Week 5: I Can See You Now

It has been a whole month since we have braved the endless autobahn – twice; and since we have crossed five countries there and back to bring Cody home with us. 

Hold up, only a month? Really? That can’t be right. It seems like there is so much already behind us. How could all that possibly fit into five weeks? Or does it seem longer because January feels like every day is Groundhog Day?

At last, here we are in February at last. We are buzzing because we are entering February on the back of an extremely positive week with Cody. You read that right. 

We had a week of much less wee wiping, poo scanning and of a lot of more big meaningful wins. 

I am so pleased to share an entry like this. I imagine some of my puppy clients have been reading the previous entries thinking: OMG, if the trainer is struggling, what are we supposed to feel like? Answer is: hopeful!

The light at the end of the tunnel themed chapter of Cody’s Diary! Let’s ride off into the sunset together this weekend.

I have started the week at the kennels checking in on training needs of some oldies and newbies of All Dogs Matter. Cody stayed behind at home with Tristan none the wiser that he was sharing me with other doggies. The horror! When I got back, the dogs in my house had magically multiplied. Cody had a friend over. Rouge decided she can tolerate him for a couple of hours in exchange for shameless treato-bribery. 

He still finds it difficult to settle down when he has a friend nearby. It is caused by the well-known Entlebucher ‘FOMO’ which is nearly as powerful as the ‘I cannot be five feet away from you even when we occupy the same space’. I can imagine a lot of other dog owners of various breeds think their dogs are also like that. Probably, to a degree, yes. I dare say though that the intensity of the attachment of the Entlebucher has no known competition. Entlebucher owners reading this say: aye. An entlebucher’s bond to his primary carer can only compare to that of a human and their dæmon in Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy. The process of severing the bond between a human and a dæmon described in the books, is the closest you can come to an accurate depiction of the pain of losing an Entlebucher you are bonded to. Even more so when you lose them unexpectedly, like we lost Tilly. 

Their power of infusing joy into every hour of every day is one of the reasons we wanted to stick with our beloved breed when we chose to bring Cody into our life. Even through the puppyhood challenges, he has already reminded us, time and time again, what wonderful, hilarious and loving dogs they are. 

Whoops, I have slightly digressed there, please accept my apologies. We are getting much closer to the one-year anniversary of losing our Tilly so my thoughts dwell on her much more these days. 

To our immense joy, Cody plays with Rou the same way Tilly did. The kind of play you allow because you know the dogs’ every move and their love language. They went from slightly heavy mouthy play where Rou was giving Cody a few well-timed manners pointers to gentle a mouthing marathon on the sofa. After a few hours, Cody finally decided his fatigue was stronger than his FOMO and curled up into a puppy croissant on the floor. 

We have worked on a lot of training this week as Cody’s tummy has improved and so has his appetite and motivation. On Tuesday, we tried a little bit of free shaping which was incredibly encouraging for us both. We have successfully moved onto the clicker and Cody shaped himself into sitting inside an Amazon box. He has also tried to gatecrash my zoom puppy class as it conveniently coincided with his zoomies schedule but luckily, he was well supervised by Tristan and most of the disruptions were averted. 

We still enjoy some semblance of a witching hour, but it no longer falls onto the same time of the day and rarely lasts for the same amount of time. Even when he is at his ‘worst’, we know it has something to do with his teeth or some other puppyhood related challenge. On Thursday, I was in an IMDT online course and for the first part of the morning, Cody was nothing but a pain in my rear. In his defence, he also was in pain himself. We played a little bit of gentle tug and suddenly there was blood on the toy. Doc Mish administered a nice cold carrot and before my lunch break was over, I heard a soft clink and a little premolar was lying on the floor! On Friday evening, Cody was back at it, whining and unable to settle anywhere, sticking his nose between the sofa cushions for a little gum relief. Once his one dog zoom performance was over, we have had the pleasure of finding not just one but three puppy teeth!

We are almost there! He looks a little bit like a hairy granny now with so many teeth missing but oh boy is he calmer and sweeter. We have had so much reprieve this week from what previously seemed like an endless onslaught of piranha assaults. 

Hey, puppy teething people, it does get better! Hold tight.

That’s just the teeth; I haven’t even told you about how good his bladder is! Yes, I am aware that not everyone writes sentences like this with such joy. We have had our young man sleep for a full eight hours until the morning and if my math does not fail me, we have nearly one a week of no accidents. Cody is finally becoming a proper city dog who pees on all permitted outside surfaces and barks at people who wear their trousers a little too low. 

Tristan and I are taking full credit for the former, since we have prevailed with the training against all odds, to ensure we do not raise a puppy who can only pee on grass. It was hard but it did not take that long. It just felt long. To wrap it all up into a nice toilet themed gift basket with a poop bag roll bow on top, I would like to announce that Cody started cocking his leg. Big boy stuff. 

I would also like to share that Cody and Tristan are the cutest buddy duo and seeing them together always makes me much happier no matter what day I am having. Tristan showers Cody with kisses while always finding a way of reminding him that he has a willy. This week the boys have started dropping me off at the gym every morning. This is to get Cody further out on their morning walks and also to get him used to me leaving him in other places than home. He is doing well with it despite his classic Entlebucher ‘velcro-ness’. I credit Tristan’s endless patience and endurance for this too.

This week marked the first time I began to see the dog Cody is becoming. The dog that one day will not care about every other dog passing by and won’t necessarily like every person he meets but will still follow me to the bathroom and bark into my foot like it’s a microphone.

I think Cody’s personal highlights this week would be the adorable naps with Tristan he had nearly every day, the heaps of play, treats and cuddles and the fuss he got from so many different people in our neighbourhood. I think he would rate this week five paws. 

I hope next week is just as good. Maybe with Cody being a little less lazy. 

One can hope, ha!