In Control

I think Odie may be teething again, this time, replacing his baby teeth with the (thankfully) less sharp permanent teeth that I've been waiting for.




He's beginning to want to bite a lot again, and it's getting pretty hard to control him considering his size. The other night, I removed Odie's collar so he can get ready for bed, but instead of going back inside his crate, he went to the garage! He had the zoomies then. My sister who was in the garage then started to chase after him. She shouted, bent down, and Odie took it the wrong way. Instead of submitting, he ran towards my sister, bit her heel, bit her leg, and when my sister bent down, he bit her chin which caused a minor cut. When I finally got Odie to go back to his crate, my sister uttered words that may have hurt me more, even if they were meant for Odie.

I told my sister that from what I've read and watched, she may have sent the wrong message to Odie because she was shouting and moving a lot, which enticed the little boy to play. Shouting, no matter how mad one's tone is, would still sound encouraging and fun to a dog. In the same way, movement, no matter how violent, is an exciting stimulus. I've read that a better way to deal with such a situation is to hold still and be silent. I've done it a lot of times and it worked after a while, but I understand that it's not a walk in the park. When Odie was younger, I sustained the most number of cuts and bruises from training and handling him. There are times when I would continue playing with him, and would just notice that a part of my arm/leg has been bleeding for quite a while.

Like I said in another entry, it takes a village to raise a good puppy, that's why I don't understand how some people cannot single-handedly clean dog poop given that Odie has two crates that are right next to each other and a container of treats on top of the wire crate. I've learned so much in effective human-dog communication, and I've been verbally sharing them in a casual manner so it doesn't sound all academic and boring, and I'm hoping these things didn't fall on deaf ears.

We still have a looooong way to go in raising the best beagle we could ever raise, and I hope that the other members of the household would take at least some interest in making it happen. After all, they said they wanted the perfect dog. It's not like they could just buy one and expect it to be morally upright and have a high IQ. As children, we didn't learn to read overnight. We may have learned to add and subtract in one day, but we also kept reviewing it until it became a part of our system (maybe except mine).

I'm getting tired of having the same concern, but I could only stop ranting about it when I see changes, and so far, I'm not seeing any.