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I wanted to make a thread to let the people who helped me name Roosevelt and gave me advice for socializing him know how he's doing. Sorry I disappeared, I just got caught up in things.
He's doing great! I think it was right after the last post I made about him that I canceled his class with the bad training place and was able to get him into a class at the awesome training place in my area, which was previously unavailable. It was an enormous relief because they were such total pros, and knew exactly what to do. All my instincts were confirmed about the first place.
He needed to build confidence with strange dogs, especially larger ones, and we were able to do that in a controlled environment. At this point I probably won't ever be taking him the dogpark, but he does have bigger buddies and is able to run around and play in groups of well-behaved dogs without sticking to me like glue and getting anxious and growly.
He had/has a lot of issues that I now think of as part of the puppymill-petshop constellation of traits, like hating to be alone, not really knowing how to play with toys (other than fetch, which he pretty much immediately got), being beyond velcro, being harder-than-average to housetrain to perfection, being poorly socialized and very nervous in new environments, and others. He's a lot more confident and acts more normal now, which has only made me realize just how anxious he was before. He'll probably always be on the needy side, but he's getting happier and more relaxed.
He has no health issues, which is lucky. He's due for his first surgery -- neutering -- so wish him luck!
Sorry, no pictures right now.
My crappy old camera finally broke.
He's doing great! I think it was right after the last post I made about him that I canceled his class with the bad training place and was able to get him into a class at the awesome training place in my area, which was previously unavailable. It was an enormous relief because they were such total pros, and knew exactly what to do. All my instincts were confirmed about the first place.
He needed to build confidence with strange dogs, especially larger ones, and we were able to do that in a controlled environment. At this point I probably won't ever be taking him the dogpark, but he does have bigger buddies and is able to run around and play in groups of well-behaved dogs without sticking to me like glue and getting anxious and growly.
He had/has a lot of issues that I now think of as part of the puppymill-petshop constellation of traits, like hating to be alone, not really knowing how to play with toys (other than fetch, which he pretty much immediately got), being beyond velcro, being harder-than-average to housetrain to perfection, being poorly socialized and very nervous in new environments, and others. He's a lot more confident and acts more normal now, which has only made me realize just how anxious he was before. He'll probably always be on the needy side, but he's getting happier and more relaxed.
He has no health issues, which is lucky. He's due for his first surgery -- neutering -- so wish him luck!
Sorry, no pictures right now.
My crappy old camera finally broke.
