Well we picked up Mori from the airport on Friday. First couple days he was precocious and all over the place.. Then last night he hit the wall and started showing insecurities. He's just past 15 months old. Was vacuuming in the house he's outside in the sun room.crate door open he didnt like the sound of that vacume and the loud radio station that dad had blaring.. Kept barking that alarm type bark, stayed in his crate. No major stress just kept telling me he didn't like it none.. So I get finished, and now he's starting to show these flighty fear points in his behavior.. Had me worried last night was watching him pretty closely.. Going to take it this is just one of those fear periods they go through.. I'll work him through it as always, just ignore it and gloss over it with my behavior. Pretend like I dont see it and pick him up with my praise and redirection of the behavior.. Not my first rodeo but its always the scary part of raising a pup, as this stuff can get ingrained so easy if your not careful.. Here is a video I took yesterday as I started my day..

https://plus.google.com/+MarkFerrasci/posts/Hg1NVBUtRdr

MF.

I have no experience in raising a young puppy so i can't comment anything useful but how cute!!!

 Quote: Mark Ferrasci

Well we picked up Mori from the airport on Friday. First couple days he was precocious and all over the place.. Then last night he hit the wall and started showing insecurities.
He's just past 15 MONTHS old.
Was vacuuming in the house he's outside in the sun room.crate door open he didnt like the sound of that vacume and the loud radio station that dad had blaring.. Kept barking that alarm type bark, stayed in his crate. No major stress just kept telling me he didn't like it none.. So I get finished, and now he's starting to show these flighty fear points in his behavior.. Had me worried last night was watching him pretty closely.. Going to take it this is just one of those fear periods they go through.. I'll work him through it as always, just ignore it and gloss over it with my behavior. Pretend like I dont see it and pick him up with my praise and redirection of the behavior.. Not my first rodeo but its always the scary part of raising a pup, as this stuff can get ingrained so easy if your not careful.. Here is a video I took yesterday as I started my day..

https://plus.google.com/+MarkFerrasci/posts/Hg1NVBUtRdr

MF.

Did you mean that he's "just past 15 WEEKS old" instead?

Thanks, just checking, MF

Ah yes.. Your correct, 15 weeks old.. Now that's what you call a freudian slip. ;-)

Much better day today with the little guy.. Though he is still showing signs, we have a handle on it now.. I'm working on separation anxiety at this point.. Making sure it doesn't set in. Got a great idea as I needed to be in the front yard planting a few plants this morning. I used the opportunity to start building on him getting used to me leaving, what I call the 'Separation' exercise.. As it leads into one of the big neurosis I see again and again with dogs.. "Separation Anxiety.," Or handler dependency.. The manifestation of this can lead to major problems and stress on dog and owner, if you let it set in and grow.. Knowing ahead of time the problem, I work right from the start to make sure it doesn' take hold and set in..

Today we are well on the way to growing his self-dependency in this regard.. I started by going out one gate and coming back in another one on the other side of the yard. Praise him, talk to him a bit, as I act like I'm busy, then leave out the other gate, then come through the house.. He didn't know where I was going to pop up next.. This gave him the confidence to start looking.. Ranging the yard losing his worry of the big bad scary yard.. I helped him with noise stimulation, whistling as I came in one side. Then slowly added more and more time in between popping back in.. Didn't take him too long to figure out, I would be coming back.. But where and on what side of the yard? From very short out's then pop back in on the other side of the yard. He soon figured it out.. After you get this started you just start adding time and being intermittent with how long you'r gone, and from where you return.. In the end it's creativity in training.. It's what makes it. If you can be imaginative and creative with how you teach and show him things within the rules of the game.. The game of conditioning is usually pretty simple, once you understand it, you can pretty much teach a dog to do anything.

In this case it's knowing a dog's nature and understanding what they go through at certain points in their development.. I expect this flighty puppy behavior right now.. But it's always a challenge to me in making sure, it doesn't set in like a scratch or groove in the record that you can't get out.. This is how I started yesterday's development leading into what I did today.. The stress of this might have been what developed his flighty fear manifestation, but we are getting through it..

https://plus.google.com/+MarkFerrasci/posts/ihSeRBiDH3y

MF.