Moving with a dog

After some time it was time for Tov and myself to move. The travel took us 2 days in a car. When we reached our destination, I had to put Tov in a room away from everybody, so he would not be in the way and not run away in all the tumult with everything going from the truck and car into the house. I basically treated him like one of the items going into the house. That way Tov did not have to worry about all these new people and everything that happened, he could just relax in the room until we were all done. The only other thing that was in the room with him was a bowl of water, in case he got thirsty.

After everything had settled, Tov could be let out from the room and start exploring his new surrounding inside the house. He went from room to room, sniffing wagging his tail in excitement. Did you know that a wagging tail only means that the adrenaline levels in the dog is elevated. Have you ever seen a dog attacking and biting aggressively with a wagging tail? It is a myth that a wagging tail only means happiness. The adrenaline levels could be elevated because of happiness. A dog who is aggressive and is wagging its tail is not giving mixed messages.

I had a very low fence in the backyard, so Tov had to be on a long leash when ever we were outside in the backyard. When we went for walks, he was on his normal leash of course.

It takes a dog about 48 hours to get used to its new surroundings. If there are additional people or dogs coming into the pack, or perhaps some individuals are leaving, it will take the dog about two weeks to figure out where it fits in, what place it has in the pack. This was the reason Tov asked me a lot of questions the first two weeks after we had moved, as I then had moved away from a family I temporarily lived with. Dogs have to ask to make sure that the right individual is still the leader in the pack, or if they have to take over the leadership in order to keep the pack safe. Our job as humans is then to give the dogs the right information the whole time. Remember that a dog will keep asking questions throughout its life. The reason is that in the dog's mind it is a matter of life and death that the strongest, fittest, most intelligent and most experienced individual has the leadership.

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