Troop Weblog

May Trooper of the Month-Toby

The staff at BlueDogTroop.com (Dan and Michelle) has named Toby as the inaugural Trooper of the Month! In the future, each month we will post a new Trooper of the Month. Starting with the June award you will be able to view all the past Award Recipients by clicking on the “Trooper of the Month” category in the web log, to your right.

The Trooper of the Month title will be awarded each month to the trooper who has distinguished him or herself through achievement, accomplishment, or contribution to the troop.

If you are not familiar with Toby or how he came to be a member of the troop, please read about him in his biographical sketch. After we had adopted Toby he proceeded to test our resolve. This is a common reaction among the children Michelle works with in both adoptive placements and foster homes. The kids will often act out and push their limits to see if the parents will give up on them and kick them out, rather than work through the problems. The good parents are consistent and let the kids know that they are a part of the family; if they are bad there are consequences, but no one gets kicked out of the family. We suspect that Toby was similarly motivated. We know someone owned Toby before us, he had a collar, but it was clear that no one cared for him. He would often cry and wince when we raised our arms so it was clear that he had been beaten.

His acting out started with the typical puppy pastime—chewing. He chewed through furniture and baseboard with abandon. When he wasn’t chewing he was busy marking his territory. One can of Resolve later and he was living in the laundry room all day while we worked. That lasted for a little while, and then he started scratching the door. Nothing a little paint wouldn’t fix. The final straw was when scratched/chewed a very large hole through the drywall and was well on his way to tunneling into the garage… We bought a crate.

Since then he has lived in the crate when we are not home. Michelle and I are now both big proponents of crate training. The crate worked great. Toby was much better behaved and we were worry-free at work.

Still we hoped someday Toby could have free reign of the house. Whitney learned to behave fairly quickly and thus won her freedom from the crate, but it seemed Toby was doomed to spending half his day in the crate forever. Every time we gave him a chance to prove himself he failed. It wasn’t his fault; he just wasn’t ready. So, we gave up on trying. Michelle or I made it home for lunch most days, so he got a break and we didn’t feel too guilty.

But, with me deployed and Michelle knowing their would be days she’d work long hours and be traveling we knew we had to try again. And, guess what?

Toby did great! No chewing, no peeing, no destructive behavior at all. He and Whitney just played and slept all day with the house no worse for the wear. Our little man is growing up so fast, (wiping tear from my eye). He now spends most of his days keeping a watchful eye on the neighborhood, napping at the front window, resting his chin on the sill.

So the new soundtrack to Toby’s life is “Freebird,” and he is May’s Trooper of the Month.

Proud parents,
Dan & Michelle

Posted by Daniel at May 1, 2004 08:07 AM