Gracie, the Forever Puppy

Chapter 3-Dame Gracie, the Greek

Welcome to Gracie, the forever puppy. She is an Irish Terrier Terror who is a handful, brilliant, gorgeous, and downright annoying. We are breathlessly awaiting her exit from youth and adolescence.

Gracie is still a handful, but we are learning how to cope with her quasi Middle School antics. I remember these capers. I love teaching middle school even with their foolishness. Examples are “he said she said, throwing wads of paper, and other ADHD multiple complications” are easily nipped in bud.

On the other hand, Puppy rearing is a very hands-on experience and extremely interactive. It is difficult to guess when Gracie will have “a moment”. Ah, the joys of puppyhood. She becomes over-excited when she defecates, engages playing with her toys and bones, and completes her reinforcement task ie. dog communication prompts.

Gracie still socializes well with dogs and people. Since we do not have interactions with cats, I presume she would have an adversarial attitude. I have come to reinforce my knowledge of the dog versus the cat preferences in people. The poop eating problem still exists, but she does not eat rocks, nips at us a lot less, and still has fewer accidents.

We are into Week 3 of Puppy 3 training which began two weeks ago. Gracie is receiving the academics she needs. Her memory is acute, but it is exhausting to let her work (chew cardboard towel and toilet paper rolls, cardboard boxes from Costco). She sometimes eats the cardboard as an alternate behavior. We have relied on her working dog mannerisms to make her behave appropriately. She is a precocious and tenacious dog. I wonder who she gets that from! As an analogy, the other dogs are left at the starting gate as she runs to the finish line.

She is adept at Kong balls, pulling out the tray to her kennel, communicating in every way possible in order to get anything and everything she wants. She has learned how to get our attention in order to use the facilities. This has required so many different plans on our part, creating the most difficult situations, but we are on the home stretch. She now has one choice rather than many, but gets rewarded for the correct decisions which are many. We are trying to concentrate on the positive which are multiple, but there are days when we are aggravated at everything she could possibly do or not do.

As a middle school teacher, I would come home and on an occasion, dejected, wanting to quit, but arise the next day with my spirit intact. We have those days as an owner of an Irish Terrier, but we are grateful for Gracie’s intellect, creativity, and passion for life. She is adorable and brilliant, but too smart for her good.

She is still a terrier-a stubborn breed. She has all of her permanent teeth, but the love nips still exist. She has developed a knack for how hard she does not nip. If you go towards her while she is eating, she will snap for sure. She likes to hang out more with us than in her earlier puppyhood.

Girl Irish Terriers are not as easy as dogs to live with for the first couple of years. She is gorgeous, fun, loving, and we are grateful for her every day. She is our terror terrier, the perennial puppy.

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