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Puppy is home!
I named him us'cut, the Cardassian word for chaotic because a working line GSD puppy is going to be exactly that.
His official AKC name given by the breeder is Iapetus vom dul Haus. He has two pretty badass names.
Silly me thought he’d be tired after 2 hours in the car but nope, he wanted to play and go and play and go, so we did that for awhile and now he’s asleep.
Tucker was not cool with him in the car, but that’s likely because he felt ‘trapped’. Once we got home he was fine and us'cut responds to corrections from adult dogs well (partially why I wanted him to stay with his littermates and parents until 12 weeks) so if he gets to be too much for Tucker all it takes is a growl and Tucker doing some disengaging body language and us'cut goes off and does something else.
Sometimes, Simi doesn’t look like a real animal.
She fits so perfectly into any photo.
My brain tonight.
“Yo, why is everything blurry and weird?”
“Glasses are off, they’re on the night stand. There are other pairs in the bathroom.”
“Oh. But why blurry?”
“We need them for things to not be blurry.”
“Ok. But things are still blurry.”
“Still not wearing the glasses, gotta get up and get them.”
“Why is there not a pair on the desk??”
“…because?”
“Well get those.”
BRAIN. THERE AREN’T ANY GLASSES ON THE DESK U HAVE TO ALLOW ME TO GET UP AND GET THEM.
And apparently that’s not what we’re doing according to executive dysfunction. According to that guy we’re going to sit here in “look it’s not that blurry you’re reading it fine without squinting” mode because ‘it’s bed time soon, pointless to get up to get them now’.
Whatever.
Have three of my cats eating from lick mats because lick mats keep them from inhaling food then harassing the slow eater that is Simi away from her food.
And the slow eater, Simi.
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THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN FUCKING SAYING
And all these dogs are super fear-aggressive towards strangers as well. The vast, *vast*, majority of dogs a year old or less that we have come in for my shelter’s spay/neuter services are either borderline-traumatized fearful and shut down or they are trying to bite me for the crime of existing within 10 feet of them.
It is not ‘normal’ for a 4 month old shih-tzu puppy to be growling at me from 5 feet away.
It is not ‘normal’ for a 7 month old aussie to lunge for my face when I offered him some food.
It is not ‘normal’ for the 9 month old lab mix to be completely uncontrollable by the owners, up to and including grabbing their arms with his mouth when they tried to put him on the scale and literally knocking them over and dragging them away.
It is not ‘normal’ for the 6 month old golden to be cowering and urinating in fear.
This is a major issue that every level of veterinary and animal care professional is going to be dealing with for the next 15+ years. I sincerely believe that in a few more years, the rate of behavioural euthanasias is going to skyrocket and we’ll be seeing massive increases in incidences of dog bites.
Do you know how *FUCKING* irritated this makes me? I work as a dog trainer(and walker, but primarily as a trainer now) and at the start of the pandemic me and my coworkers literally BEGGED people to continue their dog’s routine as normal - if he gets crated during the day when you went to work, crate him for a few hours a day even if you’re home. If he went on pack walks, continue having him go on pack walks. I literally begged people to do training with me at the start of the pandemic - not just because I was out of work but because I - we all - knew that this would happen. I even offered deferred payment or extreme price cuts to training because it was more about preventing the mental breakdowns I knew these dogs would have than the money for me.
No one took me up on it. I had a client base of 75+ dogs at the start of the pandemic and work was completely silent until at least september of that year.
You know when everyone started calling and asking for help with their dog, who is suddenly going off the rails, barking, biting, peeing, destroying things? In June when everyone really stared going back to work and their dog’s behavior started bothering them. When the dog’s anxiety could no longer be masked or written off as ‘oh i’m just home more often so that’s why Buddy is always with me.’
And to be clear - all of this was preventable. Even in the middle of a pandemic there are ways to socialize animals that are no-contact. Literally just taking your dog to a park and having them sit and watch people walking around is an excellent way to socialize a dog without having to be near people. Leaving your house for an hour and not taking your dog is another. These are simple things and yet as tehy *always do* people thought they knew better then every single animal professional who literally begged them not to just sit at home with their dog for a year and a half and now the animals are paying the price.
And to be clear, I don’t actually care if you think your dog doesn’t have anxiety over this. They do. I can guarantee you they do. Oh they’re just a little more hyper? They’re just chewing some things? They just seem *Really really happy* when you come home now? Follows you around from room to room? Congratulations your dog is showing symptoms of anxiety and you need to address them now before your dog bites someone.
I really really wish that people stopped having such an aversion to calling aggression an anxiety response. Aggression is an anxiety response. No stops. 100% of aggression is anxiety and no I don’t care if you think some dogs are predisposed to aggression they are not. They are predisposed to *anxiety* but people will ignore the hyperactive german shepherd who never settles down or the pitbull who does zoomies 24/7 and jumps on people and needs to be on your ass or she’ll die because that’s cute, right up until that behavior turns to uncontrolled biting and then suddenly it came out of nowhere and it must just be ‘the breed’.
I literally had to stop being a dog trainer for a few months because the expectations people have for both their dogs and us post pandemic are fucking unreasonable. No, I cannot fix your dog in two sessions when it took you 18 months(or probably longer tbh) to fuck him up. No, I will not help you if your only goal is to ‘stop the biting’ and not address your dog’s very real emotional distress that is causing that. No, I can not help you if you want me to do all the work or do not expect this process to take all the time and energy you could have and should have spent during the pandemic just because now you ‘don’t have the time’.
Fucking listen to the professionals - and not the fucking crackpots you cannot turn on two episodes of Caesar Milan(may your dog piss on your remote if you do) and call yourself a dog whisperer. You can watch however many youtube dog trainers you want but unless you have a real, live, professional meet you and see you dog(at *least* through fucking zoom jesus christ) you are going to be addressing the wrong things and *addressing them wrong* because you don’t have anyone to teach you, and watch *you* and tell you what *you* are doing wrong.
But honestly there is no solution now. Or, there is, but pet owners don’t wan to hear it. They just want a magic easy fix, ‘just put my dog on meds’ or ‘i cant do this, he needs a home better for him’. And pet care professionals are so overwhelmed now and honestly compassion fatigued out that the good ones are leaving the profession or just simply do not have the time and energy for as many *severe* cases of anxiety and aggression that have popped up.
It’s so weird having a dog I can tell is stable even at 12 weeks.
To preface, I’ve never had a well bred dog before.
They’ve all been shelter or rescue dogs and all have been very poorly bred, which came out a lot in health problems and mental/emotional stability issues. All the training and socialization in the world can’t make up for a dog that’s a mental basket case due to poor genetics; all it can do is manage it.
So, today we’re doing, “chromecast all sorts of common loud noises a dog is likely to run into: Fireworks, construction, random people talking, thunderstorms, wind, etc..”
The most reaction us'cut has had was, when the sound changes from, say, fireworks to construction sounds, he wakes up, lifts his head and looks around for a few seconds, then goes back to sleeping or playing.
I’ve never had a dog that’s been like that, they’d all be flipping their shit, barking, and otherwise just being stressed the fuck out by it.
I’VE jumped more when the loud sounds change unexpectedly than the dog has! I’m pretty sure the sounds are bugging me more than him because he’s asleep and I’m sitting here like “goddamn you gotta hammer THAT much??”
I’ve just–like–I learned to train dogs by hitting the ground running with dogs that were a hot mess from day one and just sort of assumed that all dogs were just sort of different degrees of manageable and that a well bred purebred was well out of whatever I’d be able to afford. This guy looks at me like I’m insane when I’m happy he’s not freaking out when we pass people, that he already figured out walking next to me or loosely in front of me is where he needs to be, that we stop at corners, and that he’s supposed to pee outside (but, being 12 weeks old he still obviously will have accidents if I’m not paying attention; that’s my fault though, not his) and is just “…ok why is this a celebration? It’s cool, I enjoy it, but…why?”
This is also not a knock on any of my previous dogs or on Tucker, they’ve all been great dogs but were also so much more work than any dog should ever have to be because they were poorly bred dogs to begin with.
Even Bear, who wasn’t the worst bred GSD, but was still pretty backyard bred for a lot of reasons looking over his pedigree, seems a little flightly compared to this 12 week old GSD that comes from verified, proven, well documented lines that have been bred for stability and work for decades.
Honestly, I’m sure I’ll get another shelter dog at some point eventually but the first place I’m looking is definitely going to be reputable breeders because I’m liking this “the dog is stable” thing.