Perpetual Ruminations

Max's First Walkabout

Max just turned three months old last Saturday, and he's growing way too fast. Not in the meaning of faster than normal, he is right in his size and weight range for his age, but he is so much bigger than he was when we first brought him home. We put him on the scale the day after we adopted him and he weighed seven pounds. Saturday he tipped the scales at twenty-two pounds.

Training is going well, but it's a lot different training a Husky than it was with some of our other canines. He's very smart (maybe a bit too smart) and learns fast, but with his intelligence comes very strong stubbornness. He knows his name and comes all the time in the house, but when he's outside, he finds all sorts of distractions and will completely ignore me. I'm still trying to figure out a way to overcome this, and I'm hoping I can find some solutions online.

As far as tricks, he learned to sit first. It took all of one ten-minute training session. The problem is, once he learned to sit for a treat, he will sit before I tell him. Next, I taught him to talk, so if he sits before I tell him, I have a backup for him to do to get a treat. Again, one training session. His most recently learned trick is to give kisses. Not the licking, slobbery kind, but by pressing his muzzle to my lips. One session and he has it down.

The other task I'm working on is leash training. Because of the weather, as well as all the distractions, I started him in the house. He does pretty well for a short period but then get's bored with walking around two rooms.  Today we took it a step further and walked outside to increase his time on the leash and to get him more accustomed to riding in the car.

He isn't very fond of car rides since it doesn't provide him with anything to do. Mostly, he rides along if I have to pick up or drop off someone or run to the store for an item or two. He rides nicely and is pretty well-behaved in the car, but he's bored. So, I thought if he went for a short ride to a place he could get out and investigate, he would start looking forward to riding. It also provided me with a small parking area to walk him.

There is a boat landing about a half mile from us, and since it's winter, it's not very busy. We walked the yard for a few minutes, then went to the car. He didn't like getting loaded into it, but did alright. He just stretched out on the seat as I drove over to the landing; I suppose he thought of it as just another car ride. When I parked he didn't get up, again figuring he was going to wait in the car. But, when I opened the door for him, he perked right up.

I put the leash on his harness and told him to unload, which he did even as I was telling him. He sniffed around and I let him pick where he wanted to go. He, of course, became distracted numerous times with all the new sites and smells, but he did respond to "Let's go" after a bit of coaxing. We walked the perimeter of the lot twice, and he was showing signs of getting tired, so we loaded up and I brought him home.

I'm thinking a few more times of his getting to explore on the leash and he will do fine, maybe he will even get excited and eager when I bring his leash out. Once we have this part down, I can start bringing him more places and start letting him get used to new people and hopefully some other dogs.

We still have two more phases of leash training to work on; getting him to pay more attention to me and him not pulling in every direction, but walking beside me.