The First Few Weeks With My New Rescue Dog

2 weeks ago I brought a new dog into my home. His name is Cypress and he’s a 2 year old Pit mix. As I’m writing this, he's cuddled up on the couch with my 3 year old son. I’ve found that one of his favorite things to do is to cuddle.

Cypress became comfortable in the house pretty quickly. He was definitely thrown off a bit when out and about and acting out of his element. This resulted in him sticking close to me on walks and staring but not reacting to anything. As the days went on, and as we went down the same path, I could see his body language loosening up. This is all common for dogs and can give people a false sense of what their new dog’s behavior is going to actually look like. Cypress was looking at dogs and not barking or reacting at all. As he became more comfortable, he started doing what many dogs do, which is barking.

As I mentioned, in the house he was pretty comfortable. He’s done a fantastic job being gentle and loving with the kids. (With careful supervision!) We’ve been setting him up to succeed by keeping non dog items out of reach and making sure he has appropriate options available. Crate training for him was a breeze. The first day he had it available we practiced the crate training plan where he kept randomly finding jackpots within the crate. Before long he was able to be in there with a bully stick while I walked away and returned dropping in tasty snacks. Being in crate wasn’t new to him. This made it much easier. He nows goes in there when I want to give him high value chews and at night. The crate has made it so much easier to teach him to hold his pee for longer period of times. The first couple of days I was getting him out every hour. (I had a timer set.) Now, 2 weeks in, we’re going out every 2 or so hours (unless crated) and he’s nailing it. Accidents (which have all been my fault) have been few and far between.)

That’s all for now! Be sure to check out the Instagram and FB page for video updates of his training.