The boys recently had their annual checkups and many of the things that cropped up in the exam were related to age. Since then, I have been wondering how the pugs will age. I have also been thinking about Henry and his cataracts a lot and how they will progress over time. Will they remain fairly small or will they grow and eventually take most of his vision?
I try not to spend too much time worrying about it because, ultimately, these are things out of my control. But the thought of Henry losing confidence and some of his spunk because of bad vision does worry me. Henry has always been the adventurer. The first to stray from the path, the one that always wants to go new places. I would hate to see bad vision take that spark away from him.
So rather than focus on things that I can't control or that may never even happen, I have been thinking about things that I can actually do to help.
While brainstorming, I thought of a dog I met at a dog park a few years back. I didn't meet the dog up close and personal when we first arrived. Instead, I spotted him meandering around the dog park having a good time meeting other dogs and smelling all the dog park smells. I could tell by how the dog walked that it was on the older side, but I thought it was great that the dog was at the park because it was clearly having a fantastic time.
The dog started to come my way and as it got closer I could hear someone calling out the command "Slow".
When the dog got up to me I could tell that it was blind. A few seconds after the dog arrived at me feet, I met the owner and they confirmed that the dog is blind, but gets around great by listening for verbal cues. I got to see the cues in action when a few minutes later the dog was quickly approaching a tree. The owner called out "Slow" and the sure enough the dog almost came to a complete stop, started to sniff a bit more and then found the tree without bumping into it.
What struck me the most about this dog was that it was completely comfortable in the new environment, where it does not have a good idea of the lay of the land. Plus, there were other dogs zipping around, but none of that seemed to bother the blind dog.
So, I am going to try and teach Henry some verbal commands while he still has all of his vision. That way, if the cataracts do start limiting his sight, hopefully it will be an easier transition for him.
I haven't started training yet, because I have no idea how to even start. I was trying to come up with a small list of words that would handle the most amount of situations Henry might encounter.
It's an ambition goal, but I like training with the pugs, so I figured I might as well teach them something that could possibly come in very handy later in life rather than go for something that is just cute.
I'm sure progress is going to be slow, but I'll let you know how it goes.
I must admit, in Benjamin's old age he has become quite a rule follower. When he was a pup I thought he would be impossible to train. But once he learned a command, he really mastered it. Henry would always learn a new command or trick first, but you could always count on Benny to perfect it.
Take the command "come" for example. Henry learned it way before Benny even had a remote clue of what we were trying to get him to do. But call out the word "Come" at some random point in the day and you will get Henry about 80% of the time. Benny, on the other hand, will run over, full steam ahead, every time. Without fail.
The other night I had a good laugh at Benny and his follow the rules self. We were going out, so I told the pugs to go to bed. They ran off to their crates and I was giving Benny his treat for going to bed when we fumbled the exchange and the treat bounced onto the floor and about a foot away from Benny's crate.
The crate door was still open and being the treat lover that he is, Benjamin craned his neck as far out from the crate door as he possible could, but there was no way he was going to be able to reach the treat. He stepped as far forward as he possible could in his crate and craned his head out the door one more time to try and reach the treat. Again, the treat was too far away.
Then he looked up at me with a look of sheer panic on his face. In his compartmentalized, command filing brain, he knew he needed to be in his crate to be eligible to receive a go to bed treat. If he left his crate, he couldn't eat the treat. A true conundrum for rule following Benny.
Meanwhile, I am watching all of this unfold and I am shocked. I knew that he was a stickler for the rules, but even this is surprising me because food is involved and Benny is all about rounding up fallen kibble.
So, I told him to go "take it." He looked at me and again I told him to "take it." He ran out of his crate, grabbed the treat and then ran back into his crate as fast as his little legs could take him. I closed the crate door and he settled with a look of relief and a touch of guilt on his face.
For all his crazy antics, Benny is a very straight-laced pug. He takes the rules very seriously.
Yesterday, I began teaching the boys a new command and continued working with Luna on the down command. It is true that Luna has still not mastered the command, but she is getting so much better. She is quite a slow learner, but that is OK because I have time. Plus, I love seeing how proud of herself she gets when she knows exactly what to do.
For the boys, I thought I would teach them to stand. It's not really a show stopper, but I thought it might come in handy. Like when I am brushing Henry and he suddenly falls over and rolls on his back. If I could tell him to stand, I might actually be able to brush his whole body and not just his belly.
Regardless of whether or not I am teaching the pugs a new command, I love how a little bit of training or even just a refresher of the commands they already know tires the pugs out. Concentrating on a task sometimes tires them out as much as a trip to the dog park.
I hope everyone has a nice weekend. Don't think too hard!
This summer I have felt like the mother of four kids who have completely run out of things to do on their summer break from school. The heat has severely limited the pugs' normal walking schedule and I have found that the pugs aren't even going out to sniff around in the yard much because of the heat.
With 8 pug eyes starring at me all day, just looking for something to get into, I thought that I would give the pugs a little bit of a mental challenge. So, I decided to teach them all a new trick.
The pugs have varying levels of training. Having been through puppy training and basic obedience together, the boys are on the same page skill wise. The only trick Luna has mastered is the sit command, and Sol, well, Sol is an expert at looking cute.
With the pugs all over the map, I picked out different things to teach them. Which was good because it made the training experiences mental exercises for me as well. For the boys, I chose "gimme 5", for Luna I chose, "down" and for Sol I went with the classic "sit".
I have been working with the pugs for a little over a week and let me tell you that our short training sessions have added a lot of laughs to my day.
First, I keep forgetting to give Sol her hand signals. I just sit there with her talk, talk, talking away and she just looks at me, like, um, lady, I'm deaf, remember!
The other thing with Sol is that teaching her the sit command has been a nomadic experience. I will give her the hand signal for sit and she will eventually sit. As soon as her bottom hits the ground, I reward her with her treat. But, after that she doesn't move. She remains in the sitting position. Which I guess is good, but we don't really get many reps in that way. The only way to get her to stand back up again is if I move about 4 or 5 feet away and give her the come command. She will then saunter over to me and I can give her the sit signal again. After repeating this about 10 times, I guess you could say that Sol got her walk in as well because we have pretty much made our way around the house by that point.
Teaching Luna the down command has been challenging. The girl does not have one submissive bone in her body, so she isn't much for laying down at your feet. To teach her to lay down, I took a treat and held it on the floor and positioned it slightly under her chin, so she would practically have to put her chin to the ground to get the treat. In our first training session, I held the treat on the ground and she went into a bow position (front half down, back half up) and spent about ten minutes licking the treat. Finally, probably out of exhaustion, she lowered her rear half to the floor. At that point, I said the word "down" and promptly gave her the treat. This continued for awhile, but she is finally getting the hang of things and pretty much will lay down as soon as you put the treat to the floor. If you don't have a treat, she won't even give you the time of day. And don't ask her to do this trick on the tile floor either. It clearly states in her rider that she requires a carpeted surface for treat training.
Working with the boys is old hat for me and I expected teaching them "gimme 5" would go much like every other training experience. Meaning, Henry would catch on in a few training sessions and after a few weeks Benny would be a master at the command as well. However, the boys threw me a curve ball this time and after thinking about it for a few days it makes perfect sense.
See, Benjamin, is a slow learner. What he does know, he knows very well, but it takes a long time to teach him things. However, he learned "gimme 5" in 3 short training sessions! Now, that is probably normal for most dogs, but considering that this is Benny I was bouncing off the walls with excitement. Its like Benjamin has been waiting to learn the "gimme 5" command his whole life.
After I thought about it, it became clear to me why. Benny is very paw orientated. He uses his paw all the time to tell you what he wants. He will scratch at the front door to go out to go potty, he will scratch on the fridge door when he is hungry and much to my disliking he will scratch on my arm to tell me he would like some of my dinner. So having Benny sit his paw on my hand to get a treat came naturally to him.
Henry picked up the trick as well, but it took him about four days longer. Henry is not one to scratch to get what he wants, so this trick did not come naturally for him at all. But, with just a little extra work, he is now a "gimme 5" expert as well.
Yesterday I tweeted about a quirk of Benjamin's that had previously gone unnoticed by me.
I was in the kitchen giving the pugs a treat. I told them to sit and I noticed that Benny nonchalantly backed up to the rug and then sat, rather than just plopping his bottom down on the tile floor. This of course made me laugh and then I wondered does he always do this and I just never notice or was this just a fluke. So I made sure to give the pugs a few extra treats yesterday and sure enough Benny always moved over the rug before sitting. Here is a short video of Mr. Particular making sure his bottom stays warm.
This was a game we frequently played when Benjamin & Henry were puppies. The whole purpose of the game was to trick Benjamin & Henry into practicing their Sit, Stay & Come commands, but to do it in a fun way that allowed them to work off their puppy energy.
First the sit & stay while I move away.
Then the come command.
Looks like Benny was a little bit quicker out of the gates.
Almost up to full speed.
Still truckin'.
About halfway there and Benny has taken the lead.
Benny coming into the home stretch, completely blocking Henry from the frame.
Benny finishing strong. You can see his wrinkly skin flapping in the wind and his eyes are fixed on the prize - the treat.
Pug lover Martha wrote in to ask if I could pose a question to all the pug lovers out there. She was wondering how you handle visitors at the house. Does your pug behave when visitors come over? If so, how did you train them to behave so nicely? Does your pug get overcome with excitement when a visitor comes over? How do you convince your pug that the visitor is not just there to see them?
Thanks for helping us out. We are looking forward to your replies.
When little Luna came to us, she knew nothing. OK, maybe not “nothing.” She had some street smart skills - like scavenging through garbage cans, but she didn’t know any basic simple commands like “sit,” “down,” “off,” etc. She didn’t have a clue about walking on a leash and she even jumped up on table tops because she just didn’t know any better. Well, fortunately, we have managed to undo some of her bad habits, such as the standing on table tops and leash walking. (She’s not perfect at the whole leash thing but at least she pretty much stays on the path, now.) Through much training and practice, she has mastered the sit command.
However, what we are really pleased to brag about today, though, is that for the first time, she has achieved the down command on a semi-regular basis. We used to think that it was impossible for her to ever get a grasp on this because she always seemed to want to keep her derriere in the air. Well, at long last, she has gained a clue to the command of “down.” We wouldn’t say she has aced it quite yet, but it did seem like a huge breakthrough. If you have ever seen “The Miracle Worker” it was similar to the scene where Annie Sullivan helps Helen Keller learn the sign for “water.” As a matter of fact, we giggled amongst ourselves that she CAN learn! Talk about teaching an old dog new tricks! It can be done, but believe you me, it is so much easier when they are puppies!
For the most part, both of the boys are very good listeners. They both know the basic commands like sit, down, stay, no, leave it, drop it and take it. They also know certain commands for around the house like “go to bed” (go to your crate) and “go to the futon” (go lay on the futon that is in my office). Benjamin knows and loves the command “kisses” and Henry is learning the “give me five” trick.
Over the last few days, I have been working with the boys to teach them their left and their right. I started working on this mainly on our walks. We have basically three different walks that we use on a daily basis. One is the “just do your business” walk, another is a short walk (about 10-15min) and the other is a long walk (30-45min). So since we don’t always take the same path every walk, whenever the boys come to an intersection in the sidewalk they always look back and check with me to see which path we are going to take. So now when we are at an intersection, I tell them left, right or straight and then I go in that direction.
They don’t know the commands yet, but they are starting to recognize the words. The commands aren’t essential but it is a little something that I can do on our walks to keep them mentally stimulated.
