25/07/2025
This picture makes me so happy. So I had my first lesson with Zap (the white dog) earlier this week. One of the things his parents wanted to work on was the fact that he and Kif (the black dog on the floor) would go absolutely bonkers playing with each other and knock furniture around. For context, Zap's only about 7 months old and Kif's older. Also, Zap's only been with his family for about 3 1/2 weeks, so the dogs are still getting to know each other.
But obviously they can't have these two goobers knocking furniture around. So in that situation, what do you do?
Well, what I suggested is that Zap needs to learn how to entertain himself while Kif's around and not rely on Kif for his fun. The way you do that is basically to practice it. Have the dogs together in a space, but engage Zap separately from Kif. That shows Zap that he's capable of being entertained while Kif is around but by something other than Kif. By the way, engaging Zap can take almost any form you want. It can be play or training. But in this case, it can be just giving him some affection on the couch.
And that's why this picture is so cool. Zap's/Kif's people sent this to me and it's exactly what I wanted to see. They're engaging Zap and Zap's eating it up. The dogs are hanging out together but without rearranging furniture.
By the way, to make sure they CAN'T get to each other to play and help set Zap up for success, I suggested they have Zap wear his leash. This won't be necessary forever, but to start, it's super helpful.
So yeah ... this is awesome. Way to go little Zap! Welcome to La Familia Big Wags and I can't wait to do more work with you.
