Who are you and what have you done with Tango?!?!

So I work from home and usually I have to grab Tango and lock him in his kennel to be able to get work done without worrying about what he's up to. Today, however, while my littlest dog is barking obnoxiously in the yard, and my own pointer is hunting who-knows-what in the woodpile, Tango is lying quietly on my office floor.

Ok - he was lying quietly, but the camera made a noise and he got up to check it out. Now he's lying back down again. Now I try to get a picture of him again, and he's back up... OK - I'll let sleeping dogs lie.

More pictures of Tango

Tango waiting to go to school.




Tango's handsome profile.





Tango giving a goofy smile for the camera.





Tango lying down quietly in my office while I work.

OK - long time no blog....

What can I say? I have been pretty busy and quite frankly, things weren't going all that well with Tango. He was really being a pain in the butt and pretty darn destructive. I was getting to the point where I didn't much like this guy.

However, I was convinced to take him to a beginning agility class and somehow, for some reason, it seems to be making a difference. A big difference. Maybe it's because he gets more attention, maybe it's because he likes agility, who knows?


All I know is that his behavior has improved SIGNIFICANTLY within the last couple of weeks. I think after bouncing around through several temporary living situations he is finally starting to settle down and be less anxious. His anxiety was being expressed in annoying and destructive behavior, and this is the behavior that has changed a lot.

Other than an odd sock or two, he has left non-dog-toys alone; he has been much quieter in his crate; he has even started to bark less when he plays with my dogs.

So, I am finally starting to think that this guy will actually be able to fit into a family somewhere. He needs lots of love, people to play with him, and regular exercise - but these things are all very possible.



Because he seems to be anxious about change, he'll need to go to a family that will be willing to crate him whenever he isn't directly supervised for probably a couple of months, and who will crate him whenever he is alone for the forseeable future. Some people think of it as "doggie jail" but not crating him when he's unsupervised is setting him up for failure.

Some of the good things about this guy are that he is loving, enthusiastic, VERY smart, very snuggly, eager to please, and he's really, really handsome and athletic.

Here's a video of him speaking for the camera.



I have been having a hard time getting good pictures of him because he gets very curious when I point the camera at him so he comes to investigate. Therefore, I have lots of up the nostrils shots of him which don't really show quite how handsome he is.

Tango and the Big Blue Ball

He's learning to relax a bit

I turned around in my computer chair after publishing the last post and he was lying on my home office floor. Believe it or not, that's progress. He's learnng to chill out a bit. Saving it up for when the fun starts later :-)

Making Progress!

Well, Tango has been doing pretty well in the household behavior department. Mind you, this is in terms of improvement, but, hey, gotta start somewhere. He has not taken any books off of shelves, nor actually taken any unapproved article for play except for a few socks. The socks seem tough. He really likes them. Of course, from a dog point of view, what's not to love? Really they're pretty much ideal as a tug toy - long, kinda stretchy, but tough enough to not shred instantly.

Still no potty problems, he has been using the doggie door faithfully whenever he needs it. I can't leave him unsupervised for any great length of time, just because he does tend to find things like socks... So, a friend told me the other day, that my house is full of temptation. This is true. I have a basket of clean laundry in front of the TV and a couple piles of dirty laundry sorted and ready to go into the machine on my bedroom floor. My reply was that if he learns to resist the in-your-face temptation of my particular brand of housekeeping, he will be fine anywhere.

I don't think he's solid yet on the idea that you can't just take anything you can reach, he still tries to do a bit of counter surfing, but he really has gotten better. I can leave him unattended for five or ten minutes at a time without walking into a living room full of shredded whatevers when i check up on him.

In terms of skills and tricks:

Sit - really solid
Lie down - really solid
Stay - we're working on it
Shake -really solid
Go outside - pretty good
Come - pretty good-solid
Off (as in get off the couch/bed/whatever)- pretty good

I have also been getting him and Teddy to play more quietly inside. More wrestling, less barking.

Although he is a pretty high energy dog, he has become less frenetic as he has settled in. I think a portion of his hyperactivity is anxiety at all the changes. Tango is the kind of guy who would do really well with an established routine.

By the way, he is pretty good about baths. I dragged him into the shower the other day and he let me soap him up and rinse him with only a feeble attempt at escape. After I let him go, he came back into the shower because he thought that maybe the bath sponge would be a good toy. We discussed it, and he agreed that maybe it wasn't appropriate (in other words, I put it out of reach).

Well, that's all for now.

Wow! A great scooter dog!

OK, Tango is definitely a great scooter dog. He is really doing well, and he is eager to run, eager to please, and really the only scary part of todays run was when he and Teddy both saw a squirrel as we were going downhill around a corner in the rain... He has started to take up Teddy's habit of working out the excitement of wanting to chase something by just running a bit faster which is OK by me as it is definitely preferable to following critters over lawns, through shrubs, etc.

We also did more "doggie drill team" today. It was a bit more successful than yesterday, I actually got the two of them to sit down and/or lie down at the same time more than once.

I took a little video of it, if it's not too dull I'll post it. Otherwise, I'll just shoot more until it looks good:-)

Also, I have to get some video of the scootering - the lighting just wasn't very good today because it was raining.

The scootering seems to be helping to calm him down some, he's still pretty rowdy at times, but he is crashed out in his crate right now.

I think Tango would probably be a great agility dog. He is very people-focused and he is very trainable. He is both food and praise motivated and he likes the stimulation of having school.

He's getting better about personal space. Every time he comes up and pushes his face at me, I push him away, have him sit, and then pet him as long as he remains sitting. For a guy his height, that's a pretty essential social skill and he's definitely picking up on it.

He still wants to play all the time and gets kind of loud about it, but we are working on stop and outside when the volume gets a little too high.

Today he started going outside and hanging out in the yard by himself a bit. This is progress because previously he wouldn't stay out there unless I was there too. In general, though, you don't have to worry about where he is, because where he likes to be most is right next to you.

A thing I have noticed about him since I have had him is that he has obviously been trained to stay off of the furniture. My dogs all hang out on the sofa, chairs, bed, whatever, but Tango doesn't get up on the furniture, even if invited. Upon reflection, I have decided that I'll maintain and reinforce this behavior so that he doesn't have to relearn it.

Tango has continued to be very good about house training and has not had an accident in the house except the aforementiond Roomba incident. Actually, today he and Teddy were playing and one of them turned the Roomba on by stepping on it and it commenced shuttling around the room as they were wrestling. It was kind of funny to see that although they were very involved in playing, they never once stepped on it while it was moving around...