There's Something About Otto

Well, we've had Otto in our family for 5 weeks now, and what an adventure it has been.  We wanted to thank you all for your various suggestions as to how to deal with his mouthiness.  We've been using a combo of all of your suggestions - so much accumulated wisdom out there - with a good deal of success.  Ignoring him, crying out and walking away immediately and the command OFF THE BED have all been effective.

photo by Miss CreekHiker

Otto is a VERY high energy rottie.  And while we gave our approval for bringing him into our pack because of his general submissiveness to our seniority (and general awesomeness) he is still much more high maintenance than we were used to.  

Consequently, he gets at least one hour and a half walk a day, if not more, and (this is the weird part) he likes to play tennis ball!!  This is somewhat against traditional rottie behavior - at least at our house - but he gets mom or dad outside after dinner and races up and down the hill in our backyard like some kind of labrafreak!  He tires out pretty quickly and then he'll come back in and zen-out with the rest of us.  

We are getting our requisite number of walks as well, so the mom is looking at dropping some serious poundage which she can stand to do!!  

Two other things - we have talked mom into getting him a backpack to wear on walkies.  Gizmo and I (Bart) used to walk with a backpack with some weight in it when we were younger and it helped drain our energy somewhat.  Somedog, I'm sure it was Gizmo, chewed up the straps on it, so Otto gets his own new one.  Most importantly, mom found our old dog trainer, Blaine, who helped Allie and Gizmo and me learn to be awesome and well mannered.  Otto met Blaine for the first time last Friday and was (of course) perfect in his presence.  Mom had walked Otto for about 45 minutes before the session, so Otto just did whatever Blaine asked him to do and otherwise just laid there like a big bear rug.  Blaine said, "I have people pay me hundreds of dollars to get their dog to do this!"  OY.  He's coming to the house soon, then he can see the devil in action.  

Overall, Otto is learning the house rules and our personal space rules well.  For instance, because Ruby has some nasty arthritis in her elbow, Otto doesn't jump on her, but they will play tug or this morning he'd drop the ball so she'd pick it up and then they played keep away.  I, on the other paw, tell him in no uncertain terms that I am not amused by him in any way, but he likes to pounce at me and I bark at him and wag my stub.  I just can't let him know that I really enjoy the play.  I, too, have some arthritis in my hippers so I don't like to be bounced on butt I am enjoying manly play.  

We're sorry that we don't have any pictures of us all together yet - that's mom's next task.  We've had some serious ups and downs with this process, butt we think we've rounded a corner and 5 weeks in we're feeling hopeful that we will be a happy pack of rotties.  

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We hope you're all having a lovely weekend!

Love,

-Bart