9.03.2009

Hormones... fun...

Last night was *not* Dexter's best... by any stretch of the imagination! We had our BRAG class, and I also tried to run him on a standard course at Mary's, since we have the trial coming up in a month. Well, he was being uber obnoxious to begin with... for the prior 24 hours, he had just been making these ridiculous whining noises (what he considers to be his sexy noises) at Panic. Now, not *one* female has *actually* found these noises to be sexy, but he persists anyway. He has never tried to woo Panic before, and needless to say, his attempts were fruitless and resulted in her trying to ignore him, and eventually telling him off. So, that was weird. Then, at Mary's class, he was being super neurotic. Between whining like that at Neat, and just trembling all over with excitement, etc.... just being a big weirdo! So I started him on the course, and actually he was doing *great*! But then we came to a tunnel/Aframe discrim, and he had a hard time with it (because it was too much for a baby dog) and he shut down. Like, literally froze and I couldn't get him to do anything else. Oooookay.

So, then we went to BRAG class. He is of course still acting like a nutso whining about Fada. We have *never* had a problem with him running while Fada is running. He is determined though that this is the night to win her over finally! So, instead of running our sequence, he would do a few obstacles then stop and stare, oh so lovingly, in her direction. And then take off towards her. It was aggravating! But, we treated him like a baby dog and just rewarded him after each obstacle... and he did really get better as the night went on, but he was still very distracted.

So, what are we going to do with this? He is not going to be allowed to get away with some of the BS we let him get away with anymore... such as the whining and trying to be cute with Panic... he's got to learn that being so horny all the time is NOT ok! Even though it *is* a little cute. So we'll see how that goes.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like he's become a "teenager". Take heart, he will get calmer as he gets older and the hormones level out. While you can't let him get away with being obnoxious, consider that he's up against some really powerful drives and it will take some time for him to learn to control them. The girls telling him off will help alot...eventually.

Lianne Martin said...

Thanks Brenda - yeah we hit a hormonal period probably 4 or so months ago, and I thought that was it :) You can tell I've never had an intact male before!! I know he will get better... sometimes I wish Neat really would bite him (nip him) though instead of just making nasty faces at him! I'm not sure he really gets that they don't love it lol.