Surprise
On Monday I was sitting on the porch outside my room when the Senora of the house came up to me, holding a pillow in front of her.
She said she had something for me…a surprise. Â Sometimes she brings me some food or sweets that she has prepared too much of.
When she removed the pillow, what she had was a little round black ball of fur… a male puppy. Â She said that someone gave it to her on the street..they had three and they wanted to give her all three. She only brought home one. Â She said that the mother was a big dog…..
I fell in love instantly.
(Some background. Â We are working together to create a place for animals outside of town, and we had discussed the fact that we would need a dog or two to watch the place)
I have named him Buster, and from what I can tell, he is a black Labrador Retriever about 7 weeks old.
This pup is creating some challenges for me.
First, he is extremely difficult to photograph… he is all black so getting definition is difficult.
Ecuadog vs Gringodog
The biggest challenge will be cultural… the difference between an Ecuadorian dog and a Gringo dog.
Ecuadorian dogs run loose, are not very well trained ( if at all) and eat what is available…usually table scraps. Â The dogs on the street ( you can’t tell if they are street dogs or if they have homes) are usually wary of people, since the standard reaction to dogs here is to pick up a stone or a stick if one comes towards you or shows any interest in all towards you. Â Most dogs purpose or job is to act as watchdogs, or to keep vermin under control.
I want to have a well trained, healthy, friendly dog. Â This is going to require doing things locals are not used to seeing, such as walking on a lease and feeding a healthy diet. Â Since Buster is going to be big, it will also be a major challenge to keep him friendly but still wary of strangers. Â If he were to go bounding up to people the way I know some dogs do in Canada, he will be received with kicks, or worse.
I hope, for Buster’s sake, I am up to this training challenge.
Buster could do a lot worse than having you for his owner!
Training is not all that difficult. If you follow Caesar Milan’s theory you get the animal tired from play or running and then begin training and establishing yourself as pack leader-the Alpha Male.
Lots of tips on his web site: http://www.cesarsway.com
Good luck and keep us to date. Let me know if you figure out shooting an all back animal. I’m having a hec of a time trying to get decent photos of Biko
A puppy! What a great gift, and Labs are supposed to be very friendly. Regarding photographing black…I know what you mean. I had a horse that was a bay (brown). I had a really hard time getting the camera to focus on him. I can imagine black would be even worse!
I would make sure that he knows Spanish and English commands, that way if he is loose on the street and an Ecuadorian tells him to “stay” or something similar then Buster will know *hopefully* how to respond.
Just make sure you train him not to jump on people. When he is small it is cute but he will get big fast and you don’t want try teaching him later. A relative had a lab puppy that larger than I was as a child. When she wanted to play she had a tendency to jump on you. Once I had to go into the covered in blood from where she accidentally scratched while trying to play.
He is going to be a big dog by Ecuadorian standards, so I have been training him to stay down. The biggest problem is, he is head strong. A gentle no doesn’t work with him, but he is starting to get it.
He already has had access to small crowds of school kids comng to visit and he seems to stay really calm around all the kids…so there is hope for him 🙂