Pet's resembling owners - Random Thought...

It's often said that folk come to resemble their pets. After giving this substantial thought, I can find no evidence, what so ever, to support this idea.

Ego, Alpha, Trust - Nurhan

Nurhan’s take:

Now one of the dog books that I’ve read recently said that a mainstay for a human to raise a well balanced puppy, was to remove your own ego from the equation... Ummm what the dickens is that all about!

After letting it sit in my subconscious for awhile, I now understand and appreciate what the author was trying to communicate.

An adult Newfie, will happily bite a 30 mm bit of fresh wood and it will fall in two bits either side of his soft, retriever jaws, with this in mind, sharp puppy teeth, and increasing pain from ‘play’ biting (that is a normal part of puppy development), somehow I have to regulate this. Now all living things are different, what works for one pup might not work for another. A high pitch ‘yelp’ (like his sibling’s would make), didn’t curtail the problem, then tried a low growl, this didn’t work, then tried a low growl and holding my hand in a ‘bite’ around his neck; not only did this not work, but it escalated to us both growling and both using rather too much force. He wasn’t listening to me, and I wasn’t listening to him... Here is the point about ego... He’s a puppy, he’ll learn what I teach, BUT I have to show him respect, listen to what he’s ‘saying’, adapt my methods to ones that he can figure out, what it is that I’m trying to teach him, until he learns (this process works both ways).

“Arh, yes, but what about being his Alpha!” an indignant voice from the back of the auditorium of the mind blurts out in a ‘how can you be so blind’ tone of voice. The voice goes on further to say, “He MUST obey you! That is his position in life! Then you can both have a good life together!”

Now here’s the crux of the matter. Yes he has to do what I say; sometimes (like cars on a busy road) it is a matter of life and death... no argument can be allowed in this theatre. BUT, if I force the puppy/dog to do something, he doesn’t see me as his ‘Alpha’ he sees this as a physical and mental challenge... sure when the puppy is small I can impose my will physically, but once he becomes an adult he’ll have a mouth like a knife draw, will weigh closer to my weight then most of my girlfriends ever have and will possibly have a grudge on his shoulder.

My point for having a dog is companionship. I don’t want to suppress his character, by imposing my will. I want him to want the same things as me (I’ll qualify that by saying, ‘when we are training’). I need to figure out how to motivate the little chap, so what I want him to do is what he wants to do; this works for humans as well. Think of the ‘typical’ rebellious teenager, tell them to do something, you might as well be talking to the neighbour’s parrot, but get them motivated and then try to hold them back!

You can’t negotiate with a puppy/dog and the puppy/dog will notice any weakness (by dog standards), but being his ‘Alpha’ is about partnership and as in life, finding a common way forward, where you achieve what your intention is and the dog is happy to follow you.

If you get hung up on, “THE ‘BAR-STEWARD’, IS DOING THIS JUST TO IRRITATE ME!!!” He’s not, but he’ll pick up on your energy and he’ll get agitated and then small points escalate... It’s not personal, he just doesn’t understand what you want, and forcing him, just makes him think that you are unstable and damages the trust that you are trying to build. Thus remove the ego, don’t get annoyed, remove yourself from the situation, and go and have a think about things from his side and figure out a different way to present the same idea to your pup.

For the record, instead of trying to ‘discipline’ him (as his mother would do), for the ‘play’ biting. I got up walked away and ignored him (also as his mother would do). Then when he took a flying leap onto my calf muscle, I stepped back towards him, causing him to over balance and fall over... hmmmm that wasn’t part of his game... the leg is supposed to move away... Now puppies tend to sit when they are thinking things through, he sat, then he yawned (puppies {and dogs} yawn when they are frustrated, bored, or trying to figure something out, and of course, like us, when they are tired). Then (I like to think that) he got the message. Once he’d calmed down more, I let him follow me into the kitchen, got some small bits of roast beef. Shut him in the kitchen, hid the beef then ‘we’ searched the living room for these tasty morsels (he got to eat {substantially} more of them then I did). I also control which toys he has to play with and now when playing, eating, and interacting; I wait until he looks into my eyes before doing most things... I like to think that I won that ‘battle’, and we are well on our way to becoming companions.

Now if anyone has any tips how I can entice him into the bath, without destroying all this trust, I’d be pleased to hear it!

And lastly, this post needs a picture of Kin... I’m trying to leave him on his own more and more. After leaving him for forty minutes, on the way back up to the house I passed a woman walking a Golden Retriever puppy towards my house. Parked my car in front of the house, and by this time they were walking by my driveway. I explained that I had a puppy and if they had time it would be good if the two of them could meet in my fenced in garden... Thus now Kin believes that when I go out, I come back with a person and puppy for him to play with! The puppy’s called Alegra and the lady is called Anne-Marthe (YES! I remember to ask the person’s name!!!).

Treats - Kin

Kin's take:

Talk about thick... my human can't suss this out... I'm a cute puppy, he's supposed to feed me treats on demand... look what he goes and does with them...

Hides them in things! It takes me ages to figure out how to get them... and here I am with my head stuck in a box!

Are all human's such slow learners?!

Sleep - Kin

Kin's take:

I'm a puppy... I spend most of my time sleeping:

and thinking about sleeping:

And I have to say, that sometimes I do worry about what rates as sanity for humans:

Homes, Baths, Sleep, Memories... - Nurhan

Nurhan's take:

When I lost Karma, one of  the companies that I work for subcontractor's gave me this sign:

That since then has been above my kitchen door, so that you see it when you enter the house.

{Contractor is a model maker, Allan, who's company is AM Model Services, Gandal. Stavanger being the 'oil capital of Norway' he's made models of platform's, templates, models for crane ops, models to train divers and ROV crews, for the company that I work for he's made two different wind turbine generators and towers, he's good, but more importantly he's a good guy.}

Now my house is once more slowly becoming a home! Our relationships are individual with living creatures and inanimate objects... Take the 'humble' cup for instance; most of us have a favourite cup and we would be upset to lose this cup. The cup can easily be replaced, but what the cup represents is memories, and experiences, the cup has been with you since... Now take an animate friend, this person will be responsible for creating some of the memories, not just an observer as the memories are formed around them. Karma can not be replaced, but now Kin is becoming more of a character, and experimenting more with his own limits and his environment. He is developing the charming Newfie swagger... making new memories if you will. Not just being an organic rug that has to be cared for 24 hours per day... okay this new found personality has it's downsides... such as shoe eating. and random, unprovoked attacks; yes he's becoming a terrorist without an agenda by human standards... but that's okay, he's a dog and by his standards, he's growing.

Sunday, I loaded him into the car (which he's getting quite good at). I'd given a lot of thought to taking him to Bråstein, but decided against it as it's a 20 odd minute drive each way, it wouldn't be much of a walk, I'd have to carry him some distance from the car park so that he could meet dogs that were more relaxed... So much as my misgivings are for Åsen, this was on the agenda again on Sunday. Which is how we came to be at Bråstein! Car park was mobbed, but managed to find an 'interesting' parking space (four wheel drive and extra ground clearance comes in handy for things other than sports!). Then carried him a couple of 100 m from the car park and waited.

Now in Stavanger you can go years without seeing a St Bernard's, yet we met a lovely 18 month old bitch on Saturday, and an equally lovely eight month old bitch on Sunday:

Now the cars were parked all the way back to the main road... it was somewhat busy, and there were many folk 'who wanted to take Kin home'!

He got to meet dogs of all sizes and ages; not to mention people of all sizes and ages! Bråstein is a happy place. After about an hour, the little chap could hardly hold his eyes open, so we came home.

Being a Newfie, here's a picture of him snoozing in his water bowl:

Later that day, I decided to wash him... not because he needed it, but more to get him used to the idea. Whilst he was still in that rare Newfie condition, dry, I weighed him... he came in at 11 kgs... Ever since he's felt sooooo much heavier, than when I thought he weighed eight kgs!

Now Karma was not a fan of bathing (this is having someone wash him, as opposed to swimming, which he was a hugeeeeeee fan of), and I tried all the tricks that made it tolerable for Karma for Kin. In some ways I wish I hadn't tried him. All the trust built up in the previous week seemed to have been squandered. He was scared senseless, and deeply unhappy. He calmed down after I took him out of the bath.

It's not my imagination, he's looking seriously peeved in this picture.

He also wasn't particularly impressed by the dryer. The sound didn't bother him (as the house shock), but he wasn't a fan of the air stream (which was moving furniture in the back ground). I couldn't get a picture of Kin and the drier in the same frame... so here's the drier:

The 1.25 ltr bottle of Ajax - anti pee potion - is to give an idea of scale. Surely as a boy, Kin should appreciate this bit of serious kit!!!

Fortunately I still had the plethoric of towels that Karma required to (semi) dry him and Kin only has a puppy coat, not the dense double coat he'll acquire in about six months time:

Whilst working on forgiveness, we received a visit from Jan's family:

(Kin is the black blob in the middle, please notice how the little fur ball brings happiness to three generations!).

Here he's getting to terms with that age old game of  hood cord pulling:

Which of course he'll expect to be able to play when he's fully grown!!!


Monday evening I have a tendency to entomb myself in plastic and get very hot and sweaty... and for those thinking that I was going to start talking about kinks and fetishes, I must apologies and direct you to my other blogs on alternative lifestyles... I'm actually talking about playing kayak polo.
{http://www.stavangerkajakk.no/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60&Itemid=23}

Monica, had kindly offered to look after Kin while her partner and I went off to the pool to play polo and a great time was had by all. The best part of this was that when we came back, Monica was reading and Kin was sleeping angelically at her feet. Now Karma would never settle anywhere but the back of the (old) car and the house, if Kin can behave like this I get to take him more places, so this was a really great site and I'm very grateful to Monica for looking after the little chap. I did suspect that he had an ulterior motive, like resting so that he would be able to keep me awake all night, but, last night managed to sleep in my own bed for the whole night, only got up  once at 05:00 to take the little chap out and I didn't hear a peak out of him all night, despite the fact that he was in the fenced off hallway. Only one pee inside the entire night!



Here's Kin at Tasta Vedern meeting Laia, an 18 month Bernese Mountain bitch who lives about 300 m away from us:

And another thing that I'm going to try doing differently with Kin, is that I'm going to ask the owner's their names... I know load of dogs names but none of the owners, the owners of Laia are Lisa, & Bent.

Now I'm waiting for Svein to come around to puppy sit, so I can sneak off to go crawling (again, sorry, not fetish, I'm talking about front crawl in a Tastahallen (local swimming pool {http://www.stavanger.kommune.no/Tilbud-tjenester-og-skjema/Kultur-idrett-og-fritid/Idrett/Svommeanlegg/Tastahallen/})). Here's a vid clip showing Karma, 'helping' Svein up as only a Newfie can!!!:

Long day - Kin:

Kin's take:

I hope my human didn't notice the lie in today...

Today was busy. New places, dogs, people...

Went to a place with lots of dogs running around. Was a bit nervous, but greatly relieved when I managed to communicate this to my human who got in the way of a couple of the dogs... although I do wish that he'd drop kicked the little sh_t of an AmStaff into Vanessen.

Made friends at a bar, then fell asleep. Only to be awoken by someone waving something in my face... turned out to be tasty something, apparently it's called 'ham', have to remember that, that was goooooood (thanks Elbjørg).

Got to play with another dog and then over into another house... this was great. Got to pull hair, ears, hands, clothes...

Did feel a bit sorry for the male one, he really didn't have enough hair to spare, to play this game:

Still I could happily have a pair of these for Christmas.

Spent the rest of the day mainly resting, so that I can spend the night causing mayhem...

Åsen, BogB, Home visit -Nurhan

Today was prompted by yesterday... bear with me on this one... The last week has been spent trying to develop a rapport with Kin and for him to have confidence in me. Now Newfie pups at eight weeks spend most of their time, eating, sleeping, pooing, and a relatively small amount of time playing. Walks are a thing of the future (unless the walk involves carrying the little chap). Well Ingvild and the Madster came around yesterday (Madster= Maddie= Rhodesian Ridgeback bitch), and Kin was just annoying her. She ignored him, walked away from him and even growled at him. Once when she laid down he even jumped on her... now to translate from dog into human, this would be like going into a bar, finding the biggest person in there, drink his pint, snog his girlfriend, and pinch his bum... Maddie jumped up, did an impressive growl, and moved away. I was surprised that she didn't even mouth him... Point is, that he shouldn't have done this.

Thus today had us heading to Åsen (http://www.stavanger.kommune.no/Tilbud-tjenester-og-skjema/Kultur-idrett-og-fritid/Friluftsliv/Bandtvang1/Bandtvang/). Now generally I don't like Åsen for the following main reasons:
- part of the point of having a dog is to walk; at Åsen owners stand around, pretty much waiting for the dogs to fight.
- folk who can't be bothered to walk their dogs, just take them to Åsen. If you are going to go to Åsen with anything other than a miniature breed you need to take them for a walk first to calm them down and drain off some of their energy, otherwise fights will occur.
- many folk who can't control their dogs take them to Åsen. I'm guessing here, but as it's fenced in they figure that they can relax as their dogs crank up the well trained/good natured dogs and invariably start fights. Karma was attacked by one such dog whilst I was at my father's funeral. The dog was a 16 month old French Mastiff that the owners couldn't control, he was larger than Karma and Karma was getting old. The dog jumped on Karma's back, knocked him down and Karma laydown, the the evil ffffffker bit him. He had a similar experience with an oversized Great Dane at Bråstein. This dog was also 16 months old, jumped him from behind, he lay down and it stated to close it's jaws around his neck. I grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and held Karma down so that he would not aggravate things by trying to bite the dog. The dog didn't even register. The owner freaked out. I had to punch the GD in the nose before it snapped back into 'real time'. Fortunately (for me) it was so surprised to have someone discipline it, that it didn't turn on me. Karma got up and walked away. The owner's friend took the GD, and Karma and I left.

Unfortunately not enough breeders vet the people that are getting their dogs. Norway is not a dog friendly country, and irresponsible dog owners do not improve this situation. Dogs have to be brought up correctly, especially the bigger breeds, and breeds that were developed for guarding/fighting. It does not do any dog owner good when a dog attacks another dog or a person.

Anyway back to Åsen. When we arrived there was a beautiful 18 month old St Bernard's, that had a lovely temperament. A couple of boxers that had too much energy, but responded correctly when pushed away. A black lab, also way too hyper, a mix that looked like an Alsatian/border collie mix, that was completely out of control and a few other dogs.

Kin and the St Bernard's.

Then a girl arrived with an AmStaff (American Staffordshire Bull Terrier). Her relief of letting this dog 'free' was almost palpable, as she stood back and let the chaos commence. To put it kindly, this dog was a little sh_t. This woman had no control over it, and she really was just bringing it to Åsen hoping that it would burn off some of it's abundant energy. I had to stand with a leg on either side of Kin and bat this evil little fkkkker away several times. I would say it's owner, but the power dynamic definitely wasn't in her favour between her and the evil one. This gormless woman ignored these proceedings; and as it wasn't the dog's fault (this dog was only a puppy!!!), I resisted the urge to see exactly how far I could drop kick it, instead I picked Kin up and we headed for the car (Newfie's at this age don't walk further than the next puddle that they can fall asleep in). I'm trying to socialise my puppy, not give him a bad experience and make him nervous of other dogs.

{For the record Sørmarka, is a much better place to go walking, and this pales into insiginificance against Bråstein which is a happy place, for both dogs and people. In nine years of taking Karma to Bårstein we only had two bad experiences with other dogs, and only the one dangerous one with the above mentioned GD}.

Second part of the plan was to take Kin to BogB (http://bokerogborst.com/). Which is a friendly place for people and if your dog is behaved they are quite happy to have you outside. I want him to get used to 'cafe life', as a single person this is important for me.

Now Kin was getting sleepy and thus it was much easier having him in the car:

On arriving at BogB, I asked a couple if they could watch him whilst I got a drink (brought water and a bowl with me for Kin).

He charmed them:

(sadly I didn't think to get their names - but thanks!). Now Karma would never stay still in a place like this, and if you asked someone to hold him, he would just wonder off with them being dragged behind. It took considerable strength, but mainly resolution to stop Karma from wondering off.

Ingvild and her sister, Monica joined us. By this time Kin couldn't keep his eyes open and I was worried that with his puppy coat he might be getting cold, so it was off back to the car.

 Where there was no sound of crying... only snoring!

Back at the house we met a chap who used to have a lovely Golden Retriever that Karma used to play with, called Gia, sadly she died from cancer last year. Now he has a four month old Goldy called 'Holly'.

Holly and Kin liked each other.

Now on getting in the house Kin was now in 'turbo' mode. So it was off to Matt's place for Kin's first home visit and because the kids really wanted to meet him and I want him to meet kids.

Now here's a note for all those parents who's kids say that they want a dog and that they (the kids) will look after him/her:

Please notice the 'adults' playing with Kin whilst the children are enthralled with the tv behind... in fact one of the kids even asked us to make less noise!!!

Kin slept when we came home!
And I'm trying to get him to sit and be calm before feeding him... with the end result that he sat in his water bowl! Some work needed here!

Last night I managed 2 hours sleep in my own bed. At 04:00 I had him out, and then slept on the sofa... until 11:00!!! Now I know he can do it... I have big plans for tonight!!!