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Book: Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog by Elizabeth Parker
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Authors: Elizabeth Parker
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would always take the bait.
When she wanted to, Brandi intimidate d Buddy by standing over him and staring intensely as he gnawed on his Nyla-Bones. Eventually , Buddy would give it up and Brandi would take over. The same behavior took place when they were at the water bowl. Buddy could be extremely parched with thirst , but when Brandi came over he would allow her to have first dibs, patiently waiting until she finished. He was genuinely a sweetheart. This was all done on his own. I wish we could take the credit, but we never once taught him manners. That was one thing he most likely picked up from his biological mom.
Not everything was perfect. We did encounter some minor issues with Brandi. Since we were learning as we went along , it took us about a year before Brandi was fully housebroken. We did not have any previous experience housebreaking a dog, so we were practicing all of the wrong techniques . Allowing her to roam freely in the fully carpeted living room after she drank a bowl of water may not have been on our list of the smartest thing s we ever d id .
Soon after , we learned what to do and what not to do. For instance, we did not feed her before bedtime , and we re move d her water bowl a couple of hours before going to sleep . We also mad e sure she urinated a few times prior to bedtime . In addition, it was important to d ivide the crate into two sections , giving her only enough room to turn around, increasing her living space as she g ot older.
This last piece of advice was a funny one because we did not have a real divider, so we used a piece of wood that sectioned off the entire width of the crate, but not so much the height . Brandi realized she c ould jump into the second section to take care of business and then back into the clean side for the remainder of the night.
That was another lesson we learned and promptly resolved . We bought a real crate divider that actually extended both the full width and height of the crate. We were slowly learning.
Other than those small issues, she was very well behaved. Shy amongst strangers, she would literally climb to the back of her crate upon meeting new people, but once comfortable, she would come out and be happy to socialize.
T ypically , she never chewed anything other than her toys, which she instinctively knew were hers to play with. We thought she was perfe ct, and for the most part she was. That is, if you d id n’t consider coming home to a half-eaten couch a bad thing.
It happened o ne day after a parti cularly rough afternoon at the office. I came home at the same time that I normally d id. Once I walked in side of the house , I immediately noticed what had transpired during the day. I knew it was not Buddy because he had never been destructive. Crazy, yes. Destructive, no. Brandi had the word “guilty” written all over her puppy-dog face. My dilemma was split between what to deal with first, correcting Brandi or how to g rudgingly tell Michael.
Since Brandi was in front of me at that precise moment, I decided to d eal with Brandi first. Correcting her was a tough one.
Most of the training manuals had said that you cannot successfully reprimand a dog unless they we re caught in the act. Otherwise, they genuinely ha d no idea why you we re correcting them. They live d in the moment , and something they’d done five minutes before wa s long forgotten and obsolete in a dog’s mind. Brandi got off on a technicality for that one.
I tried to at least point and say no but she looked at me with a sweet expression on her face and just blinked. I knew my correction technique was not working, as I came home the next day and I had matching couches. I finally smartened up and purchased Bitter Apple spray, which wa s to deter dogs from chewing or licking any objects that they should not chew, including furniture . T hankfully , it never happened again.
Surprisingly, when I told Michael the news, he handled it quite well. It was an old couch , and we
When she wanted to, Brandi intimidate d Buddy by standing over him and staring intensely as he gnawed on his Nyla-Bones. Eventually , Buddy would give it up and Brandi would take over. The same behavior took place when they were at the water bowl. Buddy could be extremely parched with thirst , but when Brandi came over he would allow her to have first dibs, patiently waiting until she finished. He was genuinely a sweetheart. This was all done on his own. I wish we could take the credit, but we never once taught him manners. That was one thing he most likely picked up from his biological mom.
Not everything was perfect. We did encounter some minor issues with Brandi. Since we were learning as we went along , it took us about a year before Brandi was fully housebroken. We did not have any previous experience housebreaking a dog, so we were practicing all of the wrong techniques . Allowing her to roam freely in the fully carpeted living room after she drank a bowl of water may not have been on our list of the smartest thing s we ever d id .
Soon after , we learned what to do and what not to do. For instance, we did not feed her before bedtime , and we re move d her water bowl a couple of hours before going to sleep . We also mad e sure she urinated a few times prior to bedtime . In addition, it was important to d ivide the crate into two sections , giving her only enough room to turn around, increasing her living space as she g ot older.
This last piece of advice was a funny one because we did not have a real divider, so we used a piece of wood that sectioned off the entire width of the crate, but not so much the height . Brandi realized she c ould jump into the second section to take care of business and then back into the clean side for the remainder of the night.
That was another lesson we learned and promptly resolved . We bought a real crate divider that actually extended both the full width and height of the crate. We were slowly learning.
Other than those small issues, she was very well behaved. Shy amongst strangers, she would literally climb to the back of her crate upon meeting new people, but once comfortable, she would come out and be happy to socialize.
T ypically , she never chewed anything other than her toys, which she instinctively knew were hers to play with. We thought she was perfe ct, and for the most part she was. That is, if you d id n’t consider coming home to a half-eaten couch a bad thing.
It happened o ne day after a parti cularly rough afternoon at the office. I came home at the same time that I normally d id. Once I walked in side of the house , I immediately noticed what had transpired during the day. I knew it was not Buddy because he had never been destructive. Crazy, yes. Destructive, no. Brandi had the word “guilty” written all over her puppy-dog face. My dilemma was split between what to deal with first, correcting Brandi or how to g rudgingly tell Michael.
Since Brandi was in front of me at that precise moment, I decided to d eal with Brandi first. Correcting her was a tough one.
Most of the training manuals had said that you cannot successfully reprimand a dog unless they we re caught in the act. Otherwise, they genuinely ha d no idea why you we re correcting them. They live d in the moment , and something they’d done five minutes before wa s long forgotten and obsolete in a dog’s mind. Brandi got off on a technicality for that one.
I tried to at least point and say no but she looked at me with a sweet expression on her face and just blinked. I knew my correction technique was not working, as I came home the next day and I had matching couches. I finally smartened up and purchased Bitter Apple spray, which wa s to deter dogs from chewing or licking any objects that they should not chew, including furniture . T hankfully , it never happened again.
Surprisingly, when I told Michael the news, he handled it quite well. It was an old couch , and we
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