Dargo just got a new job. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for ways to keep the dog entertained and challenged. I decided to send him on a daily errand.
Dargo’s evening task is to go get Sean for dinner. It goes like this: I open up his pen and tell him to “go get Sean!” Since we’d introduced Dargo to “Find Sean” and “Find Sonja” pretty much as soon as we brought him home, this is a natural extension for him, and was very easy to learn. Now, given his “go get” command, Dargo just loves to run upstairs and find Sean.
It helps that Sean understands that when Dargo shows up at his desk, it means it’s time for dinner, and that he gives Dargo a piece of chicken jerky on arrival.
My next task is to figure out how Dargo might communicate or deliver specific messages. The most logical step is to introduce a PVC tube into the process in which I insert rolled up paper messages. But, I’ll be honest, we’re just not there yet with Dargo’s training. Odds are, he’d take the PVC tube and chew it until he got the paper message. Then he’d eat the paper. As far as Dargo is concerned, nothing beats paper.
Dargo was being a little bit bossy yesterday evening as we strolled along the neighborhood streets. I was a little irritable myself; but generally speaking nothing in the walk was outside the ordinary. Nothing, that is, until Dargo began making heaving sounds, and became demonstrably incapable of drawing in enough air.
Friday wasn’t the first time I’d run into a coyote while walking my dog in the hills of the Fremont Older Space Preserve, but I’d never seen one trot so confidently towards me and my pup across the open field.
He was moving pretty fast. As soon as I spotted him coming our way, I turned my body to face him, picked up Dargo and stared right at the wild dog, making low, loud gutteral sounds — a cross between a cowboy’s hollering “Whoa!”, and a growling Tom Waits song, circa the Rain Dogs album.
I could feel Dargo’s heart thumping powerfully against mine. He stayed still and quiet in my arms.
The great thing about running on the beach, like herding, is that it wears him out completely. He’s been napping all afternoon, which is why I’ve actually had time to post this!
And if you’re curious to know what it means to have a high energy dog, take a look at what he runs like when he’s tired.
See the difference?
Exactly!
He wouldn’t know when to stop. We have to put him in his pen so he remembers to sleep. But once he’s out, he’s out.
Dargo is all corgi, so he was born hating getting his nails trimmed. I tried the recommended technique: sitting down, dog on your lap, with his back against your belly while you work on his nails.
I failed miserably. Dargo howled like he was in profound despair, and wiggled so much I couldn’t get a single nail clipped.
It started very early, the training that was intended to teach Dargo some impulse control. One of our tricks was to ask Dargo to sit-stay outside his crate while we put down his meal. And he used to do pretty well. When we’d ask him to stay, he’d wait until my arm would be well inside the crate before rushing in.
Once he’d gotten that far, I upped the ante. I’d pickup the food again if he went for it before I put it down. Sure enough, four days ago, Dargo waited until the dog dish was on the floor of the crate and I had withdrawn my arm. Then he looked up at me.
“Okay!”
What I really wanted to say of course was “I just love you my wonderfully smart puppy! Look at you, waiting for breakfast! You’re just the smartest one of them all!”
But “Okay!” is the cue to get food, so that was the one he was listening for.
It helps that I’ve been doing two of these sit-stays at once. I also ask him to wait when I open the front door for our morning walk. He’s figured that one out, too.
It’s amazing to me that a young pup of five and a half months is doing so well.
Five days! Five vomitous days! Five terrible, vomitous days that began after 2 days of diarrhea! Our poor pup’s been on some combination of rice and medication for over a week now!
Welcome to the joys of puppyhood.
It turns out, puppies will eat anything. Add to that the incontrovertible fact that corgis, also, will eat anything, I guess it was inevitable that I should see my pup eat a cash register receipt, a little piece of red cellophane from a Christmas cracker, a cigarette filter from the sidewalk, dirt in the back yard, horse poop on the hiking trail, and pretty much anything else he can fit in his mouth.
The diarrhea started ten days ago, on Wednesday. We switched him to a bland diet and thought we would wait it out.
By Friday he was puking up bile, so we rushed him to the vet that evening. “Dietary Indiscretion” was the diagnosis. After a stomach X-Ray revealed nothing, we left with a prescription for Famotidine (Pepcid) and Carafate (another medication to soothe the stomach).
The vomiting didn’t stop, and within 2 days had progressed from consisting of mere bile to including the complete contents of his undigested and apparently un-masticated meals. The washing machine was working overtime, processing all his crate blankets, and I was getting increasingly concerned.
The “Get your toy” command is not a classic like sit, down and stay, and I added it to my roster of early tricks on a whim.
A friend of mine who has a Border Terrier recounted to me how he had taught his dog to tell his toys from one another. I thought that would be a fun thing for Dargo to learn, and I started on it when Dargo was about 3 months. I did not anticipate how important it would become to help me manage my corgi as he grew.
Corgis were bred to think and work independently. Dargo is true to his breed, and has a strong, willful streak and a desire to be the boss. When things get out of whack, he’s sure to let me know, but that doesn’t mean he gets to be, or wants to be, CEO of the home.
Ultimately, I think he sees himself as a pro-active middle-manager. Sometimes he’s very rude about it, and it warrants a time out. But most of the time, he just needs what I call a “redirect”.