Owning a Dog in Columbus – A First Timer’s Guide to Not Raising a Terrible Puppy (Like Me)

Written by Matthew Erman

My fiance and I first met Rory in December of 2012 just shortly after a snowstorm that left the roads covered in Ohio’s infamous wintery grey sludge. He was across town, in Gahanna which was a twenty minute drive from our downtown apartment. Rory, a complete stranger, came home with us that night.

In the first few months of living with us he destroyed two expensive color printers, a handful of equally expensive paint brushes, all of the rugs, and those little springy things on all the doors. No, Rory was not the world’s worst room mate, he was a puppy. Our really shitty puppy.

Truthfully, my fiance and I were in over our heads (and his head too because he was the size of two rats duck-taped together.) We’d never raised a dog before and my interactions with dogs were contained to being chased down a road in Kentucky by a roving wild pack of them (true story.) We knew dogs needed things – toys, food, an area to stretch their legs, cuddles and water but that’s about it.

What we didn’t know ended up severely stunting the development and growth of our little pupper. Sadly, It happens all too often, two dumb twenty somethings (us) get a dog without any foresight or information. In a town like Columbus with dog parks aplenty, the prospect is often more tempting each time you see a miniature pocket corgi playfully tossing around with a dog twice his size. It’s a curse and we were victims.

After months of suffering through Rory’s obvious emotional turmoil we had to come to terms that we were doing a shitty job raising our dog. On accident of course. We didn’t train him to eat trash bags, or to bite our cat’s entire face or that pooping outside is not merely a suggestion. Infact, we didn’t train him at all. He was essentially a wild animal wondering why there weren’t any gophers and groundhogs to kill. It wasn’t until after he actually bite me, drawing the littlest trickle of blood that we decided things were not all right.

We first contacted Mollie Phythyon of Buckeye Dog Training for a free consultation, we figured she’ll be able to come and look this little asshole up and down and tell us what his issue was. This is exactly what she did shortly after Rory peed on our couch from the terror and stress of a new human in his life.

“I think people tend to forget when they first get a puppy that puppies (and dogs in general) thrive in structure.” Mollie said, and we had no structure, we were literally tossing him in a closed room before we left for work.

“There’s this whole new idea out there that puppies should have free rein and that they’ll be unhappy if we give them rules and boundaries; of course, no one wants to raise an unhappy dog, but that is really humanizing the puppy – dogs just don’t think like that.”

Mollie worked wonders on Rory. Without the good coaching and support of local businesses and parks in Columbus, Rory would likely be sitting on whatever the dog version of the electric chair is – so here’s some things you can do so to avoid raising a shitty dog.

• Crate Train That @#*hole

  “I know this is a heated topic for a lot of dog parents, but I believe there is no substitute for good crate training.  Again, people think it’s mean to crate their puppy, but a dog just doesn’t think like we do.  Crate training is beneficial for the dogs and families in a lot of areas: It helps to maintain a good schedule for housebreaking, and build bladder tolerance so they learn to hold urine longer than ten minutes, it helps them learn impulse control, and it helps to minimize the potential for separation anxiety once they understand the crate is a safe place for them.” – Mollie
  
  No jokes here, this was so goddamn important and it was literally my fault we didn’t do this for Rory and it RUINED him for two years. Complete trash dog. Just…you have no idea. So buy a cozy sized crate and run with it, you’ll be looking back at that day as quite possibly the best purchase you’ve ever made.

• Take it to the park!

  “Lots of play and exercise!  A tired puppy is a good puppy.”
  
  There are lots of good parks, specifically Goodale around 3pm – 5pm. Which is great because it is in walking distance of Posh Pet, where you can buy all sorts of toys, accessories or poop bags because that is now a thing. Yup! Get ready because you’re going to be picking up poop every day for the next fifteen years.

   

• Socializing

  “Socialization is very important, once the puppy is fully vaccinated.  Dogs that are poorly or improperly socialized from early on have the potential to develop behavioral issues, so introducing them to lots of people and dogs and cats helps familiarize them with everything.”  – Mollie
  
  Dogs are like weird little kids, if you’re taking them to the park might as well put them near other dogs because dogs are better at telling other dogs that they suck. Dogs want to be part of the cool kids club and if it’s being an unfathomable yank then it’s likely those other dogs are going to say something, bum your dog out and get it to change. You can also help by with proper training. A lot of pet places offer group training sessions which are awesome.

• Positive Reinforcement

  Even when Rory was acting like Marlon Brando on the set of Apocalypse Now, I managed to train him how to shake simply using positive reinforcement. Remember, dogs don’t know what is good. Surprise! The little gremlin that eats cat poop is pretty dumb!
  
  Dogs like food, food is good so when they do something awesome give ‘em food. That means they’ll do more of that thing to get food. Simple. Also buy a clicker, they’re fun and useful.

   

• Don’t Get Another a Dog to Solve The First Dog’s Problem

  This is such a laughably bad idea. Just cut to five years from now, you’ve got eight dogs each progressively worse than the last. You have nowhere to sleep because you’ve been alpha’d down the totem pole  All because you couldn’t be assed to put your original mistake in a crate and take it to the park to understand what it means to be a dog.

That’s that, enjoy the dog days of summer with your pooch and if you messed up there is still time to help your dog especially in Columbus.

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