At first we would just put the harness on and give Kody hot dogs. He showed the classic behavior of freezing on the spot that dogs exhibit when humans attempt to put costumes or other clothing on them.

At first, he just got hot dogs places where he could reach them. The next step was throwing hot dog bits a few feet away. After just a couple of days of this, Kody was excited for "the harness game" as we call it, a phrase he now recognizes.

His excitement did not extend to wearing the harness right away, just to the game and treats part. He quickly knew I was trying to lure him to get his feet to the place they belong so that I can gently lift up and buckle the harness. (These step-in harnesses are awesome.) At first he would try to refuse to even get near that position. Now he will usually leave one leg out awkwardly, but he gets more comfortable with it every day.

At this point after we buckle the harness, we walk slowly around the apartment with Kody on my right side giving him treats as often as it takes to keep him in roughly the correct position. The idea is to get him used to staying by my right leg facing forward as we walk.

Like potty training, it's intensive, which is why we do one short walk, of about 20-30 feet around the apartment and that's it for the day. Any more and he and I would get bored. But once he's good and reliable at that off leash, we'll attach the leash and do the same thing. After that we'll start just going out the door and back in and eventually we'll get loose leash walking, I hope.

The idea is that when the harness is on, being next to me will just feel like the right place to be.

Kody teaches me so much about patience, I really enjoy this, but I can see how it's not for everyone. Luckily most dogs are a lot easier to train than Kody, my wonderful Asperger's dog! I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world.

The thing that’s annoying is that people act as if I haven’t even tried anything. I don’t put Kody in any challenging situations when we’re around other people because it just gets annoying. I have had many people ask me, “Why don’t you just tell your dog no?” when my dog is barking and throwing a fit. Really? Do you seriously think I haven’t thought of that? Does my dog even seem like he would be responsive to verbal commands at the moment?

It’s not the fact that they don’t understand that bothers me, I expect that. What bothers me is that they think they understand. It sort of eats me up inside that, by this time, I know a fair amount more about dog training than your average person. But I don’t get credit for it. People roll their eyes if I make the mistake of talking about my dog and his issues. I can tell they’re thinking they could handle the situation much better than I do.

But those people have never had, and probably never seen a dog that gets scared at random things. Or a dog that is scared of other dogs. (Because people who have those dogs, like me, tend to avoid those situations with other people around.) Combine that with a dog that is bred to bark and fight when it’s scared and you have a dog that you really have to take care of. When those dogs feel that fear it’s really not fun for them. If it isn’t handled properly, it’s self reinforcing.

Kody and I now live a good life as we make progress on our goals with the help of a really good trainer using positive methods. It’s taken me a long time to accept that Kody will never be that easy going dog. It’s taken even longer to accept that people will never know how hard I’ve worked at this and how much I’ve learned about dogs because of Kody.

That’s why I’ve come to be very intolerant of people who use force with their dogs or alpha roll them or jab them in the neck or even speak to them in a mean voice. I know there are better ways to accomplish your goals with your dog. That brings up another thing I’ve had a hard time accepting. I know not to bother even talking about dog training with people. Even if you’re not talking about them or their dog, people get all self-conscious and freaked out that you’ve even suggested there might be a gentler way to do things.

When I started this blog, I thought it would be about dachshund behavior, and to an extent it is. But what it’s turned out to be is a blog about a guy who owns a challenging dog. I’m sure many of my readers can’t relate to a lot of the situations we get into. Be thankful for that. Having said that, I also know that Kody is the right dog for me, and I am the right owner for him. I am a better human because of what Kody has taught me. We were meant to be together, so I’m happy that the other dog owners have the easier dogs. If they could just stop rolling their eyes at me, that would be great.

I read this article today and it made me think of how humans have a weird way of looking at leadership.

Mostly, we don’t choose our leaders based on their qualifications to lead, we choose the based on their ability to be nice to us, or agree with us, or give us what we want. Look at CEOs. Often they don’t even know much about their product. Look at managers, often they can’t even do the work of their “subordinates”, and yet they are paid more. This is dominance, and you’ve probably experienced it, and probably didn’t like it.

It makes sense that most humans can’t grasp what real leadership is when working with their dogs.

Now try to think about real leadership. Real leadership is when an experienced person knows what they are doing and where they are going, and then other people follow them because they want to either try it out, or learn how to do what the leader can do. Think about something as simple as the leader of a walk through Paris. The leader doesn’t punish the people or get mad at them, he makes it interesting for them. At the end of the day he wants everyone involved to be better off for that walk and happy. After that, the people will be tired, have some dinner, and go to sleep. That’s a dog’s life, almost exactly.

If you think about it, that’s how our life should be. Go to work, learn, be productive, if you know less than someone else they help you and make it fun for you, go home, eat, watch TV, go to sleep.

So with your dog, do you know where you’re going and how to get there? Sometimes you need your dog to sit, do you know how to show him that and make it fun? I bet if you think about it, you might not. People often just want dogs to exist and be fluffy and give kisses at the appropriate times. But dogs need leadership, they don’t know how to live in our world. When they are full of energy they need guidance on how to spend that energy. If you don’t give it to them, they’ll figure something out on their own and often you won’t like it. But is this their fault? Of course not, they need a leader.

But as the article notes, being a leader has nothing to do with dominating your dog. It’s just being a leader, leading your dog into good things and behaviors ending in happiness for all. It’s totally possible for anyone to learn how.

In this video, Suart Brown talks about the importance of play. And he mentions dogs numerous times as examples of creatures that promote play, and will play happily even with other animals, including humans. It made me realize that this is one of the huge benefits dogs bring to our lives. They play with us.

As adults, we often cut our play down to a minimum. I mean true play, not reading a book or relaxing. But dogs turn us into babbling playing fun-loving silly child-like wonderful people. And that is so healthy. That is good for us.

When I watched this video, I thought of all the ways my dog asks me to play every day, and while I accept some of them, I don’t think I accept enough of them. He will throw toys up in the air, he will run, he will lay on his back and grin at me then when I pet him he’ll nip gently at me and grin some more. These are opportunities. He doesn’t want to play all day, just for a little while. I should be playing too!

The moral of the story is, play is good, and your dog will help you do it. For your own sake, accept your dog’s offers of play more often. It will make your life, your work, your health, and everything else better.

The video is a little long and scientific at points, but see what you think. There’s good stuff even if you don’t watch the whole thing.

I go out on various dog forums and usually concentrate on posting responses to people having dog troubles. I’m not a trainer, but I stick to stuff I know something about, and looking back, I give pretty good advice.

But here’s the problem. After just a short time of doing this, I’ve realized the answer each time is the same. And it’s not pretty. The answer most of these people need to hear is this:

You got a dog because they are cute and loving. You got a shelter dog because you want to do the right thing. Good for you. Where you went wrong is that you thought owning a dog, especially a shelter dog, would not take much work on your part.

No. Don’t stop listening, you need to hear this. You were just plain wrong. The issues you have mentioned when you asked for help tell me quite clearly that your dog has some moderately serious to very serious issues. What you have told me you do about this is actually making the problems worse.

Here’s the good news. You can fix the problems, you can have the dog of your dreams. But you need to learn. You need to learn about training, and most likely that means going to a class with your dog. No, don’t give me excuses. You need to go to a class because you need to have someone show you in person how to do this. You need this because you will not believe it will work until you have someone else help you and actually show you how it works with your dog.

The alternative is that you continue to make your dog’s life hell while you flounder. You will make the dog’s problems worse. Then you will take the dog to the shelter where she will either be killed, or only potentially be adopted again probably by someone who knows as little about training as you do. Or you will keep the dog but chain them up or otherwise neglect them because you don’t know how to deal with these problems.

Basically, unless you take the bull by the horns and figure this out, that dog’s life is going to be miserable. And it will be your fault. No passing the buck. No excuses.

But, like I said, you can fix this. You have to learn, and when you do, you will be able to create a great life for you and this dog. This dog will mean more to you than you can ever imagine. You will feel bad about this time, but at the same time you will feel good because you will see that through learning, you really did save this dog’s life. You will be a good person.

So what’s it gonna be?

Here’s the thing that really gets to me. I love these dogs. I don’t even know them, I haven’t seen a picture, but I love them. I know they are good dogs. And it hurts me to hear about them being in a bad place. But I know it can be better, I know if they try, these people can change. So I hope these people will help their dogs, because they deserve a good life, the people, and the dogs.

I went to the store and bought a case for my laptop. It’s black fabric and slightly larger than a piece of paper, and about an inch thick. When I brought it home I took it into the kitchen, cut off the tags with the scissors and put it on a shelf for later use.

The only other things that have tags that I need to cut off in the kitchen with the scissors are Kody’s toys. Except he usually gets them right after that. In spite of this minor difference, I believe Kody tought that the laptop bag was his. He had an unusual interest in it, but not as much as he would for a regular toy. Probably because it looked so boring.

But the difference showed up when I started using the laptop bag. If I left the house with it he would bark from his crate when I shut the door. At first I thought something was wrong because he never does this, so I went back in to see what it was. Although this was the reasonable thing to do, it had the unintended effect of making Kody think he could bark and I would come back in.

For the next few days he would bark for a little while after I left the house, but only if I left with the laptop bag. Today, thankfully, he didn’t bark. I think I will cut the tags off in a different room the next time I get something.

Today we were outside and he heard some people just talking and he started barking and kicking and scatching. It was odd, even though I’ve talked about the barking, he doesn’t just throw a fit usually. Seconds later, he pooped. I thought, “oh, that was the deal.” He was just in a poopy mood.

Sometimes the poopy mood comes post-poop, I think if it’s particularly difficult. One time he had just gone and I could tell he needed a moment to recover. Someone walking by noticed him and thought Kody was so cute. Without asking me he reached his hand over to Kody’s face to smell. I could tell by the look on Kody’s face he that was in no mood for this, and I knew what was coming, but it was all happening so fast. Kody let out a couple of sharp barks and the guy pulled his hand back and moved back as of to say, “oh, dangerous dog!” Well, Kody’s the farthest thing from dangerous, but don’t stick your hand in his face after a particularly difficult poop.

Does your dog have poopy moods? Maybe now you’ll notice too!

The chewing and rolling in I kind of have down as Kody is doing pretty well with the “leave it” command. The eating is tough. Today Kody found what I think was an old chicken bone the birds had dropped. They also drop bits of broken glass, but luckily Kody isn’t interested in that. Anyway, it was a small piece of bone, or whatever it was, but he was able to crunch and eat it fairly quickly. I think my offer of a treat to trade actually made him swallow it faster.

I was so mad. Not because he was bad, but because now I’m kinda freaked out. What if this is the chicken bone that kills him? I’m hoping it was old enough or small enough that it’s fairly digestible since he got it down so fast, or that it wasn’t a chicken bone at all. But these are the times of stress. All you can do is hope and wait and try to relax. Be aware of the dog so if something goes wrong you can get him to the vet fast.

It’s hard to learn that you don’t have as much control as you’d like to have. Luckily, dogs seem to make it through eating stuff off the ground on a fairly regular basis.

It’s less than a minute but I just found it very interesting, more from a National Geographic perspective than a training perspective. The video is here.