Alright World, Meet Roe

Officially he is Majekin Natural Wonder, but his everyday name is Roe. Yes, like salmon roe. Or tobiko. Maybe someday something refined like caviar.

He also goes by Bitey McBiteface. Or Hellboy. In a second he can go from this…

To this.

He is wicked crazy and wicked smart, a dangerous but absolutely fun combination if you like those kinds of dogs. I happen to like those kind of dogs. Sometimes I think maybe I should be kind to myself and get something easy but then I’m like, “nah.”

The kind of energy and drive that can make these kinds of dogs a challenge also makes them incredibly fast learners. Within just a few days he was already learning to wait patiently for a verbal release to go out. We’ve begun shaping a sit, and when I took him outside with some treats to work on engagement I was absolutely blown away by the level of focus he’s already displaying. There’s construction going on in the yard next to us, chainsaws and the works, and he didn’t even twitch an ear in that direction.

He was also an amazing little traveler for the drive home. He barely cried, and had no problem relaxing in his crate.

We have an exercise pen in the living room for him when I need to take a break to work. I’ve watched the video from Leerburg where he talks about high drive puppies and laughed. Malinios people have this tendency to focus on the energy of their dogs like it’s this unique thing that only they can handle (note that there are unique aspects of the Malinois that make then unsuitable for the average person. It’s just that the energy isn’t it). I did it at 15 with Suki, when she discovered she could make extra noise by wrapping her paws around the wire of her ex-pen to rattle it back and forth while screaming at the top of her lungs. How, when she had graduated from sleeping in her pen, I learned to fall asleep while having a toy slammed against my head. Each slam punctuated by the perfectly timed chomp on the squeaker for maximum noise-in-ear. Sure it’s been a few years since I did the puppy thing, but I had this. Then I stared slack-jawed as Roe grabbed the edge of the ex-pen and dragged it across the floor.

I took a cue from that video and added two cardboard boxes and several new toys to the pen. You can buy your puppy cheap toys and you can buy your puppy expensive toys, but nothing will ever compare to a free cardboard box. Truth.

I’ve left the chickens as something neutral, neither pointing them out nor steering him away from them. Gueuze’s deeper squawk startled Roe at first, but he’s since become absolutely fascinated by the birds.

And does he have the butt? Yes, yes he does.

In the short amount of time that Roe has been here he has fed me a tremendous amount of humble pie. I’m okay with that though. I’ve had Suki dishing out humble pie her entire life (and she’s dished out her own fair share since adding Roe), and I’ve only come through the better for it. Learning to eat humble pie should be part of every dog owner’s repertoire, because it’s only through doing so that we can learn to do better. And each time we learn to do better, we get a little bit better. I’m looking forward to learning everything Roe has to teach me as I learn to teach him.