot dog bit. Worked fine the first time. Second time, he didn't notice the hot dog right away and I got myself bit. Really depressed about this one. Really hoping that the trainer will be of some help with this on Monday.
He loves me lots. He likes to sit on my lap and will wait for me on the landing when my husband is up with him in the morning but I am not yet up. Moreover, when I was sick a week ago with a kidney stone and basically spent the whole time in bed, he spent a lot of time on the landing outside our room waiting for me and was so happy to see me when I finally came out of our room.
He loves people. He's super excited every time he sees a person.
He's good at the vet. He was even fine when they took a fecal sample from him O_O
What I Don't Love About My Shiba:
Resource Guarding. He does this with some very odd items (so far just little soft wadded things like a wad of tissue or the soft little ball things on the end of a cat toy). Moreover, it's been hard to teach him "give" to help fix the problem. At first I tried trading and he was too interested in the treat. Then, just now I tried trading a greenie for a hot dog bit. Worked fine the first time. Second time, he didn't notice the hot dog right away and I got myself bit. Really depressed about this one. Really hoping that the trainer will be of some help with this on Monday.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
That Update I Keep Talking About
Okay, so the rat, who has been feeling a tad under the weather (again) perked up when I went to give her a treat this evening and I decided to let her out since she spent the time I'd tried to let her out earlier sleeping in her hammock. This means that I now have some free time and so I'm going to try and actually write that update on Zim that I keep talking about.
So, firstly, he was at the vet again this Monday and had his third round of shots. He had to get a nasal vaccine, which Fathead tells me he wasn't too keen on (I wasn't in there with him since we'd taken the rat in for respiratory issues and I try not to let their paths cross too much) but overall he was really good. That's great since he's been more ornery (although still not too bad) since he's stopped sleeping so much and I was a little worried he might decide to act up a bit at the vet but, no, I've been blessed with a Shiba that behaves himself at the vet.
On the note of being ornery, he growled at me for the first time today. Well, not the first time. He's growled before but it was only in play---normally when he does it he's play bowing or otherwise trying to get me to play with him. It's cute when he does that. This time, though, it was an "I don't like what you're doing" growl and it was not cute. He'd gotten the end of a broken cat toy with a little fuzzy ball on it and I needed to get it away from him. Well, he really wanted it and he wasn't giving it up. I had to take it from him by force (though I did give him a treat afterwards, hoping that he learns that giving me things isn't bad) because I was afraid he'd swallow it. So, Fathead and I are going to try and start getting him to give us things in exchange for hot dogs to a command to try and nip this in the bud before he starts resource guarding. Really, we should have done this earlier. He's never liked it when he's had something in his mouth and we needed to get it from him, this is just the first time he's actually really thought enough of what he had to protest like that. Really, we should have tried to get him to give things up on a command from the beginning (we started to but it faded when we found it hard to actually make sure we always had a treat to give him) and never taken things from him without giving him something. This is our fault but since it's only the one incident I'm pretty confident that if we just work to teach him a command and do what we should have done before and always exchange food for what he has, we'll probably never have a problem with it again. He's overall a really good-natured puppy and I think that as long as we don't abuse that, there won't be any more problems.
On a slightly more positive note, potty training has been going better. He still has accidents, but he's started signalling to go out a lot of the time. Moreover, when I brought him out tonight for his goodnight potty break he just went. I definitely think he's getting the idea that outside is the place to go potty. What's helped in this is that he's started squatting to pee, making it much easier to reward him for going and give a verbal cue that he's doing the right thing, and we've started to figure out his patterns for going in the house. As soon as he tries to go behind the chairs in the living room, he gets taken out because he's probably looking to pee or poop. Too much carpet sniffing can also be a sign (although he does that anyway sometimes so this one is harder). Not letting him behind those chairs in the living room helps a lot too---if I keep chasing him out and he has to go out he'll literally go jump at the back door to signal to go out. We're still usually having at least one accident a day, but it's a lot better than it was. I'm thinking he'll be potty trained a lot quicker than I first thought he would.
Crate training is a more mixed bag. He'd gotten to the point where he was quiet while we were away but he stilled screamed at night. This was making it hard to tell when he needed to go outside and it was meaning accidents in his crate. Finally, his distress and these accidents convinced us to try something else. We both agreed that letting him have accidents in his crate certainly meant it wasn't accomplishing one of the purposes it was supposed to---helping to potty-train him---and I thought it might be hurting it. I want to encourage clean habits where he stays away from his poop, not make him sit in it because he's had an accident. Since the downstairs bathroom had baby-locks on the cabinets, no chemicals kept in there and basically nothing for him to get into at all, we decided we'd try putting him in there one night with his dog bed, which he loves. He didn't whine at all that night. He has since grown less fond of going in there, since he doesn't like being confined, but it's still way better than the crate. He whined a total of twice tonight (as in two discreet whines) and then has been silent. I flicked two Wellness jerky treats in there to reward him for his good behavior. It's great, because it means that we can get time away from him. Before, he was either sleeping or one of us was having to watch him like a hawk. Frankly, it's exhausting to have to do that but chew treats don't hold his interest very long (bully stick=about an hour the first time he got it, antler=about a half hour) and we couldn't crate him to get a break either because as long as we were home and he in that crate, there was no peace in our house (not litterally, he would quiet down eventually at night, unlike the first couple of nights we had him, but still). Right now he's in the bathroom, safe and sound, I'm upstairs with Harley and Fathead is asleep. It's a good thing. We still plan on crate-training him, as not everyone's bathroom will probably be secure enough to make me feel okay about him being in there, but we're taking it slow. We're feeding him in there and dropping treats into it. Hopefully he'll eventually decide the crate is a good place and we can start shutting him in there without protest.
As mentioned above, Zim and Harley don't interact much and I try to keep it that way since Shibas are high prey drive. That said, the 3 or 4 times Zim has been around her, he's basically ignored her, so that's good.
Lastly, Zimmy is now 5.1 lbs at 10 weeks old. He's pretty small, even for a Shiba, but I still think that's quite a bit of growth since 8 weeks when he was 4.2 lbs. That's almost 25% growth in two weeks! I wonder sometimes if he might not have been a bit premature, given how small he is and how much he slept that first week we had him but either way, I think he'll probably still be really small as an adult for a male Shiba. Well, that is what we needed, given the weight limit on our apartment, so no complaints here. He's also about 9 inches tall at the shoulder. I'm not sure how that makes him measure up to other puppies his age, though. There's a bit less information out there about puppy height. Moreover, he was interested in chewing on the tape-measurer, so that was the best measurement I could get of him while standing. I verified it while he was sleeping though by going from shoulder blade to where he should be standing on his foot, so hopefully it's right.
Also, here's a video of Zim meeting his cousin, Molly, who is the dog of Fathead's sister, Mandy. We're doing some catching up in these, but really it's all about the dogs. :D
So, firstly, he was at the vet again this Monday and had his third round of shots. He had to get a nasal vaccine, which Fathead tells me he wasn't too keen on (I wasn't in there with him since we'd taken the rat in for respiratory issues and I try not to let their paths cross too much) but overall he was really good. That's great since he's been more ornery (although still not too bad) since he's stopped sleeping so much and I was a little worried he might decide to act up a bit at the vet but, no, I've been blessed with a Shiba that behaves himself at the vet.
On the note of being ornery, he growled at me for the first time today. Well, not the first time. He's growled before but it was only in play---normally when he does it he's play bowing or otherwise trying to get me to play with him. It's cute when he does that. This time, though, it was an "I don't like what you're doing" growl and it was not cute. He'd gotten the end of a broken cat toy with a little fuzzy ball on it and I needed to get it away from him. Well, he really wanted it and he wasn't giving it up. I had to take it from him by force (though I did give him a treat afterwards, hoping that he learns that giving me things isn't bad) because I was afraid he'd swallow it. So, Fathead and I are going to try and start getting him to give us things in exchange for hot dogs to a command to try and nip this in the bud before he starts resource guarding. Really, we should have done this earlier. He's never liked it when he's had something in his mouth and we needed to get it from him, this is just the first time he's actually really thought enough of what he had to protest like that. Really, we should have tried to get him to give things up on a command from the beginning (we started to but it faded when we found it hard to actually make sure we always had a treat to give him) and never taken things from him without giving him something. This is our fault but since it's only the one incident I'm pretty confident that if we just work to teach him a command and do what we should have done before and always exchange food for what he has, we'll probably never have a problem with it again. He's overall a really good-natured puppy and I think that as long as we don't abuse that, there won't be any more problems.
On a slightly more positive note, potty training has been going better. He still has accidents, but he's started signalling to go out a lot of the time. Moreover, when I brought him out tonight for his goodnight potty break he just went. I definitely think he's getting the idea that outside is the place to go potty. What's helped in this is that he's started squatting to pee, making it much easier to reward him for going and give a verbal cue that he's doing the right thing, and we've started to figure out his patterns for going in the house. As soon as he tries to go behind the chairs in the living room, he gets taken out because he's probably looking to pee or poop. Too much carpet sniffing can also be a sign (although he does that anyway sometimes so this one is harder). Not letting him behind those chairs in the living room helps a lot too---if I keep chasing him out and he has to go out he'll literally go jump at the back door to signal to go out. We're still usually having at least one accident a day, but it's a lot better than it was. I'm thinking he'll be potty trained a lot quicker than I first thought he would.
Crate training is a more mixed bag. He'd gotten to the point where he was quiet while we were away but he stilled screamed at night. This was making it hard to tell when he needed to go outside and it was meaning accidents in his crate. Finally, his distress and these accidents convinced us to try something else. We both agreed that letting him have accidents in his crate certainly meant it wasn't accomplishing one of the purposes it was supposed to---helping to potty-train him---and I thought it might be hurting it. I want to encourage clean habits where he stays away from his poop, not make him sit in it because he's had an accident. Since the downstairs bathroom had baby-locks on the cabinets, no chemicals kept in there and basically nothing for him to get into at all, we decided we'd try putting him in there one night with his dog bed, which he loves. He didn't whine at all that night. He has since grown less fond of going in there, since he doesn't like being confined, but it's still way better than the crate. He whined a total of twice tonight (as in two discreet whines) and then has been silent. I flicked two Wellness jerky treats in there to reward him for his good behavior. It's great, because it means that we can get time away from him. Before, he was either sleeping or one of us was having to watch him like a hawk. Frankly, it's exhausting to have to do that but chew treats don't hold his interest very long (bully stick=about an hour the first time he got it, antler=about a half hour) and we couldn't crate him to get a break either because as long as we were home and he in that crate, there was no peace in our house (not litterally, he would quiet down eventually at night, unlike the first couple of nights we had him, but still). Right now he's in the bathroom, safe and sound, I'm upstairs with Harley and Fathead is asleep. It's a good thing. We still plan on crate-training him, as not everyone's bathroom will probably be secure enough to make me feel okay about him being in there, but we're taking it slow. We're feeding him in there and dropping treats into it. Hopefully he'll eventually decide the crate is a good place and we can start shutting him in there without protest.
As mentioned above, Zim and Harley don't interact much and I try to keep it that way since Shibas are high prey drive. That said, the 3 or 4 times Zim has been around her, he's basically ignored her, so that's good.
Lastly, Zimmy is now 5.1 lbs at 10 weeks old. He's pretty small, even for a Shiba, but I still think that's quite a bit of growth since 8 weeks when he was 4.2 lbs. That's almost 25% growth in two weeks! I wonder sometimes if he might not have been a bit premature, given how small he is and how much he slept that first week we had him but either way, I think he'll probably still be really small as an adult for a male Shiba. Well, that is what we needed, given the weight limit on our apartment, so no complaints here. He's also about 9 inches tall at the shoulder. I'm not sure how that makes him measure up to other puppies his age, though. There's a bit less information out there about puppy height. Moreover, he was interested in chewing on the tape-measurer, so that was the best measurement I could get of him while standing. I verified it while he was sleeping though by going from shoulder blade to where he should be standing on his foot, so hopefully it's right.
Also, here's a video of Zim meeting his cousin, Molly, who is the dog of Fathead's sister, Mandy. We're doing some catching up in these, but really it's all about the dogs. :D
More Spam!
More pictures today (I'd been slacking off for a few days with taking pictures and posting some made me take some more today). There are even some with my dad, who met him yesterday.
I really need to do a real update but there's so much to talk about that that it's kind of a project. :D
I really need to do a real update but there's so much to talk about that that it's kind of a project. :D
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Puppy Spam!
So, I really need to do a real update, but I keep not having the time. Zim keeps Fathead and I pretty busy since he won't chew on any treat for any real long period of time (I'd say you get a half hour out of a novel bully stick or antler) and we can't crate him for peace since there is no peace in my house if he's crated and he knows you can hear him.
So, yeah, here are some pictures.
So, yeah, here are some pictures.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Making Friends Everywhere He Goes
So, Zim is quite the popular little dude. I had him outside to try and go to the bathroom the other day and the secretary for our landlord saw him and we talked for a little bit while she went to her car. Well, then yesterday Fathead and a friend of ours had him outside and the building manager came by. He was quite taken with our little boy and petted him and whatnot. Well, apparently the secretary was quite taken with him too! He told us that she's offered to watch him sometimes in the morning. I think we might take her up on it, since I think that the more time he spends with people about in his house, the better. Either way, though, I'm pretty pleases to see my adorable little puppy getting this much attention. I'm even more pleased by the fact that he's totally cool with it. I know a number of Shibas are not okay with people just coming up to them and not only does Zim not mind, but he'll actively seek it out when he's in the mood.
I'm so glad he's good with people. I just hope we can keep him that way.
I'm so glad he's good with people. I just hope we can keep him that way.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Adventures in Crate Training
As I believe I mentioned in my last post, and as the video below demonstrates, Zim hates his crate.
Well, today I think we've had our first real success with crate training him. We've found that he seems to not cry when we leave him alone in the crate during the day---where he will cry all night even though we're upstairs---literally all night---when we get home from being out, he's not. Now, he used to start as soon as we walked in the door, meaning we couldn't let him out because then he'd think that crying was the way to get out of his crate. Well, today when we got home, he stayed completely silent until he'd been let out. Both times! I think we're making progress. Hopefully he'll be quieter tonight and I'm going to try and video him while we're out tomorrow to see if he actually does stay silent the entire time we're away.
In other news, however, potty training is not going so well. It's damn near impossible to tell when he's peeing since he just stands to pee---no squatting or anything to indicate he's going. This makes it really tough to both stop him from having accidents (although Fathead has successfully done that twice) and to reward him for going outside. You can't reward him for what you don't see! It's no better with pooping either because his stool is loose right now and I think it's made it hard for him to control his bowels. Either way, he's had three poop accidents and all were in his crate. :( I feel really bad for the little guy. It can't be nice to be in a box with your poop. He stopped crying for a bit last night and then started back up again, we think because he'd had an accident, but he's been crying so constantly that we didn't know to take note of it---have I mentioned how sorry I feel for him? I do feel pretty bad that we left him like that, even if we had no way of knowing it was a potty accident.
Well, my little boy may have some crate and potty issues, but he's not the little shark I was expecting to bring home (he barely mouths at all) and he's super great about being handled. Moreover, he really seems to like us. Like, he basically wants to have at least one of us in sight whenever possible. I know some people have trouble bonding with their new Shiba puppies because all they want to do is bite you and they feel like the pup doesn't like them. Zim's just not like that and I have to say it's made bonding a lot easier. It's pretty easy to bond with a pup that's happy to let you man-handle him into a harness and is perfectly happy being petted while he naps in your lap.
More pictures!!!
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