This is Luna, our 5 years-old Siberian Husky:
Luna was six months old and had reverted to being feral when we took her on. I took time off of work to personally dedicate time to training her. Despite being a husky, she now has perfect recall and is “snap trained” which means she responds to different numbers of finger snaps to perform specific actions, e.g. 1 snap means “Go ten feet in the direction I’m facing”, 2 snaps means “Sit in place until directed otherwise”, and 3 snaps means “Come here and sit down until directed differently”.
Luna is trustworthy off-leash and always maintains a 6 foot perimeter around me when we go for walks. She’s also REALLY fast and always catches the ball before it can hit the ground, even when throwing a fastball!
This is Ponyo, our 13 years-old Bagle (Half Basset Hound, Half Beagle):
Ponyo helped me to train Luna on “how to be a dog”. Despite her age, she loves playing ball. She’s not trustworthy off-leash and takes all commands as suggestions, unless the word “Food” is incorporated, in which case she becomes the sweetest and most obedient animal on the planet. Her previous owner was her breeder who had unfortunately passed away, hence why we got her. Ponyo spends her days lazing about on her perch on the couch and seeking out cuddles from our two littlest daughters. The kids nicknamed her “Nana” because she is always picking up (food) after them when they make a mess.
These are Maryanne and Daisy, they are 12 and 7 years-old respectively. Both Chihuahuas:
And this is Turkey, our 5 years-old Chihuahua and the only boy dog of the bunch:
Maryanne, Daisy, and Turkey were my grandfather’s dogs until he passed away last year due to Pneumonia complicated by COVID, at which point my father passed them on to me on my grandfather’s behalf. All three of them are very energetic and are really good at riling up the other two. They have yet to figure out how to evade my youngest children though, so are forced to accept cuddles throughout the day as a result
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All three are the quintessential “lap dog”. If you sit, they will jump to your lap, no amount of training I’ve put them through has broken that habit, but nobody in the family is upset, because it’s a remnant from when they would sit on my grandfather’s lap to watch TV, and that’s a nice memory.