Two and a half weeks ago, we drove about four hours south to a place called Ballogie, west of Gympie. Why did we drive so far? I was going to pick up the newest addition to my little farm!
Meet Pip, my new bouncy boy Maremma puppy!
I have been working on training him to sit and lie down and walk on a leash, and he is doing very well with that.
Pip is living in one half of a duck pen by himself, with 5 young ducks and one half-blind duck living in the other half of the pen. This is so that he will hopefully bond with the ducks, get to know them really well, and eventually become an excellent guardian dog. Keeping them close but in different areas for the first few weeks is done so they can bond without Pip chasing them - even though Maremmas have an instinct to be guardians, all puppies love to play and chase things, and Pip will need to be trained to not chase the ducks. He has tried to chase them even through the wire a few times, but each time I firmly tell him "No", and eventually he will learn that chasing birds is not acceptable behaviour.
Flopsie and Pip
At first Flopsie was grumpy with Pip because she wasn't sure if he was a rival or not. Also, for the first few nights I left the ducks out in their yard with Flopsie to guard them because of Pip living in one of the duck pens. I think Flopsie was feeling tired and overworked having to guard the duckies both day and night equally vigilantly, and it made her grumpy and irritable with Pip. After those first few nights, I managed to squish the duckies into the other pens for nighttime (there's 40 of them at the moment due to an exceptional breeding season, so it's a bit overcrowded. Just for the night it's alright though - ducks spend most of the night just sleeping, so they don't need heaps of space. Look out for another blog post about our duckies in the coming weeks!). It worked wonders - thereafter Flopsie has not once snapped at Pip! (The ducks feel safer in their pens at night too; that's how they were raised.) Now Flopsie and Pip love to play together when I let Pip out of his pen, and they race all over the yard together! I only let him out for a short while though in the early morning before letting the ducks out, because he does still have that puppy mentality of "all moving things are my playtoy" and has chased them a couple times..... He thinks it's great fun, but the duckies (and me) are not so ready to agree!!
Pip is very different from what I remember of Flopsie as a puppy (unfortunately puppyhood lasts such a short time that I've already forgotten much of Flopsie's...). If my memory serves me correctly, Flopsie was a calm, quiet, observant puppy, who was sometimes naughty, but quickly learned how to be good (-ish). However, Pip is very bouncy, and his tail never stops wagging when someone is with him, but if someone ignores him or walks away, he gets desperately sad - he either cries and yaps, or he lifts his little nose to the moon and howls his little heart out.... It's so terribly cute!!! But when he's too bouncy or noisy, I intentionally ignore him, and only give him attention when he's calm and quiet - he's already learning that it's better to be quiet than noisy!
I have been doing training with both dogs together - although that's hard to do with a very distractable and distracting little puppy that thinks Flopsie only exists for his entertainment! Usually, of course, Flopsie is very good and sits or lies down right away, while Pip is making desperate attempts to bite her or jump on her (for this initial training I'm keeping him on a leash so he doesn't go racing off). But sometimes, because Flopsie's never had the excitement of such a small playmate before, Flopsie joins in with Pip's naughty escapades, and then it's quite a struggle to get both their attention so we can go on with the lesson!!!!
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