Henry (the dog)

We had our first "real" customer stay with us for two weeks--a cute little Jack Russel mix (and brother to Ruby), Henry the dog. We call him "Henry the dog" for obvious reasons, with having our own little Henry here.

His issues were not as challenging as Molly's, but he had some housebreaking issues which I admit, were pretty challenging in itself. After witnessing a few accidents, it was apparent that Henry had excitement urination--which makes normal housebreaking that much harder.

The only way to help a dog get over excitement urination is to keep a calm environment. Not easy to do with five kids and two other dogs in the house! But by the time Henry left our house, I felt like his excitement urination was pretty much under control.

Other problems Henry suffered from was lack of leadership. Yep, I use the word "suffered" because the dogs truly do suffer with no leader to guide them.  They literally go a little crazy with no boundaries and too much excitement; always in trouble for something! In his excitement, he would constantly go after thing--much like the feather duster which he pulled out of the closet and proceeded to rip apart. We practiced boundary control using the feather duster---"boundary control" meaning that I am literally practicing guarding my possessions (yes, even something like a feather duster.) True, I could simply put the feather duster out of reach, but then the dog learns nothing about boundaries, and then he will just go after the next thing that he finds. Soon, Henry "submitted to the feather duster" and did not go after it. He became so relaxed that he even fell asleep with it under his chin! (I put the feather duster right next to him to help him practice his impulse control.)

He isn't guarding it, he submitted to it.

His last problem was his over-excitement with people and dogs. With dogs, Henry loves to play rough. There is nothing wrong with that as long as he has another dog that likes to play rough. Good thing he had little sister, Ruby, who knew how to put him in his place!

His bad manners got him a few corrections from Ace and Joey (and Ruby) and he eventually became a more polite dog. He even got so calm that Joey could tolerate him, which is huge, seeing that Joey is such a shy dog!

I will miss the fun play dates. I learned a lot watching dogs play and all the forms of communication that they do. Thankfully, I took a lot of videos so I can always look back!

And now, life is back to normal. As always after a long dog-stay, I don't mind a little bit of normalcy...until I'm ready for my next neurotic dog challenge. :-)