Welcome Barak

Barak looking a bit confused in his new home,

while Goshen is sharing her calm energy

Today we welcomed a new member to our pack. Barak is a 2,5-years old German Shepherd male, who I anonymously mentioned in an earlier blog post. During his life he has not received the confident guidance a young dog like him needs, and therefore he has ended up in some unfortunate situations. I have met him briefly a few times before and he is generally quite rude in his approach to people, all out of lack of education. He also ran away from his former owner a few times, so we will have to work a lot on the recall, using a long training leash. He then recently happened to bite a neighbour, but the neighbour was trespassing on the property so Barak's action only mirrored a territorial behaviour, which is something that is bred into this dog. However, this behaviour has to be controlled and fine-tuned, as any character trait and in this case young Barak took decisions into his own hands, which is not fair to a dog.

He was brought to our house and I met him up outside. We started our relationship by taking a long walk, only him and me. He was more attentive than I expected and we did some contact exercises and I immediately started to expect him to listen to me and respect me. I noticed that he still has a lot of puppy behaviour, among other things he often sits down when he pees. He does not seem to have an issue with other dogs in general, which is a good sign. We passed some barking dogs, but he did not take notice or got provoked. We also met Lucy, a neighbours Pitbull, who always run around loose below the houses and Barak showed normal social behaviour with her. I am thinking about some appropriate well-behaved male to introduce him to when the time comes. However, he has a slight cat issue. A cat happened to just show up in a bush he passed and he charged at it, but I was fast enough to be able to correct him and he also took the correction well. The cat thing we will have to work on.

When we came home again I let Goshen out and we spent some greeting time outside before I took everybody inside. I let Barak enter last to show him that he is not the owner of the place. Goshen acted flawlessly and I was so proud of her. Barak was a bit confused and restless, but we just showed him how the pack can rest together by just being calm. He wandered about for a while but soon started to quiet down and find some rest. He peed on the floor once and then later on the carpet, but it was not out of defiance, but merely because he is not at all used to being indoor. Goshen even shared one of her bones with him, but it was still clear that she acted out of patience rather than submission. Her alpha role over him was never even questioned. It came natural and was self-evident. He tried to mount the sofa a few times, but took the correction well, as well as when we asked him to stay away from the table when me and Ziv had lunch.

Yoram came home a bit earlier from work and took both of the dogs for a longer run in the fields. It was clear when they came back that Goshen is in a much better shape, because it took forever before Barak stopped panting. Generally speaking, I represent most of the obedience training, while Yoram provides most of the serious exercise, but we both possess the calm-assertive energy and that is the most important thing of them all... Lucky Barak!

Both dogs tired after the run