The Couple That Trains Two Doodles Together Does Not Want to Stay Together!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

My husband and I took our dogs for a training walk today and we are now “this close” to signing divorce papers.  We always start out with the best of intentions and then it all starts to go bad.  I can’t pinpoint exactly what the problem is, but my best guess is it is my husband.  After all, I have tried explaining to him that I have taken both dogs to their puppy classes, I read the DK training group’s advice religiously, and I have attended at least eight more group classes and more individual lessons than he has attended.  If that doesn’t make me a dog training expert, I don’t know what does, although I will say, it would help my case more if when I demonstrated my skills with Fudge and Vern, the dogs cooperated every single time.  I just hate when I show him something and admit it didn’t go as smoothly as it should have and he says something like, “Oh, I thought you were the expert and would probably write another volume in your book series and call it I’m a Complete Idiot about Dog Training. “ He uses that joke a lot, despite me telling him on several occasions that the correct name is The Complete Idiot’s Guide Books and they are self-help books written by experts to help ordinary people learn something new and not in fact, my autobiography or memoir. Usually he just laughs and says, “my mistake.”

 

What drives me nuts is he doesn’t say the same commands that I do, and I think consistency is the driving force behind obedience training.  I tell the dogs to come and he says, “here.”  I think he holds the leash too tightly and he thinks I allow too much leash when training.  He thinks I am constantly telling him what he is doing wrong and I think he is doing everything wrong and needs my help. Yesterday, he was running with Vern and yelled for him to sit.  WHAT?  All I did was say, “Can I give you a little tip?” and he got a little huffy and said, “sure, Victoria Stilltalking.” Well, two can resort to name calling and so I said, “look, Cesar Moron, (It was either that or Cesar Salad) how about you toss this idea around and ask yourself how Vern is supposed to sit on a dime when he has 90 pounds of momentum hot on his tail?”  I went on to tell him the sit command made no sense in that situation, but the walls were up by that point, and he just nodded his head and mumbled, “this entire walk is a bunch of sit.”

 

Seriously, we have raised two daughters together and I don’t remember ever fighting about disciplining those two, as much as we do about Fudge and Vern’s training.  In those days, we lived in a three-story townhouse and my husband did all his TV watching in the basement family room.  Since I was always on the middle floor, I was the parent who got to hear them carrying on when they were supposed to be going to sleep. I would hear them scurrying about overhead and fighting with each other and often I did my best parenting on those nights.  Usually, I would yell upstairs, “knock it off,” about fifteen times with no results, and then it would escalate to, “Dad is on his way up. Good luck you two. I have never seen him this mad,” which would work for a couple of minutes until they realized dad was still in the basement not moving and wishing he had remained single. At that point, I figured I had to get tougher with those two kids and I would open the basement door and scream, “Can’t you hear me yelling at your kids? I have been handling this all night and it is your turn IF you want to stay married!” Sometimes, because I knew he was down there weighing his options and giving it more thought than I felt it warranted, I would add, “but when I leave, I am not taking the kids!” and then we would all hear the sound of his recliner reverberating throughout the house, as he brought that chair back to a sitting position and stomped up those steps.  I loved that sound, because it never failed to turn our daughters into a couple of sniveling little obedient children, although I never understood that part, because all he did was march upstairs and yell,  “go to sleep or I am leaving and your mother is getting full custody.”  Usually, that was all it took for them to quiet down and when he came back down after laying down the law, I always thanked him for playing along with that whole leaving thing and he always said, “who’s playing?” Anyway, the point I am making is when we parented we were a cohesive unit, a well-oiled machine, he was my Yin and I was his Yang, and we realized it was us against them and “them” were either going to make or break us if we didn’t stand together.

 

Why isn’t dog training as easy for us as raising our children?  I guess it helps that we can talk to our kids, reason with them, and explain to them why they need to do something, and if that doesn’t work, threats and trickery can work, too.  With dogs they just have to do it because we said so and that is why how it is said has to be consistent. All I know is we have to figure this out soon, before one of us kills the other over Fudge and Vern’s training.  Just last week, I said to my husband that it is too bad I can’t clone myself and then my clone and I could work with the dogs and leave him out of the equation. He smiled and said it would even be better if I cloned myself over and over again and then he could knock off a few and no one would be the wiser.  With that said, if one day you hear about a woman found dead in a park in a sit position clutching an Idiot’s Guide to Dog Training Manual, two prong collars, an unraveled roll of poop bags, and a couple of long leashes, I think you know what you have to do.

[Kaytlin and Cooper]

what? No pictures this time Laurie?

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

F. Yea I figured IF ( a big IF) I ever get another it will be after I retire (5 more years) and have the time to do just that. Since Daisy never has a playmate, it's muddy outside and we do not have a fenced in yard I figure I will just let them have their fun, sort of like an extended sleep over for Daisy and vacation camp for Bella! :0)

[F, Calla & Luca]

@Lisa, Honestly it is like a herd of elephants if the doodles are excited, say if a wonderful treat is coming if they go upstairs and get on their beds. But my doodles never chase each other in the house and it's very rare that they play fight even for a moment in the house, or act up on leash. Without me doing much intervention, well maybe an occasional "Cut it out", when they were tots, they have the doodle wisdom to do all this in the yard. So if you got another they'd likely figure that out too.

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

Laurie, this seems somewhat appropriate for this blog.

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

I really love that someone else is living my nightmare dream marriage in the dog training chapter.

When we got Bella yesterday I said to him..."please, let's just get through this week without bickering you can walk Daisy I will handle Bella, I will feed and we both will play. I said all of this anticipating your very scene - LOL He agreed but between you, me and the lamp post we all know it's not going to happen.

PS, the two of them are doing pretty well together, but now that Bella is bigger it's like a heard of elephants going up and down the steps and running through the house playing chase. I seriously don't know how you handle two!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Ricki, Poor TaraBear being put in such a terrible situation :) I can just see her cocking her little head in your direction. LOL Why can't they just listen to us??

Nancy, Those men always stick together :) Thank you!

Joanne, You poor thing. Get some rest and hopefully, tomorrow in the mirror, you will just see you.....LOL!!!

Nicky, I love the "screaming like a banshee." One of my best ways to make my voice heard....LOL!!

Jane, If I had to guess, I think it is poor Stuart that might be going to doggy military school. LOL He is too cute to be bad :) I love their recent pictures...you have two handsome doodles!!

Jean, Thanks so much for your nice comment. I just figured OMS was Oh My Stars....LOL!

[Jean, Rylee and Cooper]

I meant to say OMD, sorry

[Jean, Rylee and Cooper]

OMS - you are soooo funny. I give you a lot of credit with all the training.  I can't even get my DH to walk with me because he thinks I do everything wrong.  It's a good excuse to get out of it.  I do the best I can with what training we have.  

Love reading your adventures, though!

[Jane, Rooney & Stuart]

OMD - too funny Laurie!  My dh doesn't even try to help train our boys - just not around enough, maybe a good thing huh?  The one thing he does is say "dow"n when went he should say if "off" - I can't get him to see the difference - lol.  Oh well.  I've got one dood that is nicely trained and one that needs to be shipped off to doggy military school. 

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

  I so love this and can totally empathize with this (though it is hilarious) We mainly do separate walks (now)...the trouble arises in the evening when Riley and partner start "playing" (ie undoing all my training) and I start screaming like a banshee LOL