Yeah, good call. The saving grace of actual babies is they don't bite, and you can pick them up for the first 3 years or so; and they develop slower, so the pressure is off to teach them everything at once. Whereas, things like not biting and not running under car wheels are things you have to nail in the first two weeks of being a dog owner.
With dogs, you're really trying to teach them how to be a human, but in this short and very high intensity period of time; like, he doesn't know how to play fetch. & we're working on training him how to calm down, which you'd think is a thing creatures would just Get. But no; I have ADHD, which is a very border collie energy, so I can definitely relate to "so intently focused on a thing I forgot I had bodily functions and I need to sit down now and rest". Like, you don't really think about it, but he needs constant guidance atm to figure out "what am I supposed to be doing right now?"
He's doing well, though! He's learned that when me and my husband both sit down on our laptops, he goes to his mat and we have sitting time. & it's kind of amazing, he comes over now to say hi and you can see the tension in his poor little body as he tries not to bite us, his mouth clamped firmly shut and his eyes looking awkwardly around; he wants to say hello! you say hello by biting! He doesn't want to be rude, he wants to bite and say hi, but we don't like that, but why not? It's just normal friendly biting? Poor little creature, but it's very sweet.
I'm trying to focus on what he is good at as well; he housetrained himself, he doesn't bark, he's stopped biting my organ, he learned "don't jump up at people" really fast. Not a fan of the fact he tries to eat glass, however.
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With dogs, you're really trying to teach them how to be a human, but in this short and very high intensity period of time; like, he doesn't know how to play fetch. & we're working on training him how to calm down, which you'd think is a thing creatures would just Get. But no; I have ADHD, which is a very border collie energy, so I can definitely relate to "so intently focused on a thing I forgot I had bodily functions and I need to sit down now and rest". Like, you don't really think about it, but he needs constant guidance atm to figure out "what am I supposed to be doing right now?"
He's doing well, though! He's learned that when me and my husband both sit down on our laptops, he goes to his mat and we have sitting time. & it's kind of amazing, he comes over now to say hi and you can see the tension in his poor little body as he tries not to bite us, his mouth clamped firmly shut and his eyes looking awkwardly around; he wants to say hello! you say hello by biting! He doesn't want to be rude, he wants to bite and say hi, but we don't like that, but why not? It's just normal friendly biting? Poor little creature, but it's very sweet.
I'm trying to focus on what he is good at as well; he housetrained himself, he doesn't bark, he's stopped biting my organ, he learned "don't jump up at people" really fast. Not a fan of the fact he tries to eat glass, however.