Spring Has Sprung!
- haidinyak
- Mar 28, 2019
- 6 min read
A new season is upon us and another first for Zeus, his first spring! The warmer weather has been a nice change for our walks and now that Zeus is able to go out and play again we have been taking him a bit further and getting all that puppy energy out. He still doesn’t like getting ready for the walk, but once outside he is happy.
One thought I had is that maybe the harness isn’t comfortable. It is a little bit tight on his belly but is stretched as far as it can go (he is just growing too fast). Also the buckle currently sits right on his elbow and I think it makes walking a little awkward for him now, so a new harness will be in the future for us. We are looking at a different style of no-pull one that was recommended by other Olde English Bulldogge owners that have had great success with it. This will be our third harness since we brought Zeus home and another $44. The one we want to get is off of Amazon and so we had to make sure we measure Zeus first to get the right size sent to us. Our big guy measures in at: neck - 21", chest - 33", and height - 18". I am looking at the extra large Canine Equipment Ultimate Control Dog Harness, in red of course, so there is some adjustment if he grows some more. All of my dogs have their own colour theme and Zeus' is red. Ares happens to be green, and Titan was blue. This is the link to the harness and a video about how to use it.
Zeus still loves greeting everyone he sees and since getting him neutered he is also starting to enjoy the dogs he sees as well. There is a male puppy on our street that is one month younger, but the two have been playing a bit and getting on great! This is a huge relief as I was worried he would be aggressive towards other male dogs after what happened in his puppy class. I am so happy we did the neuter now and didn’t wait, and our vet did such an amazing job. The healing time was 3 full weeks but Zeus also did a great job letting himself heal, he didn’t once try to lick the wound and we never ended up needing to get him a cone. Now if you were to look you can barely tell where the incision was. We are so lucky to have such a good puppy!
It shocks me that at 8 months we still have not had an incident where something in the house was eaten, or he’s tried to dominate Ares or one of us, he’s never cried when left alone, never not gone in his crate (in fact he loves his crate and goes in on his own instead of sleeping in our bed), or not loved someone he’s just met. He is an amazing puppy and tries so hard to please his family. He's been such a good boy after his neuter we felt comfortable taking Zeus for his first dog park experience and of course he did great! He loved all the attention and loves he got from the people and he was very good meeting all the other dogs, even the ones off leash. He also showed us how amazing he is with kids. The other day we encountered a little girl, probably around the age of 7, and she wanted to pet Zeus. Well he just lay down and placed his head between his paws all the while looking up at the little girl with the cutest puppy dog eyes and he just let that little girl pet his head. Proud mom moment!
With spring all the little creatures have started to pop back up - squirrels, birds, chipmunks - and the great snow thaw has released lots of fun garbage that has started to blow nicely in the wind. Zeus has decided that these are the most fun to chase and so starts our next step in his training: Reactivity. As Zeus is now 69 lbs the pulling can be a little intense. We are trying to work with his loose leash training to see if we can get through to him before resorting to other training tools. The breeder we got Zeus from did warn us about this as her dogs chase squirrels and pull her at times. She uses a prong collar to help control her dogs, however I just can’t bring myself to do so. No judgement to those who do use them it is just a personal choice I have after talking with friends I have that work with the rescue organization we got Ares from. When we rescued Ares we had to sign a contract that specifically stated we would never use a prong or shock collar on him. This really struck home with me once I started to research them more and so I have to believe there is another way for us to help train Zeus. If I can do it with a 180 pounds of dog, I’m sure we can manage with one at 69 pounds. So basically if he pulls we stop going forward and Zeus has to come back and sit beside us with the leash loose at our side. This works great…until we start going again then he rushes towards the moving object. He is also very focused so we are working on trying to break that as well. A work in progress, and in just a few weeks he is starting to get better, but those pesky birds are just so fun to chase. He has not let us down yet with training so we are staying positive going forward.
With our spring weather the ground has also started to thaw. This is what I fondly like to call “No more dogs in the backyard” season as this breed has lovely large and wide paws that especially like to track the mud in the house. We have been working with Zeus to train him to wait on the rug while we wipe his paws. At first he did not like this and would bite at the towel, but with constant insistence from mom he has started to accept this spring rule. It helps that he sees Ares do this, thank goodness. Both dogs love to play together after their walks but unfortunately the play has been moved inside to combat the mud issues. Zeus loves to play chicken with Ares and runs from the dining room to the living room and back. Both dogs make a lot of noise but tails are wagging and no injuries occur and the end result is some very happy puppies.
We are also working on more at home training with Zeus as he is a very smart boy. I have started to teach him commands in German as well as English and we are trying to throw in a few new tricks as well. Zeus has finally also learned the command “Paw” and I am so excited this finally got through to him as we have been trying since puppy classes! Remember, this is a stubborn breed. However, once he found out how happy we were and that it got him a treat he is using paw for everything. He wants a pet, PAW. He wants some of our food, PAW. He wants us to play, PAW. In a way this reminds me of my in-laws dog Bear. He was the sweetest dog and always gave a paw to you, like he wanted you to hold his hand. In a way it feels like Bear is living on through Zeus a little bit, so I don’t want to stop the behavior, but we are working on timing and boundaries.
Paw video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PndFQUFgZ8s
Second paw video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEMHX92u7hI
The next big and exciting step for Zeus will be his first festival coming up in a few weeks. He has been doing so well with training and socializing that we decided to take him to Pet Expo 2019. It takes place in Mississauga and is one of the largest pet festivals in Toronto where you can actually bring your animal along. An adventure day that I'm sure he will enjoy and I will make sure to blog about and post lots of photos. If you want to come along we would love to see you there and Zeus would love to give you lots of cuddles! Let us know if you can join!
Enjoy some photos of what Zeus has been up to since the last blog post!
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