I found Rosie on Petfinder at 3 am in the morning. It was one of the many, many moments since 2020 when I’ve watched the world continue to spiral while feeling pretty helpless myself.
But I’d been following a few encouraging dog training accounts, especially Herdy n Happy. And I couldn’t do much about the chaos in the world, but I could find a high-needs dog, one often subjected to heavy-handed training, and I could document the process of using positive reinforcement with that dog. I looked at Dobermans, Rottweilers, German Shepherds, and Belgian Malinois. I found a few to apply for, and only got a call back for one: a 2.5-year-old Belgian Malinois named Rosie.
The rescue tested her with small dogs, as I had two little ones of my own, and I made the 45-minute trip to go meet her. She wasn’t particularly interested in interacting with me, just in tearing apart the toys scattered around the office, but what struck me that visit was how at ease she seemed. She threw herself on the couch next to me and got to work.
A few days later, she met my pups, and a few weeks later, she came home.
I wasn’t sure the first few days. She was incredibly stressed out, breathing hard even while passed out asleep, and I couldn’t get a read on her. Was she decompressing or was she unhappy? And maybe it was a bit of both. The only thing that relaxed her was sniffing the spice rack, a recommendation from Odin’s person.
Then I thought I started seeing separation anxiety. I don’t think it’s separation anxiety anymore, and I’ll tackle why I thought it was and how I figured out it wasn’t in a later post. We started to figure each other out, and she’s beginning to settle in.
Rosie likes:
- Plain yogurt
- Sniffing out her kibble
- Tearing apart squeaky toys
- Stealing squeaky toys from Lexi
- Charging the fence to bark at the neighbor’s dog
- Charging through the front door
- Charging at other people to say hello
- Barking and chasing cats
- Hot dogs
- Doggy daycare
- Playing with Lexi
- Teasing Lexi
- Jumping on things
- Jumping up to grab things (like toys or chews)
- Jumping through things
Rosie dislikes:
- Popcorn (homemade with butter)
- Peanut butter
- Being asked to wait at doors
- Walking on a leash
- Eliminating on a leash
- People walking by the front window
- Training (cheese or hot dogs are acceptable)
- Cats (how dare they exist)
- The vacuum
- The broom
- Relaxing
- When other dogs bark at her
- When people approach the car
- When people are running
Rosie is learning:
- Come
- Stay
- Wait
- Leave it
- Leash manners
- Scentwork
We’ll be documenting on OnceUponAMalinois, a personal Instagram account I made so I can access the music and trends I don’t get on the TelltailDog account (but she’ll still show up there as well). Come join us.
