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.

[Traci -Bexter & Maggie]

This is hilarious!  I totally understand and feel your pain!  I think there is normal English language, then there is doggie language, and then there's guy language.  Too many barriers!

[F, Calla & Luca]

Amen to that.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

LOL, Laurie, thank you for making those of us who are without a significant other feel so much better about our solitary dog walks. ;-)

[Carol and Banjo]

OMD Laurie......Could it be some sort of virus???  The symptoms sound so similar!    No matter how many (thousands!) times I've told him the "words" to use for BASIC commands (for the sake of the dog...yes, the continuity thing!) he still insists on using whatever word(s) comes to mind.   At this point I've pretty much given up.  The only time I pipe in now is when Banjo's getting overly excited and going bonkers and DH is typically saying "Stop" "Stop" "Stop".....over and OVER and OVER again....I'll quietly tell him to say "Sit".....and lo and behold....the dog SITS and sanity is restored!   It's like a miracle every time....AND he STILL needs me to remind him.    (I wish I could count the number of "unraveled" rolls of poop bags I had stashed around here!  LOL! 

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

lol Laurie...too bad you live so far away because our DH's could sit and watch tv together and you and I could handle the dog training together because I have the same issues with my DH.  I just don't understand why it gets so complicated sometimes.  It must be that "Y" chromosome that makes dog training so difficult.  :)

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Holy Doodles Laurie.....you are singing my song.  Let me start by saying that I'm very lucky because my DH comes with on all training walks and sessions with Ben.  That said, the Doods do NOT take him seriously.  He's the "fun Dad"....just like he's always been with the kids.  Ben told me a couple of weeks ago that he only wants me to walk Murph.....hmmm.  Here's an example of what I mean.  Before each training walk I go through a whole mental exercise where I say to myself over and over "Murph will NOT react".  It gives me confidence.  Fast forward to us on the walk with an out-of-control dog on a retractable leash heading toward us.....that's when DH will say "watch out, he's going to go".  So much for the mantra and my confidence.  This week I told him that I knew he meant well but he had to "knock that off".  When I leave the house the boys position themselves by the front door and wait for me to come back....and they react by barking and lunging at the door to every passing walker, car or dog.  Ben (trainer) told DH that he can't allow this....it's part of their whole guarding thing where I'm concerned.  He told DH to put them in a down/stay in whatever room he was in.  His response was that "they won't listen to me".  The trainer had a response to that one....you can guess.  So, WTD is up with this?  I was looking forward to our DHs getting to know each other on the cruise, but now I'm rethinking that.  What if they get together to plan our demise after meeting some younger women who want no part of dogs....that would not be good.   Nahh...never mind...not going to happen.

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

DITTO-DITTO-DITTO!!!

ROFL-Victoria Stilltalking and Cesar Moron Perfect!

My saying off (the table) he's saying down He's tight leash and I'm loose leash. We went on our first 2 walks of the season TOGETHER and I vowed to say nothing! (at least until we got home:) ) so the neighbors don't know how crazy our house is!! I feel AWESOME knowing I'm not alone in this!!!!!!

[F, Calla & Luca]

No, what would we have to do? Turn in you DH to whom I am now related. It might be  a random dog snatcher who does you in. But luckily you're still around to amuse us. Some of us have managed to train, OK some people would argue that, two dogs on our own.

Adina, Natalie's power of speech is amazing. Concentrate on that not the content : )

[Adina P]

I just try to avoid too much talk about dog training in the house :-)  It's amazing how even when we agree that one specific overall method is best, the details are up for debate.  But kids vs. dogs...dogs are so far WAY easier I think because there is NO discussion and verbal reasoning required.  You just show them how to do stuff a bunch of times, then you have cool tools like leashes and collars to ensure they do those things.  Kids can actually argue back about which fridge magnets belong to who with logic like this: "I'm little, you're big, so the big magnets are for you and the little magnets are for me."  or  "The fly doesn't have a mouth so it can't say 'bye' to me."  Or when she just wants to practice disagreeing: "NO, you DON'T love me!"  My 2 y.o.'s argumentation skills are making me very afraid of the teenage years ahead.