Puppy Kindergarten, Day 1

We started Puppy Kindergarten on Monday, 8/4. Denali was very distracted and had to know EVERYTHING else that was going on. She doesn’t realize she’s a puppy. I saw an 11-month old German Shepherd (who was just shopping at the Petco) whine and cower. I saw a full-grown Doberman move closer to his owner. Denali was ready to play!!! These big dogs had no confidence and were intimidated by her. Hmmm… I wonder what that means? We learned “Look,” “Gentle,” “Sit,” “Let’s Go” (same as Walk on loose leash) and tried to get them to come when we called their name(s).

There are two Maltese brothers, Shiloh and Cosmo. There is also a Dakota Shepherd girl (we’d never heard of one; it’s a cross between four dogs: English Shepherds, Australian Shepherds, Cocker Spaniels, and Poodles) named Dixie in our class. We actually met her a week ago when we took Denali to the pet store. Dixie will be getting a new puppy sibling this week, so we’ll have one more puppy in our class next week. Dixie, Shiloh and Cosmo are all 4 months old. Denali is younger than all the others (except the new puppy) but she’s bigger than all of them! And she wanted to pounce on all of them, too!

The class was an hour long so she was happy to get back in the car and curl up to go home when we were done. She was so cute; I took a couple of pix. They’re attached.

I talked with the trainer about her nipping and biting. If she does this, we are to yipe like another puppy would and turn away from her. If this doesn’t work, we’re to leave her and go to another room (like the bathroom) and shut the door for about 20 seconds. Supposedly, she’ll get the idea that the biting is undesirable behavior. The idea is that the teeth are NEVER to touch the skin. PERIOD.

Yesterday, Ian was on the phone with his University, trying to make sure he’s getting college credit for the college courses he took in High School and he slid the door open (between the kitchen and Dining Room) and Denali ran through. She ran upstairs and peed on the carpet. Now, she’s doing exceptionally well with the schedule we have her on… she either pees or poos every time we take her out. So I thought, maybe, the housebreaking thing was going really well. But since this happened, I know that she’s not “housebroken” yet. I asked the trainer about this incident. She said that since dogs tend to not soil their den, she’s considering the kitchen area where we keep her confined to be her den. And while she knows to go far away from her den to do business, that’s what she thought she was doing when she escaped. She doesn’t yet know the difference between outdoors and indoors… she just knows she was far away from her den.

We have a lot of practicing ahead of us…