Week 1 (6 weeks old)

This pup was to be clicker trained and free shaped where possible. (See my main website for clicker details.)

Louis learned to sit on a hand signal on day two, and then to lie down the day after. He also learned to ‘touch’, ‘stay’ and self control (where food/toys come to him if he is quiet and patient). My immediate observation was that he had a longer attention span than most pups this age, and he loves! his food. Training was easy and he got the idea very very quickly.

On day 3 Louis went to the vet for a health check and got the all clear, although he was small for his age, he was in proportion and not underweight.

By day 4 Louis was happy to run on the ground outside and venture a little way away from me at the park. He was also sleeping the whole night through, although I was waking him up to toilet just in case.

Just short of being with us a week, he got his first chicken wing. I crated him and left him alone, no dogs present so he could take his time. I was on the computer and heard a strange noise coming from my bedroom. Going to take a look, I watched him look up at the curtains, which were slightly moving with the open window, as they did he growled at them and continued chewing away. I went to take the chicken wing and he growled at me and ran around the crate avoiding my hand. Now I had been waiting for this behaviour, but never in a million years would had I thought it would be displayed at such a young age! I laughed and went to the kitchen to get some ham. I sat for over 20 mins swapping the wing for ham, and then handing it back again until I could take the chicken wing without him avoiding or growling at me.

However my concern went to owners out there with similar problems. I have had a few collie cases now of food guarding behaviour, some rather dramatic ones too. What does the average person do when confronted with a tiny growling pup? Questioning a fellow dog trainer we came to the conclusion that the pup would either be left alone or have the object taken off him – we weren’t sure which outcome was worse. However I feel from seeing this behaviour displayed at such a young age, clearly when it gets to 5-10 months old (by the time people call me for help) the behaviour for growling when food is present is so engrained, that is unlikely to be eliminated altogether. The best we can hope for is management of the problem, in a border collie anyway!

At the close of the first week I was seeing dramatic changes from what I first saw. Louis had come to a few of my classes to show off his newly learned skills, and had had more dog-dog encounters than your average dogs meets in his first year of life! He was meeting lots of children and people, and starting to wander off to people, as his preferred subject, but had a pretty good recall too. He had started playing with toys and barking, his energy level was amazing for being so small. He would happily play all day without sleep, something I found odd, as most pups spend alot of time sleeping. And to think, most people don’t let the pup out until 14 weeks, that would be 6 weeks of him trapped in the house – madness!