more memories!

All the way back in February, just a month after we picked him up, Mango got a little bump on his bottom eye-lid. When looking through some old pictures, I stumbled on this....


The picture of Mango after he came back from the vet's.

The doctors came to the conclusion that he was probably scratched by a cat. (We have three at home.) The poor puppy, it looked so bad! They ended up lancing his eye, it was simply a swollen gland. I was so worried that it was going to make my leader dog blind!

And poor puppy, this wasn't his last trip to the vet, either. Because of this incident, I was scared to death they weren't going to let me take Mango back after he was sick the second time!

I'm also going to take this opportunity to show how much he''s grown since February.


Mango about 5 seconds ago! I pulled out the old gate as comparison.


Mango in April. He was about 5 and a half months old.

nostalgia :)

The following is another post re accounting for my experiences with Mango before I started keeping this blog.

When Mango was about four months old, him and I had a week-long sleepover at a friend's house. Up to this time there were inconsistencies in his training at my house due to several factors, but this was not a problem over here. Mango got alot of very much needed intensive training, and in this short period of time he learned 'sit' much better, he learned 'down', and 'come' became alot more consistent as well. Also, we took on alot of training to curb his habit of biting. We tried several methods, but the one we found the most helpful is as follows:

Treat the puppy as his mother would treat him. For example, squeal when his mouth touches your skin and pull away, ignoring him. All he wants is attention, so when he figures out that biting deprives him of this, he will start to stop biting.

Continue to do this for longer and longer. If it is not working (which with Mango, this was the case most of the time) get up and walk away completely.

If this still is not working, 'growl' at him by scolding in a very deep voice. If anything, he will get the hint by knowing that you're angry with his behavior.

Another thing I learned during this time was a way to curb his eating so quickly. Probably due to the fact that he's a hungry boy whose only fed 3 times a day, whenever he went to eat he gobbled his food down so fast I was afraid he would hurt himself or throw up (which he sometimes did!)
The way I slowed down this bad habit was by feeding him his bowl of food by hand. Not only did this help him to slow down, but it re-established my authority as 'pack leader'.
i also would pour his food onto the floor, so that he would be forced to slow down with his eating. This was not as effective, however, because it also caused him to scramble to eat his food so that my other dog wouldn't eat it. I don't recommend this as being an effective strategy for curbing this behavior.
As he's gotten older, he has slowed down A LOT. I don't know if this is due to what I mentioned above or simply because he has matured, but whatever the case these strategies did help to some extent.

The family that we stayed with is ALWAYS on the move. Because we were always out and about, when we got home Mango was exhausted and only wanted to sleep. (This is also the week I learned that a tired puppy is a happy puppy :D) We had a lot of adventures, including going to a doctor's office, a dance studio, up stairs (because they don't want him going up an escalator), elevators, many, many different restaurants, strange houses, parks, play-dates with other puppies, and way too many more to mention.

The biggest adventure we had was at the library. The owner of the house we were staying at (and also the biggest help with Mango and his training!) is a teacher at an elementary school in Rochester. We took an evening and actually visited the library. Because it was vacant (it was a vacation), we allowed Mango to run around inside. This library is HUGE, mind you. This may seem juvenile now when compared to the progress Mango has made, but he would actually COME and STAY when called! He got the chance to run around inside and play with his toys, and he didn't pull any books off of shelves or any other bad behavior. This was towards the end of our stay, and the progress that he showed in that single evening was absolutely amazing. That night he also got to go up in an elevator, and we also practiced loose-leash walking.

Memorial Day Parade!

I realized that I never posted anything about our adventure at the Memorial Day parade this year! Every year our community throws a parade for this very important date, and it is the biggest parade of the year. There were fire trucks, horses, lots and lots of cars, and people throwing candy, which he very happily 'left it' for me. It was so very scorching hot that day, we got very creative with ideas for how to drink water.

Mango did very, very well with behaving. This includes listening to my 'leave it' when the kiddies were throwing candy, sitting pretty for pictures and standing when I wanted publicity for Leader Dogs. Although we didn't walk in the parade, he did wear his jacket and quite a few people asked me about the Leader Dog program. Many were impressed when they saw how tolerant he was of the firetrucks that went by with their lights and signals on, as well as loud motorcycles and other distractions that normally would have startled a dog. This is one of Mango's biggest strengths; being tolerant to loud, frightful noises. He was also very calm around the horses that walked in the parade, one such distraction I was afraid he would be uneasy about.

It was an amazingly hot day, which made this hard for both him and I to sit on the side of the road with no shade, but somehow we did it! In general, Mango did extremely well. It was great exposure time for him and loud noises, and he fared amazingly. He's growing up so fast!

general information

It's been too long since I posted last. Just too many things going on in life right now besides Mango...he's becoming much more well behaved, so there's overall less to say about him.

One new thing I noticed is that, for some reason, he is much more well behaved when out somewhere besides at home. When going outside to park, he quite often pulls and it takes fifteen minutes just to walk a couple feet because hes so excited. In contrast, when at Borders just yesterday, he walked perfectly fine just like any other dog! I'm not entirely sure why this is or any possible fixes.

Another thing about him is his intelligence. I always would have thought a smart dog would be easier to train than a less sharp animal, but I'm finding that it's quite the opposite. He knows how to sneak into his food bag and when it's most conveinent for him to listen, and he understands how its easier to get away with bad behavior when I'm frustrated. He also knows that I am more likely to give him treats than any other person, and that its easier to get away with things. Although I try and instruct others how to act around him, alot of the times they don't listen, and it's detrimental to his training. This is another thing I never would have expected.

But overall, Mango is doing amazing for his age! He's calmed down alot, but is still a puppy. He's started to counter-surf, but because he understands "leave-it", as long as you catch him in the act he stops. I need to pick up on his training drastically now that school is out. I need to correct his problem of not listening and get him used to being calm (another huge problem with him when he is around other people or animals). He's improved with our cats, chasing them less now (which is good, considering his jaws are so strong he could probably break their necks!).

Patience and perserverence and time are the three keys to raising a puppy, something I'm finding very difficult to do.