All I Need to Know in Marriage and Motherhood, I Learned from My Dog Trainer-
A progressive revelation of life and dogs

Step One: Admit It

I am not sure how it happened. I am not certain of the time and place that I lost control f my home. I will tell you this: the evening before I gave in and placed a phone call to my current dog trainer, I walked into the kitchen to find, Max, our family’s “gia - normous” Yorkshire terrier on top of the counter high kitchen table attempting to wrestle a hot dog from my four year old. One end of said hot dog was in each of their mouths and the four year old was attempting to scream through gritted teeth at Max, who in turn was in a full hind-end-down pull position. I stood frozen attempting to process the hot dog war in front of me. “Impossible “ I thought. It is official. I’ve lost control. I need help”

Max has been a part of our family for the last six years. If it was not for his furry little Ewok face he would never have survived my husband. Bad dog? You have no idea.
We purchased Max from a reputable breeder. We are cursed with bad dog luck and our older (adopted) sheep dog, Oberon, had to be put down. He was no walk in the park either. Think “Clifford”. His ever- growing intimidating size gave way to his ever growing intimidating grouchiness. After he chased the neighbor up on top of his truck, decided to rip of a man’s pant leg (I guess he didn’t like him), herd the babysitter subsequently sequestering her on top of the couch ( despite her teary screams, the kids were asleep and could not rescue her ) , and finally “nip” a kid on the bottom ( guess he didn’t like the kid either), the vet urged us to put him down. He was an aggression time bomb. Oberon spent his last day happily devouring a Honey Baked Ham bone. My husband loaded the 120 pound “unpredictable and aggressive” sheep dog into the Suburban and stayed by his side as he crossed the “Rainbow Bridge”. I have to say, that was a very sad day. But the vet assured us it was the right thing to do in face of Obie’s increasing random aggression.

Eight months and two attempts at Old English Sheepdog foster rescue , a houseful of urine stained carpet ( should never have gotten the white Laura Ashley ) and two sad and puppy needing kids later, we found Max. Finally! a dog of our own. A designer dog at that! A sweet little dog our kids could grow up with and better yet, he was “ on clearance” from the breeder.!! Sadly, Max’s teacup champion bloodline parents were 1-3 pounds. At six weeks, Max was tipping the scale at 4 pounds. Not teacup material.

But he was ADORABLE. Truly, he was like a little four legged Ewok. A stuffed animal (the floppy kind!) come to life. The day Max came home was an exciting one. We were ready! Armed with smiles and love and arms, we couldn’t wait for Max . All the research was done! We found the newest furry addition to or family and he was about one fifteenth the size of Oberon… how could we go wrong?

The breeder sent a puppy packet and lists of instructions and directions. Do you know the number one cause of Yorkie puppies’ death is falling out of an open car door? Concussion. Number two is being squeezed to hard or being dropped by small children. Suffocation and concussion respectively. Do you know that small breed puppies need to be fed often? They could go in hypoglycemic shock. But these things aside, our home with two small children and a Suburban, was perfect for Max.

Who could have told me that that mostly sweet puppy (he refused to be crate trained, chewed and destroyed, yapped incessantly, ran away frequently, was a bed hog) Max, would take over my life? The hot dog incident was proof. I was out of my league. As the Trainer commented on his first visit, Max had “taken over and was running” our house.
Max only came when he felt like it, walked himself when he felt like it, barked incessantly when he felt like it, ate when and where he felt like it, slept where he felt like it and recently peed where he felt like it ( most often on the living room couches and carpet). Max was out of control. I had no control. This wasn’t behavior training, this was crisis triage!

stay tuned for more!...