Leadership reestablish…

Thursday, December 1st, 2005 at 10:18 am

So far as I knew Pepper lost 5 of his puppy teeth. Some of the first two were emerged beautifully. It was so amazing watching him grow. He is now 17 weeks old today. He gained about 1 kg/week. After we started trying to reestablish the leadership from the book, The Dog Listener, we found that Pepper is more obedient than before. The most amazing thing was about eating. He used to be a fussy eater. We had to try many things to make him eat but did not seem to work. After he was not well two weeks ago, it was the same time we started this method he had been eating his food very well. When we put his food down, he would look at us and did not go to eat until we told him to go to eat. It was very good to see the bowl was cleaned before he walked away. He would drink a lot of water after he finished and then went back to lick the bowl clean again and walked away. We would immediately take his bowl away after he finished. We are so impressed.

About his crate from last time we tried to make him go to his crate himself, since then we had never have to drag him in to his crate anymore. Sometimes he might hesitate to go in but he would go in himself finally.

About walking, last Thursday was a nightmare. I took him out for a walk and once I let him off the leash he went to grab something. It was a brush women used to brush their cheeks. Somebody tossed it in the wood. It was not too big so I was afraid that he would swallow it. I tried to call him to come to me so I could take that thing away from him but he was too excited. He ran away and came to show me that he still had that brush in his mouth. He tried to challenge me to catch him. I ran away from him and did not look at him. He ran after me with the brush in his mouth and tried to be in front of me so he could show me that he still had it. I was so angry. At one point there was a noise of dog barking, he turned to look for the dog and I grabbed him at his neck hard and got the brush from his mouth. I was so stupid not to put him on the leash. I let him go and when I wanted to end the walk he got something else in his mouth. It was a plastic sheet. I was so angry again. This time I told him to go away from me. I sat down and he came close to me. I grabbed him and put him on the leash and we had a walk on the pavement. Because I was so angry which I should not, when he tried to pull me on the leash I pulled him back very hard. I did it about 3-4 times after that he was fine. He walked with me nicely both on the leash and off the leash since.

There is something else that I need to tackle about Pepper’s behaviour. It is about jumping up to other people. He would not jump up to us anymore but when we met someone while we were walking he would jump up to them. I have to find the way to solve this problem.