It probably wasn’t my best idea. I
got my husband at a weak moment (nearly asleep on the couch) and decided just
to drop it on him.
“I think you should take Capone to
doggy obedience class tomorrow.”
We were having a glass of wine, and
feeling very mellow. “Sure,” he said. Then he opened his eyes a bit wider.
“Wait. What did you say?”
“Tomorrow Capone has a class, and
oddly enough we have nothing else going on. I’ll go with you, but I think you
should do the class.”
He swirled his wine as he
considered my proposal. “I have a better idea. Why don’t we leave Capone at the
class, and you and I can go to breakfast.”
“Uh, it doesn’t work that way.”
I poured him another glass. He
needed it.
“Well, I guess it might be fun.”
I tried not to snort. “Yeah. Fun.”
On the way to obedience training, I
thought I should prepare him a bit for the reality of the situation. “Just to
let you know…it’s hard work. It’s 45 minutes of hard work. For you and for the
dog.”
“Work?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.
Maybe you do the class and I’ll watch.”
“Fine, but you have to pay
attention. You can’t sit on the balcony and drink your coffee.”
“Come on. How hard can it be?”
I just stared at him. “It’s
stressful and I sweat. A lot. It’s better than doing zumba.”
I clipped on my bait bag as soon as
we arrived and let Capone out of the car, confident that he would once again
rock obedience class. He’d been one of the best-behaved dogs lately, and I was
sure my husband would be very impressed with his progress.
He wasn’t. Capone decided that day
to be non-compliant. And a little obnoxious.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Capone, overwhelmed with the sights
and smells of the dog park, leaped out of the car with crazy gleam in his eyes.
He did his best to pull me away from the door to obedience class and straight
to the dog park.
“You take the dog,” I said to my
husband. “I’ll sign us in.”
To say he looked terrified would
have been an understatement. “What do I do with him?”
“Walk him around. For five
minutes.”
He looked less than convinced. I’d
hoped Capone would calm down before I got back, but no such luck. He had on his
Gentle Leader collar, a device that fit over his nose and prevented him from
pulling. The Gentle Leader is a lifesaver for me, but it sometimes irritates Capone.
Today was one of those days. Capone rubbed against every possible surface,
trying to get the Gentle Leader off.
“I hate this collar,” said my
husband.
“It’s a valuable training tool,” I
insisted as Capone wound the leash around my legs and tried to use my shoe to
pry it off.
We’d come for the early class, and
it was small, but it was entirely filled with labs and German shepherds, a lively mix. One
gorgeous Italian bull mastiff joined the group, and also a small brown dog that
was a mix of a shar-pei and a pit bull.
“What is that thing?” asked my
husband.
“A shar-pit? Or a bull-shar? I
don’t know.”
I secretly wanted to call it a Shit-bull, but held myself back. He was a cute little dog, although he seemed a bit wound up. He was leaping into the
air, barking and twisting his entire body around.
“He’s the worst dog in the class,” said my husband.
“Yep.”
“Our dog is the second worse.”
Capone was rubbing his face on the
floor, frantically rolling back and forth. “Yep.”
My normally calm and attentive dog
now acted like a giant squirrel with ADHD. He eventually calmed down and got a bit of focus,
but it was probably the worst class he’d ever had.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked my
husband as Capone continued to roll around on the floor.
“I don’t know. He was always so
good. I blame you.”
Capone tried at that moment to
wiggle out of his Gentle Leader and almost succeeded. “It’s not me. That dog is psycho.”
Then I realized exactly what was
happening. “Not psycho, although he’s close.
Capone is now a….teenager.”
I was kind of an expert on teenaged
males at this point. My oldest son was now twenty-one, but the younger two were
still firmly entrenched in teen-hood. I
knew the signs when I saw them.
How six months old puppies are like
teenagers:
1. They are defiant. Capone had suddenly
become headstrong and a bit stubborn, usually when I want him to come back into
the house after playing outside. This applies to teenagers, too. They always
want to stay out late, and they always think it’s unfair when you cut short
their fun. Capone might bark, but at least he doesn't have a smart mouth. That's definitely a point in his favor. He also never rolls his eyes at me, another plus.
2. They think rules don’t apply to them.
We’d trained Capone months ago not to go on the couch and not to go upstairs.
We used something called a Scram Mat, which emitted a sound like a smoke
detector and scared Capone (and anyone else in a two mile radius). It was effective. It was wonderful. But suddenly and without warning, the Scram Mat has no effect on him. At all. He loves to jump on the couch now
just to challenge me. Fortunately he understands "off", especially when accompanied with me running at him like a crazy person.
3. They smell. On the way to obedience
training, my husband had sniffed (repeated) and said, “Something smells like old socks. I
think it’s the dog.” He may have been right, or he may have been smelling the
dirty soccer socks I found under his seat. Both kind of smell the same. When my
mom rode in my car today, she tried to be gracious about it, saying, “It
doesn’t smell like dog…it smells more
like dog food.” Judging by the dog
treats scattered throughout my vehicle, that isn’t a surprise.
4. Which
takes me to my next point – teenagers
and puppies are both food motivated and like to eat. A lot. My boys wake up
hungry and as soon as breakfast is over they are thinking about lunch. Capone
is the same. His favorite words are “eat”, “meatball”, and “treat.” The only
way I can get him to come inside when he’s being defiant is to say, “Meatball?” in a happy, singsong way. If I do, he runs right in.
5. They don’t understand consequences.
Capone and I regularly engage in a sort of Mexican standoff. We face each
other, like gunfighters, and there is usually something in Capone’s mouth that
should not be there. “Drop it,” I say in
my harshest voice. He doesn’t reply of course, but he mocks me. I can see it in
his eyes. At this point I have two options. If another person is available, we
engage in a merry chase that always ends under the dining room table. One
person goes behind him, and one person crawls under in front of him. Once he’s
effectively trapped, I take whatever it is out of his mouth and say, “Bad dog.”
If no one else is around, this technique does not work, so I go for my next
best option. I say, “Meatball?” in my sweetest voice. Capone immediately drops
whatever he has in his mouth, and looks surprised when I don’t give him a
treat. Instead I just point my finger at him and say, “No meatball. Bad
dog.” He never holds a grudge. He just wags his tail and hopes for another
meatball-earning opportunity.
7. They can sleep through anything. Last
week at 2:30 am, I was awoken from a deep sleep by the sound of coyotes
outside. They were probably in the field across the street, but they sounded
like they were in our yard. They yelped and yipped and howled, and it sounded
an awful lot like they had caught something and were tearing it apart. I
listened to them, waiting for some sign from Capone that he’d heard them, but
the only sound that came from his kennel downstairs was the sound of him
snoring. He didn’t hear a pack of crazed coyotes, but he can somehow hear it as
soon as I step out of bed and my big toe touches the carpet. That makes him bark. Coyotes? Not so much. My
boys didn’t hear the coyotes either. They also don’t hear alarm clocks, storms,
smoke detectors, Capone, or the Scram Mat.
After I explained this brilliant
realization to my husband, he just shrugged and said, “We’ve survived three
teenagers already. At least Capone will only be this way for a few months,
right?”
We can only hope.
Capone with his best girl, Gracie, at the dog park.
