We're starting a new series this week we're calling Raising Markus 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.

Raising Markus will have the lessons, joys and struggles of dog owners fumbling their way through their first adoption. Our hope is that if you're considering rescuing or raising a dog of your own, our stories are useful for you.

What an incredible week.

As I write this, we have had our new dog Markus from Korea for 10 days, so we're still early in the feeling out process for each other. We recently wrote about the adoption process and you can read more about that story here. On this week's check-in, we're sharing things we've already learned about Markus in the first 10 days and some of the things we've done together.

The Vet Checkup

Bringing Markus to the veterinarian was one of the first things we did after we got him. There are different thoughts to when this should be done. Some people prefer to take their dog in right away while everything is still fresh and others prefer to let their dog adjust to their new home before potentially spooking them again at the vet's. We brought Markus in on the third day.

Our recommendation is to just be sensitive to your pup. If you feel that they've adjusted immediately, then there's no harm in bringing them in sooner. However, if your pup is already spooked or skittish, give them a few days to settle and let them adjust. Going to the vet's could trigger something you're not expecting, so it's better that the dog is at least comfortable with you first.

Bringing the dog in for the post-rescue checkup is a good thing to do (we might even say necessary) because it allows somebody with a trained eye to assess the health of your dog, especially if they're from overseas. Along with Markus, we also brought the paperwork that detailed his vaccinations and shots so they can confirm that he has everything necessary. This is important because new surroundings could pose new risks that weren't threats where they came from, so dogs needed to be up to date with vaccinations on local threats.

We also got Markus weighed for the first time while we were at the vet, which was surprisingly hard to do. Markus doesn't like to be picked up, so getting him on the scale and then staying on proved to be difficult. There was a lot of carrot-on-a-stick style dangling a treat in front of him to get him on the scale, but we eventually we got him on. He came in at about 32 lbs.

Markus was up to date with all his vaccinations and we didn't need anything extra, which was great news for us. The only recommendation that we received was that Markus should put on a little more weight. Having felt his rib area and based on what she was able to see, Markus is slightly underweight, but healthy.

Even though this was a routine checkup with no extra vaccination or medication, it was a rude awakening to the cost of bringing animals to the vet.

Walk Routine

Our walking routine for Markus has been one walk first thing in the morning and the second walk in the evening. We're trying to match this walk schedule with our work schedule because eventually both of us will have to go to work. We've found that Markus is able to hold everything in and two walks a day are enough. Our walks are currently about 25-30 minutes each and we find that it's enough for Markus to fully drain himself.

A few times, Markus hasn't wanted to come back indoors after his walk. He would just put the brakes on at the door, so we figure either he's still adjusting to life with us or he just wants a longer walk. Sometimes he'll completely sit down on the mat if we tried to get him to come in!

Whenever this happened, a couple of things worked for us. Either we let him burn off a little more energy in the yard or with the leash still on, we'd run around with him and then straight into the house. With his momentum, he forgets to stop and ends up running straight in with us.

Dog-Parenting 101.

The Technology Thing

On the day we picked up Markus at the airport, we noticed that he wasn't familiar with technology. It makes sense. His exposure to technology would have been limited if he had lived on the streets prior to being at the rescue organization.

On the ride home, the sounds coming out of the radio were confusing to him. His head was going back and forth from left speaker to right speaker as if there were animals inside messing with him. In another instance, Markus started barking at the television after I turned it on one Sunday morning. It's as though the images on the television were actually in the living room.

We got Markus to examine and sniff the TV while it was turned off to try and get him used to it. We did this again while the TV was on. Realizing that there were no immediate threats in the room, he eventually stopped barking.

Being threatened by technology like the TV and radio were things that we hadn't considered even though we figured there would be an adjustment period. It makes a lot of sense when we think about it. I do have to hand it to Markus, though. He's a quick learner and he's able to adjust and settle fairly quickly. 

This is great news because it's football season and it's Sunday.

The Stairs Thing

Along the same line as one of those technology things, we discovered that Markus doesn't know how to use the stairs. Having lived on the streets, we thought maybe he would've had some opportunities then, but he's been in a cage at a rescue organization for over a year now, so his exposure to stairs would've been limited.

It's quite cute. Markus will watch us go up the stairs and then try to attempt it himself, but he simply hasn't been able to do it. He'll put his paws on the first two steps of the stairs and then even stretch enough to get to the third step, but his hind legs are always planted on the bottom floor and he doesn't know what to do after that. He has yet to learn that his hind legs also need to move.

Stairs: 1 Markus: 0

We'll get 'em next time, buddy.

The Toy Thing

We've also discovered that Markus isn't good with toys. He just doesn't know what to do with them. We've tried all sorts of toys - ones that look like real animals, ropes, balls, ones where you stuff a water bottle inside, etc. The "toy" that he enjoys playing with the most is his blanket. He'll throw his blanket around and has started to pull it apart to create holes.

We realized that Markus also had blankets that were torn up to bits in his cage when we looked back at his adoption photos. It seems that Markus never had exposure to dog toys, but he's learned to play with blankets instead so that's what he gravitates towards today.

Some of Markus' toys have squeakers in them. They're common in dog toys and they're known to drive owners so crazy that they'll cut the toy open to remove the squeaker. I get the fascination of the squeaker from a dog's perspective. If the dog is a hunting breed, picture a toy that looks like a real animal and when they bite into it, it squeaks.

The sound of the squeaker has the opposite effect on Markus. The squeaker actually startles him. On the occasions where he would discover the squeaker, Markus would stop dead in his tracks, eyes wide and drop the toy to play with another one. On one occasion, he was playing with his penguin toy and when it squeaked, he carried the toy to the front door and left it there.

I was looking for ways on Google to get Markus to like squeakers, but all the hits were people asking how to get their dogs to stop or how to remove the squeaker from the toy. So backwards.

Markus is like: This is too real. I liked it better when I was playing with pretend animals.

The Poopy Thing

One of the biggest things we were worried about when we adopted Markus was the poop thing. One of our dog friends once said to us that dogs - they're cute until you have to pick up their poo. 

When we adopted Markus, we prepared for the worst because we had no idea how well he was going to be housetrained. The rescue organization wouldn't have had the resources to train him and so we figured we'd have to teach a dog that's already been doing it a certain way for 3 years how to go potty again from the ground up.

Wow, were we wrong about this one.

Jindos are known to be clean dogs, but we didn't know the full extent of what that meant until Markus arrived. We read that Jindos like to keep the space where they live clean and we've discovered that the way this manifests itself is that Markus has never gone potty indoors. He will always wait until one of us takes him outside before he relieves himself. Whether he was trained in one of his previous stops or if it's purely related to his breed, Markus came housetrained. Woohoo! 

Of all the things that we were mentally prepared to train Markus on, I'm not gonna lie, it is amazing that we didn't have to train him on this one and that's not lost on us.

Figuring out His Ranking & the Loud Clap

You've probably heard of the term being an "alpha dog". Some dogs naturally have a sense of ranking and have a need to know where they belong on the pecking order. Dogs usually get a sense of this over time, but when put in a new environment with new dogs (or people), dogs need to figure out where they are in the ranking all over again.

Not all dogs are privy to this, but for the ones that are, there are a lot of tips on what to do (like eating first before feeding the dog or being the first one to walk through the door, etc.) and other things we're supposed to do to maintain dominance.

To be honest, we didn't adhere to these rules or this type of training. A lot of dog trainers are sensitive to maintaining dominance and there are plenty of books and blogs written about how you can do this. For us, we just didn't feel that it was necessary and never felt threatened in that way.

Well, there was one thing that Markus would do and we figured out he was trying to assert his dominance over us. At the very least, he was trying to figure out his ranking. Markus would start to nip and hump us when he was starting to get too riled up during playtime. This ended up being one of the more difficult moments for us even though he was so forthcoming with us.

The situation got worse because we were purposely inviting people over so that Markus could get familiar with having guests over. For every person that came over, Markus felt the need to figure out where these people where on his ranking too. In other words, he would try to hump some of our friends as well.

Whenever this happened, we would try removing ourselves from the situation and going into a room until he settled down, but that didn't work very well. It's also not ideal to lock ourselves in a room for 15 minutes at a time, since we're not sure how long this habit will continue. This is something we're going to keep monitoring as we find better ways to work with Markus.

At the moment, a method that's worked well for us is clapping. Yep, you read that correctly. When a dog wants to tell another dog off, they bark. One hard clap acts as an equivalent to a bark, where the loud noise startles them enough to jar them out of whatever they're fixated on. It poses no threat to the dog, but the idea is that they start to associate that startled feeling with their action, which hopefully conditions them to stop.

Here's hoping this works!

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!