Thursday training tips: Let’s start down the Yellow Brick Road

“Then she went back to the house, and having helped herself and Toto to a good drink of the cool clear water, she set about making ready for the journey to the City of Emeralds… Then she looked down at her feet and noticed how old and worn her shoes were.

“'They surely will never do for a long journey, Toto,’ she said. And Toto looked up into her face with his little black eyes and wagged his tail to show he knew what she meant.”

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, 1900

Ah, to have the perfect connection that existed between Dorothy and Toto!

Bringing a new dog into your life, and developing a deep connection with him, is exhilarating and challenging. It is undeniably fun, but, at times, it can be downright frustrating. We try our best to meet our dog’s needs within the limitations of what we are able to offer; but many of us just can’t provide an ideal farm life. Even if we could, let’s remember that even the most loving homes inevitably experience tornadoes, witches (good and bad), or even flying monkeys.

This Tips & Training column, appearing on Thursdays, aims to help us avoid – or recover from – falling houses. It will help us discover the brain, heart, and courage to find common sense solutions that will build healthy relationships between our dogs and ourselves.

Pups who come from rescue organizations often have special challenges, whether it is a history of abuse or abandonment, or the devastating loss of a loved human companion. People who adopt rescued pups need all the resources we can muster to make that adoption successful. Among all of their many resources, Col. Potter Cairn Rescue Network offers a terrific small book, A Sound Beginning: How to Build a Relationship & Gain Trust, that everyone needs to read. Last week, we also presented a suggested reading list of five books. Following that blogpost, several people suggested additional books that they found useful (and we’ll discuss those in the weeks ahead). These books provide a solid foundation for building human-canine relationships and strengthening communications necessary for training.

Now it’s time for us to walk the talk.

Beach, a 6-month-old West Highland White Terrier, is going to walk this Yellow Brick Road with us. Col. Potter rescued Beach from a puppy mill, and found that she has severe subaortic stenosis, which is a congenital heart abnormality. Her prognosis is not good and she is at constant risk for sudden death. This column’s author is adopting Beach on Sunday, July 22, to give her the happiest life possible within the circumstances. This blog post will follow Beach’s life and learning, and we promise to be transparent in discussing our challenges, successes, and failures.

We hope you’ll join us on this adventure.