Tell people you’re getting a puppy and it’s like telling people you’re having a baby. Everyone has advice. Immediately, we were thrown into decision-making questions: raw meat or dry food; clicker training or e-collar; doggie boot camp or personal trainer; stockade or invisible fence? One friend sent me a daunting list of items that I needed to buy. It was like a bridal registry: pee pads, collars and leashes of all kinds (flea, halter, short, long, chain), a bed, a crate, a crate liner, dog bowls, blankets, a car mat with seat belts, an assortment of toys that help with teething and cognitive improvement, Kongs, poop bag gizmo, oatmeal shampoo, nail clippers, tick/flea collars, brushes, toothbrush, paw wipes, puppy gates. I filed the lists away for another time, a later date, closer to the date of pup pick in September.
My kids pointed out that I was getting a serious dog that needed serious training. My daughter said, “Don’t let it be a Ruby,” a rather harsh judgment on our long-gone Airedale. My laissez-faire approach to training Ruby was, why break a good terrier’s blithe spirit? But I knew I was getting a big, powerful dog and I did not want it pushing me around. I assured my family that this dog would be properly disciplined. A friend gave me a Cesar Millan book (also a crate, collars, and pee pads), so I wasn’t totally empty handed when Puppy came home.
Two weeks before the pick-up, we finally sat down to look at online dog training videos. “These are great,” my husband said. “I liked what the guy did with just eye contact.”
“I liked how the woman handled the food aggression problem,” I said.
But we quickly got bored after a video or two. Without a dog on hand, who were we supposed to practice on, each other?
We read some of Cesar’s book, especially the bullet-pointed pages. Our takeaway, ‘calm assertiveness’ is what you need to project.
I wasn’t worried, deep down I thought, people are now making too much of this. I grew up with dogs, eight to be exact. We lived near the woods. We let them run free. They came home at the end of the day, like we did, for supper. I guess they had collars, but they didn’t have flea collars until later on. I have a vivid memory of my mother showing me how to pull back their fur, pick the fleas off, and kill them by snapping them between my fingernails. Her mothering skills at her finest.
Back then, we didn’t even have a vet. The ASPCA provided rabies shots and would also spay them, though we never got around to doing that until they had a litter or two and we got stuck with a few too many offspring. Hence, the eight dogs in 18 years.
I brought them up and I don’t remember any problem house training them. Or leash training — they never saw a leash. Or crate training — they slept on my bed every night, three at a time. Or teaching them any of the fancier manners. They could sit, if we asked. I’d call their name and they’d show up. We didn’t place any other demands on them. They were just animals who lived with us, beloved sideshows.
And even my last dog, the Ruby of twenty years ago, I got her while raising two little kids and working full time. Maybe I’m misremembering, but she seamlessly worked her way into our home.
See what I’m getting at? I didn’t expect a dog to take over our lives. And leading up to the weeks before we picked up the puppy, I was still in the dreamy stage of dog ownership, not in the practical, prepared, or material consumption stage.