Ahhhh. I’ve been so lax about the Fergus365 because Dexter takes up SO MUCH of my time!!! It’s exhausting 🙁 but rewarding. 🙂
We’re still working on him not “marking” in the house. He’s doing better but I have to keep a constant eye on him … the second he’s out of my sight he “marks”. He won’t “mark” if I’m around so I’ve been hiding behind doors and walls in the hopes I can catch him and correct his behaviour.
It’s exhausting to have to make sure he’s with me every second of the day. It’s been really difficult to get things done around the house but now when I have something to do that requires my attention (like take bathe or make dinner) I stick him in the crate (he’s so good in there) and that lets me get my work done. It’s a real drag that he can’t be unsupervised without a diaper. I’m hoping this will change over time … but if you have any advice I would love to hear it. 🙂
As for his lunging at strangers, bikes and skateboards it is SO bad that I felt that I was never going to get a handle on it until Robert on Facebook suggested:
“A wooden cooking spoon and peanut butter. It looks weird at first but works like a charm. While walking the little guy whenever you see another dog just stick the spoon with the peanut butter in front of his nose and keep walking. Eventually you will be able to just hold the spoon in your hand and have him looking up while passing other dogs. No corrections, no tugging on the leash, no stress for both you and the little guy, just plain peanut butter goodness and who can say no to that?“
I didn’t have any peanut butter in my house so I thought about what Dexter is obsessed with and he can’t get enough of his tiny squeaker monkey. In fact it makes him so mental that I have to restrict his play time with it …
So now when we go for a walk I carry the monkey and whenever he starts to become interested in a bike or skateboard, etc I squeak the monkey and his attention is directed towards me and the monkey instead. IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM!!
Last night we walked by a group of people (one on a skateboard) and Dexter barely even looked at them. Huzzah!
Dexter is such a good boy … I hope we don’t have a hard time finding him a home. He needs a strong assertive person with lots of dog experience to handle all this crazy. 🙂
Tomorrow he and Fergus are going in for hair-cuts at Top-Dog. I can’t wait to see how they look all shampooed and groomed. 😉