A Week of Firsts

A New Life for Suri

Suri’s first week at home (7 weeks old when she arrived) was packed with “firsts”! She had her first airplane trip; first play session with her new Mom; first visit to the veterinarian; first training sessions, both with a clicker and without; first nail trim (and then a second one); first bath (yay for lickit mats!); her first on-leash walks and potty outings; and her first socialization outing to a pet store (where she remained in a Sherpa bag across my shoulder, no contact with other people or pets – just able to see and smell them). And those are just the highlights! When you think about it, the entire world changes for a puppy in so many ways when they go to their new home.

I am beyond thrilled with how well she has handled everything in her first week here. She has an amazing temperament and is brilliant when it comes to learning new things. I will write more about her initial training in the next blog post. (If you want something sooner, you can check out her training videos on her YouTube channel.)

A New Training Philosophy / Approach for me

I signed up for Susan Garrett’s “Home School the Dog” online course shortly before Suri came home and also started listening to Susan’s free podcast / video series, “Shaped by Dog“. There is a wealth of information in those podcasts and I listened to as many as I could, focusing on the ones about puppy training in particular. Many years ago, I had incorporated some of Susan’s Crate Games into Kiri’s puppy training, mostly at the recommendation of our agility trainer at that time. But until recently I had not been aware of these other resources. As I listened through the podcasts, viewing the videos when I was at my computer, I found that Susan’s philosophy and teaching really resonated with what I want to do with Suri. I immediately started to incorporate those training and puppy-raising teachings into what I am doing now and both Rick and I have been impressed with how well it is working.

I don’t yet have the full scheme of how Susan’s training works for everything that comes up when dealing with a puppy day-to-day, so in places where I am unsure, I have to improvise a bit, or fall back on what I’ve done with previous puppies. That’s not a crisis, but it does lead to some inconsistencies, so I just wanted to make that clear in this post.

One of my favorite sayings from Susan’s material is (roughly) “Your puppy (or dog) is doing the best she (or he) can, with the education she has, in the environment she is in.” Susan encourages students to remember and repeat that, fostering a more positive attitude towards (and about) the puppy, instead of projecting negative intentions on the pup’s behavior. I have been repeating it to myself, about *myself*, when I worry that I am doing something “wrong” because I haven’t learned what the right thing is in this new training regimen. “I am doing the best I can, with the limited education I have, in the environment Suri and I are in.” 🙂

In this sense, Suri’s training is also a “first” for me. I think it’s important to update my training methods to incorporate better methodologies each time I start working with a new puppy. My first dog, Tika, was trained in the old-school tradition of using physical corrections when the dog did something unwanted, and then lure-and-treat to teach new behaviors. I was so happy when I “discovered” clicker training when Kiri was a puppy! I loved shaping new tricks with her where she had to figure out what I wanted. She learned so quickly and loved training with me. I still did scold her for unwanted behaviors, and would include a rap to the muzzle if she put teeth on me, but that’s mostly because I didn’t know of another way. I don’t like physical punishment, but I also didn’t want to allow bad behaviors. Fortunately, I didn’t do it so often that it undermined our connection, and she wanted to please so much that soon even a gruff “Ah ah” or “No” would suffice to stop her.

With Suri I am working on eliminating such corrections altogether. As I mentioned, I don’t always have a solution for everything that comes up, but my general fallback is to change or manage the environment / situation in order to prevent the unwanted behavior. For example, there are some low-voltage wires that are within reach of puppy teeth under a bench area in the yard. Of course she was attracted to those within just a couple of days as she explored her environment. I didn’t want to “correct” her for exploring that area with her mouth (as puppies do), so instead I managed it by taking her out on leash until I could get an xpen set up to block off that area.

Another situation is when she’s chewing something that I don’t want her to chew. I take one of 3 approaches for this: 1. distract her with a toy (if we were already playing), 2. remove her from whatever she’s chewing (not scolding her, just picking her up and going Elsewhere), or 3. remove the item that is being chewed. It’s important to note that I only do #1 if we were already playing, because if we were not, then she might learn to do something I dislike in order to get me to play with her. I always need to be mindful about what I am rewarding, versus what I am trying to discourage.

I can’t say if all of those 3 approaches are completely consistent with what Susan would do, but I can say that using this approach has made *me* much happier with my interactions with Suri versus when I used to have the cycle of scolding (or nagging) my puppy, while trying to make that scolding meaningful by having (escalating) adverse consequences.

While I can’t re-cap everything that I’ve been learning over the last few weeks in one blog post, one of the biggest changes in how I manage Suri, versus previous pups, is the use of x-pens in multiple locations to allow her to have a managed environment that is larger than a crate, but small enough and controlled enough that she doesn’t have as many opportunities to make choices that I don’t want. These areas allow her to play with toys, stretch her legs, or just nap, while I am in sight nearby. When I first set them up, I would get in the xpen and play with her in there for a bit before getting out. But now I usually play with her outside of the pen, and then put her in when I need to do something else. She’s quickly learned that she can amuse herself, even if she *isn’t* ready for a nap.

This is a *huge* switch for me since previously I always felt like I needed to wear my puppy out with lots of exercise and play, so that I could then put them in a crate in order to get things done. If I didn’t have them tired out, they would cry and scream when in the crate, and I would just have to tough it out until they learned that they weren’t going to be let out. This meant that I hated putting them into the crate, so I would try to leave them loose around the house more, while trying to still get some things done (cooking, laundry, whatever), which inevitably led to accidents in the house or items being chewed.

Susan has a great podcast that talks about the rhythm of life with puppies and it helped me realize that even a young puppy can learn to be in a confined area, where they are still connected to what’s going on (so don’t get separation anxiety) and can learn to amuse themselves. Suri has been doing fantastic with this approach! Over just one week I’ve increased her confidence in being alone so that I can walk in and out of the area she can see from the xpen, and she can continue playing without getting upset. The xpens are still intended for *supervised* play, so I don’t leave the room for long, but it means I can do a lot of things around the house without worrying about what she might get into when I turn my back.

When I leave the house (to go for a trail run with Kiri), or need to do something where I can’t watch her (take a shower, or at night when I am sleeping), then she goes into a crate. During the day I will leave her with a safe toy or two (see Susan’s description of “enterichment” for more info), and at night no toys, just a towel for sleeping comfort. Right now my trail run outings are short (about an hour to an hour and a half), but as she gets more comfortable with the routine I am confident I will be able to extend that time without her becoming particularly stressed.

In the photo carousel above, in addition to the xpens in various locations, you can see that at night I set up her crate at the same level as my office daybed (where I am sleeping while she’s still young). This is also something Susan recommends, but amusingly something I had already been planning to do for Suri, in part because of the bed configuration here. I’ve had NO whining from Suri at night, *even* on her first night home with me. I love it!

This multi xpen system has really reduced *my* stress while dealing with a new puppy and also means that when it is time to play with her, or do some training, or take her for a puppy walk, I don’t feel worn out from not having time to eat, or time to take care of other things that I need (or want) to do. Including writing up a blog post, or posting a video of her training to our online course to get feedback from the instructors.

In fact, as I wrap up this post, she is sleeping quietly near my feet, within the managed confines of her xpen by my computer desk. 😁