Bits And Pieces

Training A Puppy

     Training a puppy is simple.  There is only one prerequisite.  Our dog book claims you have to know more than the dog.  I've a suspicious feeling our Basset Hound has a superiority complex far above her trainer.

     As a puppy, with reversed parenthesis for front legs and ground sweeping ears as soft and smooth s whipped cream, she gained the upper hand easily and early.

     But this dog, we all agreed. would mind. Would obey commands, and realize her place was at floor level in this household.  Sheba though, had better ideas.

     "Be firm but kind to that puppy." says the dog book.  "Let your dog know you're the boss and what you say you mean.  Never cease a command until completely carried through--in other words, don't give up."  Yes, that's what it said and it sounded easy.

     Roll a ball.  Sheba would gladly fetch and bring it back.  Fetch and bring back, fetch and bring back, fetch and bring back until the family, one by one, would leave the scene of action completely worn out, but not Sheba.  Not even panting, her coat smooth and unruffled, her ears flying she'd fetch and bring back.

     Have you ever thrown a ball or a rubber toy for an inexhaustible puppy to fetch?  The problem is how to tell a pair of soft brown eyes that you're through--you've had it?  A moist ball will be dropped in the clothes basket, slipped in the bed as you try to smooth the sheets, bounced on your foot, dropped in your path as Sheba plainly says she enjoys this training.  Fetching and playing Sheba enjoys.  It's just that the book gives no clear statement about how to stop this chain reaction once started.

     A dog's place is hygienically and customarily on the floor.  Sheba has other ideas.  Son no. 1 has a bed by the window.  That's first choice with her chin resting on the window sill; she can be an interested spectator of life going by in the street.  Failing that position, she'll try son no. 2's bed, but only if she can rest her long head on the pillow.

     The book said a folded newspaper smartly slapped against a puppy's rear will bring instant results.  It does.  Sheba figures it's a new game and usually runs away victorious with the biggest portion of the newspaper in her mouth.

     She's not even a foot and a half off the floor, but strong, muscular back legs take her in giant leaps to tables and chairs.

     "Don't under any circumstances lose patience with your puppy," states the dog trainers book.  So what did I do when I found Sheba in the center of the kitchen table eating her third of the raw chicken legs left there to thaw?  I selected the nearest thing handy, a broom, and in two leaps and a half dozen choice loud words swept Sheba in a mighty blast outside.  Did she cower and quake at my outburst of action and sound?  Not Sheba; she saw two little girls playing across the street and dashed over to join them, throwing herself bottom side up on the sidewalk and waving four crooked legs in delight,

     One thing I have discovered.  The book is right about this thing of keeping your temper and your voice under control.  Scream at Sheba and she'll back away barking louder than you can shout.  But lower your tone and she'll drag her stomach along the ground, or floor in devotion.

     Her long. jelly-like body is too spineless to allow her the proper support for sitting up, so that lesson proved to be a stomach full of dog biscuits for Sheba and a headache for me.

     I lost faith in dog training books when I read the statement that females make the nicest pets.  That they stay home and generally have sweeter, nicer dispositions.  Now that's what the book said and I've read it to Sheba several times--but she's the reason why the author had to put generally in that statement.

     Sheba will chase after any toys, other dogs or cats and people walking or running.  She jumps on anyone who happens to stray near our front door, and all manner of stepping on her back feet, pinching her front paws, or hitting her smartly with your knee all fail.  The book says one of them should work.

     Her flipper shaped front feet dig large, unsightly holes all over the lawn--the book offers no help for that.

     She's cute and cantankerous, the Cleopatra of the neighborhood and there just isn't a book written that will show us how to train her.  You see you don't train Bassets--they train you.

Written September 12, 1963