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Recently took in a dog, looking for some advice.

676 views 11 replies 4 participants last post by  Ian246 
#1 ·
A few days ago I bought a 2 year old beagle called Buddy. While I've owned dogs before I've always had them from a puppy so this is a bit of a step into the unknown for me buying an adult dog. He's such a lovely boy, everything is so new and confusing for him so I've been trying to give him his space to check out his new home and let him come to me in his own time. He's taken to curling up next to me on the sofa and today he brought me one of his toys to play with so I think he's starting to feel a little more at ease!

I've not had any problems with him at all. He's not had any accidents in the house, he's not had any behavioural issues or destroyed anything, he's an absolute dream to walk on the lead and although he is a bit thin, he seems to be in good health, but he will be going to the vet for a check over soon just to be sure. One issue I do have, is that I don't think he understands me. He doesn't really respond to his name or anything and I'm not sure if this is because he's in a new environment and he's unsure or if it's because of a language barrier. His previous owner was an older polish lady, she'd had a fall and hurt her hip so she's unable to give him what he needs. He came with his papers and a passport and had only been brought to the UK at the beginning of May. We've tried learning and speaking phrases in polish to see if that helped him but it hasn't triggered any responses from him. I'm unable to contact the previous owner to find out more about him so I don't know if he actually has been trained to respond to certain phrases previously but he's very well behaved so I imagine he must have done. I just want him to feel comfortable and not overwhelmed and he's had a lot to take in already so I wouldn't looking to do any sort of training just yet but would this just be a case of starting at square one and training him in the same way you would usually train a puppy? Rewarding him when he responds to his name and teaching him the new commands? When would be the best time to start bringing in some training?

The other issue I have is his previous owner appears to have let him sleep in her bed. The night I brought him home, I left him downstairs when I went to bed and 5 minutes later he'd come up and curled up at the bottom of my bed. I thought this was a good sign because I felt it meant he felt safe with me and it was his first night so I left him. I did get him his own dog bed but he's not even touched it, he had his own sofa previously so I don't think he's ever used one. I don't mind him being on my sofa but I can suffer quite badly from allergies during the spring/summer so I'm not sure it's the best idea for him to be in bed with me. I tried putting his bed in my room and encouraging him to sit on it but he just stares blankly and jumps on my bed, he appears to have chosen this as his safe space as he'll try to go to my bed if he's feeling scared or wants some space but I've been shutting the door during the day to try discourage that. I'm not sure how best to deal with this because he's only been with me for 5 days so I don't want to change too much too soon for him and risk it causing some problems when I'm trying to develop a relationship with him but I can't help but feel like it might be harder to deal with it in the future when he's more settled and it might be best to set the boundaries early on. As I'm not sure he understands english, he just stares blankly if you do tell him to get down or if you try encourage him to lay on the dog bed. What's the best way of dealing with this? Should I wait til I have more of a bond with him or will that just make it harder in the future?

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
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#4 ·
When I first brought Jack home from rescue he didn’t know his name, but as he was picked up as a stray it was a name the rescue had given him, so new to him.

He’s quite an aloof character but he learned it pretty quickly using his name to get his attention etc. followed by treat/praise/fuss.

I’d say it took him about 6 months to settle fully, so at only 5 days in your boy is still feeling a bit confused etc.

As for the bed situation, I’m a walkover with Jack and often end up sharing ;)

I’d probably put up with it for a couple of weeks to give him time to settle at night, then start to encourage him into his own bed.

Have it right next to you so you can touch him if that reassures him.

Once he knows his name and responds to a few simple commands you can teach him “off” your bed and into his own at nighttime.

If there’s room to have his bed on yours that will help with keeping hairs contained etc. and could help with the transition to the floor if he loves his bed.

Jack’s is at the foot of my bed but it started by my head end so I could stroke him to help him settle in the early days.
 
#6 ·
When I first brought Jack home from rescue he didn't know his name, but as he was picked up as a stray it was a name the rescue had given him, so new to him.

He's quite an aloof character but he learned it pretty quickly using his name to get his attention etc. followed by treat/praise/fuss.

I'd say it took him about 6 months to settle fully, so at only 5 days in your boy is still feeling a bit confused etc.

As for the bed situation, I'm a walkover with Jack and often end up sharing ;)

I'd probably put up with it for a couple of weeks to give him time to settle at night, then start to encourage him into his own bed.

Have it right next to you so you can touch him if that reassures him.

Once he knows his name and responds to a few simple commands you can teach him "off" your bed and into his own at nighttime.

If there's room to have his bed on yours that will help with keeping hairs contained etc. and could help with the transition to the floor if he loves his bed.

Jack's is at the foot of my bed but it started by my head end so I could stroke him to help him settle in the early days.
Thank you for your advice. Buddy has started responding to a bit more to his name, he'll usually respond by looking at you or cocking his ears so you can tell he's heard you but he doesn't always come to you but as you say it's still early days so we'll get there!

I thought it might take awhile to settle in fully but I wasn't sure how long exactly, a few pages online suggested about a month but that seemed quick so thanks for giving me a rough timeframe, I won't worry so much that he's not happy if it takes him a bit longer to adjust. How did you know when Jack was fully settled in? We're surprised at how much Buddy has come out of his shell already considering it's been just over a week, he's becoming more confident and playful and very cuddly!

I thought letting him adjust a bit first might be better and allow us to bond a bit but I hadn't thought about putting his bed on mine, that's a good idea, I might try that for a bit! Buddy usually likes to sleep in the middle or at the bottom of my bed but he does often try to lay up against me so I think that being close reassures him, he's started burrowing under the covers in the last few days, not had a dog do that before!
 
#5 ·
Apart from the verbal commands are there any hand or body cues the lady used (for example to have him sit, or stay or lay)?If you are in touch with her still it may be worth asking, which you can then pair with the new English word. If not I guess you’ll just have to start from scratch as if he’s a puppy learning the commands.
five days is early days and he’s probably a bit confused as to where his old owner has gone. I’m sure given time he’ll settle and you’ll find more focus on you for training. I doubt saying the polish words he has any understanding of you as it’s often more about The tone of the word Than anything else and you will not have the correct pronounciation or accent so I wouldn’t bother!
 
#7 ·
Apart from the verbal commands are there any hand or body cues the lady used (for example to have him sit, or stay or lay)?If you are in touch with her still it may be worth asking, which you can then pair with the new English word. If not I guess you'll just have to start from scratch as if he's a puppy learning the commands.
five days is early days and he's probably a bit confused as to where his old owner has gone. I'm sure given time he'll settle and you'll find more focus on you for training. I doubt saying the polish words he has any understanding of you as it's often more about The tone of the word Than anything else and you will not have the correct pronounciation or accent so I wouldn't bother!
I'm unable to contact her to ask about the hand signals but funnily enough I've been holding my hand up while saying 'No' when I want him to stop doing something and that seems to be effective. I'm not sure why I started using hand signals because all our family dogs just respond to verbal commands so I've never used hand signals before but it works on Buddy! I wasn't going to start training him til he'd had at least a few weeks to settle in but he's been spending a bit of time with my parents two spaniels and he seems to copy what they do for a treat so I think that might come in useful in the future! Thank for your advice!
 
#8 ·
I’d say it took Jack about 6 months to seem fully settled, though he was fully house trained and able to be left alone for a couple of hours after about 3 weeks.

Six months was about the time he started to play and like toys (though he still doesn’t play much).

He’s actually always been pretty aloof so not one for cuddles or laps at all.

He likes leaning into my leg and being rubbed on his side, having his armpits rubbed as he stretches and allows me to kiss and cuddle him quite happily. Soothing him as he snoozes next to me on the sofa he lets out a satisfied groan (which I thought was growling at first ;)).

He occasionally lures me onto the floor to worship him with his cute paws over the muzzle action, while grinning :)
 
#10 ·
I'd say it took Jack about 6 months to seem fully settled, though he was fully house trained and able to be left alone for a couple of hours after about 3 weeks.

Six months was about the time he started to play and like toys (though he still doesn't play much).

He's actually always been pretty aloof so not one for cuddles or laps at all.

He likes leaning into my leg and being rubbed on his side, having his armpits rubbed as he stretches and allows me to kiss and cuddle him quite happily. Soothing him as he snoozes next to me on the sofa he lets out a satisfied groan (which I thought was growling at first ;)).

He occasionally lures me onto the floor to worship him with his cute paws over the muzzle action, while grinning :)
Oh that sounds so lovely! :) What a nice relationship you have, I really hope to get to this point with Buddy one day!

I did leave Buddy alone for half an hour the other day while I popped to the shops and he responded well so I'll try him again soon!

I was refraining from introducing him to too many people too quickly but so far he's been loving the attention from the few people he has met!
 
#9 ·
The name thing is an interesting concept when you think about it. We, as humans, respond very well to our names - we know what our name is; when we hear it, we know we're being addressed, and depending on tone, context, etc, it can mean a variety of things to us. To a dog his or her 'name' is just another 'odd' sound. My rescue Sprocker definitely responds to his own name (Chester) - but he also responds to my other dog's name (Samson)! Because every time we call the name it's followed by some sort of command (well, almost always!), I think he just gets the command (well, almost always!) I kind of feel like the name (either of them) is just a preamble to him. I've been thinking for a while about the name concept and I think it's probably one of the hardest things for a dog to grasp, because it's not necessarily associated with anything - it's just a sound from the dog's guardian and it comes out of his/her mouth quite often. But that's it.
Just my musings, anyway - but I aminterested to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on this (and I'm also desperately keen not to hijack this thread!)
 
#11 ·
It's funny you should say this, my brother said something similar when I was trying to get Buddy to come to me when I called his name. My parents have two springers Alfie and Frankie, Alfie will only respond when he hears his name but Frankie will always come running if you call Alfie. We noticed that with Frank it didn't really matter what you said so long as you said it with a positive tone. He still responds appropriately to sit, lay down, wait etc because an action is required to be rewarded but I think he just associates a positive tone with being rewarded with attention or treats so he'll respond to it in the hope he'll be told he's a good boy and get a fuss. Alfie does appear to recognise when we're addressing him rather than Frankie but maybe like you say he's just used to hearing his name before a command and he's linked them together. We have had Alfie from a puppy so he's only known the one name to respond to whereas Frankie was a rescue with two owners before us with one name change that we know of so I wonder if that has had an effect on how well they respond.

I suppose this is the same for any language though, it is just a series of sounds that have been given a meaning and then we're taught how we can use and respond to these sounds. Then if another person has been taught the same sounds you can make sounds at each other... might be thinking a bit too much into it haha but it's quite weird when you really think about it!
 
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