Rocket and Frank can be best of buddies, most of the time. In the beginning, when Frank first met Rocket, Frank was in heaven! He was still fairly young and playful and really enjoyed a good romp and chase with Rocket. Frank is the calm, older, wiser dog who has learned the ropes. He is mellow and doesn’t get in a hurry for anything. I think after a few weeks, Frank was ready to slow down a bit…by now you understand how much energy Rocket has and I am sure you would be sympathetic with Frank. Being the sweet, loveable, easy-going dog that Frank is, he tolerated more play times and sacrificed lap time with his humans. Like the newborn baby, Rocket took a lot of attention-demanded it! As soon as Frank would lay beside me, Rocket would come around and nudge himself closer to me. Frank would then get insulted and leave. It amazes me how much like children that two dogs can act sometimes!
To alleviate the demands on Frank, we introduced Rocket to hiking. Hiking is one thing that we all have in common. Frank loves to stop and smell the roses, or bark, or leaves, or grass, or stones, or whatever has any kind of scent that interest him. Many of the trails we use are not very busy, so we use long leads and allow the dogs to hike at their own pace. The leads are 20-30 feet long and allow Frank to stop and sniff without slowing our stride. He will then “jog” to catch up with us and sometimes move ahead, but always staying within lead distance, even though we often drop the leads and allow both dogs to drag them along behind them as we go. Rocket, on the other hand, prefers to lead our “pack”. In our early hiking excursions, Rocket would pull and fight for the lead. Using the harness helped, but if Frank got ahead, Rocket would pull harder and start to stress out. For this reason, I often slowed my pace a bit so that Frank would stay back with me while Rocket led the way with my partner. Now-a-days, both dogs have settled into a happy co-leadership on our hiking trips. They do their own thing and Rocket is okay on the rare occasions that Frank decides to move to the front.
It was during our hiking trips that we began to see a hint of Rocket’s more aggressive side. His desperate need to lead the pack made us question his breeding. We tried to make sense of it but attributed it to his young age and need for training. We learned to manage that behavior and also learned very quickly how to manage him when we passed other dogs on the trails. When introduced under some situations, Rocket does well with other dogs, but when he meets a stranger, his guard dog personality takes over and he struggles to control his actions. We have found that he is not a dog to be trusted with a loose lead when strangers approach out on the trails. We shorten his lead and often turn his body away from any passing dogs to avoid conflict. If Rocket would see Frank sniffing something, he would immediately run to that spot and push Frank aside to sniff for himself, so we addressed that behavior. Back at home, chew toys have become a thing of the past as Rocket would always want Frank’s bone and take it. We noticed that Rocket was becoming a little more demanding and bolder when taking things from Frank. There would be no growling or biting, but the aggressive nature with which he would take things from Frank caused enough concern that we stopped allowing chew toys when they are together. The saying “hindsight is twenty-twenty” is a good way to describe our journey with Rocket. These little behaviors as a pup would come back to “bite” us as Rocket grows older. I’ll share more on that when Rocket turns three and again at five years of age. For now, we notice the little things that can be easily managed.
Most of the time, Rocket was happy. I still called him “Cray Cray Happy Pants”, which was a good way to describe him…always a little crazy with excitement and tail-wagging happy. This seemed to make up for whatever minimal behaviors we were noticing out on the trail and with chews or bones. Other than those few times, Rocket and Frank were inseparable. Until one day when Frank had a toe amputation and came home from the vet’s with instructions to wear a cone. Poor Frank, if it wasn’t enough to lose your toe, the humiliation and inconvenience of wearing a cone must have felt like adding insult to injury! On top of that, Rocket avoided him like he had the plague! Indeed, Rocket wanted no part of whatever that thing was around Frank’s neck!!!
Whether it’s after a hike on the trial, a day at Grandma’s, or just a lazy day, Frank and Rocket can be found side by side ready for a nap, or sometimes watching and waiting for the next adventure to begin. Whatever the case may be, they remain inseparable and best of buddies!
