Training TROTI

Rule 8 - Daily structured walks are mandatory

2012-02-19T15:05:00.000+02:00

First of all let me explain what a structured walk is - it's an effective way of creating a strong bond between the human and the dog. Also, the human has the possibility to impose himself as leader if following the correct rules.

The structured walk allows the dog to satisfy his physical needs of exercise but also his psychological needs of exploration close to the leader - which means you.

Such a walk must take 10-20 minutes for pups, 30 minutes for small and medium sized adult dogs and up to 45 minutes for large dogs. This is necessary even if the dog has a yard to play.

The walk must be led by the human who always walks in front not allowing the dog to stray. The dog must focus on the human and on the walk and not on distractions around. Specialists recommend minimum 2 such walks/day.

I have heard of situations where dogs were kept inside the appartment for an entire week and their masters were wondering why they behaved in a chaotic manner. I have two neighbours who do this to their dog and he acts each time they take him out like he has just escaped from prison - running all over the place, biting other dogs, playing in a rough manner, barking for no reason.

To sum up, please walk your dog daily if you want to have him/her happy.

Day 2 - our last vacation day

2012-02-11T20:07:00.000+02:00

Coming back to the story - by 7.30 am we were up. All tired and fed up with our new member of the family. We had a rough night, at 5 am my husband was out with him and I was wondering if all that was worth it. And it was our last vacation day...

He was so cute. This picture was taken back then - not on day 2, but very close to it. On day 2 we weren't in the mood for pictures.

By 9am I had one more stain on the carpet but I was too tired to care and we had prepared a nice spot for him in the balcony. To prevent him from coming into the house we moved in front of the balcony door a large table that had the top closing to the sides. When we were letting him in, we just had to move the table a few centimetres.

We ate something without caring too much about food, drank some coffee and started thinking what to do next. Whaaaaat to do next? We were leaving for work the next day and the dog had to sit home alone for 8-9 hours. Oh, God, what have we gotten ourselved into?

We took him out for an hour to walk around the block. He didn't like the leash, tried to get rid of it, but listened to us from time to time when we told him "No" trying to convince him to walk nicely. It was a glorious circus scene :(

We came back to the house, let Troti sleep on the carpet and started thinking what to do. He was so cute barking in his sleep with his mouth shut. He was dreaming the dear thing...

I got an idea...let's call our relatives who have houses and gardens. Maybe one of them will want to keep him. I looked at him and started crying. I didn't want to keep him but somehow I didn't want to let him go either. We rescued him from the countryside and now we were giving him away...but how could we keep him? My husband started calling his aunt, one uncle and one neighbour from his childhood neighbourhood. His aunt told us that unfortunately she couldn't take him since she had 3 other dogs. The other two didn't reply in spite of us calling 3-4 times. This must be a sign, I thought...

But what if he had been a child? We would have given him away too just for messing up our quiet life? We considered ourselves responsible people so we decided to keep him for one more week and see. If things go better we will keep him. If not, we will find him a home somewhere. We weren't used to having a dog in the house and I liked everything all nice and quiet as it had been before.

So we still have a dog...We spent the day with him wondering about our decision. He slept in the balcony with the door open and the table in front of it. This helped. When he saw the door open, even if he had the table to block his entrance and couldn't see inside, he was still fine and didn't consider himself too isolated. He slept most of night and allowed us to rest too - still till 5am of course. When I come back I'll tell you about our first day at work and Troti's first day alone at home.

What did we feed Troti?

2012-02-04T14:29:00.002+02:00

On his very first day Troti ate milk and home cooked food. This is what we had to offer since we weren't expecting him to come along. However, this is not a very wise choice for dogs. Home cooked food can be ok unless it contains dangerous bones or too much fat, oil and dangerous spices. Milk is NOT ok, especially cow milk. It will disturb the dogs stomach and don't do him much good either in terms of calcium or vitamins. He will love the taste, but the product all in all is not advisable.

So, what should you feed the dog? During the growth period (mostly up to 1 year old) try to stick to Junior dog products only. Preferably dry food and moist food only occasionally. Junior dog standard products contain the optimal amount of vitamins and minerals for your dog to grow nicely. Ours grew from 3 kg when we found him at 3 months old to 18 kg at 9 months old and we expect him to gain 3-4 kg more up to a year.

If you find the dog on the street, talk to the vet and see if he may need additional supplements. Our dog had severe immune problems resulting in loss of fur and scabies during his first 2 weeks because of the lack of appropriate food. He ate what he could find and his immune system was down. Our vet recommended vitamins to boost the immune system (we did 3 series of 14 pills - 1/day) and also some calcium when he was 5-6 months old and his teeth were changing.

Coming back to the food - try to stick with junior dog food during his first year, even if he beggs to get some of your steak :). Our dog grew up nice and strong after feeding him this. He eats now from time to time vegetables - he loves steamed carrots and peas; you can give him meat (but not fat one and never raw), vegetables, rice. Try to avoid food that would give him gas like potatoes and beans.

To keep him busy we buy bones from large animals like cow and pig, boil them and give them to him to chew. He keeps busy for hours and they don't break into small sharp pieces, therefore safe to eat.

What to avoid: bread. If he can't help it - give him just a small piece, as dry as possible, old bread preferably.

What not to give him ever: sweets (animals like cats and dogs don't process sugar - it piles up turning into diabetes), small bones like chicken or fish (they are sharp, can break into sharp pieces perforating the intestines), spicy food, chocolate (very toxic to dogs), milk (disturbs the stomach and you may end up cleaning the carpets more often than you like).

Take care,

Geo

Rule 7 - Exercise, discipline, affection - in this order

2012-02-01T10:18:00.001+02:00

First to complete - exercise. The dog needs at least a walk/day with the pack leader every day for at least one hour to satisfy his physical and psychological needs. It's not enough to get him tired. He needs you to walk him. This way you get him tired, he explores with you and fulfills psychological needs of information and you get to build authority as a leader. Also, please remember not to allow him to walk in front of you - his shoulders can be near your leg, but not more than that and don't allow him to do whatever he wants. No smelling, peeing on tress, eating from the grass, turning around and pulling the leash to see other dogs - none of that. He must focus on the walk and you must correct every attempt not to.

Second to complete - discipline. Discipline means showing the dog what to do and gaining his respect as a leader. Discipline is not punishment. Correction must be firm, but calm. Exactly as a pack dog leader would do to the dogs in the pack. The dog barks after a cat - calmly but firmly say NO, pulling his leash a little towards the right dirrection. NO is a very strong word and the dog will learn soon to understand it if you add the correct tone. Say NO firmly and the dog will understand that he did something wrong soon enough. Don't expect a 2 month pup to pick up everything. Our Troti is already 9 months old and by the time he was 5-6 he knew clearly what NO meant. Dogs are smart animals and they pick up very fast, especially when they are young.

Last to complete - affection. Even if your dog is very cute - all of them are, remember that in the wild a pack leader doesn't offer them too much affection and doesn't hug them or kiss them all day long. Give your dog affection only when he is calm and really deserves it. Don't give affection is he's nervous or angry.

Rule 6 - Everything that is in the house belongs to the pack leader

2012-02-01T09:50:00.000+02:00

I'm coming back with the rules I started a few days ago. I remind you that they were't invented by myself. I only apply them. I have read them on a Romanian forum animalutze.com, posted by PaulT, the administrator. I am sure they will help you too.

So rule 6 - everything that is in the house belongs to the humans, not the dog. The dog is not allowed to dominate the items in the house - he gets up on the couch only when invited, he gets down without any comments if the human says so, when the human says so, he's not allowed to touch the human's items unless they are offered. He can't consider you his equal. Always correct unwanted behaviour, but don't forget in a calm and firm way, not hysterical. Hysterical means unbalanced and the dog will not respect that.

One more thing that I learned from Cesar Milan during his show the Dog Whisperer is that the dog is not allowed to pee on any of the things in the house (except his special sand pee space if he has one - we do because the dog is alone at home during the week for almost 9 hours, so he needs it). If the dog pees on items in the house this means marking them as his own and not respecting your authority over them. So correct that asap.

Troti's personality

2012-01-29T14:00:00.002+02:00

Troti is a Doberman mix, so he has a lot of the traits that these dogs have: he's extremely smart, but also extremely stubborn and independent. He can drive us crazy sometimes. He does only what he wants a lot of the times and listens only if he has a real interest to do so or he has no choice. With such a dog you must be firm all the times otherwise he will not respect you. We try to be firm, but he's so cute that sometimes you can't help giving him more rights than a dog should have. Don't make the same mistake. Be firm all the times. Each time we aren't, our Troti does only what he wants and doesn't listen. If we turn firm again, he turns obedient again. It's a tough work, but we love him. The picture shows you one of the moments we turned soft :).

First night at home

2012-01-21T14:39:00.002+02:00

We were all tired after a long day hoping to get some sleep and relax. The next day - on Sunday it was out last day of vacation and then back to work...

As I write these lines Troti is sleeping next to me on the couch. I look at him and can't believe where we are now. A smart dog, 16-kilos now, part of the family, well behaved (well, most of the times :)) who is now used to the car, to the TV, to the dish washer, to the vacuum, to the leash, to other dogs and loved by all of our neighbours. We can't image the house without him anymore.

Coming back to his first night. We put him in the balcony, gave him some food and went to bed to sleep. Can you believe it how naive we were? Taking a dog out of the countryside and expecting him to behave properly on his first day home, expecting him to sleep quietly where we put him? How silly we were...

Well, after 5 minutes while busy with the food, Troti remembered that he was alone in the balcony and that there was a door not allowing him to get out. Well, imagine what... he started crying, barking with his squeaky voice and scratching at the door. And this went on and on and on and on...

We went twice there to calm him down. He calmed down for 10 seconds and then it was on and on again, barking, crying and scratching, and scratching, and barking and crying...on and on and on...on decided not to do anything and let him calm down by himself.

It was 12 now. He was finally asleep.
A dog started barking outside. We were horrified that he might get up and start the scratching and barking and crying again... hopefully not - back to sleep...it was out last vacation day...

Then, suddenly, guess what...more barking in the balcony, and barking and barking...the dog wanted to get out. He had more stains to make and he wanted to be taken outside - the poor guy was telling us that he couldn't hold it for long...we were horrified - it was 5pm!!!!!

Ionut, my husband took him out, but he didn't reach far as he started doing his no. 1 business on a neighbour's carpet :( Oh, my GOD!! Then it was no.2 on the stairs of the first floor. He coundn't hold it until they were outside. So, imagine us at 5.15 am cleaning up the stairs in our block of flats and our neighbour's carpet. This is not working out I thought. We have to do something. This is NOT working out!

Imagining that we would be woken up every day at 5am and having to clean up after him after a sleepless night wasn't our dream of having a dog.

For now we decided to put him in the balcony again and go to sleep. He let us sleep until 7 am when the barking began again. He did his no.1 again on the neighbour's carpet then back to the house. When he saw us up he calmed down, lay on the carpet and went to sleep...

We were tired, angry, annoyed, thinking if this had been a good decision. We had a nice and calm life before, spending our week-ends watching movies, our house all nice and clean...now we were tired, the house was all messed up and we didn't know what to do next...no clue...

I'll be back with day 2 :) - our last vacation day.
Geo

First bath

2012-01-21T14:19:00.003+02:00

It was already 7pm on a Saturday. Troti's first day at home. He had just been brought from the countryside where he ran free. He was dirty and full of dust. We had to do something - so we decided to give him his first real bath.

Easier said than done. We seached for the shampoo in our vacation bag - remember it was our first day home returning from vacation. We had no dog shampoo, so our shampoo was just as good. For all you dog owners out there - don't do the same. We were desperate and had nothing else, but human shampoo is not advisable for dogs. Their skin has different properties than humans', so it's better to use dog shampoo only and as less often as you can. Once in 2-3 months is fine to give the dog a bath unless he runs out in the rain and gets very very dirty.

So Troti was placed in the tub. He was looking at us curiously at first trying to figure out what was coming next. We turned the water on and suddenly Troti became nervous, put his front paws on the tub edge and tried to get out. We forced him in telling him in a ferm voice to stay inside. He did, the poor thing, we started washing him and he started crying. He didn't like the bath. He still doesn't now, but now it's better because we do it a lot less often then back then. We washed him twice and he bore it looking at us with his cute round eyes hoping it will be done soon.

We spoke with him all the time to calm him and then it was finally over. I ran to get a towel to get him dry and ever since that towel became part of his personal items. Now he has many more than a cardboard box, a collar and a small towel given by my mother.

We were very brave. Two adults managed to handle a 3-kilo dog successfully :). We were so proud of ourselves :). We got him out of the tub all wrapped up in the towel, very happy and relieved (I mean us not him - he was still scared).

We got him dry somehow then allowed him to move around the house.
He started running like crazy all over the place because he wanted to get rid of the water. We managed to catch him and got him in the towel again. We calmed him down, put him again on the carpet and guess what - one more stain!!! The horror! This is getting too far I thought, all angry because I was very proud of my nice blue carpet. We have to do something about it - but what?

We had no idea, but as it was getting close to 10pm we had to figure out a place for him to sleep.
We put the cardboard box and a blanket in the balcony, shut the door and relaxed. We'll be ok, we thought. He'll sleep in the balcony for now and we'll see tomorrow. There were lots of newspapers on the nice carpet in the balcony, so he'll be ok for now.

We can go to sleep for now, we thought and we relaxed again preparing to go to bed, leaving the dog in the balcony. He has a glass door so he'll see inside and be fine, we thought again :)

Well, not so fast, guys...here comes a looooooong night.
Stay tuned...I'll be back,

Geo

First encounter with the carpet

2012-01-17T17:10:00.001+02:00

I will come back with more rules in my next postings. There are 38 rules in total, all great and useful.

Let me tell you now about Troti's first walk into our house.
We live on the second floor in a nice flat with carpets and great organza curtains. Well, one of them is not so great right now, but I will tell you about that later. We have a long way to go :)

We carried all bags up, Troti walked by himself with the leash (not very happy to have it, but we managed) and now we were all 3 in the house. What next? What next? Whaaaaat next?

Remember we had left for Austria 2 weeks earlier with no plan to come back home with a dog.
We had to find a spot for him.

While we were thinking, Troti - in love with the nice blue carpet - decided to make a nice dark-blue stain on it :) Guess what? He had too much water on the road. I freaked out!!! Oh My God! The cruel reality. I was just facing it only now!

What to do? I rushed him out to the balcony, layed down some newspapers and closed the door. He was staring at us through the window begging to get in. I rubbed the carpet with vinegar (I read somewhere that the smell has to be removed asap otherwise he will do it again on the exact same spot attracted by the smell). The horror! The cruel reality! I was tired already of having a dog and the poor thing was crying in the balcony to get in. The house was full of luggage, my carpet ruined, we had one more day of vacation and then what next? Oh, God! What have I got myself into?

We decided to let him inside again and guess what? One more stain!!
Vinegar again and dog in the balcony again!

For all pup owners - don't get mad on the pup for doing this. Up to 5-6 months they can't hold it for too long so they will reward you with stains every 15 minutes. Also, they have no idea they are not allowed to do it everywhere. So, buy dog pads - they are little absorbent blankets simillar to diapers and they cost about 0.3 EUR each, spread them all over the place where the dog will stay, a small fence helps hold the dog in a certain area and keep CALM. Very very calm.

I have always been an impulsive person getting angry very fast. After getting Troti and being with him for over 6 months I have learned to be calm, I have learned not to panic and more important not to care about material things so much. A living being is much more important than a carpet or some curtains. And the joy he brought to our house is much more valuable.

So, coming back to Troti being in the balcony - he was making too much noise so we let him in again. This time to give him a bath because he was too dirty to be in such a nice, clear town flat...So stay tuned for the bath experience...

Rule 5 - The same rules are applicable to all dogs and the same rule is applicable to one dog by all humans

2012-01-17T16:11:00.001+02:00

The dogs must be treated the same if there are more in the house. They must all have the same rights and rules to follow.

If there's only one dog, the same rule must be applied by all humans (like don't chew that shoe). Otherwise they learn to take advantage of the master that allows them more and is "nicer".

Rule 4 - All dogs in the house are part of the same pack

2012-01-17T16:08:00.001+02:00

Dogs must eat together, walk together, be treated the same when there are more than one in the house. If you keep the dogs separately, they will form two packs and fight when they meet.

Rule 3 - The pack leader is always calm

2012-01-17T16:06:00.001+02:00

The dog doesn't respect anger, fear, agressive attitude, panic, tension, instability, a master not sure what to do. The master must always be calm. Beating up the dog when naughty shows agression and the dog will fear but not respect that. Shouting at the dog won't make him obey and see you like his leader. Be calm and tell him in a ferm voice what to do. Use positive motivation as much as you can instead of violence and fear.

Rule 2 - The human always walks out of the house or a narrow space BEFORE the dog

2012-01-17T16:02:00.001+02:00

Any attempt from the dog to be first must be stopped. He comes out last, after the mother, the father, the baby in the stroller, etc.

Rule 1 - All members of the family are pack leaders for the dog/s in the house

2012-01-17T16:01:00.001+02:00

Dogs live in packs (check out Dog Whisperer Cesar Milan for detailed advice). They need a leader to follow. If the master doesn't act like a leader, they turn into the leader. All members of the family must act towards the dog like a leader. He must understand that everybody in the house is the leader, including babies.

How do we do this? By following next rules.

Tips for dog owners - for a well behaved pup

2012-01-17T15:57:00.000+02:00

Just before continuing our story - it gets better and better, I will stop for a while to give to all of you proud dog owners some tips that we found while searching the internet. They were published by PaulT, the administrator of animalutze.com, a forum in Romanian and they helped us a lot.

They show how you should deal with your dog to get him well behaved from a young age.
Making mistakes turns the dog into the master of the house. For Troti it was too soon to think of back then - we had much more stressful problems to cover, but I will stop and give you all these because I'm sure they will help.

With Troti we made some mistakes and we were able to fix them after reading the rules. His eyes made us allow him too much and he soon turned into a spoiled pup. So be careful not to do the same.These rules help. I will place them one by one here translated.

Second day and THE NAME

2012-01-17T15:49:00.001+02:00

We woke up early and the morning and rushed out to see how the dog was doing. My parents had already let him out of the tool shed and he was running aroung the yard happily.

As a responsible dog master I went to the shed to clean up the mess. Not a big considering how small he was. Just a broom and it was all out. No worries :). However, we were still in the countryside where it was all great - lots of grass for him to do his business and lots of space to throw all the mess out. No carpets, no forbidden things for him to chew or to get dirty. It was all cool. We had no idea what was next.

We started our day by debating upon a name. The name box in the Health book was still open, right?
Everybody came up with ideas - all sorts of names, short, long, funny, serious. My Mom was convinced that "Charlie" was the best for him. We couldn't agree. Pufi, Azor, Rex, Cutu, Duracell :) and we went on and on and on and on. The dog was obviously not helping.

We were preparing to leave in the afternoon for Iasi so we started packing. We had one more day of vacation (next day was Sunday) and then back to work. Sweet 2 week vacation was over :(

While packing and putting the bags into the car my husband came up with a brilliant idea of a name: TROTINEL!! In here trotineta means a 3 wheel bike for kids. It's something small and extremely cute so I agreed. His name will be Trotinel, the masculine version of the word of course. We wrote it down in the Health book and that was it. He was now the proud owner of one Health book, one collar, one bag of dry dog food and one large cardboard box. My Mom gave us before leaving a piece of blanket. Just for him to have his own blanket - a present from her.

We put everything into the car and the dog in his large cardboard box with his blanket on the back seat.
I decided to stay on the back seat too - just for him because he was a bit nervous seing himself alone there. We said good bye and we were off...

First collar, second ride on the car

2012-01-16T22:08:00.000+02:00

Done at the vet. Back on the car. Our dog was so relieved to be out of the vet's office that he fell asleep. The car was his home now. No more fear of the ride. Nothing. Just back to safety. We were there with him, no more fleas left. He must have sensed we were doing something good for him.

Well now, what is he lacking? A collar of course. Red, my husband said. He's black and a red collar will look great on him.

We stopped on the way at a supermarket to buy one. They were all so large for him...We got the smallest one, the size of a bracelet and put it on...still too large. Well, we'll have to pierce another hole and make it smaller. That's it for now. We'll do this back home. We also bought some dry dog food for him and back to the countryside.

We were trying to remember the vet's advice. There were so many things she told us... Here are a few: no milk - it gives the dog digestive problems, no cooked food, at least not yet, no bones, especially chicken bones - they break into small pieces that can pierce the dog's intenstines, no sweets - dogs can't process them and they get diabetes. Strictly his food for now and we'll see later.

Back in the countryside, we let him sleep. He was so tired after such a long day.

We put him in a smaller building close to the house where my parents keep their tools. 20 square metres, food, drink and a warm blanket. He didn't want anything more yet, so it was all fine.

That's how his first day with us ended. So, we have a dog!!!

First car ride and first visit at the vet

2012-01-16T21:45:00.001+02:00

So, we have a dog. Let's find a vet now. Taking the decision to keep him wasn't too easy, but his beautiful eyes convinced us.

We gave him a bath - using our shampoo. Not very clever, but considering how dirty he was, it was perfect for him. The water looked like we had been washing carpets soaked in mud. He was DIRTY after wandering for days in the wilderness. He was full of fleas and we hoped to get rid of some. Not a chance unfortunately. We had to do something more about it.

We started searching for a vet that would have the office open at 6pm on a Friday. Not too easy we thought, but not impossible. After 15 minutes of search on the internet with our phone and a phone call later we were on a 30 minute drive to Bacau. Remember, we were in the countryside and we had to go to the city.

We put the poor thing in a cardboard box, huge box for his small body of not even 3 kilos.
He was a bit scared, had no idea about what was going to happen to him, but he felt that it was the only way for him. It was either this or back to the mud. It was either us or hunger and cold.

It sounds so pathetic :) I know, but seing him now and remembering his first days, they seem so far away. We got on the car and drove to Bacau. It was his first drive. He was nervous during the first 10 minutes and then he fell asleep and it was all ok. He trusted us :) Since then, he loves car drives. It's one of the places he feels safe. So, taking a pup on rides while still young is a great way to get him used to the car.

The vet was great. It was a young nice lady very confident with him, who in about 20 minutes got rid of his fleas, ticks, gave him a pill for internal worms and a vaccine. All done. He was so scared that he went pee on the vet's table. She laughed, encouraged us and gave us plenty of advice. We still had no idea what was coming up next. All great so far :)

So now our dog had an oficial health card with a blank spot where it said "Name". Well, good question. How to name him?

First day - We have a DOG!!!!!

2012-01-16T21:21:00.002+02:00

Let's start our story.
August 2011. We were just returning from an amazing vacation in Austria and since we had a few more days left to enjoy, we decided to stop in Bacau at my parents' house in the countryside. Bacau is about 150 km far from Iasi where we live.

We spent 2 wonderful days with my parents and on the third, my dad went to the garden to get some fresh onions. It was around noon and as it was getting late and we were waiting for him to sit for lunch, I decided to go get him. Food was getting cold.

My Dad was sitting in the garden with a small, skinny and hungry little dog who was crying for food. In here unfortunately skinny, hungry dogs are a common site. I felt pity for the poor thing and went back home to fetch some food. Anything I could find. I told everybody that we had a dog in the garden. My husband and my brother quickly went with me to see him. He was so hungry that he wasn't able to eat the dry food. He could lick just the liquids.

We all prepared to go back into the yard for lunch. The dog was so happy that he followed us and wouldn't leave. We weren't trying to chase him away anyway, but he followed us like he was already part of the family.

Later on, we took him to the garden to take a walk - my husband and I - and I had a great idea: since we had just bought a house in the countryside, let's take him with us. We'll figure out what to do next. My parents agreed and everything was great. We had no idea what was coming next the following days.

We had been wishing for a dog for a long while, but we didn't have the courage to take such a responsibility since we live in a flat. The house is ok to live in for now only during summer.

So, the decision was taken. Mu husband was suspecting what was to come next, but he agreed to my asking and to the dog's eyes in the end. So we have a dog!! What's next?

Who is Troti?

2012-01-16T17:05:00.002+02:00

Troti (short for Trotinel) is our dog. He's 9 months old, doberman mix, found in the countryside in August 2011. Now he's part of the family.

What's the purpose of this blog? To show you step by step how we got him trained. The day we brought him home he made 4 great stains on the living room carpet (I guess you image the nature of the stains:)). He had no idea how to behave or how to "deal with us" :) Now he's family. I will take you there step by step, day by day telling you about the great dog who changed our lives.

Be back soon,
Geo