Bah.
New dog, (now named Iggy) was P-E-R-F-E-C-T (or at least so I tought) when he came to live with us. Walking like a dream on leash, paying attention, sitting when you stop and looking at you and all, not caring for other dogs on the street, listening vey well.
I'm quite clearly turning him into a poophead, with Jack's help. When we're walking outside, just me and Iggy, he's pretty good. He'll pull a bit for a cat,a dog or a squirrel but will happily walk by my side on a loose leash once they're out of sight (he didn't do that before).
If Jack is there, I don't exist anymore (I have that issue with Jack too). I call his name, he rarely even turns his head. If I have him on say, 3 feet of leash, he'll be at the end of it, looking at nothing and pulling, not crazy pulling but definitely putting good tension on the leash.
Cats and squirrels, forget it. Another dog? He'll whimper and cry and want to go see it, when before he could care less. Actually Jack seems better with this when Iggy is there - I don't get why. I KNOW I should have mastered this with Jack before another dog came along, but he was getting mellower and I never tought his excitement would influence a dog who's super well socialized with dogs like Iggy (he used to live in a house with 6-7 other dogs initially and was a charm, then again the rescue person knew a lot more about dog juggling than I do). Now he's even started whimpering and running in our corridor when he hears the upstairs dog going down the stairs of the building...
Anything I ask is now more time consuming - simple commands that he seemed to know well before now take some convincing - Iggy sit... Come on!... Iggy!!! and then he sits. Just like Jack who sometime seems to tell me to f*ck off, I don't have a ball in my hand so whatever.
I have a hard time exercising them together - Jack can only run on soft surfaces, and now he'll only run to fetch. Iggy won't fetch, and Jack is too focused on his toy to take Iggy's invitations to play and ignores him. So I have to cater to both, so throwing a toy and keeping Iggy from eating gigantic amounts of grass clippings, so he ends up with not much exercising in the end. It's hard to separate walks on some evenings, and I want him to exercise too, I'm extremely lucky he's a low energy guy.
He used to be like 1000% food motivated, and now during excited moments (i.e, asking him to sit when there's a dog in the vincinity), even waving the food in front of him will not work. I have this same problem with Jack, it MUST be something I'M doing wrong.
Mainly I have a hard time keeping his attention outside. With Jack too. I find that when I carry food, let's say to encourage them to walk on a loose leash, they do it, I treat, and then they just pull again. They seem to have to pull to be able to get back to not pulling, and then have a treat. Or like when Jack wants to play, and I'm trying to get him to poop first - he knows that if he picks up a stick and chews on it (not allowed, he sallows it and pukes), I'll tell him to leave it and THEN I'll throw the toy and he wins.
I don't know what to do with the two of them anymore...
They're much smarter than I am, and I feel like a lousy owner - being handed a dog made out of gold on a plate and screwing him up. Meh it seems like every post I make in this section is a giant complaint!