My Puppy the Digital Native

I was worried. Really worried. My little Shepsky puppy,  Mark, just didn’t seem to get it. I know he’s had it rough--my brother-in-law found him in an alley burrowing through trash. When he came home, I could tell the little guy hadn’t had any training. None. And four months old!  But after a few days I knew something was up and I got worried. I mean he just didn’t want to learn. He’d defy me all the time. He’d do his business in the house. This was not what I expected. With my other dog, Bebe, it was just one day and she was fully house trained. She was a pleaser. As a pup she just loved to run.  But with a little tug on the leash and she was as right as rain. She just lived to do it right. So, you can see why I was worried about Mark.

But then I discovered that the pups of today are not like the pups of yesteryear. No, not at all. They’re DIGITAL NATIVES. And now I’m not so worried. I get it. I mean digital natives, they are the young of today and they are just, well, just different. Look at my puppy. He totally prefers images and sounds and tennis balls to text. I never catch him reading, not even the nutritional information which is so clearly marked on the bag of dog food he keeps sticking his head in. And speed, that’s all Mark is after. I mean I can’t move fast enough. My old girl, Bebe, she can’t keep up with Mark, she’s just not that way. After a couple of surgeries she’s just so conventional now. No way with Mister Mark--he’s as twitchy as a teen’s texting digits, running around smashing his head into the easy chair with a big rope toy hanging from his pearly whites. You’d never see Bebe doing that. Two things at once. No sir. She is all about one task at a time: first she barks at the dog across the street, then she turns and tells the other dogs they can’t bark by snapping at them. She’s the boss, alpha. She knows she’s no digital native, no multitasker. As you can see, she’s all about getting the job done. Mark? Work? No way! He is play play play. And he should be, right? He’s a digital native. They just can’t do work. Well, at least they don’t prefer it. He’s always go go go. Gotta run and do twenty hyper-social things at once; you know like chomp at his playmate’s ear while bounding over a tree stump and chasing a tennis ball. It’s ok, it’s his style. Every once in a while he gets a little too crazy and pukes up some toy he’s only half-eaten. But that doesn’t worry me anymore. I know he just can’t finish a task: he’s a digital native.

So if you have a pup who can’t seem to pull his face from the phone, or can’t finish anything, or never wants to read, or gets caught up in going fast fast, maybe even confused by the sound of his own voice, hey! not to worry. It’s perfectly normal. I’ve learned it’s OK, now. It’s all about being a digital native. And it’s just the way the young ones are.