04/20/2022
It’s WCW and it just seems appropriate to talk about who Melon is and how she has changed since our trip to Nashville. SA, there were really too many stories to tell and I promise I will get to those.
In TN, my goal for Melon was to have her learn some healthy manners with other dogs. Like I mentioned with Lukey-in the city, I set my dogs up for success by creating positive only associations with dogs who compliment her play and her temperment. Dogs who don’t we do obedience only drills and reinforce coexistence simply because the room for liability and exploratory learning is limited and so is the space.
In the city Melon could be pretty rough with her play. With toys, she was pushy and quite forceful in how she played and how she took toys from other dogs. It was good for her confidence to win a lot and build good associations with other dogs, especially in her puppyhood. As an adult, that behavior was actually making her a little bit of a bully, no pun intended. If anything, she was becoming entitled to the toys and resources which was set to be a problem in the long run. Sure, we practiced desensitizing her, our recall and gave her an on and off switch in play, but that will never replace healthy balanced dog socialization which embodies dogs switching roles in how they play, quality corrections, conflict and conflict resolution. Bottom line, when she was romping around, toys or no toys, she was never properly corrected by any dogs except Lukey, and even his corrections were pretty meaningless to her-she just blew past them which then forced me to intervene, sometimes more heavily than I liked. It’s certainly not the worst way raise or teach a puppy boundaries, but I firmly believe that in order for a dog to have quality socialization, it’s important they learn to read signals from other dogs without or with minimal human intervention.
Which brings me to Pusa. Pusa, when meeting humans, when interacting with him, he’s soft natured. In the yard, his work mode is turned on. He will carry a silence, an energy through his eyes and you can feel him working.
Cont below ⬇️
