Reaching the summit
It seems that Igor is finally starting to get the hang of things. He is starting to turn into a perfectly wonderful doggie. He still has a bit of an attitude, but my opinion is that a dog really needs to have some attitude to be a perfect companion. We don´t want a dog that does everything at our beg and call. We want a dog that usually understands what we want and he does that because he wants to please us and not because he has learned that he needs to do things. The breed information on the japanese spitz states that they are dogs that wish to please their owners and that is something i totally agree with. Igor does rebel and sniffle when we ask for him to do different things, but his cabability of learning and understanding is incredible. It only takes him one lunch break to understand a new trick or to understand a new command. He also picks up on different gestures and different words. If I put on make up or change into outdoors pants he knows it´s time for our walk or that at least something is going to happen soon. At around 11:30-11:55 he starts to wait for Mikko to come home for lunch. He sits by the door and waits until Mikko comes home. At around 15:15-15:55 he starts to bug me and reminds me that soon it´s time to get Mikko from work. It´s not like he knows what time it is. It´s more like he has some indication of time and an inner timetable in his head. It´s also possible that he reads me so well that he knows from my actions that soon it´s time for different things. It has made it easier for me and Mikko to avoid doing certain things or saying certain things that we know will trigger him. When people take their dogs out for walks they might ask the dog “wanna go for a walk pooche?” or say “lets go for a walk poochie”…athough you dont need to say anything. It´s better to just take the leash, attach it to the dog and go for a walk. The second I touch the leash Igor already knows were gonna go for a walk and there is no reason for me to egg him on and just get him excitedly anxious about going for a walk. mHmm…what weird dribble this post is*_*;;;
What I meant to write about in this post is that Mikko and I feel that now is the moment when we are finally able to enjoy the fruits of our hard work. Igor is over 5 months old and now we really feel he is showing so much improvement in his behaviour that we can safely say that we are doing things right. Before I was wondering whether we were being too strict on him or if he would begin to rebel against our rules (which are quite many). There seems to be a some kind of a weird myth that you can´t or you shoudn´t train puppies. I feel it´s weird that some people wait until their dogs are at least 1 year old and until then the dog has been living with few restrictions. If you treat the puppy gently and do things that feel quite natural to the puppy I feel that you are only improving healthy growth and making it easier for the puppy to grow up in a way that he will find it easy to please humans. For example how does a puppy understand that it´s not right to bite people or that it actually hurts people if you never tell him. It´s not like that information will become more apparent to him later on in life. Sometimes I think people dont train their dogs enough at an early age, because they want to be selfish and enjoy the time that the dog is a cute fluffy puppy…and later when the puppy is no longer a cute little puppy and it´s not so cute anymore when a fully grown dog bites you people tend to train the dog in much more unpleasant ways than you could train a puppy.
Hmm..better to stop playing dr-phil and just end this on a positive note. Yesterday Igor learned a new trick:) He now goes to lie down on his side when you ask him:)