| Lutro does tend to take advantage of our amusement and amazement of his language skills, of course. ;-) He knows that if he can make me laugh, he can usually get his own way...and he is quite good at making me laugh. I remember one night when he wanted up on the bed...we were watching a movie, and my roommate had the crazy notion that we should be able to watch it without any dog body parts in the way. ;-) Lutro handled this conflict by gliding the side of his body along the bed, while distracting my roommate with his kissy tongue. As my roomie petted the front end of him, Lutro cautiously edged a rear foot up onto the bed...slowly followed by a good portion of his hindquarters. He flashed us his mischievous, laughing grin...and we followed suit. He stayed. (Yeah, I know, it's "letting him gain rank", increase his status, etc. ;) But the beauty of Lutro is that if we had pushed him off, he'd have gone off with a smile. "Ahh well, I! tried." We do tend to enjoy liberties with 'Tro that we would not allow a more dominant dog.) |
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| Now, all dogs have their bad points, and 'Tro is no exception...we live in the country, and he doesn't see alot of other dogs. So, when we are out and we do encounter strange dogs, he has the "wonderful" shepherd tendency to puff up like a plush porcupine, huff, growl, & bark ...just to let the stranger dog know how tough he is. :-/ |
| If I tell him to sit, he will; and although I feel like an idiot, blocking his line of sight with my body as we wait for the other dog to pass, I guess it could be a whole lot worse. That little feature is the only real problem we've ever had with this kid. (Well, except for the way he jumps on the sliding glass door and cries if I go outside without him...we have it rough, huh? ;-) I suppose some lines of shepherd could result in a more difficult to handle dog, but 'Tro's shepherd background is all Schutzhund titled dogs, and he still manages to balance whatever protective instincts he may have, without going "over the top". |
| commands, and teach him good house manners and the self-control that allows for those manners. The young age at which we brought him home had plenty of advantages...but it also meant extra work for us, accounting for the things he needed to learn in early puppyhood. I had the pleasure of meeting a few of his siblings at around a year of age, and as they were raised quite differently (left with their own kind and not taken out much), they turned out much shyer and more wolflike in behaviour, even though I could see the sweet and loving Lutro-like spirit beneath--in their case, reserved only for their special human. |
| The froggy-legs bed position. <g> |
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| Of course, no matter how good a cross is, genetically...you need to raise a pup according to what you want to get out of it. We wanted Lutro to be able to "do it all"--so we were careful to get him out often, take him on road trips whenever possible, let him play with young children and friendly strangers, get him accustomed to all sorts of handling and restraint, work on basic |