I was desperately looking for a groomer on the day Buddy arrives, because I want him to look his best when he meets my husband, Victor. I was unable to get him groom by a professional groomer in that afternoon, they were all closed for the day after 2:30pm. So my friend who has 2 small dogs gave Buddy a bath, he smelled nice afterward, we cleaned up his tear stain. The next day, I figure it is the weekend coming up and unlikely I could get an appointment, I decided to give it a shot to groom Buddy myself. I went to PetSmart to get whatever I need to get the job done.
He reacts very clam during my non-professional grooming period. I did it outdoor on my dinner table under the sun where he can feel the breeze, I tried to make it as pleasant as possible. He moves a bit here and there but I just wait until he settled before I move my scissors around with a comb. His left ear is clean but his right ear has wax built up, I used an ear cleaning drop and some Q-tip with dipped alcohol to clean up the wax on the outer ear, I did not dare to go in too deep so I just let the ear cleaning thing to do its job.
I had no problem clipping his nail on the 2 front paws, he doesn't like me to raise his 2 back paws, I guess I did not know how to position him, he is definitely ok to let me clip his nail. I used to do this to my cat in Hong Kong.
Before the "Frontline flea and tick's treatment" arrives in the mail, I gave him a medicated collar to kill the flea and tick if there's any exists.
I found out he is a great swimmer on the first night, he accidentally fell into the pool during his sniff and pee pee time, he was able to follow my voice and swim very steadily to the steps of the pool, walked out with style and shake off the water! Voila! He knows how to swim!
In the future, I will be absent in the morning due to golf, so I am trying to establish a schedule for Buddy to understand. I wake up between 6:30am to 7:30am, the first thing I do is to let him out, while he is peeing, I point my index finger toward the ground and use simple word such as "GO POTTY", in order to remind him this motion and word means a request. Upon the second he puts his leg down, I gave him a treat and praise him lavishly.
I also use this index finger motion whenever I "Request" him to do something, and I give him about 30 seconds to response. Buddy is a very smart dog, he gets it very quickly. I do it on requests of "Stay", "Go potty", "Surrender". I will stay with these 3 for the first week, move up to another level later.
I won't feed him breakfast until my husband wakes up at about 7:30am to 8:00am, Victor has to feed him with 1/2 cup science diet dog food, which my friend Betsy has 2 small dogs highly recommended. I will only feed him dog food in the first 2 weeks, later may introduce him to real human food throughout the day such as chicken breast, carrot, romaine lettuce, red bell pepper or broccoli....etc.
This weekend I did not plan any activities but just focus on getting Buddy used to the new environment only. So even I am available to walk him in the morning, I won't do it because I won't be able to walk him in the morning later on, I will walk him after 2pm.
While Buddy eats breakfast, I will eat my breakfast at the same time so he knows this is the time zone we do this together.
Then I will find some chores to do around the house, such as feed the fish, gardening at the front, do the laundry....etc. In order to make him understand hey I have work to do in the morning. At this morning period, I will let Buddy out once or twice to avoid accident. At 2pm, we'll start our long walk in the neighbourhood, so he knows I will walk him sometime in the afternoon in the future.
He is also very good in guarding the house, last night was garbage night and I am sure the raccoons were out for dinner. We went to sleep at about 9:30pm and he barks like crazy at about 10:30pm, I woke up and followed him out to the sliding glass door, turn on the light outside to scare the whatever animals, then I praised him for being alert at night.
If there is a scale to rate a dog from 1 to 10, Buddy is reaching the mark at 8, he only has to do better on the issue of "marking his territory" and "follow simple human request", he will reach a mark of 10.
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