Contest: Choices! What will it be? #3 : DOG

For a long time I dreamed of having my own dog, but for various reasons, I always put it off, first because I lived in a small apartment in the city, then because I had to take care of other people, then because I was traveling for work...

5 years ago, my cousin had the brilliant idea of proposing I take a dog from the litter that his dog had just given birth to.

So, since the conditions were ideal, I waited a few months and then I have it brought to me.
Here it is the first day that it looks adorable like an innocent furry ball!

I was over the moon, I ran to buy a kennel, leash, food and toys.
I started giving him a bath, taking him around and the whole neighborhood was like "how beautiful, how wonderful, how adorable, it's wonderful...."

In fact he was the most beautiful and good dog in the world, I treated him like a child...

Jack the disaster

The idyll lasted a few months, then Jack, perhaps to affirm the fact that he is a dog and not a child, started behaving like a dog.

He has eaten:

• two wooden gates
• a plastic doghouse
• a foam cot
• the seat of an armchair
• various logs of firewood
• some stones

All this in the few hours he was alone or at night.

Over the years he has broken his canine tooth (by dint of eating unidentified objects); he has cut his paw digging in the soil in the countryside, with a run to the veterinary clinic (on January 1st!) and various stitches; he almost suffocated for a piece of wood stuck in his throat that my mother managed to remove by sticking her hand into his mouth.

In desperation I called a canine educator, when Jack was 2, we did a month of training. He taught me to take him on a leash (yes apparently some dogs come naturally, but for others, it's not that simple) and to play some games to help him concentrate.

However, the desperate educator also tells me "To train a dog like this you should take him to the center for a whole year" ...

Unfortunately, the cost was too expensive, so I decided to keep the dog as it is, albeit with some difficulties and continue the exercises they recommended.

My luck is that I live a few steps from the countryside so I can let him off the leash and let him run free. Certainly not the kind of dog you can take into a shop or restaurant! To tell the truth, I can't take him even in the city center anymore like I did when he was little because he wants to run after pigeons and barks at other male dogs, I can't keep him on the leash all the time, now he weighs almost 20 kg!

Yet he is like this, a dog with a strong hunting instinct.

With people, he is very good and affectionate, apart from the postman, who he hates and barks at, foaming at the mouth (!)

Yet there are moments when he looks at me and he seems to understand me.

When I leave the house, he understands from the clothes and shoes I'm wearing whether he can come with me or not.
If I have clothes to go to the countryside, he runs to sit in front of the gate all composed waiting for me to put the leash on him.

If I have other clothes he sniffs my shoes and moves away letting me go out and open the gate calmly.
To learn this we did months of exercises that he didn't seem to understand, not even with the educator, then one day it happened! He understood in his own way, thanks to my clothes, what was the difference in situations. Without particular signals or commands.

When we're in the countryside I don't worry anymore if we meet other people or other dogs, because if I call him he stays close to me and doesn't bother anyone. Years ago I immediately had to put him on a leash or he would jump on people (just to play, but obviously many people don't like seeing a mad dog running toward them :D ).

However, I don't want to discourage anyone, just to say that not all dogs are easy to keep. Especially if there's no space and you live in the city or don't have the time to take them out for a walk.

I know dogs that don't require particular efforts, they understand and respond to all commands, even without particular training, but for many others, this is not the case.

An educator once said that we and dogs speak different languages and that we have to learn each other, sometimes the process is short, and sometimes it takes years.

I had the challenging dog, what can I do?