When people see Nalu out and about in public and when he is hamming it up for all the hoomanz, people ooh and aah over how “well-behaved” and how sociable he is. People are not wrong, but they are also not completely accurate because they are not privy to the total picture: my little griffy has a huge ass personality. And when his 15% kolohe/scared of big dogs and mopeds/watch dog king of the apartment complex/leash lunging at Asian old lady strangers side consistently emerges at some point every single day without fail, it’s kind of embarrassing.
So I thought I would create a post that shows the good, the bad, and the ugly of having such an adorable little muchkee-moo dog breed, with a big ass personality, and some small-dog-boss-dog anxiety all contained inside of this tiny, soft-furred little body hidden behind a face that is to die for.
WHEN HE WAS A BABY PUPPY…
The good: He trained like a freakin’ dream, and he was an instant snuggler, which to me are two of his biggest personality upsides. When I picked him up from the breeder, he wasn’t a loud, rambunctious pup like all of his brothers and sisters– he was the quiet one who instantly laid his coconut head over my heart and just wanted to dog hug it out.
And he was smart from the start. He figured out right away how to pee on the pee pad only, and would pee on the pee pad, on command during our mama-and-me road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I could get him to potty anywhere from the bathtub of my friends’ house, to the trunk of the rental car, to the airport bathroom floor, to my sister’s house– not once did he have a shishi (pee) accident on the floor of anyone’s house. He did sneak off at my sister’s for a couple of ninja poops in a hidden corner between the two couches on hard wood floor. But other than that, he potty trained like a dream.
Right away, I started to notice some serious cognitive aptitude. I got this puppy to lay down and roll over in his first few weeks as my dog. We have never, ever had dogs growing up that would even lay down on command, let alone roll over. He crate-trained from night one and had no problem sleeping in his crate. He also would quiet on command, which I trained by flooding him with kibble when the other dogs at my mom’s house would bark up a storm. It took him almost a year to find his voice, and he is generally to this day not really a barker. I still cannot get him to bark on command.
He was also extremely sociable right away, every human he has ever encountered in his lifetime (except for my narcissistic mother) adores the heck out of him and wants to love him up. He is *excellent* with kids and babies, and he will sidle right up to the strangers who want to pet him, sit right down on other people’s beach blankets, and let strangers pick him up for a snuggle. I could not have wished for a more sociable dog!
The bad/ugly: When he was a baby, and I finally brought him home to my apartment after animal quarantine, he had the WORST separation anxiety. And I mean, ::Thee Worst::, okay? I think I wrote a blog post about it already; and how I tried this calming halo contraption, and had to play Bob Marley and ultimately had to enact a cold-turkey-sad-griffy separation anxiety protocol.
He somehow loved the shit out of puppy quarantine at Halawa Valley’s Animal Quarantine Facility. I think he somehow felt like a little puppy-king in his personal kennel. He got visits several times per day from all the staff feeding him, from my friend Jeric who was willing to sign on as another visitor, Jeric would go on dates to visit my puppy, lol, and then Nalu had my daily visits. Nalu was getting all the love, and settled into animal quarantine, no problem. So I thought that would extend home, too. But I was wrong. It was when he got home for real that his separation anxiety side emerged, like a lion-shadow side, out of a 5 pound baby giff. This was indeed, my first glimpse of Nalu’s shadow side.
AS HE CONTINUED TO GROW…
I wish I had somehow been able to understand two critical parts of being a new dog owner: that the first year of a dog’s socialization experiences are critical, and that being the dog mama of an intact boy dog is its own special experience.
I learned the hard way that if a puppy has negative socialization experiences in the first year, they stick with the dog for life, possibly. I also had no clue whatsoever that when you have a male intact dog, the other dogs don’t necessarily love that about him. The smell of an intact dog, even if that intact dog is just a puppy who doesn’t have any clue he is a boy and whose hormones haven’t even begun to kick in yet, will attract the other male dogs from miles away and will full on ignite their primal male dog instincts for total domination. An intact male dog is an automatic scent-threat in the dog world, and there is really no happy way around that except for trying your best to raise a very well-trained, obedient intact male dog.
As a brand new dog owner in Hawai’i, specifically, I also didn’t realize that Hawai’i has a huge off-leashing situation going on here. People are liable to have their dogs off leash literally everywhere, even if they technically aren’t legally allowed to do so.
Because there could be dogs off leash roaming around at random literally anywhere, I kid you guys not, and because he is an intact male, Nalu got attacked by dogs off leash several times in his first year of life. Luckily because he is so small, it’s not hard for me to quickly try and pick him up before any serious damage occurs. So I was able to prevent problems with the first four attack attempts.
At first, he would be scared and quickly try to run away of any dog that scared him, even at a dog park. He would cower, tuck his tail, and run to me or the nearest safety-hooman, for help. He never learned to roll over and submit to dominant dogs the way some dogs will.
However, by around the fifth time a spontaneous attack happened, courtesy of a French Bulldog at the dog park, he stopped cowering and started to fight back. Since he is typically so sweet and sociable, I was not expecting this viscous no-fcks-given side of my dog to emerge. But let me tell you– it did. No blood was shed, but it was a full-on scrap. And it’s basically where he learned to bark and growl to defend himself.
OTHER FEARS AND ANXIETIES
Even though he is, like I said, 90% Dream Dog 10% Black Panther, another aspect of his shadow side is fearfulness. He is ultimately more on the timid side, deep down. That has meant that things scare him such as big dogs, horses, mopeds, motorcycles, other small male dogs, stranger men, and sometimes, (not to sound racist but) old asian ladies walking towards us who don’t smile. He will leash lunge at strangers that scare him walking past us on the sidewalk; and I have learned to be immediately responsive and yank him back. I often preemptively tighten the reigns and pull him in really close when we are walking past certain kinds of people in public. He will bark at other dogs in public. He will guard-dog my apartment and acts like he is the guard-dog king of our apartment complex. It’s really embarrassing.
SO HERE IS WHAT I HAVE DONE ABOUT IT
To deal with his separation anxiety, I went cold-turkey and just had to leave him by himself to scream-cry it out, and figure it out. Believe me that we tried everything humane, from Snuggle Puppy to Bob Marley, lavender essential oil, to this expensive ass Calming Halo contraption that didn’t do jack crappity.
I think what ultimately worked in conjunction with cold-turkey separation was always leaving him with a treat in a puzzle-style feeder toy, not making a big deal of coming and going, time, and consistency.
To deal with barking too much, we use a spray bark collar to keep him from barking too much, which I believe does work. We tried this e-collar which works great for positive training purposes and recall, and to discourage humping at the dog park using the vibrate function. It also has a phenomenal light on it for night walks. So it was worth every penny. It did not stop him from barking or leash aggression at all though. Once Nalu goes red, you could turn that thing up to 50– he does not care. I also heard that adding pain to an already fearful, anxious dog only makes it worse.
To add general woo-sah to his life, he also has this calming pressure shirt/vest. I still don’t know for sure if it works but I do use it in case it helps. I also wish I had known about this calming collar, and the phenomenon of calming pheromones from mother dogs. I might still try it when finances permit, but it might be too late. We also diffuse lavender and vetiver essential oils into the air to help calm him down.
Training-wise, when he barks, leash lunges, or goes aggro, I will either try to firmly tell him “ah-ah” or “no”, and reel him back in. For barking at our apartment door, I’m able to tell him “quiet” or “quiet collar?” and he stops, or I try to recall him back to me, give him obedience commands to do, reward him with treats for obedience, then follow up with playing fetch to run off his anxiety. I tried to inquire about my favorite trainer of all time, CaliK9, but to train with Jas costs thousands of dollars just for the online training, when it would only cost $300 for a plane ticket to Hawai’i to fly Jas to us and have a Hawaiian work vacation, ya feel me? Jas is from the OAK so he should know that a sistren from Hayward who is working as a preschool teacher while living a humble life in Hawai’i does not have a rack lying around to throw at dog training. Believe me, if I did I would pay for Jas’s training in a heartbeat. My second-favorite dog trainers of all time live in Canada. So that too, would be a big involved and costly. But one day, when we finally do have the extra funds, Nalu will be professionally trained, mark my words.
So that, ladies, gents, and fellow Griff-parents, is my dirty secret. My dog has a shadow side. And it’s not as cute as the rest of him. But we’re doing what we can with what we have.
If you get a Brussels Griffon puppy, and you can afford professional training, it is worth it 100% just in case they also end up having a shadow side.
puppy & paradise 