Puppy Hachi

Hachi is healing from surgery so he hasn't played like a puppy in 10 days. He's starting to go crazy but his siblings are helping him stay grounded.

To the extent that we can while he recovers, we've been working on helping Hachi with his fear-based issues. To help with resource guarding, I like to play a game that is designed to teach Hachi that great things happen to him after one of his siblings gets a treat. So, I give Shyla a treat and then immediately give Hachi three treats. I pause. Then, I give R a treat, rapidly followed by another three treats to Hachi. I'll continue on for several minutes with Hachi getting almost a meal's worth of kibble during the game.

It seems to work, in the short term at a minimum. Hachi doesn't guard food at all during the game. We are lucky that his resource guarding is relatively tame (compared to cases that I've read about) so it's safe to have all three side-by-side for the game.

After the game, R and Hachi were exhausted yesterday, and they snoozed in a sun puddle.

There have been no big changes since my last puppy update. The best thing is that Hachi has had no outbursts since that update. We are managing his environment carefully, taking care not to stress him or push him too fast.

It took the better part of six years for Shyla to become comfortable in her own skin. If I had known at the start of our journey that it would ultimately lead to a happy Shyla, I would have been far more patient along the way. However, in real life, we never know how something will turn out... and so I find myself feeling a similar urgency about "solving" Hachi's issues as I felt about Shyla's fears.

I need to take a deep breath and remember that important things don't happen overnight. I wish that they did!

I am still overjoyed with how united our pack is. We all love our puppy.