Jett with her first grass in at least two months
There’s a new pooch in the family!
Please welcome Jett, the German shorthaired pointer mixed mutt. She started her known history when she checked into the Albuquerque shelter program back in March. At 6 months old now, that meant she had spent a third of her life in the shelter. She sat there in her tiny cell, much loved by the staff, but unable to find a new home because she was terrified and hunched away from the door where people would pass by. Two weeks ago today (that would be Mother’s Day) my mom informed me that she was going to see a dog. Uh oh. My mother. Checking out a dog. She has made it clear over the years that she is NOT a dog person. Something was up. So I packed up the basics I had left over from Link’s stash and headed north.
At the shelter I perused the pooches in their cells and how they each reacted to someone walking by. At the back of the long hall my mom stood sweet-talking a scared black and white lump named Joan Jett that wouldn’t really come close to the door at all. I figured she was a lost cause. I saw another dog about the same age just up the hall. We decided to let the little lump sit for a bit and take out the second one. Big mistake. That wasn’t going to work. But Mom wanted to see the lump. I conceded that it was okay to check.
I’m not sure how the dog catcher managed to get Joan Jett to walk to the meeting area. He probably had to carry her. But we fell in love with the scared little lump. She became mine and we went on our merry way. She traveled in the car wonderfully and back to the parents’ house we went. She didn’t really walk on the leash at this point, and had to be lifted in and pulled out of the car.
She started out glued to the ground. If she was afraid of it, and that was most of the world, she would lay down and shut down, unable to move. Into Link’s old harness she went so we could lift her up a little and start her brain working again. Fast forward to now and it’s been a week since she’s become a lump. Good girl.
Whoever had her before me had trained her to walk nicely on a leash and had most of house training done. She also will not lick my face (and usually not my hands), even if I’m an inch from her snoot! I detest licking, so this was a very nice surprise. What she was not trained at, courtesy of being in a cage so long, was not freaking at the world in general. This began my mission: introduce her to a world that was not as scary as she thought it was. Now, instead of shutting down, if she gets spooked by something she will go and investigate the offending scary thing. She LOVES car rides, so going the 90 minutes between houses is a breeze. Getting her back out of the car was originally difficult, but we’ve gotten over that. I still have to lift her 45 lb. fuzzy butt into the car since her underused back legs are too weak for the jump. She can scramble up, but it ain’t pretty. She’ll get there.
She got a bath that first week. She wasn’t happy about it, especially the moving table, but she did well. I didn’t dry her with the machine, but her coat is thin enough that a simple towel dry was fine. And it took exactly one minute for her to roll in the dirt once I got back to the house. White fur? Nah. Dust. This is her default secondary color. I wipe her down with a wet shop towel whenever she comes inside to keep some of it out of the house.
Now that she’s less afraid of…everything, she is officially turning into a teenager. Keepaway is her favorite form of responding to “come” when off of a lead. We’re working on that. Lowe's is my favorite spot inside to introduce her to new sights and smells. She now has “sit” understood pretty well, “down” is a work in progress, and “stay” has not started yet for some reason that I’m not sure of at this moment. She just now is getting the hang of fetch (“Get It!”) and give (which right now is doubled up with “leave it” which is already ingrained). It only works with her beloved duck and only inside. I desperately need her to understand Get It because she is a hunting dog. And a puppy. She she has ENERGY.
Note her favorite duck in her mouth as she sleeps
When she gets bored makes her displeasure known with the whining and the occasional yipping bark. Paper towels aren’t safe anywhere near her. When you want her to come to you while outside and she doesn’t want to stop playing, her response is to play keep-away-from-you till you give up and pay attention to her till she is tired or until you (I) manage to catch her and boot her butt back inside. Or I only let her outside without a lead if I have no interest in having her come in any time soon.
And I can’t bribe her effectively. She’s not food-motivated, though she does like the occasional hot dog or dog biscuit (in a pinch). She ignores peanut butter, sweet or plain. She will tolerate carrots sometimes. Squeaky toys she likes, but has no interest in doing what she’s doing to redirect her attention. I have found a dog food that doesn’t leave her allergic to it and biting her skin off though. I can use treats/puppy food to lure her pacman-style into going places or sniffing things I want her to do. Like go into the crate, which she was probably already partially trained to use with how easy it was to get her used to it. Or to use the dog door that is actually too short for her, though I did take off the flap for now. Trail of treats can work well, though I try not to use treats outside of recall and times when she needs to figure it out herself with just a little guidance or risk freaking herself out and the exercise backfiring.
And now that my body is up and down with no clue when it will be able to go for a walk, training her is my one way to tire her out effectively. She does love romping around outside alone, so she is getting some exercise, just not as much as she or I would like. I manage about one walk every other day. Not ideal at all. But she’s adapting to my needs. Such as zonking out in the living room when it is too darn hot to be outside. Or consistently playing outside for a while after she has breakfast at 6:30 in the morning. Sleeping through the night/showers in the crate is a plus too. Her teenage stubbornness and nippiness are being worked on. I had forgotten that 6 months starts the teenager time.
And yes, I was not sure about having a dog when this whole thing started. I’m still hoping that I have the physical and mental capabilities to keep up with a six-and-a-half-month-old high-energy and very smart pup. But she starts her weekly training classes on the 16th to get a whole bunch of learning in for both of us, and I am trying to get her up to speed on the skills I remember how to train to get a jump on the class. It will be money well spent, just like with Link.
And there you have it. Welcome Jett to the family. I’m sure you’ll be hearing about her a lot from here on out.
Our first Be-Backpacked Walk
