Stepford Dogs

You can brag about your high-achieving kid from now until forever, but I’m here to tell you that I have a little something/something to brag about myself. Ellie Mae, our new-to-us rescue dog, didn’t just rock her debut in Dog Obedience Class-101, she knocked it out of the stadium.

Plopped down amidst a sea of canine participants (nine, including herself), Ellie Mae not only kept it together, she was a star. Whereas both Gluten-Free Mama and I have concluded Ellie Mae is quite bright, we weren’t worried about aptitude, so much as attitude. 

Ellie Mae, sitting on her mat like a boss.

Simply put, would she be too hyper to be able to function amidst a pack of other dogs? Ellie not only kept it mellow, she followed my directions flawlessly, just as GF Mama and I had made sure we stuck to the directions given to us by Nancy, the instructor of the sixty-minute class.

We were told to forego Ellie’s breakfast, something I did not understand until it came to using the dog treats I had been instructed to bring along. A hungry dog is an eager pupil. Even at that, I was not sure how my girl would respond to having her breakfast withheld.

Ellie Mae was underweight when we adopted her, and got into her two meals a day like a meditation. She just got so amped up, it made me wonder how often she had to wait for her breakfast in the past. I began by feeding her the same amount of food as I do Large Marge, who is also female and weighs almost the same. 

Though she didn’t quite “pull a Dozer” and plow through her food like Sherman marched through Georgia, she also did not match Margie’s (and Emma’s for that matter) dainty approach to eating. For the first week or so, Ellie was restless, always on the prowl, and it seemed she never settled down. 

After a week, I upped the amount of food I gave her at each meal, considerably. I had been mixing a recommended kibble with a splash-down of chicken broth (to help soften the kibble) and a portion of grain-free, organic canned food. All I did was increase the amount of each of these components. I also weighed Ellie Mae when we first got her: 42 pounds.

Immediately, she responded to the increased food by stopping the prowling, or at least most of it, and after a week, she had gained a pound. After a month those outlined ribs had disappeared and she had started to mellow out. She gained one pound per week during this stretch.

Nonetheless, the time has come for me to be frank, here, and reveal a small fragment of Ellie Mae’s inner dogness. You see, my girl shares one of those same characteristics that I possess: She has a manic side to her. Like Markie, my own version of mania-on-the-wide, Ellie Mae is fairly mellow about ninety percent of the time, but a little shaky the other ten percent.

I am tolerant of this characteristic to a fault, primarily because I know it takes six months to a year for a dog to fully adjust to a new environment, and we have only had Ellie Mae for a little over seven weeks. The growth she has made is so dramatic, that it’s inconceivable that she would not continue to settle into her new home without issue.

An uneasy truce exists...

Therefore, if a cat sashays past her, and I am not paying attention, Ellie Mae will go into her act. All that involves is the spinning-wheels syndrome, paws flailing uselessly on the wood floors, during which time any cat worth its salt, would be long gone. Ultimately, cats have so many more advantages over dogs, it’s ludicrously unfair.

The racket is obnoxious, it’s short-lived and it produces nothing but a ruckus, but it also does no harm. Never in the history of the game has a dog ever been able to compete on even footing with a cat, so we just let it play out. Each time I have an admittedly one-sided dialogue with Ellie Mae about the inappropriateness of chasing cats, and she agrees I am correct. 

As I mentioned, there has been growth in all areas of Ellie’s life, and her relationship with our three cats is no different. As long as there is progress, and Ellie Mae is learning, I am satisfied. That was the whole purpose of enrolling her in obedience classes.

I did not know how many other dogs would be at the Willits studio, but it didn’t matter: the more the merrier. A huge part of the class was the socialization process; Ellie needed to be able to function with other dogs in the immediate vicinity, and she needed to be able to do it silently.

Needless to say, most of the dogs had something to say, some more than others. Ellie Mae did not bark and she did not howl, but she did have a little song she sang a few times which sounded like a cross between a howl and a whine. It was not particularly loud and I doubt it was that noticeable.

This photo says it all, loudly. 

 

I had given much thought to the no-breakfast thing, and ultimately compromised by feeding her a small breakfast around 1:30 in the morning, more than eight hours before the class, but still not as long as the original sixteen-hour abstinence would have been. The plan worked to perfection.

At first the dog treats I provided (duck, grain-free and organic) held little interest, in the hubbub that existed before the class began. Nancy had told us to come early, and allow the dogs to get used to the environment, which we had done.

After she got acclimated, the dog treats were eagerly sought. Nancy got everyone situated, each dog on a mat or something brought from home, and she began to give us foundational principles for working with dogs. Though I was familiar with much of it, I found it quite valuable to have the information presented as a unit.

A basic premise presented to us, and one that I have always found to be most accurate, is that the dog takes its cue from your tone of voice. You can say to a dog, “You are a bad dog, and I’m taking you to the shelter,” but say it in a warm and loving tone of voice, and your dog will be none the wiser.

Yes, well I did appreciate a well-crafted meal...

When the bond is strong enough, your dog needs no dog treat to learn obedience: all she needs is your approval. Seeking that approval, she will try her best to follow directions. Nonetheless, as motivation goes, the tidbit serves the purpose of getting your dog to follow specific directions, so as to be able to associate a sound with an action, something I will elaborate on in my next post.

For today I will leave you with the thought that the class was everything I hoped it would be, and that I look forward to the second class next Saturday. And oh yeah, we have homework. 

I know, you thought Nancy had a magic wand she waved over the dogs, and they all became Stepford Dogs, willing to do anything at any time to please, but such is not the case. Nancy provided guidance for instilling a half-dozen specific commands, but the rest is up to us. By following through on the basic commands already presented, we prepare our dogs for the next steps.