Lion Raising Tips

This baby lion reminds me slightly of Cabana. I know, lions are feline, Cabana is canine. Call me crazy.

Ahhh, it's nice to have my computer working and virus-free. But now that I'm finally able to blog, I don't really have that much to say!! But here's a loosely puppy raising-related post.

Recently, I read the book "A Lion Called Christian". Although the book was published in 1971, the story was made popular again by the video on YouTube, which I'm sure most folks have either seen or heard about.

It's an amazing true story (though rather short, about 3 hours long on audio). These two young Australian guys are visiting London, and they go into Harrod's Department Store. Harrod's is known for selling just about ANYTHING, and they happen to have 2 lion cubs for sale. The guys fall in love with one of them and decide to buy him. They do have to fulfill a few preliminaries, but still, it blows my mind how easily they were able to acquire him.

At first, Christian is a cute little fluffy thing--but after a few short months, he's strong enough to do serious damage to his owners, if so inclined, whether using his claws or his teeth. Although they had ZERO experience in the animal training realm, it's remarkable how the guys were able to train Christian.

They would run around in the basement of the furniture store where the guys worked, playing with balls and stuffed animals and other toys. They'd play and get all rowdy and rambunctious. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? But whenever Christian would do anything slightly dangerous, like nipping at them or chasing them, they would immediately stop playing. They didn't want Christian to have any inkling of the amount of power he had--and how LITTLE power they had.

By stopping whenever things got dicey, Christian learned not to direct any of his immense power toward humans. After the guys finally realized they couldn't keep this 600+ pound beast and found a way to release him into the wild in Africa, even years later, Christian was still gentle and loving toward them, as witnessed in the YouTube video.

The lesson I learned is how valuable the simple act of stopping is when training lions...and puppies. A few weeks ago, when Cabana and I were romping around in the backyard, Cabana got overly excited and nipped at my hand. She didn't make contact with my skin--but I remembered the trick that Christian's raisers used. I stopped playing with her immediately and took her inside. I think this has made Cabana much more careful about what is acceptable play and what isn't. She hasn't tried nipping me since then.

Multi-Tasking Morning Walk

There's nothing I like better than multi-tasking, which is one of the reasons I love my morning walk with Cabana. It's much-needed exercise for me, but here are some of the other things we accomplished this morning.

The tennis courts near our house are a great first stop. No one is playing tennis at 7am, so we have the courts to ourselves. Cabana does a perfect down-stay, while I take a quick turn around the courts to make sure there's nothing dangerous or tempting for Cabana to put in her mouth.


In the video above, Cabana expends some of her surplus energy. She loves to run around with her Wubba in her mouth. After she's drained some of that boundless energy, Cabana is much more pleasant on leash for the rest of our walk. We also practice kibble-induced recall--Cabana's great at that.

Lately, Cabana has been getting me all discombobulated when we go through certain doors. Automatic opening doors are fine, but when it's a push-open kind, like here, she tends to go around behind me to my right and dart out in front of me, making the leash get tangled around the back of my legs. I've almost fallen down a couple times! Maybe Cabana is afraid of getting hit by the door? I don't know. Here as we leave the courts, we practice going through a few times, making sure that Cabana stays on my left.

We also practice sitting straight on our walks. Our CFR Celeste told me a few months ago that being near a wall or fence will help Cabana to face forward. Cabana is much better about sitting straight now, but I have found that if we don't keep practicing things, she doesn't always retain them. So even though Cabana gets it now, I still try to practice a few times a week.


Of course, there's nothing more challenging for Cabana than dog distraction. We pass this man and his dog almost every day. For some reason, Cabana is EXTREMELY distracted by this little dog. Maybe because the man doesn't make his dog heel, so his dog always comes RIGHT up to Cabana and WON'T leave. I do my best to keep Cabana in a sit until he can coax his dog away. Sigh.


The grocery store is a couple blocks from my house, and I know we need milk for our morning cereal. So I brought Cabana's jacket along so we could make a quick stop. This refrigerated section gave Cabana SOOOO much trouble back when she was 5 months old (blogged here). I'm so glad there's not even a hint of that fear left.


The grocery checkers all know Cabana now and love to see her. Today, we get in Donna's line. She says Cabana is the cutest customer she'll have all day. Ain't it the truth!

Muzzle or Collar?

Last night, we had a puppy training meeting. We haven't had many since getting Cabana, due to the holidays. About a dozen of us gathered outside Costco with our Guide Dog puppies, to catch up and to practice walking through the aisles. Cabana was extremely excited to see all the other dogs, as well as the numerous humans. Even on our walks, she will pull and strain to get over to a passing person, with or without a dog walking alongside--she just loves people and wants to get everyone's attention.

Well, our puppy group leader found Cabana's excitement a bit overboard, as she pulled on her leash, tried to jump on everyone, and barked loudly. We pulled Cabana away from the group so that she could get calmed down, and our puppy group leader said that we should try a head collar on Cabana, to help keep her under control.

A head collar is a collar that goes over the dog's muzzle. It isn't an actual muzzle, which keeps the dog from being able to open its mouth. The head collar just goes around the "nose" and up over the head, with a ring at the bottom to clip on the leash.

Although the head collar is a handy tool and does give the human more control, it's got to be the most pathetic piece of equipment you can put on a dog. It's almost embarrassing!

Poor little Cabana. At the meeting, other raisers called her "feisty", "strong willed", "overly active", "headstrong", and other such adjectives. They don't see this peace-loving, obedient little creature when she's in our house--how sweetly she licks Olive's face (the boxer at my office), how she almost never has an accident, how she ignores our shoes and other off-limit items.

But on our walk today, the head collar did do the trick. Cabana pulled a lot less on her leash, wasn't as excited about passersby (although it was a little rainy so there weren't many passersby), and actually wasn't as excited about anything at all. It's hard to be excited with that weird thing on your face. She sat down a lot and needed to be coaxed to continue walking, maybe her way of rebelling. But I gave her some treats and praised her when she walked well, and there's always room for improvement tomorrow.