Let Me Hear You Growl

So, I learned how to growl this past weekend-I know, quite an accomplishment! I can cross that one off my Bucket List! Seriously though, I never would have thought growling could be such an art. Purring, now that comes more natural but the growl-and not just any growl- an Alpha Dog growl- it comes from a place deep within!

Let's see if I can stop laughing at myself long enough to write this.....

I've had dogs my whole life and have always had a great relationship with them. Now I've got 2 puppies...I use the term puppies loosely here- one is 9 months old, the other 8 months and combined they weigh a whole lot more than me! Somewhere over the past month or so, I got booted from the alpha dog position in the pack. It wasn't an obvious shift in authority, there was no big meeting where they gently let me down and I walked away with my tail between my legs....no, this was a gradual-yet well planned demotion on their part.

It all started with that gentle placing of a paw on my knee or the nudge from a wet nose saying "pet me please" or perhaps it was the ringing of the bell to let me know they needed to go outside. Maybe it was the countless times they rolled unto their backs when I walked by wagging their tails so I would stop and give them a belly rub...perhaps I will never know where it began but I can tell you where it ended...

These pups are super smart! They learn so quickly and picked up on the basic obedience skills right away but then I hit this roadblock in their training so I called in a dog behavioral specialist/trainer this past weekend. That's when the light bulb went on and I figured out just how smart these 2 are! Turns out that they are experts in training humans! Go figure! As the trainer is going down the list of behaviors such as, when you open the door to go outside, who goes first, you or the dogs? Who goes down the stairs first, you or the dogs? When they nudge your arm, do you instantly pet them? When the dog rings the bell to go outside and you let him out just to have him bark to come back in a few seconds later...how many times do you actually get up and keep letting the dog out? (at this point I lowered my head in shame!)

So, apparently, the puppies have been training me to do whatever they want/need for quite some time now! When they want attention, I stop whatever I'm doing to hand out lots of love, when they want to make sure I know what to do when they ring the bell, they ring it over and over while I practice opening and closing the door, when they want to play catch or Frisbee and they pile all the Frisbees and tennis balls up under the tree instead of bringing them back to me, I walk over and gather them all up for the next round...I could keep going but I will spare myself further embarrassment! I quickly realized that they no longer viewed me as having leader qualities and they were prepping themselves to take over the alpha position. Before anymore work could be done, I needed to gain back their respect and take back my position as leader. That's when I learned how to growl!

Back to the trainer, there we are sitting around the kitchen table sharing stories about our pets when the trainer says-"let me hear you growl" Now for anyone reading this who knows me well enough to imagine my reaction-we're laughing together right about now! I don't want to give away all the trainers secrets...but in the end, within hours of working with my pups there was a huge difference in their behavior and I can say with confidence, I am once again the leader of this pack! My lessons learned this week..... 1. life is so much better when you can laugh at yourself,  2. it's without a doubt better when you have other people to laugh at yourself with and 3. when out in the yard with the dogs and they do something that requires a correction -next time check to make sure no neighbors are within earshot before letting out a really loud GROWL!!!