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One other little point: the first couple of months with Carrot seriously knocked my confidence where dogs are concerned. I seemed to be doing everything wrong. he wasn't resopnding in the expected way on a lot of stuff. And he was running me ragged. I had no control, and any attempt to tell him off or be stern just ramped up the game for him and he became quite belligerant.
Nowt quite like failing to face down an 11 week old puppy to seriously dent your sense of yourself as a dog person.
Some of that was his undiagnosed hip problems, but some of it was just that he had a natural dominant streak (1st born in his litter) and needed very different handling and strategies than Pilau had. And some of it was just that I had forgotten how contrary puppies can be.
I had decided to do it right and bought training guides etc etc.
From the moment he threw a full-on tantrum and chewed his way through the zipper on the puppy crate on the way home that first night, he hasn;t resopnded in any o fthe ways the books account for when trying the recommended techniques. If anything, sometimes I've had to do the exact opposite.
Took a while, and my confidence is returning, but it really threw me.
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