Albert
charmer, gentleman, glen of imaal terrier
BASIC FACTS
Albert is a blue brindle glen, but his base colour is so dark he's actually almost black. Only the very old hair on the areas that aren't stripped when he's trimmed has the blue-grey hue that he should ideally have all over.
Albert weighs 19 kg (42 lbs), despite being in very trim shape. He's heavy on the bone, extremely muscular and a very big glen in general. Though he looks fantastic, ideally he should be a lot smaller.
LIFE WITH ALBERT
All this would sound quite unremarkable were we talking about an obese old golden retriever, but what makes Albert's kindness, calmness and nerves of steel particularly endearing is the fact, that on the reverse he's such a true terrier, full of spark, growl, teeth, stamina and rock hard determination. He's always ready for action of any kind. He enjoys any kind of work we can think of engaging him in, whether it's trackwork, pulling a log out of water, general obedience, finding keys/gloves/other items we've "lost" a few hundred yards back, etc etc. His eyes light up, and he commits to the job at hand with the passion of a working dog. This is an endless source of guilt, as Albert is primarily a pet, and deserves so much more work than we currently give him. His true passion, however, clearly comes from his ancestors. Anything that involves tugging, fighting and using his teeth and every bit of strength in his body and jaws is clearly his favourite task. Fighting over a tug-toy is the ultimate reward and is a much better motivator than any treat. Hanging a tugger on a tree-stump is a sure way to exhaust Albert, as is presenting him with large, draggable objects that at first glance would seem far too heavy for him. A particularly strange habit is Albert's compulsion to destroy anything large and spherical. He would shred giant bails of hay if we let him, and in the winter we roll up huge balls of snow for him to obliterate. He will furiously bark and growl whilst biting and clawing away until the object is thoroughly demolished. Unfortunately, Albert's ferocious side has also surfaced with other dogs. Albert is socially apt and has had a lot of contact with other dogs. He is very understanding of puppies, nicely tolerant of young dogs, flirtatious and playful with females, quietly assertive with soft males, civil with older males, BUT on occation, he has encountered young, strong minded males with oversized egos. Most of these have been poorly trained terriers, who clearly assume they run the roost in their human family, assume they're the king of the block and try to boss everyone around. These are to Albert like a red cloth to a bull, and he has gladly rushed into full blown battle given the slightest excuse to do so. And clearly he loves to fight. He's not fighting out of terror, rage or over-excitement, but rather simply for the joy of fighting. After human intervention he is completely calm and relaxed. While the other dog tugs at his lead yapping and growling away Albert simply watches his opponent intently and pants, hoping and waiting for permission from us to attack again -in vain, of course. So far Albert - as well as the other dogs - have managed to get away with only superficial bite-wounds, but the potential we've seen in Albert in this respect is quite sinister, and I'm sure that with an unfortunate match of character he could well fight to the death.
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From the moment I laid eyes on him as a 3-week-old tiny dark pup, I knew this was definitely the dog for me. We had our problems at first, I was shocked at the sheer ego and true terrier nature he showed right from day one. I had never come across a puppy like him. After learning (sometimes the hard way) that this dog needed a stronger leader than any other dog I'd previously owned and that human leadership had to be asserted in stronger and clearer terms than with other dogs I'd worked with, things just clicked into place. Since then life with Albert has been an absolute joy, and it's hard to imagine how we could do without him.
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PAST - what we've done
Albert was a menace as a puppy. He wanted to bite and tug everything in sight, including hands and clothes to an extent that makes your standard puppy seem like an angel. The louder the victim protested, the more excited the puppy became. He was extremely confident, independent and self-sufficient, showing limited interest in his owners, very little fear and a whole lot of spark. If we went to pick him up or prevent him from destroying something, he would bark, growl and bite. And NOT in a sweet puppy-like manner, but rather with a "do that again and you'll die"- attitude. In fact, I remember being absolutely mortified at times, thinking that this puppy had to have something seriously wrong with it. Luckily it didn't take more than a few weeks for me to realise, that if I couldn't take control, this little dog certainly would. And believe me, I wasn't inexperienced, incompetent or generally overly soppy and useless with dogs, but a glen - or at least this glen - was on a completely different level to the pups I'd previously reckoned with (and no - they weren't spaniels, but mainly schnauzers, which aren't the mildest of dogs, either).
So I took a firm look in the mirror, an even firmer look at my tiny, cute as a button monster-pup, and took on a "do that 
again and you'll die"- attitude that put his one to shame. And suddenly things started to work. He stopped the biting after two or three sufficiently melodramatic reprimands (with the before-mentioned attitude), stopped trying to boss me around after I responded to his growling and biting fit with a much bigger one (check the attitude again) and suddenly I became interesting. The puppy started watching out for my reactions to different situations with great interest. The sufficiently strong reprimanding was a key factor in gaining the puppy's respect. Without it nothing would have worked. However, the reprimanding alone wouldn't have done any good, either. A lot of time and energy was put into the pup. We got up to all sorts, every day was an adventure. For every negative experience with me, he had at least five extremely positive ones. We played a lot. Food was made into a big deal, and he never got it for "free". I also took Albert along whenever possible, so he got used to crowds, shopping centres, bikes, people of all ages, shapes, sizes and colours, noise etc. I also tried to get him lots of good experience with other dogs. This didn't mean letting him greet every dog we passed, but rather I arranged for Albert to spend time with dogs that I knew were socially competent. This was quite easy, as lots of my friends, relatives and neighbours have dogs.
Luckily around this time I met my fiance, Teemu, who is very skilled with dogs and mainly had experience with the working breeds and thought, at first glance, that the glen was a rather pathetic excuse of a dog. He brought a whole new level of consciousness to our interaction with Albert. He was able to analyze Albert's character in a way that I hadn't even thought of. Teemu immediately noted how independently and self-sufficiently tiny Albert went about his business. The contrast to your average GSD pup was immense in this respect (and others ;-). He immediately started coaxing out Albert's pack instinct in various ways. For example, when we were all out for a walk, Teemu insisted we at some point went slightly different ways so that there was a good distance between us, but the dog could see us both at the same time. This clearly awoke some emotion in Albert, and he would often seem concerned, not knowing who to follow or where to go. At some point he would generally start running between us, and when he did, we'd rejoin our route and walk altogether. It was interesting to see that after such an exercise, Albert would walk very close to us for the remainder of the walk. We also tried to deflate his ego and underline our general brilliance and superiority by climbing places he couldn't go and jumping over ditches he couldn't possibly clear, so he'd be left yapping and yelping helplessly, and we'd then help him up/across. Obviously we continued making ourselves interesting with play and by, for example, one of us hiding in the forest and Albert being sent to find the missing person.
I attended a very good puppy class, the primary benefit of which was accustoming Albert to the presence of other dogs, or rather underlining to him that even in the presence of other dogs the human is more interesting. We also learned the basics to the most common dog tricks such as sit, down, heel, etc, and were also introduced to tracking.
As soon as Albert had been properly taught basic commands such as wait, no, etc, this behaviour was demanded from him at all times if the command was given. Ie there was always a negative consequence to NOT following a command he knew, in addition to the positive consequence of following it. It pains me to recall some of the horrified looks I've gotten when I've marched over angrily to pick up my sweet, waggly youngster by the scruff of his neck when he hadn't waited, but had instead rushed off to greet other dogs and people. "you can't do that, he means well, he's just a puppy, he doesn't know any better". Of course he doesn't, and he never will if he's not taught. The bichon owners who looked on, horrified, should in fact be pleased I performed this "cruelty", as it now means that my dog will never run off to greet their white fluffballs with 40lbs of muscle and teeth. If a dog - or at least a glen - is taught only with the positive, he will always weigh up the pros and cons of doing as he's told. If the reward of not doing as he's told outweighs the reward of complying, he will generally choose to ignore his owner, and go and play/fight with other dogs, eat that thing in the ditch and when he FINALLY gets round to returning to his owner, he'll probably get that treat anyway as the owner is relieved the dog finally returned and because she has read in dog-books, that the dog should never be told off when he comes.
The above realisations were the most basic foundations to our relationship with Albert, and they've carried us quite far. We have an extremely obedient dog who is well settled and knows his place in the pack, doesn't need a leash, shows good interest in humans, is eager to please, loves to work, and is generally a pleasure to live with and a dog one can be proud of.
PRESENT - where we're at
Albert is currently "only" an obedient family dog. Nowadays he does not need a leash. The only time we use a lead is if we have to leave him tied outside a shop, but even so he'd probably stay put even without it, but its there for our comfort and his safety. On a regular walk, whether on the curb or on a wood path, Albert usually stays quite close by, keeping up but sniffing around freely, but immediately comes to heel when called if there are bikes/people/dogs/cars etc coming our way. He never runs off to greet people or dogs without permission, and he always comes when called. This isn't some huge effort on our or Albert's part, but simply something we all take for granted. He knows the rules, and has long outgrown trying to question them. It's just our normal way of life and walks, as an extendable lead is to others. And it didn't take some immensely massive training effort, rather just the correct type of training, with sufficient consistency and correct timing. Thanks to the seemingly strict restrictions we often inflicted on him as a youngster, he now has a lot of freedom.
As already mentioned, we do lots of things with Albert to keep him challenged and occupied. Generally we try to incorporate all kinds of games, adventure and little tasks into normal walks. Especially during the summer Albert likes to spend time in the garden, keeping a watch on our territory. We practice obedience tricks to some extent every day, as Albert still never gets his food for free. In addition to obedience for food, we often incorporate tricks into play. Teemu is not particularly interested in obedience work, but I rather enjoy teaching Albert tricks. Sometimes we use a toy (this is the best motivator), sometimes treats or food, and I even own a clicker, which has sometimes been useful. With some extra work on my part he'd be good enough for trials.
Albert has a nice talent for tracking, and with enough practice (mainly to rid him of his over-enthusiasm) he'd be good enough for competition. He loves to track, and waiting whilst the track is being made is another rare situation, where he really needs his lead.
waiting to track wolfing down the reward at the end of the track
FUTURE - what we're planning
I'd really like to attend obedience trials just to get some results and titles for Albert :-D Trials would set us some goals and get us to constantly work and improve on things rather than just getting Albert to do the same tricks day in day out.
A true goal is to attend tracking trials. The track is made in the forest and the trials are intended mainly for hunting dogs (it's also called Nordic tracking, as there isn't an equivalent dog sport anywhere else). However, we'd have to do quite a bit of work with Albert to prep him, so this goal will have to wait until we have more time to devote to it.
The official ground-dog trials here in Finland do not allow glen of imaal terriers to participate. Despite the popularity of the breed here and the proportionately large number of very active breeders we have, no-one appears to have shown interest in this issue. I'm sure glens could obtain the right to compete if we appealed, but the dimensions of the fake tunnels are designed for jacks, fox terriers and border terriers and are sadly much too small to accommodate a glen, or at least the glens derived from the giant show stock that dominates the Finnish glen scene. Albert is extremely kind to all other animals (except to mice and similar small things since the cats taught him what to do with them), but it would be interesting to see how he reacts to animals that are similar to his traditional quarry in authentic surroundings. We know a few people who hunt, so it might be possible for us to arrange a test-situation with their help. It is quite common for hunters who keep working terriers to arrange test-situations for their new dogs and puppies with caged foxes and raccoon dogs, and it would be great if someone agreed to let Albert participate. Despite not hunting ourselves and despite the fact that Albert will, most probably, never actually be used for true terrier work (at most I might get involved in tracking wounded elk and deer for hunters), I feel that this side of the breed is a crucial part of it.
Albert is now a grown up dog, and it's time to have his eyes and structure officially examined. We're planning to have the eye examination (mainly for PRA), and x-rays of hips, elbows, back and possibly also knees.
Albert has gotten over his skin issues pretty well with age and a proper diet, and I've even played with the thought that IF everything looks good in his check-up and if we get round to getting him some "qualifications" and especially if he shows us he hasn't lost his hunting instincts completely, he might even get to father a litter some day. But that would be a whole new huge project, and it would obviously also involve us setting up a kennel and finding Albert a suitable girlfriend, ie a very small, extremely healthy-skinned work-oriented fantastic glen girl, who would preferably be from bloodlines with plenty of workers and as distant a relative to Albert as possible. Time will tell.
HEALTH
Albert - like so many other Finnish glens - had some awful skin issues when he was younger. He itched and scratched and at worst he had little pustules all over his stomach and sides. He also scratched his ears and the sides of his mouth, and chewed up his feet. After lots of antibiotics and all kinds of ointments we eventially put Albert on a diet of raw meat, bones, and some really good quality frozen dog food that a GSD-breeder we know produces, and now his skin is fine. He was at a sensitive age (6 months-1 year) when the problems were at their worst, so it could have been a combination of hormonal and immune-issues and the wrong type of diet (commercial dried dog food). He still has some kind of a tendency for skin problems, which shows as itchy feet when there are long spells of wet weather or when he swims on a daily basis, but it clears up quickly without intervention. Whenever he's been given commercial food (namely eagle, propac or Pedigree treats), he itches the sides of his mouth like mad. Surprisingly he can have beef, pasta, yoghurt etc without ill-effects, so I doubt this is actual allergy (unless he's allergic to the storage mites that dried foods are often teeming with), but rather a reaction to some additive or other.
Albert is quite a sexually driven male, and is highly interested in the scent marks of females. He molests his toys if given the opportunity and gets very depressed if local females are in heat. This hasn't been very good for his health, and he has some form of chronic inflammation to his foreskin, so especially when he can think of nothing else than girls, he will tend to have an itchy and infected willy. At times he's shown some of the first signs of possible prostate problems, when there have been lots of overexciting smells around for long lengths of time. We try to limit his sniffing and don't let him hump things, as these clearly aggravate the situation. By far the best cure is arranging enough things for him to do besides pining after girls. Castration would obviously alleviate these problems, but that could cause problems with other dogs, change his temperament and it would obviously also permanently annul the option of ever breeding from him.
Albert also had a baby-canine that wouldn't come off on its own and had to be removed by the vet. Or rather it may have come loose with time, but it could have affected the growth and position of his permanent canine which could have caused a whole new set of problems and we didn't want to risk it. In addition he had an episode of tonsillitis, which cleared up quickly with treatment and may have been related to the epidemic of nasal mites that circled our neighbourhood at that time.
Apart from the above mentioned problems, and a few bouts of your usual occasional tummy upsets, Albert has been a very healthy dog.
DIET
As mentioned previously, Albert doesn't thrive on your usual Hill's, Eagle & Co, but itches and produces bucketfulls of semi-loose stinky stools if fed commercial foods. We've ended up feeding Albert a no-nonsense good quality diet comprising of cheap cuts of fresh raw meat, bones, a high quality frozen dog food called NEU (produced by a Finnish GSD-breeder). Albert also gets a lot of scraps that are suitable for dogs, such as natural yoghurt, porridge, baby-food, cooked meats, small amounts of rice, pasta, vegetables etc etc. After our baby was born we also purchased a selection of high quality (and high price :-/ ) commercial foods in case we didn't find the time and effort to defrost proper food for Albert, and there are two which have suited him very well. One is a canned food called Lukullus, and the other a dried food called Orijen with a 70% meat content. We also give Albert probiotic bacteria and beneficial fish and vegetable oils whenever we remember, and he also gets the occasional raw egg-yolk. A good diet forms the foundations of health for humans and animals alike, and I warmly recommend investing a bit of time and money in a decent diet.
