It's early morning, and Angus is at his sweetest. It's 5:30 a.m., and he's been out in the yard and back inside and, briefly, in my lap and then lying on top of my feet, and there's been no biting, as there is in the evenings, and right this very moment he is lying kind of half under the dining room table, chewing sleepily on a flat periwinkle blue puffy toy.
You would not believe, to see him now, that on the walks he has started turning into Cujo.
This is a relatively new thing, and I am hoping that there is some way to train this reaction out of him. Maybe he'll grow out of it, but I don't want to count on that alone.
Here is the problem: On the walks he has started barking at people ferociously. He used to just sort of woof, but now he is doing full throttle barks, and even though he is not even four months old yet, he has in recent days found his voice (so to speak) and he has developed a big loud kind of hysterical-sounding bark.
He does this whenever we see anyone, no matter how far off they may be.
People at bus stops, innocently waiting for the bus. People walking blocks away, just little dots of movement in the distance. Yesterday morning he went off with a volley of barks at 7 a.m. at a woman who was trying to scrape the ice off her windshield. Maybe it was the skritching noise that got him, maybe the movement of the woman's arms, maybe the woman herself. I don't know. She was a block away, and I hoped to bring him up to her and ask her to give him some kibble and let him sniff the ice scraper, but by the time we had navigated the icy pathway and climbed over the snow berm at the end of the street, she was gone.
Last night it was a man shoveling who got him going, and this time we did stop. "Would you mind petting this puppy?" I asked. "He needs to get used to people."
And the man was terrific. He stopped shoveling and he made Angus sit and he scratched his head and gave him a treat, and then he and I chatted and Angus milled around at the end of the leash, not barking, entirely unconcerned. And then we walked on.
So this is what I try to do: When Angus goes nuts, I make him sit. I give him a treat. I try to bring him up to the person and let him see that the person is not scary. (I am assuming these are fear barks, not aggressive barks.)
But it simply is not always possible. It's not possible even half the time. The other night he went off on a guy who was cross-country skiing in the park; the guy wanted nothing to do with him. Sometimes the person is across the street, down the block, gettting into a car, and all I can do is hurry Angus along, stuffing him full of kibble as we go.
But this is such a distressing turn of events! I am not sure if what I am doing is going to help. We just cannot have him barking at everyone he sees on the walks. This just cannot continue!
Two nights ago on the second of the evening walks (because, as you know, I walk the dogs one at a time these days), we were at the corner when a bus pulled up, noisily farted out its exhaust, opened its creaky doors, and a woman came down the steps. I held the leash tightly, worried that barking would begin, and then I looked at the dog and realized, Rosie. I didn't have Angus with me, I had Rosie. She just stood there, waiting quietly for me to walk on.
Sweet, gentle Rosie the former wolverine, who only barks if she is in our house or our yard.
Right now Angus is lying on his belly, batting at tennis ball that is underneath Doug's chair. How can such a sweet dog turn into Cujo?
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