Don’t get me wrong, we love Kojak. He truly is a wonderful dog with a great personality and every time we take him somewhere, even to the vet, people crowd around and want to pet and interact with him. He is a handsome dog and with his nice big head and clean lines he reminds me of squared away Marine. BUT he’s also a Rottweiler which means he is 100+ pounds of muscle with ADHD; if you succeed in capturing his attention chances are you won’t hold on to it long.
Imagine an Army tank being driven by a small child or you driving a dump truck through a fireworks factory without your glasses (or brakes) or a tornado. Every time I look at all that destructive power I think the theme song running through his head is similar to “Baby Shark”. In fact, it’s partially true as he is 18 months old so he has an adult dog’s body but it’s powered by a puppy brain.
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Take the game of “Fetch”. I’ve been trying to teach him to Fetch since he was a wee small puppy and he as yet has not mastered the finer points of the game. Every game of Fetch follows the same pattern: I have to play “Tug” for what seems like forever (he is a power chewer and I pity anyone that he clamps onto – they’re going to lose a limb) just to wrestle the toy away from him. Once I have the toy I hold it up in the air and he is laser focused on the toy (Note: I can’t hold it too long, by which I mean more than 5 seconds, or he’ll jump on me and try to get back to “Tug”), So I throw the toy (playing my part in the game) and he tears off after it (so far, so good). He’ll grab the toy (good) then seemingly forget the rest of the game (returning to me with the toy) and, ADHD kicking in, wander off somewhere. If I remain in the same place long enough, he’ll eventually return with the toy but he’s forgotten we’re playing “Fetch” and wants to start with “Tug” again.
Side note, Xena would play Fetch all day until she couldn’t move anymore. Cooper was never interested in Fetch.
We like to watch TV in the evenings after dinner. We settle on the couch and generally stream a couple of programs to kind of unwind and settle down for the night. Kojak however feels anytime we spend just sitting is a waste of his time, we should obviously be playing (you guessed it!) “Tug”. He’ll bring an assortment of his toys to me and poke me with them until I respond by grabbing the toy therefore validating his assumption that “Tug” is the correct choice. Because he doesn’t understand the strategy of “Fetch” IF I can wrestle the toy away from him (fun for him!) I can throw it and he’ll chase it down. Oddly his ADHD doesn’t kick in during the evening games and he’s right back poking me with the toy for another round of “Tug”.
His other way of disrupting our evening TV watching is just CONSTANTLY playing with one of his toys on the couch between us. And, of course, he isn’t very quiet about it (make sure your sound is on for this clip). After giving the toy a good working over, he’ll then flop onto my lap and if he even THINKS I’ve reached for the toy, the game (of Tug) is on! And we’re right back in the Tug-Throw-Tug loop.
Due to a slight injury on one of his hind legs, we took pity on Kojak and let him sleep in our bedroom; we’ve had him over a year and he is just now allowed to be in the bedroom. We do like our dogs sleeping in the bedroom and we’ll even put a dog bed in the room for them. And no, we do not have the dogs sleep in the bed with us.
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So we brush our teeth and whatnot to get ready for bed and he’s constantly trying to get into our bathroom (too many bottles of tasty shampoo for him to resist!) so he spends his time prowling the dresser, under the bed, the bench next to the window and so on looking for something to gnaw on. (The other night he woke me up by munching on Libby’s hand creme tube). We finally get into bed, turn off the light and try to go to sleep. We’ve gotten Kojak to lie down on the floor and kind of settle but turning off the light seems signal Kojak that it’s time to start his daily skin care routine. Again make sure your sound is on so you can fully appreciate his diligence (this was just after midnight the other night).
Despite his flaws, we still love our Kojak!
