Evel KNeville

So, this has been a trip. The dog…Neville is smart and rotten and gangly and funny and sweet, and so much more. I think I’m in over my head with the training stuff. I’ll be dead before I get him trained as a service dog! It’s not him — he is surprisingly responsive and determined. I, however, have never trained a dog in my life and still don’t know how to approach it.

Some trainers say to teach one thing at a time, and some say to teach different things at a time. Some want me to crate the poor boy whenever I can’t have eyes on him every minute. He wasn’t too happy about being crated and whined and howled when he was in there for less than 5 minutes.

The first thing I taught him was “leave it,” per Pupford Academy, and he does very well with that, but he thinks that he is supposed to leave something for a minute or two and then he gets it. That is fine when it’s treats or toys, of course, but when I dropped something and he went for it, I told him to leave it and he listened right away until I said “Good boy,” which is what I say in training to let him know he can get the item, so he picked it up 🤣🤣. I’m confusing both of us!

He gets bored, I guess (when I try to play with him, he lies down and chews on his toy) and brings me all kinds of things while I’m working. He brought me his water bowl, which I thought was because it was empty but it turned out he just dumped it while picking it up, so now his bowl is taped to a piece of wood because he did it again. I think it’s because the bowl was in the kitchen and not in the bedroom, but I don’t know; I’m not a dog. He keeps bringing me the bathroom trash can. He has chew toys and squeaky toys, yet grabbed my iPad and started gnawing on the cover 🤦‍♀️. He was going to take a gallon jugful of water somewhere; had it by the handle and everything.

The other day, he learned “drop it,” and started to learn how to place his chin on my leg, which will be something I want him to do when I’m overwhelmed. Oh, and he did “drop it” so well! He grabbed the cats’ pooper scooper, and I told him to drop it. He sat down, opened his mouth, and let it fall to the floor, then sat there and looked at me, waiting for a treat. It definitely wasn’t just a startled response from me speaking, and I was so proud of him.

Adam got in on some of the training and seems to think it’s going well. Nev’s getting very good at dropping things for me and the chin command I introduced. He tries to get away with barely tapping his chin on my leg to get his treat but he will leave it there after a few attempts. The first day he was here, he knocked me over when I was sitting on the floor and got on me, which is what I want him to do for deep pressure therapy, but he did it just to hang out and be loved on. He gets pretty distracted by the cats.