When you look into a little hunting puppy’s eyes, one that you have just brought home, a little shivering bundle of promise, torn away rather unceremoniously from his eight-week old world, yet oddly trusting that life with you will be the best thing that could have happened to him, it’s hard to not feel a little emotional. The human equivalent of what just happened to the pup would be unimaginably sad. But quickly the little munchkin shows you that you need not worry. He is here with you now, life is good, let’s get going!
A whirlwind two weeks have passed since we picked him up. It took us a week to settle on a name, but it is official now: meet Loki!
The first night was a little rough. He howled for a while, probably an hour, and my presence on a mattress next to his crate did nothing to alleviate his sorrow. I slept next to him for a week, but after three nights he went into the crate quietly, and the first night that I moved upstairs he didn’t whimper or whine for seven glorious hours. That’s about where we still are. I think he is up with the first crack of daylight so Daylight Saving Time is timed well this year.
The first few days we just let him adjust, and took him out for short walks. Our old dog Teeko wanted nothing to do with him, and still doesn’t, but Loki keeps trying. We need to separate them from time to time as the old guy’s knees are not up to enthusiastic puppy attention.
“Sit”, “Here”, “Pillow” and “No”, are the only commands we’ve been using. The first three go fairly well, especially when he knows food is on hand. The “No!” command, well, sometimes it works, but often it needs repeating. There are just too many fun things that need trying!
He had two visits with his sibling Purdey (formerly known as “I am Bulletproof”), and got acquainted with horses, and their tasty excrement.
We spent a few walks on getting used to cars driving by, and watching school busses come up the hill, something we need to continue doing. He’s improved lots already since that first scary encounter. Being a passenger in our vehicles is going very well, we’ve had several trips. He doesn’t particularly love being put into his kennel, but he’s accepting now.
I’ve had a grouse and a duck wing out in the field, and he worked the wind like a champ. He’s not shy about taking those into his mouth, and, if left unchecked, would certainly eat them.
People still puzzle him a bit, he is very cautious when he sees unfamiliar faces, but if the human party is understanding and patient, he quickly warms up to them. With the COVID restrictions it just isn’t as easy to line up a good variety of meetings, but we take every chance encounter we can get.
Today, the two-week point in our relationship, we celebrated with a big trip out to the sporting clays range, about an hour’s drive from here. On a nice day like today, it was packed with shooters. We stopped about half a mile from the trap stations, and just went for a little walk. No problem. Then we closed the distance to about a quarter mile, and did some “sit” and “here” drills, involving some good treats. All was well. I think I was more bothered by the blasts than Loki was. Next stop was across from the parking lot. He was not bothered at all, so I decided to walk up the drive. All trap stations and two of the skeet stations were occupied. Still good. At the back of the club house we met a friendly gentleman, who gave him some good attention. That sealed the deal; Loki didn’t want to leave. He met a few more friendly people, and we walked around the club house, bringing us within some 35 yards of active shooting stations. Still no reaction to the shots at all. A very good introduction to gun fire, I think.
That leaves house training. He doesn’t pee in the house if we take him out every hour, but I’m convinced that the concept of peeing out on the backroad instead of in many much more convenient places has not yet sunk in.
I think it was the evening of day three when he first crawled into my lap, and settled in for his nap. Possibly I have been found worthy. Now, if only I can manage to not disappoint him.
F