Last Saturday, Jan 8 '11, Michelle and I had the pleasure of meeting the special family who owns Nesbitt's Nursury in Prescott, WI.
http://www.nesbittsnursery.com/ We had stopped in about a month ago to enjoy this little oasis of shrubbery, shops, and good food and met Leah Nesbitt-Miller who was behind the counter that day. She showed us her 9 week old German Wirehaired Pointer puppy, Fritz, when she found out I was the owner of Walks & Wags Pet Service. As Fritz began to grow older, Leah and her husband, Sam Miller, began to realize that this was not going to be your sit-in-front-of-the-fireplace-on-the-rug type of dog. He was a handful to be sure.
The Miller's also have an 8 year old chow, lab, wolf mix named simply, "G", who is as sweet as Fritz is frisky. It seems that Fritz has found "G" to be an excellent chew toy, much to the chagrin of the Millers. He also needed some work on the structured walk as well as separation anxiety. None of these behaviors are in and of themselves abnormal for a puppy, but they had excalated to the point where the Miller's needed a little guidance.
I requested that anyone in the family who is with Fritz on a frequent basis be at this session so we could have everybody on the same page and in agreement with how this little guy was going to be raised. The family was very congenial and cooperative. I found them to be excellent students.
The corrections were fairly simple. First of all, we needed the right tool to walk Fritz with and on the 3rd try we all agreed that a small prong collar was the winner. It helped us to walk him with the control we needed and the ability to keep him from grabbing at the leash so he could carry it in his mouth, which is an act of dominance that needed to be eliminated.
We had to put Fritz in a 20 minute dominance ritual to get him to settle down and listen to us. We brought G over to him during this time and had him stand over Fritz so as to position G as a leader with us and regain some of his own dominance and dignity.
After Sam and Leah let Fritz up, Michelle and I demonstrated how to keep him off of G. With only a few "bites" from the fingers of our cupped hand, Fritz started to go around G rather than run into him for a tackle. When I stepped between Fritz and G gently taking G's collar and claiming him politely, Fritz looked up at me, backed away 3 steps and calmly laid down. It was a joy to see this puppy start to be able to share space with G without "hounding" him. All it took was some appropriate direction which is what our dogs need from us the most.
The solution I chose to ease the separation anxiety was to put an e-collar on Fritz during the day when he is in the back of the store while Leah, Sam and the rest of the family are working. That way as soon as they hear him start up the "I don't want to be out here alone" vocalizing, they simply have to press the remote and the stimulation that it will deliver to Fritz will re-direct his attention and settle him right down. When used properly, the e-collar can be just as much man's best friend as the dog himself!
We will be returning in 2 weeks for our follow up appointment to see how things are going, address a few more questions, and work on the obedience commands a bit more. I suggested an agility course be set up for Fritz to give hime something even more to do than the structured walk alone. All dogs need a job to be happy, but in the case of a very high energy guy like Fritz, an agility course can drain that extra energy both mentally and physically, thus making him more responsive to their commands and calmer in nature.
I saw an admirable amount of determination displayed by this family to make this situation work. At this point, I am optimistic.
Candiss DelCastillo
Walks & Wags Pet Service
Prescott, Wi
