Well, Dexter was 1 on Saturday - happy birthday boy !! When does he stop being a puppy and I lose my constant excuse for his over exuberant behaviour ? Anyway, another opportunity to reflect on where we are. Started the birthday well, we were at the vets at 9am ..... Friday evening walk he came back with swelling on his chest and promptly threw up his dinner (something he has done very rarely), managed to ring the vet at 6.58pm before they closed at 7pm, had a chat and got an appointment for Saturday morning. When my son was fussing him Saturday morning he said "Dad, Dexter has a hard bit in the swelling". A closer examination (whilst being eaten as part of a game as he saw it) and I could see it was a tick (third one in the past 3 weeks) so called the vet and swapped to a nurse check due to the swelling, and thought she could remove this pesky beast from him (I did the others). Anyway, alls well that ends well and today the swelling has almost gone down and it only took 3 people to restrain him and remove the beastie, not that he is nasty, he just will not sit still and gets OTT. I suppose this really sums up where we are with him, lovely temperament, massively over friendly to anybody or any dog with an exuberant approach to life which means he is always on the go and charging around. This overspills into crossing the over excited threshold at the drop of a hat. 4 courses of puppy training and gun dog training have still left us with the worst behaved dog in class who you can train to do everything perfectly on his own but can't contain his excitement in those environments making it extremely hard work (and at times embarrassing), so for the moment I have stopped taking him and just doing work at home in the hope he will settle down a little more and then we will go back. His recall (via whistle, 1 peep stop, 3 for come back) is excellent even at distance, provided there are no dogs or other distractions when it is then far more variable and dependent on him deciding he does not want to lose us as we head rapidly in the opposite direction or hide ! In recent weeks as he has matured he is now marking continually when we are out for a walk as he has decided he is a big boy now (soon runs out of ammunition !) - he has not been neutered as not humping anything at home with just one incident with our friends neutered black Labrador who is always a victim apparently. My OH wants to get him "done" soon in the hope he may quieten down a little, but I would rather leave it to see how he behaves and only do so if he is antisocial. Read so many articles on this subject and strong feelings on both sides. I previously mentioned problems when we walk him together, well this has improved markedly but he does still have moments of madness leaping around us and separation anxiety is present if one of us goes into a shop etc. A new walking destination has helped as the large field is mostly fenced, no cyclists, rare runners and occasional walkers/dogs and we can mix it up walking off in opposite directions so loads of recall practise or walk together. In the past few weeks we have now graduated to leaving him loose in the lounge over night rather than crate him (he had started waking frequently) with no problems so far (seems more settled) and also when we go out for up to about 2 hours. One day a week I am away for 5 hours and have maintained leaving him in the crate as not sure how he may behave if he got bored over an extended period but maybe I will see what happens soon. After having him for 10 months, Dexter is a much loved member of the family and we cannot imagine a time without him, but he is a massive commitment and has been very hard work and challenged us to learn to develop and progress with him all the time. I hope at some point we are like all the other dog owners (well they can't all be well behaved can they) who trot along with their owners and behave well and settle etc. rather than having to apologise for him or prepare for the worst in each situation or avoid putting ourselves in difficult positions, but that is probably another year or more of hard work ahead of us at least !! But would we swap him - of course not .....
Aww happy birthday Dexter. I could have written that post for my girl,she sounds exactly like your boy! Lol
I follow your posts with great interest as we do indeed seem to have very similar challenges - keep up the good work !
Happy birthday Dexter! You sound a lot like my Loki. Have to say, neutering did not help Loki's behaviour and he still humps me when over excited. I stopped closing the door on his crate even when left alone during the day and he was not destructive at all. His destructiveness is always attention seeking, not boredom, so he simply doesn't do it when we're not there to react. It was only when I stopped shutting the door on his crate that he started going in there voluntarily. Obviously, I don't leave anything tempting or precious lying around for him.
Happy birthday Dexter! He sounds a lot like my Kyko especially the separation when walking together. He's 1 in 3 weeks & we have started noticing a difference in his behaviour much calmer than he was. He is the most chill dog I've ever known when at home & only us there, throw in a person or dog and he loses his mind. We are making progress on being able to walk past dogs with only a reaction to some & it's usually the ones who are barking at him that he reacts to. We share a garden with our neighbours dog Roger & the past few weeks Roger (he's pretty old) has been much more accepting of Kyko & can stand to be around him for longer than a few minutes & we're sure it's due to Kyko becoming less jumpy. In fact we looked after Roger for a while on Saturday & they both spent the whole time French kissing. I still have no confidence in Kyko's recall, don't think he'd run away & stay away but he charges off too fast & too far ahead & there's no getting him back if there's a dog there so for now he's on a long line
Happy Birthday, Dexter! Although not the best start to the day, and that must have been extremely stressful for you! You are doing a great job with him, and it sounds like he's definitely coming on leaps and bounds (sometimes literally ). Regarding neutering - you can find an evaluation of the evidence of whether or not this actually has an impact on behavior here: https://www.thelabradorsite.com/should-i-have-my-labrador-neutered-the-latest-evidence/ It's an interesting read, if you like that sort of thing!
