When I got my new puppy I was overjoyed and confident about taking on this new challenge. I quickly though became somewhat overwhelmed and diffident about the whole thing when I realized that, just because Raina is so well behaved and well adjusted, doesn't mean that I can skate by with minimal effort and have Axis turn out the same way. It's been 10 years since Raina was a pup and now that she's so established and calm in the face of any situation, I forget the difficulties I had when she was young. It took years for Raina and I to develop our relationship to where it is now, where we can almost read each others thoughts, where she practically knows what I want before I ask. Years of traveling day in and day out together, years of oscillating between frustration and understanding, years of trial and error...
When Axis came into my life I thought "I know so much more now than I did then, I have learned so much from my experiences with Raina and my time spent at the Wonderdogs, this will be a breeze!" Well, he really is such a good boy. Very trainable, very biddable, with a high drive and a sweet nature. Yet, even with all that, I found myself struggling with his training as well as a lack of confidence in my abilities.
At first I felt tired all the time as he was so young he was up every 3-4 hours to use the bathroom. He also was a big chewer and though he never got the chance to destroy anything (he was in my sight at all times) I was constantly having to make sure he wasn't eating things and chewing on furniture. (...Yes, I tried using bitter spray, 2 different kinda actually... but, he liked it!... licked it off the bottle as I was spraying it...) I found that with me being the only one training him and having two, sometimes three, dogs (I have been living with my aunt who is mother to a 1½ year old labradoodle named Molly) in my sight at all times can also be very exhausting!
While he was one of the most adorable puppies I had ever seen, I caught myself thinking "Please just grow up already!" (Then I felt bad for wishing away these most precious of days in his life)
Puppies are learning constantly, they are forever taking in the world around them and figuring out how things work, what their limits are both physically and socially, and working to extend those limits! Another quote that was presented to me was that "...it is up to us weather they are learning positive behaviors or negative ones..." I think that's what scared me most, the thought that I could be unwittingly sending the wrong messages and creating behaviors that would have to be righted later on.
I decided to write about this for a number of reasons. I read something that made me think that I wasn't alone in feeling this way. It was about the "puppy blues" where by owners of new puppies feel overwhelmed and/or daunted by the task ahead of raising their new dog.
Here is a website depicting a conversation between a very well informed owner and a trainer about some of the trials of puppyhood. (This describes Axis almost to a tee, he is very confident and even I was tempted to label him as dominant at first.)
For me, what made the whole thing feel worse was realizing that I am aligning myself with my dream of becoming a dog trainer to help others become more in tune with their dog's behavior and language, and here I am feeling these so called puppy blues! How could I help people when I'm doubting even myself?
Well, I realize that through posting things like this, I can share my experiences with people in the hope that the reader, will gain insight from my follies. If you have had similar feelings to the ones I describe here, you are not alone, and even professionals are human beings, who may at times deal with doubts & uncertainties.
For me this experience serves to strengthen my resolve to help those who need some guidance. If I could feel this way, knowing what I know, it's understandable how someone with less information could feel they have walked into a situation where they are in over their head. By implementing a few simple to understand techniques, a relationship that may have come to represent doubt and uncertainty can be transformed to instill confidence and joy. If my experiences can aid even one person in creating the momentum for this transformation to occur... then it's all worth it to me. If I can keep even one dog from ending up in a shelter or euthanized due to a lack of understanding and information or mislabeled aggression/dominance, then all the time I put into this cause will have paid off in full.
The conclusion to this story is that weather it's a new puppy, being around family members again, your job or anything else that can make you feel that you've got your work cut out for you, we are always given these situations in life to overcome, to grow, to move forward and learn from.
Cesar Millan says, "We may not always get the dog we want, but we always get the dog we need!"
Axis is the perfect dog for me, I know that now just as I did the very first moment I saw him when he was 3 days old. No matter the challenges we face together, no matter how many times I feel like giving up, or I feel doubtful of my ability to raise him to be the model dog I would love to be able to show off, an ambassador for The Taming Rover, I know I will succeed. We will succeed together because I truly believe that not only did I choose him from that litter of 7, we chose each other, and he has come into my life to teach me just as much and probably much more than I could ever teach him.
Just as Raina has taught me through our almost 11 years of friendship, more about loyalty, accountability and unconditional love than I could have imagined when I first took on that hyperactive little lab pup who would tear up my garbage on a near daily basis and leave piles of poop in the middle of the stairs for me to step in on my way up....
I understand more now about how my Mother must have felt when accepting the challenge of rearing a tiny helpless poop machine that doesn't sleep through the night and grows up to cause worry and grief. And though I myself am challenged by her motherly ways, I also believe that we too chose each other, to learn from and to grow from the lessons we both provide one another.
Through family we are provided with the greatest opportunities for growth. So, from my family to yours, Happy Learning!
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