Wicket is Home at Last!

I was super-glad that I had a few days with Widget at Kathleen's. We had a chance to decide if we liked each other. He learned his new call name. He learned how to take a treat from my hand--believe it or not, taking a treat from a hand is a HUGE item of trust from a small dog! I have small hand and look how big they are compared to his head! (Please excuse the dirty fingernails--I have a homestead and I don't think my fingernails come clean any longer.) His willingness to take treats from my hand almost immediately, even though he'd had some breakfast already that morning, demonstrated a healthy food drive. That was encouraging, because I like to use clicker training for very young puppies and food is a quick and easy reward when using that kind of training.

Just a note: the little bow he made when he was taking the treat is enticement to play, but it can be "captured" by clicker training if I want to start doing a few tricks with him. The bow is a useful trick, because it teaches dogs that elbows down on the floor or the ground are a good thing--so awesome if they need to have a solid "down" position for obedience!

In addition to letting me become friends with Widget, our few days together allowed us to play and to form a bond. I spent a good bit of time tossing toys for him in Kathleen's living room (the bits of toy stuffing attesting to this fact!) and learning a little about what was going on in his little brain. His willingness to chase a toy and then to shake and "kill" it showed a nice bit of prey drive. Prey drive is another good drive for training. It is common to throw toys past agility obstacles as a reward for successfully completing them, increasing drive and the willingness to run the course.

Naturally, all things come to an end and Widget and I had to head home. I had been dreading the ride, because it was the longest of the three. Kathleen bundled him into the same carrier that he had started his trip in, along with his towel from her house and a couple of toys. He wore his little collar that his breeder had sent as a parting gift, just in case he needed to stop and potty. I put his carrier on the passenger seat, facing me.

If a dog is riding in a wire crate it doesn’t matter, really, how the crate is oriented in a car. In a wire crate like this one, I find that most dogs ride better looking forward or backward rather than being oriented from side to side. I generally make an exception for puppies or for dogs who are riding with me for the first time. I find that they whine less and ride more comfortably if they are able to see me. I am the one thing that is familiar to them in this situation, even if we have only “known” each other for a few hours. In Widget’s case, he was already familiar with the car, so I don’t think it would have made a difference to him. He’d already ridden from familiar territory twice, so a third time didn’t seem to disturb him in the slightest. As you can see, he had a "tough" ride. This view is the view that I had for the vast majority of the ride home.

Even easy highway driving gets old after a while. The last part of the drive was on winding country roads that had no phone or radio reception to help keep me awake. By the time I made it home, I was exhausted. I unloaded the bare minimum from the car and was ready to hit the hay. I put him in the exercise pen I'd prepared for him, along with his towel and his toys, as well as some food and some water.

Widget, naturally, was full of energy. After all, he'd slept for eight hours and wanted to play. At first, he tried to entice me with his stuffed panda and puppy bows. When those didn't work, he decided to try begging. Nope. Being a good little boy, he gave it up as a bad job and entertained himself before settling in for the night. When I woke up, the blanket and potty pads that had smoothly covered the floor were all bundled up and his ball was having a nice bath in his waterer. All the same, he had let me sleep all night long, right up to the alarm!

Good boy, Widget! I think we’re going to get along fine.