Going Off-Leash, Bath Time and the Sleep Routine
Markus staring into the fog along the railroad tracks
Raising Markus is the series where we share stories about our time raising Markus. Said to be aggressive and having gone unadopted for over a year, Raising Markus is the story of a rescued dog from Korea given a second opportunity, now in Vancouver, Canada. This series will include the lessons, joys and struggles of dog owners fumbling our way through our first adoption. The hope is that if you're considering rescuing a dog of your own, our stories are useful to you.
In this update, we’re going to share our experience letting Markus (who was said to be an aggressive dog upon his rescue) off-leash, taking him in for a bath and the sleep routine he’s starting to develop!
Taking Markus Off-Leash
When we adopted Markus, we were told that one of the reasons he had gone unadopted for over a year was because he had aggressive tendencies toward other dogs. As part of the our decision to adopt him, we committed to working with him to set new boundaries even if it was hard.
Up until now, he’s shown that he’s a lot calmer with us and we’ve yet to fully see the aggressive tendencies that we were warned about. That said, we also haven’t had him in a potentially stressful situation, so one of the things that we wanted to see was how he played with other dogs. Up until now, Markus has only met dogs of our friends in controlled settings and although we wanted to do this, we also felt unprepared. We didn't know how this was going to go, but we knew it needed to be done so we decided to finally bring Markus to a dog park to see how he would do with new dogs. This was our goal for the weekend.
We chose to bring Markus to David Gray Park as our trial park for two reasons. The first reason was that David Gray Park is a massive off-leash dog park. Because of its size, we felt that Markus would be able to have some space to himself should he need it. Secondly, there was going to be a Shiba Meetup at this same park a couple of weeks later, so we wanted Markus to get familiar with the park ahead of the meetup.
For our first time, we walked into the off-leash park with Markus still on a leash. A few dogs came to sniff him and then took off. Markus seemed to respond well - his tail was wagging and he didn't seem scared of the amount of dogs running around. He wanted to smell them back.
We eventually made it towards the middle of the park and Markus had met a few dogs by now and responded well. We spoke with a few owners and there was one man in particular who was a regular at this park. We talked and mentioned that Markus was newly adopted and we don't really know how he would be other dogs, but that we were told he could be aggressive by the rescue shelter.
Having watched Markus for a while, his advice to us was to just let him go. His point what that we'll never know until he's off leash and that it's sometimes harder to be the one dog that's on leash. Based on what he had seen with Markus, he didn't think he looked like an aggressive dog. We looked around and Markus really was the only dog still on a leash and that’s probably not great for him either. So with that, we let him go off-leash.
The result:
Look at him go! This was the same dog that went unadopted for over a year in Korea because it was said that he would be aggressive with other dogs. Here he is doing laps and leading the charge with the other dogs. We were prepared to have to do a lot of training with him before we could go off-leash with him and we’re so glad that he plays well with other dogs in this way.
In the time that we spent there, we did see him growl at a couple of dogs and we got a glimpse of him not getting along with other dogs. We suspect it happens when other dogs surprise him. Given everything we had seen, though, we we’re just happy to see that there’s plenty of room for us to train and work with him!
It's Bath Time
Prior to adopting Markus, we did some research on bathing dogs by breeds and we were surprised to learn that Shiba Inus really only needed to be bathed once every two months or so. Given the density of their fur and how clean their breed was in general, they don't need to be bathed very often. It seemed a bit long and frankly, we thought there was no way we could go two months without him starting to smell too much. We figured we’d probably give in before the two months, but we’ll shoot for it anyways.
Since we've adopted Markus, we now understand why Shibas can go two months without a bath. Markus is such a clean dog. He licks himself clean like a cat in the evenings and he'll avoid stepping on puddles and wet grass if he doesn’t need to. So prissy. One time, he sat down at the door not wanting to go outside for his evening walk because it was raining outside (in fairness, it was raining pretty hard). Up until this point, Markus hasn't smelled at all and we actually went two full months without bathing him.
As of today, he still doesn't smell, but he's starting to get a bit chalky. On top of it, he's also starting to shed, so we figured it’s time and we brought him in to be groomed this past weekend at My Fluffy Friend by Kitsilano. Not realizing where he was going, Markus happily walked into the groomers with us and about an hour and a half later, we saw a cleaner looking Markus (with the groomer looking disheveled with Markus' fur all over him). Even though Markus never smelled, he was evidently cleaner and his fur was fluffier. They told us that Markus was a really good dog and didn't fight them while he was getting bathed like some other dogs do. That's great news!
The Sleep Routine
Markus putting the moves on and exposing his belly to be rubbed before going to sleep
We decided from the very beginning that Markus wasn't going to sleep on our bed. We figured that none of us would be getting good sleep if we were all squeezed into our queen-sized bed so we’re just going to make a rule that he’s not allowed on the bed. It's part of the reason why we invested in getting a nicer bed (a Kuranda) for him.
In the past few months, we noticed that Markus has started to develop a nighttime routine. After his evening meal, he starts to wind down and spends most of his time either napping in bed or by one of the quiet hallways. When we start to get ready for bed, he'll start by following us around, but he'll eventually work his way back into his bed. We usually check up on him one last time before heading into our room and that's when he puts all the moves on us.
When Markus sees us nearing him, he'll turn on his side to expose his belly so we'll give him some belly rubs for the night. He’ll also open his leg as if he wants scratches along the inside of his legs too. If we stop, he'll start to paw the air as his sign of asking for more. Sometimes we’ll give him more, but when we don’t, his last ditch effort is to turn his head and expose his neck so far out that it’s hard to leave him hanging and he ends up getting neck scratches. He has this system down pat and if we say goodnight separately, he ends up being scratches from both of us.
We’re so grateful for your support of The Markus Project. We mostly choose our locations through searching and word of mouth. If you know of a park, trail or location you think we should check out, please share it with us. We’d love to know!
