Farley and The Dog Whisperer

I had meant to do a few more postings in the last week, but I've been slug-like lazy, and haven't done a whole lot of anything.

One thing I did do was watch various episodes of The Dog Whisperer, trying to get some tips to solve at least some of Farley's behavioral issues. For those of you not familiar with the program, Cesar Millan is a professional dog trainer specializing in fixing the behavior of problem dogs. A lot of what he does is common sense, but some of it seemingly borders on magic. For those of you not familiar with Farley, he's a ball of love, but judging by the way he drags me around the neighborhood, he'd make a good sled dog on the Iditarod. I had tried a few things - calming him down and making him sit before carrying on with the walk; turning the other way when he starts pulling; just stopping when he starts pulling, but nothing was working consistently. Last night I say Cesar give an over-exuberant dog a mild kick with the back of his foot when the dog tried to pass him. The dog immediately backed off and walked without pulling. I tried it on Farley last night, and Hallelujah!!! It worked!!! I did it again this morning, refreshing Farley's memory with a slight nudge of my heel on his chest. No more pulling!

Now... if I can only get him to stop leaping on people when they come to the door; stop chewing baseball hats, shoes, pillows and anything else within reach; lunging at other dogs and small mammals on the street; realize that "come" is not optional; and a few other issues too numerous to list here.

I wonder if Cesar plans on doing a Seattle show anytime soon.

Oh, and belated Happy Birthday to Farley. He had his first birthday on Boxing Day! To mark the occasion, he's stopped peeing like a puppy, lifting his leg most of the time. My baby's growing up!