We recently added a new sled dog to our kennel, his name is Handsome…and there is a very good reason…he is GORGEOUS! We were given him because he is exceptionally shy dog despite lots of socialization and I have a long history of working with shy dogs and getting them to “come out of their shell” (or as the case usually is, dog house.) But all the shy dogs I’ve met and worked with before don’t even begin to hold a candle to Handsome. Although at home with his fellow canine companions, he is on full alert whenever I seem to come around…here’s a recent video I took of him resting inside:
The first three days at our kennel he lived in our house and at night I put him on the foot of my bed to sleep. On the third night, I woke up with his head resting on my stomach. You can imagine the joy I felt after having worked with him when I thought I had finally gotten through to Handsome that I was on his side. After all, I had bee feeding him, walking him on a leash, and at one point I even let him free run in our fenced in dog yard with all our pups. You could see although he was not at home with me that he, at least, felt at home…but maybe that was slowly starting to change.
Wrong!
That morning, believing that our bond had somehow deepened I decided to once again let him run loose with the pups. Letting our dogs play for an hour every morning 4-5 times a week is one of my greatest joys. Watching how our dogs interact, play, and “hang out” together is fun…more importantly I love that no matter what I am doing, whether it’s sitting on a dog house or scooping poop, that the dogs want to be around me. It’s cool to know that even though they have a huge yard to run around, they’d rather be hanging out playing next to mom.
What’s also awesome is that dogs as young as two months and as old as 10 years get along effortlessly. That’s not to say we don’t have occasional squabbles, we do, but they are always more interested in playing. Their favorite game is keep away. Inevitably, one dog always finds some treasured object whether it’s a bone, a ball, or a stick and then runs around trying to protect his treasure from everyone else. It’s hilarious. Occasionally, we get a “bad sport” who will take their treasure and dive into a dog house (“base”) to protect it and to stay away from the other dogs.
Well we had a great morning playing together and until playtime was over things went flawlessly. When playtime ended, one dog, Handsome refused to be captured. I have never had this problem. We have two shy dogs in our kennel — Willie and Sage — but both are dogs who respect, listen, and come to us. We work hard to socialize all our dogs, not only for our benefit but for theirs. One day, there will come a time when they cannot run or pull and they will need to retire. We can’t retire every dog to our kennel so it is important that our dogs have social skills. Plus, we mush because we love dogs…it’s only fun if they love us back!
Handsome, unfortunately, was not at all like this. When I moved to the left, he moved to the right. No matter how close I got, he was always an arms length away. It seemed like we were magnets that repelled one another and no matter what I did I could not catch him.
So, I started pulling out every trick I have in my book. He is not the first dog who has not listened. Usually the puppies around 2-3 months old go through a brief “rebellious” phase where they do not want to be tied up and enjoy playing keep away. Max, my 1/2 husky 1/2 collie mix, Betty, our german shepherd, and Archie, our retired sled dog turned dog lot manager (I’ll post on this later), almost always come to my aid and help me coral the young ones — not so with Handsome. Their tricks at distracting would not work. Food did not work. Nothing worked. He was too fast and too smart.
I grew frustrated and started to think that I would never  catch him. He was in a fenced dogyard for crying out loud! How hard should it be?
But nothing seemed to work so Handsome remained loose.
Days passed. And I remained confused. Why wouldn’t he come? He always got so close but then whenever it seemed like I would reach out for him, would dart off in another direction.
One day went by. Then another. Then another.
Well, when I had given up hope of ever catching him, something miraculous happened: Midnight the Wonder Cat. Midnight cat has a thing for dogs and for some reason or another, they seem to have a thing for him. His best friend is a german shepherd and he routinely hangs out in the dog lot. Whenever we bring a sled dog inside he immediately goes up to it. For a long time I wondered about the expression curiosity killed the cat but now, I know. He is not shy whatsoever. See, look how he just helps himself to the dogs’ food.
So Midnight goes out to the doglot and Handsome immediately runs over and barks at him. They’d met earlier in the week and at one point I even caught them cuddled on the couch together — not a rarity with this cat. Midnight ran playfully around Handsome. There was no aggression. No sign of dog chasing cat or cat chasing dog, just playful gestures back and forth for about a half hour.
But eventually, Midnight decided it was time to go in. He came to do the door (I’d been watching this from inside) and I let him in. Much to my disbelief, Handsome followed Midnight not only inside but right up onto the couch to curl up with him. Quietly seated next to the cat, I easily snapped a leash onto Handsome who paid me no attention.
Handsome is still living inside. It’s clear he needs more time to learn how to trust us. For now, he’s happy snuggled up next to the coolest cat I’ve ever known.