Mickamack
05-01-2000, 07:11 AM
Well, I think I need to give my Mickers a little credit. He was put into some challenging situations this weekend, and he passed them with flying colors....there may be hope for him yet!
We had my dad's retirement party this weekend. We had about 20 people, all strangers coming over to the house. Mickey and Oscar would bark like crazy when people would first walk in the house. At first, my mom was trying to hold Mickey back and I told her to let him go, so he could go smell them and then determine that they weren't a threat. Once we did that, he would bark, bark, bark...and then that was it. Period. It seemed like he had to get that out of his system, and then he was fine. My one uncle sat right down on the floor with him, while he was barking, picked up one of his toys and started playing with him. Boy, Mick was NOT expecting that and he started playing immediately! http://dachsie.org/ubb/smile.gif
After the first 10 minutes, you didn't hear a peep out him the rest of the night. In fact, he made some really nice friends. He routinely made him rounds around the guests, giving them "the L@@K", and mooching food! I had never even met the man I was sitting next to, and Mickey was up on his lap getting ready to snooze...with a full belly of course! http://dachsie.org/ubb/lol.gif In fact, I would have to say that everyone LOVED him! I couldn't believe it...I guess I just don't give him enough credit.
Then we are building a shed in our back yard. Well, Oscar came over with my dad to "help". Oscar is VERY well behaved. He won't wander off, he'll just sit there very dutifully. Up to this point, I would NEVER trust with Mickey to have that same calm manner, but we decided to let him out and try him. He wandered off into the field behind our house once...that was it. I think it was too tempting with some REALLY GOOD smells...ooohhh so interesting! And he started growling and getting in attack mode with our neighbor's outside dog.
But both times, it took me to yell, "MICKEY!" And he stopped dead in his tracks and ran back to me....that's not like him! But other than those 2 incidents, he stayed close, and just enjoyed sitting outside in the warm sunshine. He seemed to like being part of such a manly job.
Maybe 2 was a big birthday for him...maybe he's just maturing. We could never trust him like that before, but he proved us wrong this weekend. I think we'll have to start giving him a little more freedom here and there to see how he does.
I just had to tell everyone how proud I was of him this weekend.
Karen
We had my dad's retirement party this weekend. We had about 20 people, all strangers coming over to the house. Mickey and Oscar would bark like crazy when people would first walk in the house. At first, my mom was trying to hold Mickey back and I told her to let him go, so he could go smell them and then determine that they weren't a threat. Once we did that, he would bark, bark, bark...and then that was it. Period. It seemed like he had to get that out of his system, and then he was fine. My one uncle sat right down on the floor with him, while he was barking, picked up one of his toys and started playing with him. Boy, Mick was NOT expecting that and he started playing immediately! http://dachsie.org/ubb/smile.gif
After the first 10 minutes, you didn't hear a peep out him the rest of the night. In fact, he made some really nice friends. He routinely made him rounds around the guests, giving them "the L@@K", and mooching food! I had never even met the man I was sitting next to, and Mickey was up on his lap getting ready to snooze...with a full belly of course! http://dachsie.org/ubb/lol.gif In fact, I would have to say that everyone LOVED him! I couldn't believe it...I guess I just don't give him enough credit.
Then we are building a shed in our back yard. Well, Oscar came over with my dad to "help". Oscar is VERY well behaved. He won't wander off, he'll just sit there very dutifully. Up to this point, I would NEVER trust with Mickey to have that same calm manner, but we decided to let him out and try him. He wandered off into the field behind our house once...that was it. I think it was too tempting with some REALLY GOOD smells...ooohhh so interesting! And he started growling and getting in attack mode with our neighbor's outside dog.
But both times, it took me to yell, "MICKEY!" And he stopped dead in his tracks and ran back to me....that's not like him! But other than those 2 incidents, he stayed close, and just enjoyed sitting outside in the warm sunshine. He seemed to like being part of such a manly job.
Maybe 2 was a big birthday for him...maybe he's just maturing. We could never trust him like that before, but he proved us wrong this weekend. I think we'll have to start giving him a little more freedom here and there to see how he does.
I just had to tell everyone how proud I was of him this weekend.
Karen