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When the Dog Breaks

My dog is broken. Really broken.

Well, hopefully she’s fixed now and just needs to heal.

But it’s tough. A year ago she was working searches – in the woods, on rubble piles, through the fields. She was running around being a kinda crazy Border Collie. And now? She is relegated to a crate. I carry her up and down stairs (note to self – the size of the dog when dealing with injuries is one strong motivation to stick with BCs instead of trying, say, a Dutch Shepherd)

She had arthrodesis surgery three weeks ago after months of dealing with a carpal injury. I know it was the right choice. But I’m worried. Worried that it won’t heal right. Worried that she’ll somehow injure the other front wrist. Worried that for some reason she won’t be able to be mostly “normal” after this. Worried that this will get fixed only to deal with more back issues.

I’m trying not to but I just can’t help it sometimes. I want her to enjoy life.

But for now, it’s one step at a time. Keep her calm, enforce rest. Crate and rotate her and the puppy since Tess just wants to wrestle. Get her bandaging changed every couple weeks. Check off the days and weeks until a X-ray will either relieve or confirm those “what if it doesn’t heal right?” fears in the back of my head.

She’s getting twice daily massages. She loves that sort of attention. At the very least it helps her attitude. At most it may help her stiff back. We’re also working on “hold” because it’s so easy to do just laying there. I think that she’ll be able to hold just about anything in her mouth by the time her exercise restrictions get lifted. She’s on drugs that help keep her happy and chill.

But this broken dog thing is tough.

 

 

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“But I want my dog to work for ME, not food”

Why? What is so important about feeding your ego that you can’t reward your dog with something meaningful to them?

I know, that sounds a bit harsh. But honestly, the title statement does, too. You’re the smart one in charge, you get to decide what to do and when, you get to choose what to train for. Your dog is kind of stuck with you and what you decide so why NOT add some value to it for them?

You’re going to ask them to control themselves and ignore their instincts. You’re going to require them to keep four on the floor when they’d rather be jumping. They’re going to have to “sit” or “come” when they REALLY want to chase the squirrel. And the world of scents that your dog reads like an open book and wants to investigate? They’ll need to often totally ignore them. That’s a mighty tall order. And just expecting a dog to do it for you from the get go is pretty amazing.

Now there are some dogs that happily work for you for the sake of working for you, for the sake of learning, for the interaction. My Missy was like that. It was incredibly cool and I don’t want to discount that type of dog. They do best with a person who is clear, concise and speaks “dog” very well. So you’d better be honing your interspecies language skills if you’re blessed to have a dog like that.

But for many dogs, food will make the learning process smoother as it adds value and interest for the them. It will make training easier and more exciting. It gives them a very tangible reason to focus on you. It makes what you’re requesting enjoyable. It allows you to mess up just a bit (because you will!) and still be motivating enough to your dog to stick it out and try again.

Your dog will be putting a lot more restraint, self control and work into figuring out what you want and doing it than you will. So why not use something in your training that they find to be naturally motivating?

I’ve started three out of four dogs out with generous amounts of food. We played games with it, I used it for rapid fire rewards, I pulled out high value food in new places to give them a simple, valuable, no think reason to focus on me.

Guess what? They all ended up working for me in time. Because behind the food I was a fair, benevolent person who was clear and consistent. I didn’t expect more from them than I did myself and I looked for ways to make what I wanted valuable to them.

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