Tales of a Doodle Daddy - First Year Home
The story of Maisy and her family, the Kings. Maisy is an F1 Goldendoodle puppy of Gracie's born 1/2016.
The Kings
Tales of a Doodle Daddy - Week 10 – When Your Puppy Gets Sick (Memorial weekend)
At about 1 AM this past Friday morning, my wife woke me up and said, “Jake, I think Maisy needs to go out.” I groaned and looked over – my sleep-brain was ready to dismiss it since Maisy always lasts through the night, and I was just on the verge of falling back asleep when I smelled the smell that anyone who owns a puppy never, ever wants to find in the house. I bolted out of bed to find Maisy sitting like a perfect angel by the door of her crate. But behind her, tucked away in the far corner, was a heap of poop.
I’m not exaggerating – it was a heap. I couldn’t even fathom how she had done what she had done – if you had shown me a picture of it, I would have guessed an elephant was suspect, not a 25 lb. goldendoodle puppy. But I kept calm, and after making sure she (somehow) didn’t have any of that horror in her fur, I let her out of the crate so I could survey the damage. As soon as she was outside, though, it quickly became apparent that this was no mere accident, as she began vomiting all over the carpet.
So I whisked her outside, where we went through about ten more minutes of what I found inside the crate…you get the picture…total, utter, brown chaos.
When I brought her back inside, Emily had graciously cleaned up the mess and so we began our next challenge, figuring out what to do. My wife is the most loving, caring person I know, and that’s a big reason why I married her. But we had very different upbringings when caring for a sick dog. My family would feed a bland diet, monitor the problem, and go to the vet if things grew worse. My in-laws’ dog, Teddy, gets pampered if he coughs one time so while I was thinking “chicken and rice for the next few days – problem solved” Emily was trying to match symptoms to God-awful parasites and rare diseases and asking me if I thought Maisy had them.
I figured it was nothing more than a simple stomach bug but I was worried that, regardless, she might be losing fluids faster than she could replace them so I called the vet. Their schedule was packed with it being a holiday weekend, but after some negotiation with the receptionist I got them to see her, put Maisy and a tarp in my backseat, and prayed that she could make it.
She did, and 30 minutes and $136 later, we learned that Maisy was completely fine and that we had nothing to worry about. The vet gave us some nausea and diarrhea medicine, recommended that we feed her chicken and rice for the next 48 hours, and we were on our way. We had just successfully navigated our first sick puppy together, and later that same day Maisy was back to her usual, playful self.
So now we know for the future that we probably don’t need to fret over an upset tummy unless there are more concerning signs, but I’m glad we got the extra reassurance from the vet. I don’t have kids, but I imagine the feeling we got is what a lot of new parents go through the first time a kid gets sick. You don’t know how bad it is and your child / puppy can’t tell you so your natural instinct is to go into panic mode and make absolutely certain she is fine. But I think the key is to just keep a level head, monitor the situation carefully, and if you find yourself questioning whether or not the illness is vet-worthy, it’s probably a good idea to just check and be sure.
At about 1 AM this past Friday morning, my wife woke me up and said, “Jake, I think Maisy needs to go out.” I groaned and looked over – my sleep-brain was ready to dismiss it since Maisy always lasts through the night, and I was just on the verge of falling back asleep when I smelled the smell that anyone who owns a puppy never, ever wants to find in the house. I bolted out of bed to find Maisy sitting like a perfect angel by the door of her crate. But behind her, tucked away in the far corner, was a heap of poop.
I’m not exaggerating – it was a heap. I couldn’t even fathom how she had done what she had done – if you had shown me a picture of it, I would have guessed an elephant was suspect, not a 25 lb. goldendoodle puppy. But I kept calm, and after making sure she (somehow) didn’t have any of that horror in her fur, I let her out of the crate so I could survey the damage. As soon as she was outside, though, it quickly became apparent that this was no mere accident, as she began vomiting all over the carpet.
So I whisked her outside, where we went through about ten more minutes of what I found inside the crate…you get the picture…total, utter, brown chaos.
When I brought her back inside, Emily had graciously cleaned up the mess and so we began our next challenge, figuring out what to do. My wife is the most loving, caring person I know, and that’s a big reason why I married her. But we had very different upbringings when caring for a sick dog. My family would feed a bland diet, monitor the problem, and go to the vet if things grew worse. My in-laws’ dog, Teddy, gets pampered if he coughs one time so while I was thinking “chicken and rice for the next few days – problem solved” Emily was trying to match symptoms to God-awful parasites and rare diseases and asking me if I thought Maisy had them.
I figured it was nothing more than a simple stomach bug but I was worried that, regardless, she might be losing fluids faster than she could replace them so I called the vet. Their schedule was packed with it being a holiday weekend, but after some negotiation with the receptionist I got them to see her, put Maisy and a tarp in my backseat, and prayed that she could make it.
She did, and 30 minutes and $136 later, we learned that Maisy was completely fine and that we had nothing to worry about. The vet gave us some nausea and diarrhea medicine, recommended that we feed her chicken and rice for the next 48 hours, and we were on our way. We had just successfully navigated our first sick puppy together, and later that same day Maisy was back to her usual, playful self.
So now we know for the future that we probably don’t need to fret over an upset tummy unless there are more concerning signs, but I’m glad we got the extra reassurance from the vet. I don’t have kids, but I imagine the feeling we got is what a lot of new parents go through the first time a kid gets sick. You don’t know how bad it is and your child / puppy can’t tell you so your natural instinct is to go into panic mode and make absolutely certain she is fine. But I think the key is to just keep a level head, monitor the situation carefully, and if you find yourself questioning whether or not the illness is vet-worthy, it’s probably a good idea to just check and be sure.
Maisy, Memorial weekend 2016
Tales of a Doodle Daddy
Week 12 – Walking Your Puppy, Part II
In Maisy’s first few months, I talked about some of our difficulties in teaching her to walk on a leash, chief among them the fact that for a fairly long time she wouldn’t...at all. Whether we were just going around the corner for a potty break or actually trying to go on a walk of some substance, it usually ended with me carrying her back to the house.
My wife and I have made a great deal of improvement with her after many, many walks and a lot of experimentation, and we are now at a point where we all actually look forward to this little part of our daily routine. It has not been an easy road, though, and now that she is five months old, I would say that this has probably been the toughest part of her training. These are some tips which worked for us, and might be of use if you find that your puppy is being a pistol on the leash.
No-Pull Harness – We used to take Maisy on walks using a conventional leash, and she would constantly leap up and down, trying to bite the leash or drag us in whatever direction she wanted to go. And when she got tired of that, she would plant her feet and refuse to go anywhere unless we physically picked her up and carried her. When we put a harness on her for the first time, I could not stop laughing because I couldn’t believe how different she was, immediately. After months of terrorizing me and my wife every time we went out the door she started prancing around the neighborhood like she was a trained show dog, and while she has not relinquished all of her old habits completely it has certainly made a huge difference for us.
Also, she sometimes really hunkers down and pulls hard or decides she wants to go another direction - the harness has the added benefit of taking the pressure off of her neck so that it doesn’t hurt her and usually any unwanted behavior only lasts a second or two before she gets the drift.
I can’t say enough about it; this is hands-down the most worthwhile investment we’ve made with Maisy.
Treats, Treats, and More Treats – Maisy is a very food-motivated dog, which is great for training and when we’re working on our usual commands indoors she will do just about anything for a piece of kibble. Outside, though, we’ve found that we need bigger guns. Her usual treats just don’t cut it when there are leaves and other dogs and [insert pretty much anything here] to chase, so my wife and I started experimenting with different treats to see what she really goes crazy for.
Now, I keep a stash of her premium stuff up in the liquor cabinet with my premium stuff. I’m pretty sure she officially eats better than me now, but if she starts acting out and the usual goodies just aren’t getting her attention I can whip out the doomsday treats, get her to calm down, and continue on with our walk.
Stop the Walk – Maisy, like many dogs, gets really excited for her daily walk, and sometimes she sees stuff on the walk that makes her even more excited so she will pull to try and go faster. When she was a puppy this was adorable because my wife and I were still so much bigger than her, comparatively, that we could keep a steady pace while she bounded forward with insatiable joy and enthusiasm for whatever had caught her eye. Now, Maisy is now about 20 lbs. heavier and I still haven’t made good on my New Year’s resolution to hit the gym, so even though she is the runt of her litter it feels like I’ve been strapped to a train when she bolts, and it’s hard to not get pulled along for at least part of the way.
Our training class taught us a great tip for pulling - when Maisy starts to really yank hard, I stop the walk. The psychology behind this is that if you allow the walk to continue after a dog starts pulling, he or she might see that continuation as a reward for that behavior, and it just reinforces the pulling. Naturally they want to keep going, so if you stop the party when they put on a level of tension you don’t like, they eventually start to realize that’s what triggers an end to their fun and they learn their limits. Maisy is figuring it out, slowly but surely. We also use it for other unwanted walk behaviors, like Maisy’s habit of jumping up and / or biting the leash when she wants you to go faster.
Sometimes, though, I feel like she’s playing some kind of sick game with me, because she always starts pulling or jumping when crossing a busy street, and I have to decide whether I want to risk getting flattened or if I can let that one slide in the name of living another day…
Week 12 – Walking Your Puppy, Part II
In Maisy’s first few months, I talked about some of our difficulties in teaching her to walk on a leash, chief among them the fact that for a fairly long time she wouldn’t...at all. Whether we were just going around the corner for a potty break or actually trying to go on a walk of some substance, it usually ended with me carrying her back to the house.
My wife and I have made a great deal of improvement with her after many, many walks and a lot of experimentation, and we are now at a point where we all actually look forward to this little part of our daily routine. It has not been an easy road, though, and now that she is five months old, I would say that this has probably been the toughest part of her training. These are some tips which worked for us, and might be of use if you find that your puppy is being a pistol on the leash.
No-Pull Harness – We used to take Maisy on walks using a conventional leash, and she would constantly leap up and down, trying to bite the leash or drag us in whatever direction she wanted to go. And when she got tired of that, she would plant her feet and refuse to go anywhere unless we physically picked her up and carried her. When we put a harness on her for the first time, I could not stop laughing because I couldn’t believe how different she was, immediately. After months of terrorizing me and my wife every time we went out the door she started prancing around the neighborhood like she was a trained show dog, and while she has not relinquished all of her old habits completely it has certainly made a huge difference for us.
Also, she sometimes really hunkers down and pulls hard or decides she wants to go another direction - the harness has the added benefit of taking the pressure off of her neck so that it doesn’t hurt her and usually any unwanted behavior only lasts a second or two before she gets the drift.
I can’t say enough about it; this is hands-down the most worthwhile investment we’ve made with Maisy.
Treats, Treats, and More Treats – Maisy is a very food-motivated dog, which is great for training and when we’re working on our usual commands indoors she will do just about anything for a piece of kibble. Outside, though, we’ve found that we need bigger guns. Her usual treats just don’t cut it when there are leaves and other dogs and [insert pretty much anything here] to chase, so my wife and I started experimenting with different treats to see what she really goes crazy for.
Now, I keep a stash of her premium stuff up in the liquor cabinet with my premium stuff. I’m pretty sure she officially eats better than me now, but if she starts acting out and the usual goodies just aren’t getting her attention I can whip out the doomsday treats, get her to calm down, and continue on with our walk.
Stop the Walk – Maisy, like many dogs, gets really excited for her daily walk, and sometimes she sees stuff on the walk that makes her even more excited so she will pull to try and go faster. When she was a puppy this was adorable because my wife and I were still so much bigger than her, comparatively, that we could keep a steady pace while she bounded forward with insatiable joy and enthusiasm for whatever had caught her eye. Now, Maisy is now about 20 lbs. heavier and I still haven’t made good on my New Year’s resolution to hit the gym, so even though she is the runt of her litter it feels like I’ve been strapped to a train when she bolts, and it’s hard to not get pulled along for at least part of the way.
Our training class taught us a great tip for pulling - when Maisy starts to really yank hard, I stop the walk. The psychology behind this is that if you allow the walk to continue after a dog starts pulling, he or she might see that continuation as a reward for that behavior, and it just reinforces the pulling. Naturally they want to keep going, so if you stop the party when they put on a level of tension you don’t like, they eventually start to realize that’s what triggers an end to their fun and they learn their limits. Maisy is figuring it out, slowly but surely. We also use it for other unwanted walk behaviors, like Maisy’s habit of jumping up and / or biting the leash when she wants you to go faster.
Sometimes, though, I feel like she’s playing some kind of sick game with me, because she always starts pulling or jumping when crossing a busy street, and I have to decide whether I want to risk getting flattened or if I can let that one slide in the name of living another day…
Tales of a Doodle Daddy
Week 14 – Maisy and the Cone of Shame
Maisy has hit plenty of milestones in the short time that she has been a part of our family – she has mastered house training, she knows how to walk on a leash, and I don’t want to speak too soon but I think we’ve taught her to not shred the couch, too. We knew, however, that we were coming up on one unpleasant but necessary milestone that almost every dog goes through – the spaying / neutering process.
We admittedly didn’t plan as well for this as we could have. My wife had made arrangements to visit family in Pittsburg months ago but we never put two and two together and figured out that, in the midst of our busy schedules, we would need to arrange Maisy’s surgery and also factor her recovery into our schedules for the next two weeks. It was one of those things that we knew we would need to do, but it wasn’t until we actually scheduled the appointment that we realized we had a schedule conflict. Luckily that in of itself wasn’t hard to work around – I just planned to stay home with Maisy while my wife went to Pittsburg and on the day after her surgery, I hopped in the car and rushed to the vet to pick her up after work. I was really excited to see her and I was, selfishly, I’ll admit, hoping that I’d get a hero’s welcome and plenty of puppy love for being the one to “rescue” her.
Instead, Maisy came out from the back rooms dragging one of the veterinary techs behind her, and barely stopped long enough for him to hand the leash off to me - so great was her desire to get out the door. Her urgency wasn’t born out of fear I’m sure, it was probably something like the relief you feel when you’ve been trying to leave a party for a while and finally get through enough of the farewell pleasantries that you can make a dash for the car and be done with it. She saw her opening and wanted to blow that clambake, and I can’t really fault her for that.
Once we got home, the post-operative care for Maisy was pretty simple – we had about a 3 day supply of medication and plenty of great instruction on what she should and shouldn’t do and one of those tips, really more of a command, was to keep her from licking the wound site.
Now, there are a number of devices a vet might recommend to do this, and they are available in many styles and shapes, but when you parse out the euphemisms and niceties, they’re really all talking about the same thing…the proverbial “Cone of Shame.” Luckily for us my in-laws had one from when their dog, Teddy, had a surgery about a year ago and we were able to borrow it to get Maisy through her recovery period. This particular model was called a “Comfy Cone” which looks and sounds like something that you’d buy out of one of those gimmicky airline magazines but its heart was in the right place and it really does look about as comfortable as something designed to inhibit your movement can be.
Maisy, however, was not amused. The first time I put the cone on her she allowed me to do it with polite curiosity, and then proceeded to not move at all for ten full minutes. I watched her – she did not lift a whisker – she just stood there, as still as a stone, until I finally caved and took it off. I gave her treats and plenty of rubs and attention, trying to ensure her that this was not a punishment and that the cone was a good thing but she just wouldn’t budge and I was worried that I was actually causing her anxiety.
We made progress in baby-steps, though. I made her sleep with it on for fear of her pulling out stitches during the night, and after a bit of coaxing she seemed to get more comfortable. Within a day or two she could lay down in the cone without much fuss and finally, near the end of the first week, she started moving around freely with it on. I just kept the cone on her as often as I could and gave her plenty of treats and praise to help the transition and make it a positive experience…though that didn’t stop her from trying to tear it to pieces every time I took it off.
Everything went well in her recovery after this hurdle. We had a little bit of trouble keeping her inactive enough to let her stitches heal because a doodle in motion is always in motion, and she did develop a mild, very treatable skin infection which the vet described as “dog acne.” But thankfully we made it through the next two weeks without any of the horror stories that you occasionally hear about with these procedures and she’ll be getting her stitches removed this week, just in time for a swim in the Finger Lakes on her first July 4th getaway!
Week 14 – Maisy and the Cone of Shame
Maisy has hit plenty of milestones in the short time that she has been a part of our family – she has mastered house training, she knows how to walk on a leash, and I don’t want to speak too soon but I think we’ve taught her to not shred the couch, too. We knew, however, that we were coming up on one unpleasant but necessary milestone that almost every dog goes through – the spaying / neutering process.
We admittedly didn’t plan as well for this as we could have. My wife had made arrangements to visit family in Pittsburg months ago but we never put two and two together and figured out that, in the midst of our busy schedules, we would need to arrange Maisy’s surgery and also factor her recovery into our schedules for the next two weeks. It was one of those things that we knew we would need to do, but it wasn’t until we actually scheduled the appointment that we realized we had a schedule conflict. Luckily that in of itself wasn’t hard to work around – I just planned to stay home with Maisy while my wife went to Pittsburg and on the day after her surgery, I hopped in the car and rushed to the vet to pick her up after work. I was really excited to see her and I was, selfishly, I’ll admit, hoping that I’d get a hero’s welcome and plenty of puppy love for being the one to “rescue” her.
Instead, Maisy came out from the back rooms dragging one of the veterinary techs behind her, and barely stopped long enough for him to hand the leash off to me - so great was her desire to get out the door. Her urgency wasn’t born out of fear I’m sure, it was probably something like the relief you feel when you’ve been trying to leave a party for a while and finally get through enough of the farewell pleasantries that you can make a dash for the car and be done with it. She saw her opening and wanted to blow that clambake, and I can’t really fault her for that.
Once we got home, the post-operative care for Maisy was pretty simple – we had about a 3 day supply of medication and plenty of great instruction on what she should and shouldn’t do and one of those tips, really more of a command, was to keep her from licking the wound site.
Now, there are a number of devices a vet might recommend to do this, and they are available in many styles and shapes, but when you parse out the euphemisms and niceties, they’re really all talking about the same thing…the proverbial “Cone of Shame.” Luckily for us my in-laws had one from when their dog, Teddy, had a surgery about a year ago and we were able to borrow it to get Maisy through her recovery period. This particular model was called a “Comfy Cone” which looks and sounds like something that you’d buy out of one of those gimmicky airline magazines but its heart was in the right place and it really does look about as comfortable as something designed to inhibit your movement can be.
Maisy, however, was not amused. The first time I put the cone on her she allowed me to do it with polite curiosity, and then proceeded to not move at all for ten full minutes. I watched her – she did not lift a whisker – she just stood there, as still as a stone, until I finally caved and took it off. I gave her treats and plenty of rubs and attention, trying to ensure her that this was not a punishment and that the cone was a good thing but she just wouldn’t budge and I was worried that I was actually causing her anxiety.
We made progress in baby-steps, though. I made her sleep with it on for fear of her pulling out stitches during the night, and after a bit of coaxing she seemed to get more comfortable. Within a day or two she could lay down in the cone without much fuss and finally, near the end of the first week, she started moving around freely with it on. I just kept the cone on her as often as I could and gave her plenty of treats and praise to help the transition and make it a positive experience…though that didn’t stop her from trying to tear it to pieces every time I took it off.
Everything went well in her recovery after this hurdle. We had a little bit of trouble keeping her inactive enough to let her stitches heal because a doodle in motion is always in motion, and she did develop a mild, very treatable skin infection which the vet described as “dog acne.” But thankfully we made it through the next two weeks without any of the horror stories that you occasionally hear about with these procedures and she’ll be getting her stitches removed this week, just in time for a swim in the Finger Lakes on her first July 4th getaway!
Maisy sad face
Tales of a Doodle Daddy
Maisy 8 MONTHS OLD – Puppy Parenting Styles and Trip Plans
In the past month, my wife and I have done a lot of traveling. We’ve gone to North Carolina twice and New York once, done countless daytrips to a number of places and somehow, just to make sure we have as little downtime as humanly possible, we’re also going to pack up everything and move in about a month. Maisy has grown like a weed and is now a whopping 40 lbs., which doesn’t sound like much until you have to pick her up and load her manually into the car (still working on that). But as she has matured all of our training and patience has paid off and when I say that she is a better dog than we could have ever imagined, I’m not exaggerating one bit.
But with our being constantly on the go this summer, I was reminded of something my mom told me before we got her. She warned me that “having a dog is like having a kid.” And I understood the implications at the time - lots of joy but lots of times when you want to pull your hair out, etc. but I don’t think you really understand the level of freedom you enjoy as an adult with no dependents until you realize, about halfway through the summer, that you have started off every single weekend since May by trying to shove 50 lbs. of puppy gear into the tiny trunk of a Ford Focus so that you can reassemble it all in a new location.
It was a new challenge for us, and my wife and I do not always see eye to eye on the solutions. When I was growing up, the dog stayed at the house if we were going out for a day and when we went away for longer, my family used a good, local kennel without any issues. My wife’s family tends to take Teddy with them wherever they can and leave him at the house in the care of other family or good friends when they go away for longer. There is nothing wrong with either philosophy, but when you take in a dog, that dog is a part of your family in much the same way that a child is a part of your family, and as with a child there may be times when you and your significant other, if you have one, have differing parenting styles.
I’ll give you an example - if it’s a quiet day at the lake or a hike on a trail in the middle of nowhere (i.e. I’m the only person in a 2 mile radius), I’m completely fine with taking Maisy along – we have daddy / doodle time and it’s a blast. But transfer that scene to a food truck festival or a busy downtown and my blood pressure goes through the roof and I turn into a bear because I’m constantly worried about someone accidentally stepping on her, or that she will eat something she shouldn’t. In her younger days she would bolt too, like a fish on a line, tearing off in whatever direction I didn’t expect her to go in and dragging me behind her on the leash. And yet in that same scenario, my wife is completely calm and composed with Maisy, because she loves to show her off and get her to meet new people.
Another example – when we were preparing for our first North Carolina trip my wife wanted us to leave Maisy with my parents. I wanted to look for a local kennel because I knew that my parents aren’t exactly the “dog-sitting type” and I wanted to respect that wish, and for some perspective we would have had to drive eight hours from North Carolina to Easton, PA, and then drive another 3 hours round-trip in the same day to my parents’ house to pick up Maisy and get back to our home in Reading. So while this is perfectly reasonable to Emily, I said “no” in much the same way that you might scream in agony when a bus runs over your foot – more of a reflex than a response.
Luckily everything worked out and we were able to find a solution that fit both of our needs and got Maisy the care she deserves, but it’s just one of those things that I never really thought about until we had Maisy and had to start making these decisions. You can’t go anywhere overnight without having a plan in place for your puppy, and the logistics of that planning can sometimes be stressful and uncomfortable when you have two dog-lovers who have differing ideas on what to do.
But while having a puppy can certainly strain relationships and limit your freedom, you bond a lot as a family and your relationship strengthens too. We obviously spend a lot of our time with Maisy, playing and training and just talking to her so we can watch her little doodle expressions.
You bond in ways you don’t expect, too - my wife, for instance, had to train me how to pick up after Maisy because as kids my brother and I used shovels and a compost pile so the plastic bag method was a whole other rodeo for me. I actually threw up in my mouth a little bit at first because even though I have field-dressed a deer and cleaned fish, I feel like you shouldn’t know what dog poop feels like in your hand – it’s just an upsetting piece of information to have in your brain. But Emily had graduated from pooper scooper school and was a pro at it, so while I was gagging and dry heaving in the yard, trying to do the fatherly thing, we were both doubled over, laughing hysterically at how ridiculous the situation was.
So even though I don’t have kids, I’d imagine my mom’s advice is pretty accurate – there are a lot of changes to your life that you don’t really think about while you’re caught up in the romanticized idea of adding a dog to your family but it is, without a doubt, well worth it.
Maisy 8 MONTHS OLD – Puppy Parenting Styles and Trip Plans
In the past month, my wife and I have done a lot of traveling. We’ve gone to North Carolina twice and New York once, done countless daytrips to a number of places and somehow, just to make sure we have as little downtime as humanly possible, we’re also going to pack up everything and move in about a month. Maisy has grown like a weed and is now a whopping 40 lbs., which doesn’t sound like much until you have to pick her up and load her manually into the car (still working on that). But as she has matured all of our training and patience has paid off and when I say that she is a better dog than we could have ever imagined, I’m not exaggerating one bit.
But with our being constantly on the go this summer, I was reminded of something my mom told me before we got her. She warned me that “having a dog is like having a kid.” And I understood the implications at the time - lots of joy but lots of times when you want to pull your hair out, etc. but I don’t think you really understand the level of freedom you enjoy as an adult with no dependents until you realize, about halfway through the summer, that you have started off every single weekend since May by trying to shove 50 lbs. of puppy gear into the tiny trunk of a Ford Focus so that you can reassemble it all in a new location.
It was a new challenge for us, and my wife and I do not always see eye to eye on the solutions. When I was growing up, the dog stayed at the house if we were going out for a day and when we went away for longer, my family used a good, local kennel without any issues. My wife’s family tends to take Teddy with them wherever they can and leave him at the house in the care of other family or good friends when they go away for longer. There is nothing wrong with either philosophy, but when you take in a dog, that dog is a part of your family in much the same way that a child is a part of your family, and as with a child there may be times when you and your significant other, if you have one, have differing parenting styles.
I’ll give you an example - if it’s a quiet day at the lake or a hike on a trail in the middle of nowhere (i.e. I’m the only person in a 2 mile radius), I’m completely fine with taking Maisy along – we have daddy / doodle time and it’s a blast. But transfer that scene to a food truck festival or a busy downtown and my blood pressure goes through the roof and I turn into a bear because I’m constantly worried about someone accidentally stepping on her, or that she will eat something she shouldn’t. In her younger days she would bolt too, like a fish on a line, tearing off in whatever direction I didn’t expect her to go in and dragging me behind her on the leash. And yet in that same scenario, my wife is completely calm and composed with Maisy, because she loves to show her off and get her to meet new people.
Another example – when we were preparing for our first North Carolina trip my wife wanted us to leave Maisy with my parents. I wanted to look for a local kennel because I knew that my parents aren’t exactly the “dog-sitting type” and I wanted to respect that wish, and for some perspective we would have had to drive eight hours from North Carolina to Easton, PA, and then drive another 3 hours round-trip in the same day to my parents’ house to pick up Maisy and get back to our home in Reading. So while this is perfectly reasonable to Emily, I said “no” in much the same way that you might scream in agony when a bus runs over your foot – more of a reflex than a response.
Luckily everything worked out and we were able to find a solution that fit both of our needs and got Maisy the care she deserves, but it’s just one of those things that I never really thought about until we had Maisy and had to start making these decisions. You can’t go anywhere overnight without having a plan in place for your puppy, and the logistics of that planning can sometimes be stressful and uncomfortable when you have two dog-lovers who have differing ideas on what to do.
But while having a puppy can certainly strain relationships and limit your freedom, you bond a lot as a family and your relationship strengthens too. We obviously spend a lot of our time with Maisy, playing and training and just talking to her so we can watch her little doodle expressions.
You bond in ways you don’t expect, too - my wife, for instance, had to train me how to pick up after Maisy because as kids my brother and I used shovels and a compost pile so the plastic bag method was a whole other rodeo for me. I actually threw up in my mouth a little bit at first because even though I have field-dressed a deer and cleaned fish, I feel like you shouldn’t know what dog poop feels like in your hand – it’s just an upsetting piece of information to have in your brain. But Emily had graduated from pooper scooper school and was a pro at it, so while I was gagging and dry heaving in the yard, trying to do the fatherly thing, we were both doubled over, laughing hysterically at how ridiculous the situation was.
So even though I don’t have kids, I’d imagine my mom’s advice is pretty accurate – there are a lot of changes to your life that you don’t really think about while you’re caught up in the romanticized idea of adding a dog to your family but it is, without a doubt, well worth it.
Getting ready to take Maisy on a weekend trip
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Maisy staying with her 'uncle' Teddy
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Puppy Training
Tales of a Doodle Daddy
Week 24 – Self Reliance, Part II
When we first got Maisy, my top priority was to teach her to handle being on her own. I have known dogs who can’t be left alone in the house without another person there, and who can’t even stand to be in a different room and it is very frustrating for me, personally, to be around a dog who is that needy. So while I obviously love Maisy to death and we spend a lot of time together, I started “independent dog” training on day 1.
It worked really well – better than I expected, in fact. She figured out crate training within a week or so, and once we had her house-trained a few months later I felt confident enough to start giving her more and more freedom. At first, I kept her in the room with me while I worked. Then we expanded that to a nice, big pen in the kitchen and after a short while longer, I gave her the run of the house, minus the bedroom and bathrooms which I kept shut. Things seemed to be going really, really well. By seven months old, I was even letting her have free run of the house if I went out to run a quick errand.
And then one day, I came down for my lunch break (Maisy was about 7 ½ months old) and I saw that the mail had come…and that Maisy had shredded it into a hundred tiny pieces on the floor. Luckily, it wasn’t anything important and I got a good laugh, especially because she had this bemused look on her face, as if to say “What? I didn’t do it!”
But then she did the same thing the next day, and the prank started to lose its charm. So I started running downstairs whenever I heard the mail slot open and after a few times of catching her in the act, we have this habit pretty well under control.
But, I apparently didn’t learn my lesson well enough. About two weeks later, I came downstairs after watching a movie and found that Maisy had pulled out a floor mat and eaten a whole corner of it, rubber backing and all. This time, she realized it was futile to try and hide what she had done, and she laid on the floor, looking up at me with the big, sad eyes of a kid who knows she has done something wrong and is pretty sorry about it. I couldn’t even be mad - it was that cute.
However, the mat did have some pretty long strings in the outer layer and mixed in the “guts” of it and almost every veterinary forum I read recommended taking the dog to a vet in a case like that to prevent an intestinal blockage. So at 9:00 PM on a Saturday night I loaded her into the car (my wife was out of town) and drove her over to the emergency vet, and $200 later they were able to get her to vomit up all of the offending material.
Now, all of this is pretty mild behavior in the grand scheme, considering that I know dogs that are serial mail-eaters (I have a coworker whose dog has eaten electric bills and the mortgage, and buried her car keys in the flower bed), and other dogs have done far worse things to far more valuable pieces of furniture, but I still decided that she was getting a little bit too used to having all the freedom in the world, and that I’d have to change things up a bit if I wanted to nip this in the bud. I’m not a psychologist or a trainer, but what I’ve read seems to suggest that if a dog is chewing on furniture, mail, or other non-chewables, one potential cause is boredom. So I did two things – 1.) I keep a closer eye on her through the day, and 2.) we play more.
I understand not everyone can take time during a workday to interact with the dog and I’m very fortunate that I can, but I’ve found that even just simple things like always having treats on-hand so I can work in surprise training sessions or throwing in five minutes of play over my lunch break have made her more content. In the evenings, we have a nice walk and a long play time before bed, and overall I think that she has been better-behaved when we give her freedom. When we move to our new apartment in about a week, I’m sure things will only improve as we will have two dog runs on-location where she can frolic around off-leash and get more energy out than our current place will let her.
…Though I think she is going to miss getting the mail through the door slot.
Week 24 – Self Reliance, Part II
When we first got Maisy, my top priority was to teach her to handle being on her own. I have known dogs who can’t be left alone in the house without another person there, and who can’t even stand to be in a different room and it is very frustrating for me, personally, to be around a dog who is that needy. So while I obviously love Maisy to death and we spend a lot of time together, I started “independent dog” training on day 1.
It worked really well – better than I expected, in fact. She figured out crate training within a week or so, and once we had her house-trained a few months later I felt confident enough to start giving her more and more freedom. At first, I kept her in the room with me while I worked. Then we expanded that to a nice, big pen in the kitchen and after a short while longer, I gave her the run of the house, minus the bedroom and bathrooms which I kept shut. Things seemed to be going really, really well. By seven months old, I was even letting her have free run of the house if I went out to run a quick errand.
And then one day, I came down for my lunch break (Maisy was about 7 ½ months old) and I saw that the mail had come…and that Maisy had shredded it into a hundred tiny pieces on the floor. Luckily, it wasn’t anything important and I got a good laugh, especially because she had this bemused look on her face, as if to say “What? I didn’t do it!”
But then she did the same thing the next day, and the prank started to lose its charm. So I started running downstairs whenever I heard the mail slot open and after a few times of catching her in the act, we have this habit pretty well under control.
But, I apparently didn’t learn my lesson well enough. About two weeks later, I came downstairs after watching a movie and found that Maisy had pulled out a floor mat and eaten a whole corner of it, rubber backing and all. This time, she realized it was futile to try and hide what she had done, and she laid on the floor, looking up at me with the big, sad eyes of a kid who knows she has done something wrong and is pretty sorry about it. I couldn’t even be mad - it was that cute.
However, the mat did have some pretty long strings in the outer layer and mixed in the “guts” of it and almost every veterinary forum I read recommended taking the dog to a vet in a case like that to prevent an intestinal blockage. So at 9:00 PM on a Saturday night I loaded her into the car (my wife was out of town) and drove her over to the emergency vet, and $200 later they were able to get her to vomit up all of the offending material.
Now, all of this is pretty mild behavior in the grand scheme, considering that I know dogs that are serial mail-eaters (I have a coworker whose dog has eaten electric bills and the mortgage, and buried her car keys in the flower bed), and other dogs have done far worse things to far more valuable pieces of furniture, but I still decided that she was getting a little bit too used to having all the freedom in the world, and that I’d have to change things up a bit if I wanted to nip this in the bud. I’m not a psychologist or a trainer, but what I’ve read seems to suggest that if a dog is chewing on furniture, mail, or other non-chewables, one potential cause is boredom. So I did two things – 1.) I keep a closer eye on her through the day, and 2.) we play more.
I understand not everyone can take time during a workday to interact with the dog and I’m very fortunate that I can, but I’ve found that even just simple things like always having treats on-hand so I can work in surprise training sessions or throwing in five minutes of play over my lunch break have made her more content. In the evenings, we have a nice walk and a long play time before bed, and overall I think that she has been better-behaved when we give her freedom. When we move to our new apartment in about a week, I’m sure things will only improve as we will have two dog runs on-location where she can frolic around off-leash and get more energy out than our current place will let her.
…Though I think she is going to miss getting the mail through the door slot.
