Trooper Comes Home

Flashback:  Trooper proved to be a wild boy when we got him home. Suddenly his sister didn't seem so crazy after all. At four pounds, he did his best to dominate 20-pound Toby, chasing him around and play fighting constantly. Trooper always had his mouth full of hair from Toby's tail or mane. At first Toby didn't want anything to do with him, ignoring Trooper when he could and curling his lip in disapproval -- showing what Shetland Sheepdog people call "the Sheltie smile" -- when the puppy attempted to play with him. After a few days, however, Toby began to grab the other end of a rope toy when Trooper brought it to him as enticement to a game, and he soon got in touch with his "inner puppy," as my husband likes to call it. Those were halcyon days for Toby, when Trooper was still too small to inflict any major damage, and he was a fun playmate.

The potty training began immediately. We have a large wire crate that has been used for various pet reasons, including new puppies (Toby, and now Trooper), visiting dogs (Husker, who is another story), and cat isolation when a new kitten or cat came on board, or one of them had a medical condition that needed special care. Trooper was in this crate in our dining room -- we gave up our breakfast counter chairs for the duration -- when he wasn't doing his business or playing under supervision. He didn't like his crate unless he was eating or sleeping in it, but crate training is essential to consistent potty training and household safety. I confess to not always luring him into the crate, but sometimes picking him up and putting him into it, when my kids were demanding my attention and I simply didn't have the time to coax a puppy. This may have led to -- or at least not prevented -- a problem we still have: hand shyness. But more about that later.

It was in the coldest part of our Iowa winter when he came to us, and as soon as I put him outside to go potty he began to shiver uncontrollably. I decided he needed to be trained on weewee pads for the moment. These are plastic-backed sheets of absorbent material, about 18" x 24", treated with a chemical that encourages puppies to relieve themselves. We have a corner spa tub that is seldom used in our downstairs bathroom, just off the kitchen, so I overlapped three pads in the tub and set Trooper down on them when it was time for his business. He learned to use them quickly, and got a treat every time he used them. When he was finished, I asked him to sit, holding the treat just over his head and a bit back, encouraging him to reach his nose back and plunk his bottom down. Worked like a charm, and he learned to sit in only a day or two. It was then I realized just how smart he is, and knew I was in for both a lot of trouble -- a smart puppy, like a child, gets bored quickly and looks for something to do -- and a good deal of satisfaction, once I could channel the intelligence into productive training and work.

I already felt a huge burden to train this puppy correctly from the very first day, so he could become a therapy dog as soon as he was a year old. I constantly second-guessed my actions and attitudes, worrying that I was doing the wrong thing, or pushing him too hard, or not teaching him enough. I learned from a training manual that a puppy's golden window for training is between the ages of 8 and 16 weeks, so I taught him as much as I could during that time period: sit, come, stay, down, shake, high five, speak, and chase your tail. He wasn't always consistent in his response, but he understood the commands. I laid the best foundation I could, with the time I had for training, knowing that you can teach an old dog new tricks, but it's easier when they're puppies eager to fill their empty little heads with good stuff!

[I wish I could access my early puppy pictures, but I'm having some computer problems right now. I will post a photo of Trooper at about three months, where his blaze is not the massive drift of white it was at eight weeks, though still not as narrow as it has become since. I'll post earlier photos as soon as I get a new laptop and download from Carbonite.]