Monterey Jack: “Parenting” Lessons from a Puppy Mama

Writing Challenge: Write what brings you joy.

Challenge: Write about a topic that’s just fun for you! It doesn’t matter what you write, just have fun writing it.

I have found that if I write in order to “write something good” or to impress a teacher/editor/friend, I end up giving up on the piece when I feel it’s not good enough. Not anymore. The new writer me will write write joyfully. My fun topic this week is my puppy, Monterey Jack, who I call “my precious” haha…I truly do love Lord of the Rings.

Think of your favorite T.V. show. Can’t you just tell when the actors are genuinely having fun? True joy is contagious, and it’s what makes art so compelling. Let some fun into your writing and comment below or email catherinegloverwrites@gmail.com to share what you wrote!

When my husband, Matt, first started talking about his dream hunting dog, a Bavarian Mountain hound, I nearly laughed at the picture.

“You want this dog? No, I’m sorry. I want a cute dog.”

The puppies looked so funny to me. I had never seen a dog like it, plus I wasn’t keen on introducing a puppy into our home.

My husband, stubborn as he is, was bound and determined to get this particular dog as they are known for their specialized deer tracking abilities.

This breed refined its skills tracking game in the Bavarian mountains in Germany.

(Bavaria is one of the most beautiful places in the world btw! Family name: Swango=ancestors from Schwangau region led us to the village of Schwangau and Neuschwanstein Castle. I digress!)The Neuschwanstein Castle is absolutely worth adding to your travel wishlist. It’s fascinating. It has a literal “man cave” with stones and everything! Parts of the castle are unfinished and has a mysterious tale to it. Fun Fact: Walt Disney modeled Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom after this castle!)

[Back on track now…Monterey Jack…] My husband traveled all the way to Wisconsin, taking a rare day off work to fly and drive, all the way to Lumpy’s Kennels to get the “pick of the litter”. I’ll just go ahead and say it, my husband is a hunting dog dork. He loves this stuff. He told me all about the “belly” trick where you put a puppy on its back and see how it behaves (kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you don’t want it too wiggly or too calm, too hot or too cold). The perfect deer dog needs to be patient, curious, and brave. After watching the various puppies play around, my husband knew that Monterey Jack was our pup. If you ask me, I couldn’t tell you how you differentiate between one playful pup or another, but nevertheless, Monterey Jack was his patient, curious, and brave, deer, dog pup.

The first night Matt brought Monterey Jack home, Jack, like any puppy, cried through the night when we left him alone in the kennel. Being naive little dog parents, neither of us wanted to leave him alone on his first night without his sisters and brothers. Matt took the 1st shift in the den while I got some sleep before heading to Oxford, MS the next morning.

I woke up around 5 am to check on Matt and the puppy, rising early which rarely if ever happened.

“Can I hold him?” I asked. “I’ll watch him for a little bit.”

I couldn’t help it. I was smitten.

Monterey Jack, or Jack Jack, as I endearingly call him got me good that first day. Oh the many, many stories I could tell about this pup from just the past year! Because I have become known as the “puppy mama”, I figure I might as well share a few things I’ve learned along the way. Full disclaimer: I fully recognize that parenting a dog is nothing like parenting a child. I muse on the lessons learned purely for my own benefit of learning what NOT to do when I actually have a child lol.

1) Good Habits Start Young:

One mistake I made as a “puppy mama” was to assume that Jack wouldn’t jump on furniture when he got bigger just because I let him on one chair as a puppy. WRONG. Dogs don’t know the difference between nice furniture and not nice furniture. We are currently covering our white couch in blankets while we train Jack to ask for permission before jumping up.

I would assume that the same principle of starting habits young applies to parenting! Good habits are easiest learned as children they say.

2) Let Dogs Make Mistakes:

Just like actual kids, dogs have to make mistakes to learn. One day, we took Jack to my dad’s hunting camp to do some practice blood trails. Matt carefully laid out the practice trail while I kept Jack far away (so that he couldn’t see). Then, Matt let Jada, our older blue tick hound/lab mix, run the course of the blood trail to show Jack the ropes. Jack excitedly raced after Jada as Jada followed her instincts to find the trail, something she has done countless times. What we didn’t realize is that there was pieces of barbed wire hidden in the woods. Jada, aware of such hazards, avoided it. Jack, on the other hand, jumped right through it. His front leg got caught in the wire, and he let out a cry that I will never forget. Seeing him caught upside down yelping, I froze. My mind raced to thoughts of “He' broke his leg. He will never walk again. He won’t be able to hunt. He will be crippled!” Thank goodness Matt is actually reliable in a crisis and raced over to help Jack. I must really love Jack because I started crying as soon as Matt got him free. Jack is my puppy, so I truly can’t even imagine what parents must feel when their kids hurt themselves. Anyway, while that situation was scary, my dad pointed out that Jack will now know to avoid barbed wire. That close call might just be what prevents him from an injury later on. Similarly, I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of letting kids make mistakes in order to build confidence in themselves through problem-solving.

If you’re familiar with the show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, this picture always reminds me of the song “Bunny & Kitty”. Bunny and Kitty Video on Youtube. Forever makes me laugh.

3) Dog proof (childproof) EVERYTHING:

I honestly don’t even know how this puppy has survived because he has gotten into SO many things. From Brownie Brittle to vitamins, he gets into everything. A friend once accurately said, “Jack always finds a way.” Our cabinets in our old house swung open pretty easily, but eventually I got smart enough to move everything edible to high cabinets.

To my surprise, he found a way to destroy just about every non-edible object as well! Countless mornings I entered the kitchen to find Ziplocs, aluminum foil, newspaper-you name it-all over the floor.

Anything left on the counter was fair game-my dogs successfully devoured the leftovers of a Boston Butt (pork) and were quite happy with their meal that day!

Consequently, I have realized that I can’t assume that any cabinet will be dog-proof (or childproof). You have to be SO careful with puppies and even more so with a child I have been told (Thanks MOM!). Given that I don’t actually have to worry about this yet, my goal is to dog-proof my house so that I don’t have to go to the vet AGAIN. I hear magnets work very well for dog-proofing (childproofing) cabinets and plan to do this in our new home.

4) Expect Your Dog to Lose it When Things are Changing

Boy, I’ll tell you, I did not expect my sweet puppy to become a terror when we decided to sell our house. It’s like he sensed that change was coming and lost his mind. Prior to putting our house on the market, he typically did not destroy too many objects. As soon as I started putting him outside to clean and prepare for each showing, he got to work tearing up the shingles right outside the kitchen door. Matt and I had to “fix” those shingles for showings so many times that we almost threw in the towel.

When someone finally made an offer on the house, we replaced those shingles as part of the home inspection. This meant that he could no longer be left unsupervised outside ever. Trying to go about normal life while also having to make sure Jack didn’t destroy everything was pretty difficult. I got a glimpse into how tough it must be for moms to ever get anything done (as mom friends have mentioned)! I couldn’t schedule anything, go to appointments, or see friends without having to leave my dog at my in-laws. Needless to say, it gave me a greater empathy for those moms who do have to navigate maintaining a life, work, and social balance while taking care of kids. My situation was just with a dog and just temporary, but boy it sure felt like a long two weeks.

Monterey Jack in his favorite green chair.

As to parenting, I have heard that change is similarly pretty hard on kids. My recommendation: don’t decide to sell and buy a house during a pandemic, mmmkay!

Jack cuddles with his big sister Jada.

5) Discipline swiftly and in proportion to the “crime”

This is actually a concept that I’ve read and discussed often as an educator. Any discipline should always be as soon after the action as possible so that it is one hundred percent clear to the child what action was wrong and how they can improve. Also, the discipline should never be out of proportion for what the child actually did because otherwise they will feel frustrated or dismiss it.

Dogs need to be disciplined swiftly too. Swift discipline helps them associate the discipline with the action so that they will learn not to continue doing that action.

6) Positive Behavioral Reinforcement: Celebrate Success

This boils down to basic psychology. It’s the principle of Pavlov’s Theory in that positive behavioral reinforcement effectively “trains” or encourages continued good behavior. Dogs love and need to be praised for good behavior. This is how they learn what behavior is good and what is “bad”. So every time your dog successfully sits, rolls over, barks, whatever it is that you are trying to teach him (or her), make sure to make a HUGE deal out of it and say “Good boy!” and give the dog a big ole hug. It works.

Again, the same concept I would gander goes for parenting. Kids love it when you make a HUGE deal out of positive behavior. The recognition makes them feel that their efforts were worthwhile. It makes them feel like they aren’t trying for nothing. Of course even if an adult doesn’t recognize the behavior, it’s still not for nothing. It’s beneficial for the child to learn to intrinsically make positive decisions. Nevertheless, in all my years of experience, positive behavioral reinforcement has made a greater impact in the lives of kids than any kind of negative discipline strategy. It’s the basic concept of affirmation; affirmation encourages that person to continue making that good choice.

This applies to parenting because it is SO important to constantly celebrate the small victories children make. I know this because I have watched my sister celebrate every little success her toddler son achieves. She will say, “Good job! You did so good holding the fork” as I watch him hold it completely wrong. But the point isn’t how he held the fork, but instead that he had the confidence to take a risk to pick up the fork. Those little victories are huge! How can we as human beings, whether children or adults, grow unless we are willing to take risks and try? Affirmation and celebration creates a culture where it is safe for children to take risks and learn. That’s when they will thrive.

And this brings us to the end of my first blog post. Perhaps you have learned a thing or two about parenting a dog (child) or perhaps just laughed at a few videos of my diva dog. I certainly had fun writing and reminiscing about Monterey Jack. At nearly one-years-old, I like to say he’s got “cute privilege” and can get away with anything. Also, sorry neighbors-he’s a howler : ) Dogs- man’s best friend- gotta love um.

Comment below if you found your own fun topic to write about. I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading,

Catherine

Matt has taken so many photos of me asleep holding Jack that he intends to make a scrapbook simply to prove that I sleep a lot.

Glad to have my cuddle dog.