Samson again

If you are not interest in animal, these posts lately might have bored your eyes. But I had to write about it, the purpose of my blog is to preserve memory for myself, one day if I get alzheimer's disease and become forgetful, I could always come back to read what had happened before.

It has been a week since Samson moved in, a little cocka-poo shelter dog. He had a few clashes with Victor, another alpha male in the house; but I am hopeful that they would make up the relationship later on. The key is communication, understanding and respect each other's space.

Instead of reading dog training tips here and there on the internet, I decided this is not enough and I don't know how to communicate with Samson, to properly train him in order to get him to do what I want. He is no youngster, a 4 years old stubborn self-obsessive cocka-poo with tons of attitude. Well this becomes a challenge for me to teach an old dog new tricks! I went to the Palm Beach Gardens public library to get 7 books related to this topic, will digest all of them within 3 weeks in order to carry out a successful rehab program for Samson.

Samson has shown trust in me, he remembers who took him out of the shelter. Victor feels he is just a chop-liver in the house now because even the dog won't listen to him. ^_^ I just responded to him if he was the one to go pick Samson up at the shelter, Samson would react the same to him as to me.

Samson now understand 3 simple commands, stay / sit / go potty. He is not like my dear friend's cocka-poo we watched before, can pee / poop on demand at the backyard. Samson needs a good 10 minutes consistent walking in order to do his big business. Victor invented a no pick-up method is to open up a supermarket shopping bag real wide, lay it down on the lawn while Samson is getting in position, sure enough the droppings fall right in the center of the shopping bag, then we can tie it without a mess to dispose it.

There were 5 accidents inside the house in the first few days upon his arrival, I suspect the purpose of those pee was to mark his territory, Samson did not know this is his house he was going to stay so he marks it; once he understands he is sleeping here, eating here and playing here, he made no accidents afterward. He was able to hold it until we come home from golf and lunch, it was about 7 hours wait for him. Also he was changing to a new schedule, he wasn't fed at the same time as he was in the shelter nor being let outside at the same time, it is reasonable for him to adjust for the first week to a brand new schedule, so we forgave and forgot his accident.

So far he is doing good, he is just a bit sensitive to strangers approaching, this could be a golfer he saw from a distance out the window, then he started to bark like crazy, I now learn to distract him from that state-of-mind by using a toy that makes noise, I squeeze the toy then Samson follows the noise to retrieve his toy, forgot about barking at that stranger. Victor confronted him once while Samson was barking, his hand came down from top of Samson's head, Samson turned around and gave Victor a big snap! The key here is try not to confront his feeling, to distract him from that state-of-mind is the best method by far; if you must touch the dog at that moment while the dog is in the guarding mode, make sure your hand comes from down under his chin so the dog can view your approaching motion very clearly. Otherwise a sudden move from up-above like what Victor did, would receive a bite in return.