I was told you have to train a pup to walk with a leash and to do that you should walk your pup in the grass, actually it is not walking because pups don’t like the leash so you have to drag them. So dragging is what I did and by doing so the at the time girlenemy had many choice words for me but what had to be done had to be done.

The leash turned out to be more of a pain for me. It drove me nuts taking him for a walk because the leash would always get in the way. He no longer wears a leash because I made of point of training him to walk next to me without one. It took more work then one can imagine because being the Westie that he is his instincts instructed him to run after any and all rabbits, birds or any other rodents.

Test

Where I lived at the time was a pond with all kinds of ducks. I would sit down next to him, take off his leash while holding him back from chasing the ducks all the time saying no. I would let him go and he would chase, sometimes even going into the pond. When he did this he got scolded, after a few times of getting in trouble he would wait about 10 seconds until he could not hold back and chase them again. Over a few weeks he finally understood and he got to the point he understood he had to stay by me until I said “okay” or “go”…

This was very far from the truth with Barney, he would soil himself and anything in his way. During these first six months he likely had a bath about 200 times, sometimes a couple a day. It was evident the day I met him he was a smart pup but it did not show in his house breaking. In fact it took Barney almost a year to be fully house broken. I have since learned I was training him the wrong way. I would never let me tell me when he wanted out because I would take him out all the time, even in the middle of the night.

Giving Barney a bath was a fast event, this means I would spash him and have the water near his neck in an effort to get it done quickly. To this day likely due to this he hates taking a bath and water in general, even rain.

The photo above is when he was very young and of a training session. Barney like most dogs gets very excited over food although unlike most dogs food is not number one on his priority list. In his mind his priority lists goes something like this: 1.) Playing with a squeaky 2.) Playing with a ball 3.) Running  4.) Getting his butt kicked (will be explained later) 5.) Eating 6.) Going outside 7.) Getting petted 8.)Sleeping — he loves visiting people, especially a great friend of his Toni but even then his first goal is priority number 1 and so on.

The goal of this lesson was simply to get him to listen well. I would throw treats on the ground and allow him to chase & eat it, other times I would throw a treat on the ground while saying “No”, “Wait” and “Stay”… even after he learned those words I had to repeat them many times because if I did not he would go get it the second I stopped talking. Eventually he learned to only get his treat when he is told “Okay” or “Go get it”… it is so cute.

Today

The lesson has stayed with him. If I throw a treat to him he will chase & eat it should he get to it before it stops rolling. Should it stop rolling he will stop next to it, lay down and look back at me waiting for me to give him an okay of go get it. In a later article I will include a video of this.

When we got home we played with Barney for a couple of hours. He peed on me once and to this day I have yet to get him back! I was worried about him though because for a little 6 pound puppy he had breath that was so bad I thought for sure something was wrong with him. I even called the breeders to see what they thought about it and I was told it was normal for puppies. Thankfully it went away after about a week or so.

When bedtime arrived I left Barney in the living room in a laundry basket with a blanket. After about… hmm.. ah.. oh I don’t know five, maybe six seconds of silence he started crying. I went to the living room to pet & calm him down and it worked, worked well in fact for about hmm.. ah.. oh I don’t know three, maybe fours seconds. When Barney started

Barney "yelling" @ his cage

to cry again I yelled from the bedroom to “quiet”.. and it did increase the silence to about ten seconds.

At this point I thought bringing him into bedroom and placing the basket next to the bed would solve the crying,

nope! It is about 1:00am at this point and sleep did not seem to be nearing for any of the three of us so we all decided to drive to a 24hr K-Mart and buy a dog cage for his comfort. The thinking was maybe he was to big for a laundry basket even though he weighed only 6 p0unds.

The answer to our thinking was an instant no! After crying myself and many pleads to him to pipe down and go to sleep to no avail I picked him up and he sleep with us. The second we did this he went to sleep and has been stealing my pillow ever since.

We were close to leaving the pet store with with one of the above mentioned pups but I decided to wait because I recalled someone at my prior job either was a dog breeder or his family was involved in some way so I wanted to see what they had. The anger was not huge but the at the time girl-enemy was upset we did not take Chihuahua out of the store with us. I realize no matter what pup we ended up with the pup would have been loved and enjoyed but in no way would any other pup be the joy Barney would wind up being.

On September 20, 2001 Brenda & I met an unnamed White West Highland Terror, in fact three of them.

This is not Barney

Getting her to have an open mind about another breed was not an easy task in part because when I heard the type of breed my prior co-worker had I did that google search thing to show her some images. While the photo I found was not super bad it was of a “show-dog” that looked way to stiff and not fun at all. After she fell in love the Chihuahua & seeing the image as displayed here to the right the odds of getting a Westie appeared slim.

Adorable but not Barney

Most likely if I continued to search for just a few other images such as the one to the left trying to get her to be more willing would have been easier. Even so I was able to convince her to go look anyhow. While he was not named Barney at the time it seemed within moments Barney captured the hearts of both of us.

There were three Westies we had to choose from, Barney his sister and brother. Both the sister and brother were more polished in the sense they had pure white fur and both of their ears had already popped up. Barney on the other hand was a bit bigger, some wheat color in his fur and one droopy ear.

We did not bond with Barney the second we met him but it was clear from the looks of all three of them the at the time girl-enemy felt much better based on how they looked in comparison of the image to the right side of this page so that was good. We took turns petting each of them and the truth is Barney picked us and not the other way around.  We took the baby Westies outside one at a time and the second we got out the door with Barney his entire personality changed from a timed Westie to the Barney I know to this day. He was bouncing around filled with the type of joy that can only make a human smile.