Dog, 5 weeks

[serenissima]

I meant to post last weekend to commemorate Mungo's 1-month anniversary, but I didn't get around to it. Not much exciting to tell, anyway. He growled at us a couple more times during week 4, but not during week 5; it was always in the evening, while we were doing stuff that didn't involve him, and I still think it's a bid for attention.

Two weekends ago, we drove him to a field only a couple minutes away and walked him around a bit there, just to get him used to the car. We did it again today. aristeros still has to lift him and place him in the car, which triggers a panic pee, and he hyperventilates on the car ride. For the return trip, he goes in the car willingly. He has another clinic appointment on Wednesday, because he's still scooting, and I'll have to drive him there by myself, so I hope that a few more car rides this weekend will desensitize him.

He's using his squeak toy as a signal that he wants to play, but he doesn't play with the toy, just brings it outside. I'm really looking forward to taking him to obedience class, so they can teach me how to teach him. I think he's a reasonably clever dog, but I don't know how to get across the message of, for example, "lie down" -- the method of putting a tasty treat between his front paws causes him to bend to get the treat, not to lie down. He sits very readily, and will try that just about any time we ask him to do something, as well as when he wants attention. That's his one trick for now.

Other than the "let's run" signal, he's mainly interested in toys that taste like food or that dispense food. Unflavored chew toys get ignored, but he demolishes his knotted rawhide with alarming speed — I take it away from him after about half an hour, because I'm sure eating rawhide was the reason he threw up one morning. I bought him a toy like a wheel that dispenses kibble, and it's funny to watch him nose the thing around the floor, leaving behind a trail of the kind of kibble he doesn't like. He also has two rubber chew toys that can hold heavy-duty treat sticks and prevent him from gobbling them all at once. He seems to like have a handle to grip with his paws while he chews: the Nylabone got more attention, although still not a lot, after I stuck it in a treat-holding type of toy.

Things I've learned in the past five weeks:

• Walking a dog is a little like driving a car, in that you have to maintain awareness of several things at once: what your dog is doing, what you're doing and how your body language/behavior may be influencing your dog, potentially distracting things on the ground nearby, potentially distracting things up ahead
  
• Yes, he sheds. A lot.
  
• Dog toys are expensive.
  
• Dog treats are made of ingredients that seem of questionable nutritional value.

I thought I had more to say here, but I can't think of it right now....

Comments

[zeeth_kyrah]

Questionably nutritive treats are something I've eyeballed as well in the past. It just doesn't seem right to give a dog something I wouldn't think of eating, cooked or not. Rawhide is, well, badly tanned leather, after all. And bleaching it kills off even more nutrients. I've tried chewing on bleached rawhide; there's no flavor to it that I can detect, it's just a jaw exerciser. It was made from a meaty animal, but that doesn't mean it's all that great to eat.

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that rawhide is intended more as a chew toy than as food, but I've read a lot of dog biscuit ingredient lists where the first five ingredients include cellulose and glycerin.