My Dog Riolife with a rescue dog

Rio has been with us for a few weeks now and he has proven to be a very good pet for us. He is calm and gentle, but is still a puppy, so he likes to play. I think he thought that I was his sister because when I went out in the yard with him in the morning he would jump up on me and try to wrestle with me like he would another puppy. If I shook my finger at him and told him “no”, or “stop”, he would just think I was playing with him and got all excited, jumping on me all the more. I needed to let him know somehow that I was not his playmate.

So I watched a few dog training shows on T.V. to see if I could get some pointers. I learned that it was better to walk away than to try to scold him or smack at him. I also realized that I needed to have a different way of entering the backyard, more like an authority figure than like a friend. I tried offering him an alternative to wrestling by throwing a tennis ball and telling him to bring it back. He liked chasing the ball and eventually learned to bring it back to me. Then I would pet him and tell him “good boy!” He got the idea that this was a better way to play with me.

Now he knows that I am a human and I do not wrestle! But other dogs are fair game. So we took him over to our son’s house to introduce him to their pit bull mix, Whistler, who is about 2 years older than Rio. We had not had him around another dog yet and we didn’t know how they would react to one another. So we kept them both on their leashes and carefully brought them together. After a few sniffs Rio was all about playing. He got down low and bounced back and forth in front of Whistler who took the hint and started lunging toward Rio wagging his tail with delight. We let them off the leashes and they jumped up together and tumbled and rolled all over the back yard. The wrestling match went on with only short breaks for Whistler to cool himself off in a mud puddle in the garden. Then back together tumbling and frolicking for a good 3 hours! It was unbelievable!

When it was time to go home, we went out in the yard to get Rio and found that both dogs were totally covered in mud. Rio had not gotten into the mud puddle, but the mud that Whistler had on him coated Rio as they rolled around the yard. They were a mess! To clean them off so we could put Rio in the car, our son, Jeramie, pulled both dogs over to the swimming pool and threw them in. They swam their way over to the steps and climbed out as good as new. We dried Rio off and took him home.

Boy! Did he get a good night sleep after that…until about noon the next day!

More Rio adventures in the next post, The Urge To Chew.