Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog Read Free

medical condition that they did not want to disclose to us. He appeared to be healthy and seemed like a normal yet overly energetic year-and-a-half-old pup. He did not act ferocious, although some dogs do tend to show their true temperament under different circumstances.
    We asked some more specific questions, such as how he was with kids, dogs, men, women, etc. To all questions, she answered pretty much the same thing. He was “fine, never had a vicious episode, just a bit hyper.”
    We inquired about his behavior while he was on walks and how he acted in the car. She answered that she did not know as they never got the chance to take him for either.
    He was let out in their backyard but did not have the ability to run around at all to stretch his legs because there was no fence around the yard. On an average day, he was walked back there on a leash to do his business and then was immediately put back in the lonely and dark basement.
    After questioning her on the personality of this dog and wondering what his main issues were, we were still not seeing the entire picture. We pressed on a little more to solve the mystery. He was definitely an excitable dog, but we figured it was only because he was happy to see new people.
    She simply explained that they were giving him up because she and her husband worked long hours. It was difficult to entertain this dog after a long workday. In addition, he chewed a lot and jumped a lot.
    “He jumps on the kids. He jumps on company. He knows his commands but does not obey them. He eats a variety of things that he should not be eating.”
    She recalled how they came across him eating the children’s building blocks, crayons, and other objects they could not identify. He was a little wild and a lot out of control, so they had him on medication to calm him down—sort of like a puppy Prozac. He was a year and a half, still more or less a puppy.
    The puzzle was slowly beginning to get pieced together. A puppy locked in the basement for twelve lonely hours each day without any chance to run free or release his energy. Hmm, wouldn’t you have acted the same way?
    We were there long enough to take notice of their futile attempts at training techniques. When he jumped, they gave him a treat to get him down. When he mouthed us or anything else, they gave him a treat to remove his mouth.
    We recognized an immediate pattern. The owners did what they thought was right in getting Buddy to behave. What they did not count on was that this dog was highly intelligent and realized exactly what to do to get a treat. Knowing this, he did the things he got rewarded for doing: good or bad.
    Many unsuspecting owners might have done the same thing. It is a common mistake, and it happens all too often. You can’t fault someone if they are not used to dealing with an incredibly smart dog. The problem is that when a person tries to train an intelligent dog, the dog will easily learn how to manipulate any situation to get precisely whatever it is that they want.
    The hard truth is that a dog acts the way that it does because it was actually trained to behave in that manner. Most people cannot accept this fact, but it is true. If you’ve had a dog since it was a puppy, you are the only master, aside from its birth mother, that the dog has ever known.
    Unquestionably, this was the case with Buddy. He associated committing these bad behaviors with getting some yummy doggy treats! He was not necessarily a “bad” dog. He was just doing what he learned and interpreted in his little, intelligent mind to be “good” things.
    After a few more enjoyable moments of sitting on the cold floor with this charming, playful pup, we thanked the couple for allowing us to visit with Buddy and went on our way.
    Covered head to toe in dog hair and a good portion of doggy drool, we walked up the stairs and out of the house into the frigid December air. Buddy had been jumping and clinging to us on our way out, and we could still