I feel dumb admitting this, but I didn't realize puppyhood was going to be this intense for this long. At seven months, I thought Willa would be more dog than puppy. A little hyper and rough around the edges, sure, but I assumed that by now we'd be most of the way there.
That was a beautiful delusion. While in many ways she is fantastic--affectionate, smart, and cute as hell--she is in a particularly distracted and destructive phase right now, plus she's fast and really fucking strong.
I spend a lot of time chasing, correcting, redirecting, and sometimes simply throwing my hands up and walking away. Lately about the only time I feel like I am a good dog person in charge of a happy puppy is when we're running through her repertoire of tricks. We have sit, down, shake, high-five, and BANG! nailed down, and her crawl is almost there.
It's fun to work with the dog instead of against her. I can tell she likes it too; she's attentive and learns quickly. I figured this would be the perfect time to teach her the king daddy frat-boy trick of them all, one that would benefit Eric and me and our friends as well: I decided to teach the dog to fetch us a beer.
All the advice I read says to break the trick down to its components, then bring them together under one command. I decided to use "Do me a favor" in honor of my dad, who got a kick out of saying that to get me to bring him cans of Old Milwaukee when I was a kid.
I started by plugging a can of sparkling water into a koozie and getting the dog to take it. That part went great. She picked it right up.
Then she went apeshit bananas, racing around the backyard until she freed the koozie and trotted over to her favorite chewing spot to maul it.
We finally got the koozie away from her, and I thought I would try with just the can. That was ok for a minute too. Then she got excited and repeated the performance, settled down with the can, chewed a hole in the top, and took a big spray of carbonated water in the face.
So for my trouble we now have a dog who has a taste for koozies and won't go anywhere near canned beverages.
This was a terrible idea. I'll have to shelve my dream of having a dog who brings me drinks until she's more reliable. In the meantime, if anyone knows any fun tricks that have absolutely nothing to do with 1) the dog's teeth or 2) liquid, please share.