Coco had a big week. We'll do the big news first. I was reading my book in bed and decided that the begging dog at my feet was too much to bear. I invited Coco to come up and sit with me and she crawled into my lap! I had read over and over that Frenchies were originally bred as companion dogs and in some cases lap dogs. Coco finally trusted me enough to curl up with me. I thought it was a fluke, but a few days later Miguel and I were on the couch watching t.v. and we invited Coco onto the couch. She jumped up and crawled over to Miguel and lay her whole body across his lap and laid her head on the arm rest. It was adorable. She stayed for about 5 minutes. Then, later that night, she came up onto my lap while I was watching Lost and snuggled with me for about 15 before she got hot and rolled off. I spoke with a trainer earlier in the week, and he says it takes some rescue dogs a year till they are fully bonded. I had no idea. We've seen other changes in Coco this past week, too. She seems more calm when we leave the house and she stops barking when we ask her too.And now for the quasi bad news. I say quasi because this story has a silver lining. Basically, I took Coco for a behavioral consult to a place in Boston. They use corrective jerks with the collar to get results. That is the bad news; it basically has been haunting me that I allowed anyone to use corrective jerks on my dog. I really didn't know what it was going to look like, I think I've only ever seen the dog whisperer do it to one of his clients dogs that was completely out of control. I don't think Coco needs that sort of training; we have plenty of time to help her with her dog aggression, we can surely try some other techniques. If she were a big dog and would be dangerous out of control, it would make sense. For a Saint Bernard or Boxer or some big dog, I can't imagine what you would do if they freaked out like Coco does. But she's so little, it seems silly to me that you would have to jerk her around. I could just pick her up if she was going to attack someone.
The good news is that Coco can be trained; she met THREE dogs at that dog trainer's place while she was there. She basically went from red-eyed "i'm going to eat you alive" angry to totally chill. She sniffed noses and bums with this huge boxer; the kept going over to each other and the boxer kept reaching out with his paw to play with her. She sniffed with a poodle and someone's whippet mix. A couple of times she started whining and pulling, not to eat the other dog, but because she wanted to go over and meet it. Her eye went from red to clear ,and by the end of the evaluation she pranced out of the dog trainer's place like nothing had ever happened. We even met a pug on the street on our way out and she just looked at it, like, "so?" I have totally changed my opinion of what is going on with Coco. It's not that she hates other dogs, it's that she WANTS to meet them and say hi and has no IDEA how to go about it. This means that we can totally change our approach with her. We are going to start to feel around for people with chill dogs for her to meet, and when we feel she is ready, I think we are going to try and adopt another dog, or foster a dog, who is chill that Coco can be exposed to 24/7. If we can introduce her properly and let her know what is acceptable meeting behavior, I think this can all work out!
