The computer is finally hooked up and online at Tim's house, and most of the chaos of moving and unpacking is behind us (please, let it be true!) and I finally have time to write about the puppy.
I went to pick her up on Friday of the holiday weekend. I took the day off from work, thus giving myself a 4-day weekend, which I thought would be perfect for getting a new puppy and starting housebreaking, and also perfect for moving into Tim's house. Note to self, and to others who might consider this in the future: Do not ever, EVER think it's a good idea to get a new puppy and move in the same weekend! It was a horrible idea! Talk about chaos. More about that later.
When I went to pick her up, the red tri boy puppies weren't as cute as they were the last time I visited, and my red merle puppy was beautiful and sweet, so there was no doubt which one was coming home with me. One very cute thing about her is that her eyes are blue -- kind of ice-blue, very intense -- but one of them is half green. It's very cool although I joke and tell her that she is a witch in disguise because of her multi-colored eyes. I popped her in the crate and headed home. She whined and barked and dug frantically at the crate door trying to get out the whole way home. I've gotten four puppies since moving to Arizona -- two guide dog puppies, two Aussies, all picked up in Phoenix -- and of all of them, only Sunny was completely silent all the way home. My two Labs and Annie all screamed the whole way. (Sunny's silence was totally typical of him -- his thought process would have been something like, "Oh, I don't like it in here. But the door is closed and I can't get out so I guess I can't do anything." All the girls were more like, "I hate this crate! Get me out! NOW!")
The first night she got me up a couple times, and was pretty fidgety and whiney the whole night. I totally expected that, so wasn't too upset about it. Then the next day was the Big Move, where I moved the dogs and cats and all their assorted paraphernalia over to Tim's house. That day was pretty much awful. I left Annie in the crate at my house while I moved the dogs over to Tim's house, and then came back afterwards to find her screaming and terrified. Poor puppy, all alone in a strange empty house. Then after I got back I played with her for a few minutes and then had to pack up the cats and their stuff, wash the litterboxes, et cetera so it was back in the crate for Annie. Then that night she had to sleep in another brand-new place and get used to a new backyard when she had only been in the old one for a little over 24 hours. Plus every waking minute at Tim's house was spent unpacking and organizing and trying to fit all those animals into a much smaller space than we had before. So it was either difficult or impossible to keep an eye on Annie all the time. Thank God for the ex-pen. It's like a puppy playpen, and we definitely overused it the first couple days.
So not only was there the matter of unpacking and setting up the house, there was also the matter of keeping an eye on Annie and Zsiga. Sunny and Hilda prefer to not acknowledge puppies ("I don't see you, therefore you don't exist"), but Zsiga was beyond thrilled to see her appear. ("A new toy for me? Awesome!") He is 16 weeks old now and almost as big as Sunny, and he likes to play rough. He also likes to chew on Annie like she's a stuffed toy. I hate that! Every time they play, his big wet mouth gets her all dirty and slobbery. Then I have to wait till she dries and brush the dirt out. Even with lots of brushing and never leaving the two of them unsupervised (one always either on a leash or in a crate), she is still dirty all the time, especially on the parts of her that are white. I hate dirty dogs but have decided I can live with a little dirt in exchange for letting them get out some of their energy. Annie is tough and feisty and does not take Zsiga's crap lying down. She comes right back at him with teeth and big mean puppy growls. They're actually quite cute, but every once in a while he gets a little too excited and it starts looking a bit too much like prey drive -- like when he bit down hard on the back of her neck in a "kill bite", the way wild dogs break the necks of their prey. After that, we instituted the "No unsupervised play" rule. There is also a rule that no one can play in the house with the exception of quietly chewing on their toys. Whoever violates the "no play in the house" rule gets a verbal warning first, then a timeout. Oh yes -- my commitment to positive training has gone out the window. Between the stress of moving and the stress of not getting anything like enough sleep, I have neither time nor patience to teach and reward acceptable alternative behavior. Instead, I scold and leash correct. I know, shame on me. Sunny hates it. Every time I yell at Zsiga or Annie he winces like I just beat him. And he has started walking around the house in a permanent slink, just trying to stay out of everybody's way. Hilda, meanwhile, has taken a different approach to the chaos -- accumulate as many toys as possible, then guard them for all she's worth. These poor dogs.
Annie's temperament is interesting. She's definitely not as soft as Sunny, which is what I was secretly hoping for but looks like I didn't get, again. She is determined and persistent when she wants something that doesn't coincide with what we want. And she is extremely whiny -- the whiniest puppy I have ever had. She whines for everything -- wants water, wants food, wants out of the crate/pen, wants to go smell something beyond the reach of the leash, doesn't like a sound she heard, et cetera. She is, hands-down, the WORST puppy I've ever had as far as sleeping through the night or being quiet in her crate. She goes about two hours before waking up (with annoying whines, of course). Then I take her outside, she pees and poops right away, and I pop her back in her crate, which is where she's supposed to realize the people and dogs in the room are still sleeping and go back to sleep herself, but she doesn't. She has middle-of-the-night temper tantrums with whining, barking, howling, and biting the bars of her crate. Tim and I both really enjoy those. NOT! It's so bad that last night I got a spray bottle of vinegar and water and was going to let her have it if she was noisy -- but, miraculously, she slept through the night and didn't make a sound. Hmmm. On the other hand, there are a lot of good things about her. She's very cuddly, unlike Zsiga, who struggles and shows expressions that remind me of a 10-year-old boy being told to go kiss his great aunt Gertrude right now OR ELSE any time we try to snuggle with him. Annie will happily sleep with her nose shoved up in my armpit and the length of her body snuggled up against me like a living body pillow. She's very responsive, so when Tim or I praise her she stares up at us adoringly and flattens her ears back and wiggles her little no-tail butt. She's very food-motivated and will do anything for a treat. (I taught her auto-sit while walking in heel position on one lesson -- and she even learned to sit straight with virtually no effort on my part.) Even though she was afraid of everything at first, she's now over most of her fears and can even walk down the street with noisy traffic and not show much reaction at all. So she should be an excellent performance dog, which is, after all, what I really wanted.
I just hope that last night was the first of many nights where I actually get to sleep. I think it will be easier to be more of a positive trainer if I'm not in a chronic state of sleep deprivation.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
New Puppy In Less Than 24 Hours!
24 hours from now, I'll be driving home in Phoenix with my new puppy. Bringing home a new puppy is still one of the most exciting things that can possibly happen in my world! Not only are they adorable, but they always have so much potential. They haven't done anything "wrong" yet, and they are practically blank slates. (Though not totally -- if they have been well-socialized, like this puppy has been and Guide Dog puppies always are and the foster mini-Aussies most definitely were NOT, they will be wired to think that people are great and new experiences are fun.) It's so easy to think that maybe THIS will be the puppy that grows up to never, not ever, pull on her leash, or the one that sleeps soundly all night long and doesn't wake up till the alarm goes off (I'm still waiting for that one, though I've heard they exist), or the one that has the temperament to be a therapy dog (not likely, considering my breed of choice), or the one that has a perfect trained retrieve, or... And I purposely try not to think of things like, maybe this one will have fear of thunderstorms, or be impossible to house train, or chew up the beautiful dining room table that belonged to Tim's grandmother, or will be not easily motivated by food or toys so will be more challenging to train. For a few days anyway, the new puppy gets to be just perfect and adorable and snuggly. I mean, look at this:
Obviously she is adorable, especially if you like funny pink noses with black spots. (I do, but I understand that it's an acquired taste. I used to think all merles were ugly, but somehow my feelings changed over time.)
And here she is, with her littermates. She's the one in the center looking at the camera with her big blue eyes:
The only problem is that I'm not sure I'm getting the right puppy. I don't know how that can be, since I have been waiting for a red merle female for more than 6 months now. (When the breeder had her last litter, in July of last year, I actually had a red merle female reserved out of that litter, and I changed my mind because I wasn't sure how Tim REALLY felt about lots of dogs, and didn't want to scare him away by adding a puppy to a house that already had two dogs. Now I know that he really does like a pack of dogs -- I mean, just the fact that he didn't flinch at the thought of two puppies in the house at the same time was pretty telling -- so feel like it's safe to bring home my long-awaited red merle female Aussie.) I had this one reserved practically from the moment she popped out of the womb. Her parents are from very good breeding -- healthy, multi-talented, titled in many different disciplines, from Aussie Hall of Fame kennels -- and they are raised in a healthy, stimulating environment, so it would be really hard to go wrong with a puppy from this litter. But I'm still not sure.
When I visited the puppies a few weeks ago, I saw my puppy and wasn't all that excited. She was cute and all, like all the other puppies, but she wasn't all that interested in me. (To be fair, most of the other ones weren't interested in me either. At five weeks, they have the attention span of gnats and are mostly interested in eating dirt, playing with each other, peeing, and pooping.) But I saw one of the red tricolor males and instantly liked him better. For one thing, he looked at me and really looked, like he actually found me interesting. I don't take that as a personal compliment, but more as a sign that he is very interested in people, even at that young age. Then he came over and put his feet up on me. Just for a second, and then he wandered off with the other puppies, but he at least checked in, which the other puppies didn't do. Also, he is beautiful. He is a very dark red, more like liver than red, which makes his tan points stand out very bright, and he has a lot of white. Here he is:
Obviously she is adorable, especially if you like funny pink noses with black spots. (I do, but I understand that it's an acquired taste. I used to think all merles were ugly, but somehow my feelings changed over time.)
And here she is, with her littermates. She's the one in the center looking at the camera with her big blue eyes:
The only problem is that I'm not sure I'm getting the right puppy. I don't know how that can be, since I have been waiting for a red merle female for more than 6 months now. (When the breeder had her last litter, in July of last year, I actually had a red merle female reserved out of that litter, and I changed my mind because I wasn't sure how Tim REALLY felt about lots of dogs, and didn't want to scare him away by adding a puppy to a house that already had two dogs. Now I know that he really does like a pack of dogs -- I mean, just the fact that he didn't flinch at the thought of two puppies in the house at the same time was pretty telling -- so feel like it's safe to bring home my long-awaited red merle female Aussie.) I had this one reserved practically from the moment she popped out of the womb. Her parents are from very good breeding -- healthy, multi-talented, titled in many different disciplines, from Aussie Hall of Fame kennels -- and they are raised in a healthy, stimulating environment, so it would be really hard to go wrong with a puppy from this litter. But I'm still not sure.
When I visited the puppies a few weeks ago, I saw my puppy and wasn't all that excited. She was cute and all, like all the other puppies, but she wasn't all that interested in me. (To be fair, most of the other ones weren't interested in me either. At five weeks, they have the attention span of gnats and are mostly interested in eating dirt, playing with each other, peeing, and pooping.) But I saw one of the red tricolor males and instantly liked him better. For one thing, he looked at me and really looked, like he actually found me interesting. I don't take that as a personal compliment, but more as a sign that he is very interested in people, even at that young age. Then he came over and put his feet up on me. Just for a second, and then he wandered off with the other puppies, but he at least checked in, which the other puppies didn't do. Also, he is beautiful. He is a very dark red, more like liver than red, which makes his tan points stand out very bright, and he has a lot of white. Here he is:
Most of the other puppies in the litter have been sold, but the three red tri boys are still available. The breeder said it's always hardest to sell the male tris, whether they're black or red. (I don't know why -- I wanted a merle this time, but still love the tris and think they are the most classic-looking.) She's dropped the price to $350 for those three boys, which makes them much cheaper than the puppy I'm getting. So I am really undecided. I have wanted a female merle forever, and am not sure why I like this one so much when he is NOT a female merle.
I emailed the breeder a week or so ago and asked her about my puppy's personality. She was honest and said that she is not the most confident puppy, but that she is very interested in people once she knows them. (She also said that she takes a while to warm up to individual people. She got attached to the breeder's mother because the litter spent their first month at the mother's house, and then when they were transferred over to the puppy room in the breeder's house, she took a while to decide she liked the breeder.) I am all right with both of those things -- confidence can be built with training, and I like dogs that are picky about who they like. (And after Zsiga, I am ready for a puppy that is a little more needy and less outgoing.) I really think her temperament will be fine for what I want to do with her, but I still keep wanting to bring home the boy instead.
I am really hoping he is sold when I go to pick up my puppy tomorrow. Then I won't have to make everything complicated and decide which one I want. On a side note, if anyone else wants a really nice Aussie puppy for $350, let me know and I can pick him up for you!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Dog Ownership is Different in the Barrio
We're getting ready to move over to Tim's house on the east side, and I am going to miss my neighborhood, believe it or not. It's true that we are practically the only white, non-Spanish-speaking people in my whole neighborhood (aside from my neighbors, Liz and Peter, who are barrio settlers like me -- they drive a Prius and ride their bikes most of the time, and probably eat organic food and harvest rain water too), but I like it that way. I like salsa music, gigantic packs of little kids playing in the streets, the babble of Spanish coming from the houses all around me, the smells of Mexican food from front-yard cookouts, and all of that. I appreciate Tucson for being a bi-cultural city, and I like living somewhere that feels sort of like Mexico only the water is clean and the electricity always works. But there is one difference that I really find it hard to get used to, and that is the attitude toward dog ownership.
For starters, virtually every house in the neighborhood has at least one dog, and most houses have more than one. The dogs live outside -- either that, or they just happen to be outside every single time I walk or drive through the neighborhood. They are behind fences at some houses, but at other houses, they are free as birds. They can wander the streets in packs, chase bikes, run up to my dogs on walks and sniff them, kill stray cats, fight with coyotes, sleep in the middle of the road, or sit in their driveways growling at anyone who passes. As far as breeds, it's an even mix between pit bull types, generic shepherd types, and Chihuahua types. They don't wear collars and the males are never neutered. There tends to be a high turnover of dogs in the neighborhood -- my next door neighbors have lost two dogs and acquired two more in just over a year.
Every time I weed my front yard, I close the driveway gate and let my dogs out to run around in the front yard. They draw neighborhood kids like magnets. My dogs clearly stand out in the neighborhood for being purebred, well-groomed, trained (any time I work with Sunny in the front yard or on the sidewalk, I instantly acquire an audience of not only kids, but their parents), and confined. Last summer I had no fewer than three different kids ask me, wide-eyed and perplexed, why my dogs were behind a fence. They literally did not understand why my dogs weren't out running with the pack. I always just give the short answer that I'm afraid my dogs will run away, which usually elicits a sympathetic reply and a story of how one of THEIR dogs ran away once. (I wonder if it really did or if it was eaten by coyotes, or became roadkill out on Mission Road.)
This weekend I was out weeding and had the dogs out, and, sure enough, I soon had an audience of two kids hanging on my fence, with two more out on the street too shy to come close but too curious to go home. Jerrianne, who is ten, and her cousin Jelissa, who is seven, asked if they could come play with the dogs, and I said yes, so they came in and chased the dogs around for a while until they got tired of being unable to get the ball away from Sunny and Hilda. Then they came and sat next to me and filled me in on subjects like quinceneareas, annual trips to Mazatlan to visit family, pregnant older sisters, fathers in jail, the appeal of Justin Bieber, and other interesting things before moving on to the subject of dogs.
Jelissa asked me if I let my dogs have puppies. I said no. Jerrianne said her dog had puppies once. She said her dog was a French poodle and they had to give the puppies away. Then she said that her mother said that if the dog had puppies again, she was going to have to put her to sleep. Jerrianne looked very sad when she said this. She said, "I'm going to be so sad when that happens. That dog is like my best friend." I was a little shocked. "Does your mother know that she can be fixed so she can't have puppies?" I asked her. Jerrianne answered, "Oh yeah, she knows, but she doesn't want to do that." I persisted. "There's a place where she can do it for cheap," I said, and was all ready to give her the number for Animal Birth Control, but Jerrianne said, "No, she won't. I just hope my dog won't have puppies again." Yeah, an unplanned dog pregnancy is really unlikely to happen again when the dog is not spayed and is allowed to run loose. While I was still reeling from that, Jelissa started in. "Are your dogs mean?" she asked me.
"No, they're nice," I said. "What about yours?"
"Mine is mean," she said. "He doesn't like little dogs."
"Oh no?" I said. "What does he do with them?"
"He kills them," she said nonchalantly. "Did you know that dog next door?" She pointed at my next door neighbor's house. I nodded. It was a nasty little red dog, maybe a mixed-breed Chihuahua or miniature pinscher, something like that. I hated that little dog, who liked to bark hysterically at me whenever I came home and at my dogs whenever I let them out in the back yard. I had fantasies about drop-kicking that dog into next week, but never managed to realize them because it was too fast. At any threatening move from me, it would run back to the safety of its yard and bark at me from there. "My dog killed him," she said. "He bit his legs and there was blood all over and then he died." She was very matter-of-fact and not upset at all.
"WHICH dog is yours?" I asked, and she pointed down the street at the dog, lying in her driveway. It's a big yellowish-colored dog that looks like a shepherd-chow mix or something like that. I've seen that dog walking around since I moved in, but always thought it was old and stiff and uninterested in what goes on in the neighborhood. It's never given my dogs more than a cursory glance. I guess that since they are big they aren't interesting.
It's hard to imagine people who truly believe it's better to kill a dog than to spay it. Then again, I live in a neighborhood where men hang sets of metal testicles on their trucks as a symbol of what -- masculinity? -- so maybe I shouldn't be surprised that they don't believe in spaying or neutering either. As much as I appreciate my neighborhood, I admit to being relieved that I am moving somewhere where dogs are house dogs and always either on leash or behind a fence, and where I can take the dogs for a walk without setting off a storm of hysterical barking at every house I pass.
For starters, virtually every house in the neighborhood has at least one dog, and most houses have more than one. The dogs live outside -- either that, or they just happen to be outside every single time I walk or drive through the neighborhood. They are behind fences at some houses, but at other houses, they are free as birds. They can wander the streets in packs, chase bikes, run up to my dogs on walks and sniff them, kill stray cats, fight with coyotes, sleep in the middle of the road, or sit in their driveways growling at anyone who passes. As far as breeds, it's an even mix between pit bull types, generic shepherd types, and Chihuahua types. They don't wear collars and the males are never neutered. There tends to be a high turnover of dogs in the neighborhood -- my next door neighbors have lost two dogs and acquired two more in just over a year.
Every time I weed my front yard, I close the driveway gate and let my dogs out to run around in the front yard. They draw neighborhood kids like magnets. My dogs clearly stand out in the neighborhood for being purebred, well-groomed, trained (any time I work with Sunny in the front yard or on the sidewalk, I instantly acquire an audience of not only kids, but their parents), and confined. Last summer I had no fewer than three different kids ask me, wide-eyed and perplexed, why my dogs were behind a fence. They literally did not understand why my dogs weren't out running with the pack. I always just give the short answer that I'm afraid my dogs will run away, which usually elicits a sympathetic reply and a story of how one of THEIR dogs ran away once. (I wonder if it really did or if it was eaten by coyotes, or became roadkill out on Mission Road.)
This weekend I was out weeding and had the dogs out, and, sure enough, I soon had an audience of two kids hanging on my fence, with two more out on the street too shy to come close but too curious to go home. Jerrianne, who is ten, and her cousin Jelissa, who is seven, asked if they could come play with the dogs, and I said yes, so they came in and chased the dogs around for a while until they got tired of being unable to get the ball away from Sunny and Hilda. Then they came and sat next to me and filled me in on subjects like quinceneareas, annual trips to Mazatlan to visit family, pregnant older sisters, fathers in jail, the appeal of Justin Bieber, and other interesting things before moving on to the subject of dogs.
Jelissa asked me if I let my dogs have puppies. I said no. Jerrianne said her dog had puppies once. She said her dog was a French poodle and they had to give the puppies away. Then she said that her mother said that if the dog had puppies again, she was going to have to put her to sleep. Jerrianne looked very sad when she said this. She said, "I'm going to be so sad when that happens. That dog is like my best friend." I was a little shocked. "Does your mother know that she can be fixed so she can't have puppies?" I asked her. Jerrianne answered, "Oh yeah, she knows, but she doesn't want to do that." I persisted. "There's a place where she can do it for cheap," I said, and was all ready to give her the number for Animal Birth Control, but Jerrianne said, "No, she won't. I just hope my dog won't have puppies again." Yeah, an unplanned dog pregnancy is really unlikely to happen again when the dog is not spayed and is allowed to run loose. While I was still reeling from that, Jelissa started in. "Are your dogs mean?" she asked me.
"No, they're nice," I said. "What about yours?"
"Mine is mean," she said. "He doesn't like little dogs."
"Oh no?" I said. "What does he do with them?"
"He kills them," she said nonchalantly. "Did you know that dog next door?" She pointed at my next door neighbor's house. I nodded. It was a nasty little red dog, maybe a mixed-breed Chihuahua or miniature pinscher, something like that. I hated that little dog, who liked to bark hysterically at me whenever I came home and at my dogs whenever I let them out in the back yard. I had fantasies about drop-kicking that dog into next week, but never managed to realize them because it was too fast. At any threatening move from me, it would run back to the safety of its yard and bark at me from there. "My dog killed him," she said. "He bit his legs and there was blood all over and then he died." She was very matter-of-fact and not upset at all.
"WHICH dog is yours?" I asked, and she pointed down the street at the dog, lying in her driveway. It's a big yellowish-colored dog that looks like a shepherd-chow mix or something like that. I've seen that dog walking around since I moved in, but always thought it was old and stiff and uninterested in what goes on in the neighborhood. It's never given my dogs more than a cursory glance. I guess that since they are big they aren't interesting.
It's hard to imagine people who truly believe it's better to kill a dog than to spay it. Then again, I live in a neighborhood where men hang sets of metal testicles on their trucks as a symbol of what -- masculinity? -- so maybe I shouldn't be surprised that they don't believe in spaying or neutering either. As much as I appreciate my neighborhood, I admit to being relieved that I am moving somewhere where dogs are house dogs and always either on leash or behind a fence, and where I can take the dogs for a walk without setting off a storm of hysterical barking at every house I pass.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Oops, MY Dog Was the Bad One
I usually like going to the low-cost shot clinic at the Humane Society because my dogs are always so well-behaved and other people's dogs are so NOT well-behaved, and it makes me feel superior. I am used to seeing dogs on Flexi-leads wandering into other dogs' spaces and almost getting bitten (usually while their owners chat with the people next to them and don't watch their dogs at all); dogs in ill-fitting choke chains that are on backwards and fit like necklaces, not like collars; dogs peeing or taking a crap behind the owners while the owners are filling out forms, et cetera. But yesterday the disruptive dog was mine when I took Zsiga for his last DHLPP shot and the rabies shot.
The shot clinic opens at 7:00, but anyone who has ever been there knows you have to be there by 6:40 at the latest or else you will be there all morning. I got there at 6:40 and there were already 6 people in line ahead of me, which made me #7. The way the shot clinic works is this: there is a big, empty room about the size of a gymnasium filled with folding chairs. There is a little office off to the side where the actual shots are given (behind a closed door, owners NOT invited in). First you go in, fill out the forms about what shot you want, then you sit and wait until your number is called, then you go hand over your forms and pay your fees, then you sit and wait again until your number is called again, and then you hand over your dog for the shots. I have gotten smart about this over the years and realized there is no point to even bring the dogs in until I pay for the shots. If you bring them in at the beginning, you then have to juggle dog leashes with wallet and clipboard, whereas if you leave them in the car, you can read at leisure while waiting for your number to be called to pay. I have never understood why I seem to be the ONLY one who has figured that out. Everyone else brings their dogs in from the beginning.
Anyway, I paid and went out and got Zsiga and brought him in. They had just called #1 in for shots when I came inside. Zsiga... well, he did not take this place well at all. When we brought him a month ago for his first shots, he vocalized the whole time, and squirmed a little, but at least he could stay on our laps. Now he is way too big for me to carry, so he had to walk in. He took one look at the room full of people and dogs, hackled up, and started explosive barking and growling at everything. He looked wildly all around him like there was danger on every side. I couldn't do anything about it because he was so, so far over-stimulated. (The correct thing to do would have been to remove him from the place, take him far enough away that he was able to focus on me again, and then gradually move him a little closer a few feet at a time. But that would have taken a long time, and it was cold outside, and I was in my pajamas and wanted to go back to bed, and truthfully, as amped up and scared as he was, there is a very good chance he would not have relaxed with just one session no matter how slow we went. Then too, he's Tim's dog, not mine, and he is not going to have performance-in-public responsibilities like my dogs do. So I just stayed inside with him even though he was acting like a wild animal.)
Everyone stared at him and I stared at the ceiling, pretending nothing was happening. I knew who was ahead of me and what order they were in, so I was pretty surprised when the tech came up to me and said, "We're doing him next, come on up." I followed her to the front of the line and carefully did not look at any of the people ahead of me in line. Zsiga was still screaming and thrashing around on his leash like a fish out of water. It is no exaggeration to say his behavior was the worst I have ever seen in all my years of going to the shot clinic, and that's saying a lot, because bad behavior is always on display there. (Usually more bad behavior from the owners, rather than the dogs, to be honest.) I have also never seen them pull even the most disruptive dog out of its place in line and send it in sooner.
No one said anything to me about cutting in front of them. I'm glad they didn't, because it wasn't my idea. Zsiga's blood-curdling screams came out of the exam room even louder than they had been out in the room. I hoped he wouldn't bite the techs out of fear, and briefly wondered about liability in case that happened. Luckily it didn't. They returned him in one piece and we went back out to the car, with him screaming all the way. Once in the car, he shut up and fell asleep, and slept soundly all the way home.
So, wow. We need to get him out every day now and socialize the heck out of him, or we will have a very big problem on our hands. Literally a very big problem, since he is going to be 100 lbs. or so when he grows up, and an undersocialized German shepherd is like a loaded weapon. We have been getting him out, but I guess it wasn't enough. Then again, 16 weeks is developmentally a fear period, so maybe this isn't quite a surprise. Either way, it definitely reminded me of the importance of socialization. I think I will take more chances with exposing Annie when socializing her. As worried as I am about parvo, I am more worried about having a dog with lifelong fear issues due to not getting out enough as a puppy. Especially with herding breeds -- they are so darn sensitive.
The shot clinic opens at 7:00, but anyone who has ever been there knows you have to be there by 6:40 at the latest or else you will be there all morning. I got there at 6:40 and there were already 6 people in line ahead of me, which made me #7. The way the shot clinic works is this: there is a big, empty room about the size of a gymnasium filled with folding chairs. There is a little office off to the side where the actual shots are given (behind a closed door, owners NOT invited in). First you go in, fill out the forms about what shot you want, then you sit and wait until your number is called, then you go hand over your forms and pay your fees, then you sit and wait again until your number is called again, and then you hand over your dog for the shots. I have gotten smart about this over the years and realized there is no point to even bring the dogs in until I pay for the shots. If you bring them in at the beginning, you then have to juggle dog leashes with wallet and clipboard, whereas if you leave them in the car, you can read at leisure while waiting for your number to be called to pay. I have never understood why I seem to be the ONLY one who has figured that out. Everyone else brings their dogs in from the beginning.
Anyway, I paid and went out and got Zsiga and brought him in. They had just called #1 in for shots when I came inside. Zsiga... well, he did not take this place well at all. When we brought him a month ago for his first shots, he vocalized the whole time, and squirmed a little, but at least he could stay on our laps. Now he is way too big for me to carry, so he had to walk in. He took one look at the room full of people and dogs, hackled up, and started explosive barking and growling at everything. He looked wildly all around him like there was danger on every side. I couldn't do anything about it because he was so, so far over-stimulated. (The correct thing to do would have been to remove him from the place, take him far enough away that he was able to focus on me again, and then gradually move him a little closer a few feet at a time. But that would have taken a long time, and it was cold outside, and I was in my pajamas and wanted to go back to bed, and truthfully, as amped up and scared as he was, there is a very good chance he would not have relaxed with just one session no matter how slow we went. Then too, he's Tim's dog, not mine, and he is not going to have performance-in-public responsibilities like my dogs do. So I just stayed inside with him even though he was acting like a wild animal.)
Everyone stared at him and I stared at the ceiling, pretending nothing was happening. I knew who was ahead of me and what order they were in, so I was pretty surprised when the tech came up to me and said, "We're doing him next, come on up." I followed her to the front of the line and carefully did not look at any of the people ahead of me in line. Zsiga was still screaming and thrashing around on his leash like a fish out of water. It is no exaggeration to say his behavior was the worst I have ever seen in all my years of going to the shot clinic, and that's saying a lot, because bad behavior is always on display there. (Usually more bad behavior from the owners, rather than the dogs, to be honest.) I have also never seen them pull even the most disruptive dog out of its place in line and send it in sooner.
No one said anything to me about cutting in front of them. I'm glad they didn't, because it wasn't my idea. Zsiga's blood-curdling screams came out of the exam room even louder than they had been out in the room. I hoped he wouldn't bite the techs out of fear, and briefly wondered about liability in case that happened. Luckily it didn't. They returned him in one piece and we went back out to the car, with him screaming all the way. Once in the car, he shut up and fell asleep, and slept soundly all the way home.
So, wow. We need to get him out every day now and socialize the heck out of him, or we will have a very big problem on our hands. Literally a very big problem, since he is going to be 100 lbs. or so when he grows up, and an undersocialized German shepherd is like a loaded weapon. We have been getting him out, but I guess it wasn't enough. Then again, 16 weeks is developmentally a fear period, so maybe this isn't quite a surprise. Either way, it definitely reminded me of the importance of socialization. I think I will take more chances with exposing Annie when socializing her. As worried as I am about parvo, I am more worried about having a dog with lifelong fear issues due to not getting out enough as a puppy. Especially with herding breeds -- they are so darn sensitive.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Even Awesome Dog Trainers Such as Myself Have Off Days
Naturally, I don't really believe I'm an awesome dog trainer. I'm a slightly above-average dog trainer, most of the time. Today, I was a sucky, lousy dog trainer. Neither one of my dogs would perform worth anything in class, and I couldn't seem to do anything to make it better.
Hilda started off with her nose planted in the grass and basically stayed that way throughout the entire course. She acted like she had never heard of front, or finish. She put on the brakes and planted her feet when I called her to come. She was obsessed by a little rolling cart that held two little Papillons in crates. (A Papillon, if you don't know, is an adorable toy breed -- tiny, fluffy, with relatively giant stand-up ears -- and is one of the few toy breeds known for doing well in competition obedience. These two Papillons are inexplicably owned by a tall, macho man who comes to class every week carting his two cute, well-trained lap dogs. Like I said, a mystery.)
I had chicken for my treats today, which is, like, an A-level treat. Hilda loves chicken, but she wouldn't do a darn thing for it today. Sit? No thanks. Down? Never heard of it. I snugged her buckle collar up under her chin, right up against the base of her throat, trying to stir a dim memory of having her air cut off with the choke chain back at Seeing Eye 7 years ago. Didn't work. I wished for a choke chain. Or a pinch collar, something that would make her obey. She was too interested in sniffing the grass and staring at other dogs and panting like it was 100 degrees instead of the lovely 73 that it actually was. I took her to the water fountain and let her play in it, thinking she needed a break. Then I let her lie down in the shade. Then I took her back to the rally course again and started to run through it with the same lousy results. My instructor, Kit, called my name and I thought he was going to make a comment on how my dog was completely on another planet and looked just like all the other half-trained dogs in this class. Instead he said he was going to be tough on me because I was so good, and then pointed out that I had made my last right turn in a sort of swooping arc instead of a neat, military 90-degree turn that the judges like to see. I nodded seriously and agreed to do better next time, and then walked Hilda off the course and back to the car and threw her in the back. You don't want to work? Fine. I will grant you your wish even though only 20 minutes of our hour-long class has gone by.
I sat in the car and read until it was time for Sunny's class to start. Sunny started out badly by refusing to stay in the car until called out. He leaped out on his own again and again and again, and I threw him back in again and again and again until finally he remembered how to wait for a release. Then I spent the time on our walk over to our class reminding him where Heel position was. He seemed to think it was either lunging in front of me, or else lagging behind with his nose planted in the grass. (What did they do to the grass this weekend? Geez.)
When we finally got to class, I knew I did not want to be there. The guy with the Aussie that everyone hates (ahem, everyone hates the guy, not the Aussie -- the Aussie is a hideous example of the breed, has no confidence, and is in poor condition to boot, but that's no reason to hate him) was standing on the other side of the field blabbing away to someone in another class. "Hmmph, we're not waiting for him," said my instructor, Pat. Pat is about seventy years old. There is only one way to train for her, and it does not involve food or a clicker. I use both anyway and don't care what she says.
Pat introduced the new students in the class -- a woman with a Swedish Vallhund (looks kind of like a Welsh Corgi, but smaller and mostly grey) and a woman with a gorgeous golden. Even though the golden looked gorgeous, he quickly proved to be an airhead. I sincerely hope he is just young and foolish and not untrained, otherwise his owner should be ashamed to have him in this class. He had no self-control and kept breaking stays, running around, and making a nuisance of himself. The guy with the Irish setter wandered in late, looking dazed and confused like always. Irish setters have a reputation for being dumb. I don't know who's dumber, this Irish setter or her owner. Both of them are always hopelessly behind in whatever exercise we're doing. The only one I truly like in this class is Hilde, who is in her 70's (probably) and walks with a cane and a horrendous limp, yet somehow manages to handle a 100-lb. adolescent Akita with a whopping dog distraction. She's been showing dogs in obedience since the 1960's. I always learn something from her.
We started with Heel. Sunny alternately lagged and forged. He forgot Auto-Sit and gave me Auto-Down instead. Pat argued with her assistant instructor, Nancy, over whether Sunny was sitting in Heel position or not. (Pat said no, Nancy said yes. Nancy gave me one of my Rally-N perfect scores, so she is predisposed to like me and Sunny.) They were arguing over mere centimeters so I gave up listening, watched the birds fly overhead, and absentmindedly fed Sunny piece after piece of chicken for no reason. Clearly I was not in the mood to train dogs and should have just gone home.
Sunny managed to hold a 5-minute down stay during the group down. The guy with the Aussie had finally joined us in class and his dog popped up again and again on the down-stay and began ambling slowly over to his owner, who ambled equally slowly using his cane across the grass expanse separating dogs and handlers. Each time the Aussie got up, the guy reprimanded him with an annoying "Tch-tch" sound. Finally Nancy told him she would correct the dog and he should stay where he was. The dog got up again and again, and Nancy popped him down again and again. The dog got this wild-eyed look at being handled by someone other than his owner. Finally he stayed down for a few seconds and Pat said, "Exercise finished!"
I was proud that Sunny did not break, but on the next exercise, the long sit (3 minutes), Pat made the dogs sit in the sun and Sunny decided to lie down and take a nap. I went back and corrected him, and he lasted one more minute -- almost until the stay was done -- and then the golden got up and went racing around and Sunny got up and started walking slowly towards me, looking a little too much like that other Aussie for my liking. So naturally I had to correct him again, which made him upset.
The class worked on the dumbbell next, at which point I had to fess up to the problems we're having with the dumbbell at home (he won't hold it or put it in my hand -- some pretty major problems). I am sure Pat blames the dumbbell problems on the fact that I train with food and the clicker. I can practically hear her thinking, "Nothing a good ear-pinch wouldn't cure." I didn't even bring my dumbbell to class, so I just practiced a down-stay while the rest of the class worked on the dumbbell. I was pleased to see that all of their dogs were just as bad as mine at holding it, though.
So my dogs were lousy and my attitude was even worse. I could feel bad about it, but instead I will remind myself that all dogs and all trainers have bad days and that, even though my dogs couldn't perform worth a damn today, I have a dog at home that can fetch me a beer out of the fridge when asked, and I bet no one else does.
Hilda started off with her nose planted in the grass and basically stayed that way throughout the entire course. She acted like she had never heard of front, or finish. She put on the brakes and planted her feet when I called her to come. She was obsessed by a little rolling cart that held two little Papillons in crates. (A Papillon, if you don't know, is an adorable toy breed -- tiny, fluffy, with relatively giant stand-up ears -- and is one of the few toy breeds known for doing well in competition obedience. These two Papillons are inexplicably owned by a tall, macho man who comes to class every week carting his two cute, well-trained lap dogs. Like I said, a mystery.)
I had chicken for my treats today, which is, like, an A-level treat. Hilda loves chicken, but she wouldn't do a darn thing for it today. Sit? No thanks. Down? Never heard of it. I snugged her buckle collar up under her chin, right up against the base of her throat, trying to stir a dim memory of having her air cut off with the choke chain back at Seeing Eye 7 years ago. Didn't work. I wished for a choke chain. Or a pinch collar, something that would make her obey. She was too interested in sniffing the grass and staring at other dogs and panting like it was 100 degrees instead of the lovely 73 that it actually was. I took her to the water fountain and let her play in it, thinking she needed a break. Then I let her lie down in the shade. Then I took her back to the rally course again and started to run through it with the same lousy results. My instructor, Kit, called my name and I thought he was going to make a comment on how my dog was completely on another planet and looked just like all the other half-trained dogs in this class. Instead he said he was going to be tough on me because I was so good, and then pointed out that I had made my last right turn in a sort of swooping arc instead of a neat, military 90-degree turn that the judges like to see. I nodded seriously and agreed to do better next time, and then walked Hilda off the course and back to the car and threw her in the back. You don't want to work? Fine. I will grant you your wish even though only 20 minutes of our hour-long class has gone by.
I sat in the car and read until it was time for Sunny's class to start. Sunny started out badly by refusing to stay in the car until called out. He leaped out on his own again and again and again, and I threw him back in again and again and again until finally he remembered how to wait for a release. Then I spent the time on our walk over to our class reminding him where Heel position was. He seemed to think it was either lunging in front of me, or else lagging behind with his nose planted in the grass. (What did they do to the grass this weekend? Geez.)
When we finally got to class, I knew I did not want to be there. The guy with the Aussie that everyone hates (ahem, everyone hates the guy, not the Aussie -- the Aussie is a hideous example of the breed, has no confidence, and is in poor condition to boot, but that's no reason to hate him) was standing on the other side of the field blabbing away to someone in another class. "Hmmph, we're not waiting for him," said my instructor, Pat. Pat is about seventy years old. There is only one way to train for her, and it does not involve food or a clicker. I use both anyway and don't care what she says.
Pat introduced the new students in the class -- a woman with a Swedish Vallhund (looks kind of like a Welsh Corgi, but smaller and mostly grey) and a woman with a gorgeous golden. Even though the golden looked gorgeous, he quickly proved to be an airhead. I sincerely hope he is just young and foolish and not untrained, otherwise his owner should be ashamed to have him in this class. He had no self-control and kept breaking stays, running around, and making a nuisance of himself. The guy with the Irish setter wandered in late, looking dazed and confused like always. Irish setters have a reputation for being dumb. I don't know who's dumber, this Irish setter or her owner. Both of them are always hopelessly behind in whatever exercise we're doing. The only one I truly like in this class is Hilde, who is in her 70's (probably) and walks with a cane and a horrendous limp, yet somehow manages to handle a 100-lb. adolescent Akita with a whopping dog distraction. She's been showing dogs in obedience since the 1960's. I always learn something from her.
We started with Heel. Sunny alternately lagged and forged. He forgot Auto-Sit and gave me Auto-Down instead. Pat argued with her assistant instructor, Nancy, over whether Sunny was sitting in Heel position or not. (Pat said no, Nancy said yes. Nancy gave me one of my Rally-N perfect scores, so she is predisposed to like me and Sunny.) They were arguing over mere centimeters so I gave up listening, watched the birds fly overhead, and absentmindedly fed Sunny piece after piece of chicken for no reason. Clearly I was not in the mood to train dogs and should have just gone home.
Sunny managed to hold a 5-minute down stay during the group down. The guy with the Aussie had finally joined us in class and his dog popped up again and again on the down-stay and began ambling slowly over to his owner, who ambled equally slowly using his cane across the grass expanse separating dogs and handlers. Each time the Aussie got up, the guy reprimanded him with an annoying "Tch-tch" sound. Finally Nancy told him she would correct the dog and he should stay where he was. The dog got up again and again, and Nancy popped him down again and again. The dog got this wild-eyed look at being handled by someone other than his owner. Finally he stayed down for a few seconds and Pat said, "Exercise finished!"
I was proud that Sunny did not break, but on the next exercise, the long sit (3 minutes), Pat made the dogs sit in the sun and Sunny decided to lie down and take a nap. I went back and corrected him, and he lasted one more minute -- almost until the stay was done -- and then the golden got up and went racing around and Sunny got up and started walking slowly towards me, looking a little too much like that other Aussie for my liking. So naturally I had to correct him again, which made him upset.
The class worked on the dumbbell next, at which point I had to fess up to the problems we're having with the dumbbell at home (he won't hold it or put it in my hand -- some pretty major problems). I am sure Pat blames the dumbbell problems on the fact that I train with food and the clicker. I can practically hear her thinking, "Nothing a good ear-pinch wouldn't cure." I didn't even bring my dumbbell to class, so I just practiced a down-stay while the rest of the class worked on the dumbbell. I was pleased to see that all of their dogs were just as bad as mine at holding it, though.
So my dogs were lousy and my attitude was even worse. I could feel bad about it, but instead I will remind myself that all dogs and all trainers have bad days and that, even though my dogs couldn't perform worth a damn today, I have a dog at home that can fetch me a beer out of the fridge when asked, and I bet no one else does.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Training Different Personalities
I train all three dogs every day. (Well, almost every day; nobody's perfect.) It's a lot like my work of teaching blind people how to get around, in the sense that every one is an individual with an individual learning style, and when I go from one to the next, I have to "switch gears" mentally.
Hilda is my crossover dog. For anyone reading this who's not familiar with clicker training terminology, a crossover dog is one that was first trained the "traditional" way (i.e., compulsion-based as opposed to reward-based). She's been leash-popped, "high-collared", strung up by the choke chain until she couldn't breathe, et cetera. (This was all long in the past, people; don't judge me.) Hilda is pretty tough mentally and could handle that kind of training. She was a fast-learning, accurate, serious worker during her brief career as a Seeing Eye dog. When we moved to Arizona, I started reading up on clicker training and decided to introduce Hilda to it too. She loved it, of course. (Why? because the clicker makes training FUN for dogs! What a concept!) But I can't help noticing the difference between Hilda working for the clicker and Hilda working to avoid correction. She is not serious at all with the clicker. She gets impatient and barks at me if she's not getting clicked enough. She tries her other tricks if she's not sure what I want. (That's called "throwing behaviors" in clicker-speak, and is something else I really don't like about clicker training. I have to say I miss the serious focus I used to get on dogs who were very anxious to avoid being corrected.) Hilda likes anything that involves big, fast movement (retrieving the dumbbell, running around a pole and back to me, jumping), and dislikes anything that involves shaping very small, precise movements or positions (staying within three inches of my leg when walking on a leash instead of her preferred six inches, learning to put her paw on her muzzle for the "I'm So Embarrassed" trick rather than putting her paw out like she does in the "Shake" command). If she doesn't "get it" quickly, she gets stressed and starts panting. Actually she can't work for very long no matter what we're working on. In our hour-long Rally-O class, I work for ten minutes, then take a ten-minute break, and repeat until class is done. I thought about competing in obedience with her, too, but then decided I don't have the time or inclination to fix her problems (heeling too wide, sitting out of position, et cetera). So I decided she can just learn tricks and that will be it for her. (Though I'm quite sure we could fake our way through a rally novice course, if necessary.)
Sunny has been all-clicker since puppyhood. He's never had a correction -- never needed one. He's so soft that if I frown at him it makes him nervous and he leaves. If I praise him too excitedly it also makes him nervous. So we stick to just the "click" to tell him what's right and what's wrong, and that works perfectly. He's the opposite of Hilda in that he needs to learn every tiny step before moving on to the next tiny step. He's the type who, if he doesn't get it exactly right, he will get stressed and quit. If he were a person, he would be the kind of person who would try something for the first time and then say sadly, "I guess I'm not any good at this," and never play again. Thank GOD for the clicker, or I don't know how I would have trained him. Once he gets something right, it's in his head forever, and he will never do it incorrectly no matter what's going on around him. But it's so easy to screw him up. (Another thing about the clicker: it's so precise that you can inadvertently create a behavior you don't want. For example, when he was little and I was teaching him to stay off furniture, I thought I was getting the behavior I wanted by clicking and treating when I said "Off" and he jumped off. Little did I know that he had also associated the jumping on the furniture with the "Off" command and the click and treat. So I had accidentally made a behavior chain that went Jump on the Furniture-Hear "Off" Command-Obey "Off" Command-Get Treat. I don't remember how I fixed that, but I do know that he doesn't get on furniture unless invited up now.) I just created another accidental chain with the retrieve. I had him nicely picking up the dumbbell off the ground and looking at me to get the click. The next step was to get him to release the dumbbell into my hand. Little did I know I had accidentally built in a "back up one step" to the behavior of picking up the dumbbell. Now when I put out my hand he backed up one step and dropped the dumbbell and never, ever dropped it in my hand. If I moved towards him, he backed up faster, thinking he was wrong. I finally stood him in a corner with his butt to the wall and moved my hand so the dumbbell landed in it a couple hundred times. Finally he made the connection and moved his head to drop the dumbbell in my hand. I clicked that another couple hundred times, still with him in a corner with his butt against the wall, and finally moved outside where he wasn't in a corner. I brought out my best treats and, thank God, the behavior held. Only a few more steps and we will have a bona fide retrieve. It's a real pain in the ass to get there but I know that once we do, I will have a totally solid retrieve that will never fall apart.
Sunny also has a much longer attention span than Hilda for training, and he is serious and focused in a way that she is not. He really likes to get it right. Hilda just likes to have a good time, unless the threat of a correction is involved, in which case she is really motivated to get it right too.
Zsiga is, of course, all-clicker too. (Although he's tough and sound enough that I bet he will be corrected at some point in the future, when he becomes huge and strong and loses his brain in adolescence.) He loves to train and never seems to get tired of it. He can work through hundreds of treats in one sitting and is just as enthusiastic at the end as he is at the beginning. He will work for his own dry kibble with no problem. (Hilda and Sunny will accept kibble, but only if it's in a bag mixed up with hot dogs or chicken or cheese or something else to give it flavor.) I love training puppies! They are total sponges for learning, with no baggage yet to slow down their training. Zsiga is up for training anything, any time. He is totally focused on whoever controls the clicker, and has, I think, a remarkable level of self-control for three months old. I can tell him "Leave It" and throw a handful of food on the floor all around him and he will just look at me and wait for the "Okay" before he eats it. He knows that he has to Sit or Down while I'm getting his meal, and if he gets up before I say he can, his food bowl goes away for a few minutes until he feels like being more obedient. He knows that if he wants to go through a door, the easiest way to make it open is to sit and wait until someone says "Okay", and that barging through it is a waste of time. He doesn't get everything right on the first try, but he applies himself 100%, and that is a wonderful quality in a dog.
I love that my three dogs are so different. It keeps things interesting. I can't wait to see how my new Aussie puppy Annie learns things. Just a month left to wait!
Hilda is my crossover dog. For anyone reading this who's not familiar with clicker training terminology, a crossover dog is one that was first trained the "traditional" way (i.e., compulsion-based as opposed to reward-based). She's been leash-popped, "high-collared", strung up by the choke chain until she couldn't breathe, et cetera. (This was all long in the past, people; don't judge me.) Hilda is pretty tough mentally and could handle that kind of training. She was a fast-learning, accurate, serious worker during her brief career as a Seeing Eye dog. When we moved to Arizona, I started reading up on clicker training and decided to introduce Hilda to it too. She loved it, of course. (Why? because the clicker makes training FUN for dogs! What a concept!) But I can't help noticing the difference between Hilda working for the clicker and Hilda working to avoid correction. She is not serious at all with the clicker. She gets impatient and barks at me if she's not getting clicked enough. She tries her other tricks if she's not sure what I want. (That's called "throwing behaviors" in clicker-speak, and is something else I really don't like about clicker training. I have to say I miss the serious focus I used to get on dogs who were very anxious to avoid being corrected.) Hilda likes anything that involves big, fast movement (retrieving the dumbbell, running around a pole and back to me, jumping), and dislikes anything that involves shaping very small, precise movements or positions (staying within three inches of my leg when walking on a leash instead of her preferred six inches, learning to put her paw on her muzzle for the "I'm So Embarrassed" trick rather than putting her paw out like she does in the "Shake" command). If she doesn't "get it" quickly, she gets stressed and starts panting. Actually she can't work for very long no matter what we're working on. In our hour-long Rally-O class, I work for ten minutes, then take a ten-minute break, and repeat until class is done. I thought about competing in obedience with her, too, but then decided I don't have the time or inclination to fix her problems (heeling too wide, sitting out of position, et cetera). So I decided she can just learn tricks and that will be it for her. (Though I'm quite sure we could fake our way through a rally novice course, if necessary.)
Sunny has been all-clicker since puppyhood. He's never had a correction -- never needed one. He's so soft that if I frown at him it makes him nervous and he leaves. If I praise him too excitedly it also makes him nervous. So we stick to just the "click" to tell him what's right and what's wrong, and that works perfectly. He's the opposite of Hilda in that he needs to learn every tiny step before moving on to the next tiny step. He's the type who, if he doesn't get it exactly right, he will get stressed and quit. If he were a person, he would be the kind of person who would try something for the first time and then say sadly, "I guess I'm not any good at this," and never play again. Thank GOD for the clicker, or I don't know how I would have trained him. Once he gets something right, it's in his head forever, and he will never do it incorrectly no matter what's going on around him. But it's so easy to screw him up. (Another thing about the clicker: it's so precise that you can inadvertently create a behavior you don't want. For example, when he was little and I was teaching him to stay off furniture, I thought I was getting the behavior I wanted by clicking and treating when I said "Off" and he jumped off. Little did I know that he had also associated the jumping on the furniture with the "Off" command and the click and treat. So I had accidentally made a behavior chain that went Jump on the Furniture-Hear "Off" Command-Obey "Off" Command-Get Treat. I don't remember how I fixed that, but I do know that he doesn't get on furniture unless invited up now.) I just created another accidental chain with the retrieve. I had him nicely picking up the dumbbell off the ground and looking at me to get the click. The next step was to get him to release the dumbbell into my hand. Little did I know I had accidentally built in a "back up one step" to the behavior of picking up the dumbbell. Now when I put out my hand he backed up one step and dropped the dumbbell and never, ever dropped it in my hand. If I moved towards him, he backed up faster, thinking he was wrong. I finally stood him in a corner with his butt to the wall and moved my hand so the dumbbell landed in it a couple hundred times. Finally he made the connection and moved his head to drop the dumbbell in my hand. I clicked that another couple hundred times, still with him in a corner with his butt against the wall, and finally moved outside where he wasn't in a corner. I brought out my best treats and, thank God, the behavior held. Only a few more steps and we will have a bona fide retrieve. It's a real pain in the ass to get there but I know that once we do, I will have a totally solid retrieve that will never fall apart.
Sunny also has a much longer attention span than Hilda for training, and he is serious and focused in a way that she is not. He really likes to get it right. Hilda just likes to have a good time, unless the threat of a correction is involved, in which case she is really motivated to get it right too.
Zsiga is, of course, all-clicker too. (Although he's tough and sound enough that I bet he will be corrected at some point in the future, when he becomes huge and strong and loses his brain in adolescence.) He loves to train and never seems to get tired of it. He can work through hundreds of treats in one sitting and is just as enthusiastic at the end as he is at the beginning. He will work for his own dry kibble with no problem. (Hilda and Sunny will accept kibble, but only if it's in a bag mixed up with hot dogs or chicken or cheese or something else to give it flavor.) I love training puppies! They are total sponges for learning, with no baggage yet to slow down their training. Zsiga is up for training anything, any time. He is totally focused on whoever controls the clicker, and has, I think, a remarkable level of self-control for three months old. I can tell him "Leave It" and throw a handful of food on the floor all around him and he will just look at me and wait for the "Okay" before he eats it. He knows that he has to Sit or Down while I'm getting his meal, and if he gets up before I say he can, his food bowl goes away for a few minutes until he feels like being more obedient. He knows that if he wants to go through a door, the easiest way to make it open is to sit and wait until someone says "Okay", and that barging through it is a waste of time. He doesn't get everything right on the first try, but he applies himself 100%, and that is a wonderful quality in a dog.
I love that my three dogs are so different. It keeps things interesting. I can't wait to see how my new Aussie puppy Annie learns things. Just a month left to wait!
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Puppy Love vs. Puppy Fever
Puppy Love is what I have for Zsiga. I love everything about his puppiness. I love his flopped-over ear and his awkwardness and his curiosity about how the world works and what the rules are and even the fact that he doesn't seem to know that he has hind legs, let alone know how to use them to jump up on furniture and things like that. (I know that soon enough he will be a huge, gangly adolescent and our problem will be keeping him OFF furniture, which is why I'm enjoying these early days so much.) I even love his sharkiness. That's how we refer to his enthusiastic use of his sharp little teeth on everything. I don't mind getting up in the middle of the night when he has to pee. In fact, over the years of raising puppy after puppy, I have somehow come to love those middle-of-the-night excursions to the backyard -- me half-asleep, enjoying the rare quiet in my neighborhood and looking up at the stars while the puppy sniffs around looking for the perfect spot. Somehow it is always winter when I have a brand-new puppy, and always cold, although, this being Arizona, it is never cold enough even at 2 a.m. that I have to put a jacket on. I love it when he's done peeing (and lets me know he is by starting to chomp on mesquite pods instead of sniffing around looking for the perfect spot) and I get to go back into my ever-so-soft and warm bed and put Zsiga back in his crate and snuggle up next to Tim for a few more hours of sleep.
I love training him, too. He is so smart, so alert, so responsive, and so willing to do what I ask. He is a little sponge. He already knows "Sit", "Down", his name, "Leave It", "Touch", and he's well on his way to learning "Stay". He is extremely food-motivated -- so nice to see in a shepherd -- and will work forever for food, even if he just finished a meal. (And when we fill his bowl and put it down for him, he is so excited he spins and spins and barks. He just cannot wait. He is like a little Lab.)
I love watching him learn about the world. He has learned that cats are sharp, especially McP, that Hilda will bite but Sunny will not, that his spot is on the rug by my computer, that when we call his name there is at least a 90% chance that food will be involved, that the clicker coming out is a good thing, that the crate is his den, that when he's in the car he rides on the floorboards (not much longer, not in Tim's Jetta anyway), that he has to sit and stay if he wants to go in or out a door, that peeing and pooping are done outside, not inside, and that people skin between his teeth is a no-no. Tomorrow we will take him to the V.A. hospital, where he will learn that wheelchairs, canes, and walkers are normal, that stairs are not scary, and that old men are nice people who might feed him. All of the above adds up to Puppy Love.
And then there is Puppy Fever, which is what I have so bad for my new Aussie that I can hardly stand it. She will be four weeks old on Monday, which means I have three more weeks till I can bring her home. (Maybe four.) Her name will be Arizona Annie Oakley, and her call name will be Annie. (I am embarrassed to admit how often I look at her puppy picture on the breeder's website, so I won't.) The other day her breeder put up new video of Annie's litter as well as the other litter she has (11 days younger than Annie's litter). I've watched the video about five times and am so, so in love with that whole litter. The other litter, too. Annie is an adorable red merle with a gorgeous full white collar and white blaze, which I love in Aussies. There are also two beautiful blue merle females, one of which is already sold and the other one of which is still available. Then there are three gorgeous red tri males. I have wanted a merle female for such a long time I cannot believe I still look at those red tris, but I do. Baby Aussies look just like guinea pigs -- fat and round with the same basic color patterns as most guinea pigs. I just can't wait to pick up that new puppy and, now that Zsiga is starting to get a sense of self-control as well as the whole housebreaking thing, start in again with a whole new blank slate who doesn't know anything.
I love training him, too. He is so smart, so alert, so responsive, and so willing to do what I ask. He is a little sponge. He already knows "Sit", "Down", his name, "Leave It", "Touch", and he's well on his way to learning "Stay". He is extremely food-motivated -- so nice to see in a shepherd -- and will work forever for food, even if he just finished a meal. (And when we fill his bowl and put it down for him, he is so excited he spins and spins and barks. He just cannot wait. He is like a little Lab.)
I love watching him learn about the world. He has learned that cats are sharp, especially McP, that Hilda will bite but Sunny will not, that his spot is on the rug by my computer, that when we call his name there is at least a 90% chance that food will be involved, that the clicker coming out is a good thing, that the crate is his den, that when he's in the car he rides on the floorboards (not much longer, not in Tim's Jetta anyway), that he has to sit and stay if he wants to go in or out a door, that peeing and pooping are done outside, not inside, and that people skin between his teeth is a no-no. Tomorrow we will take him to the V.A. hospital, where he will learn that wheelchairs, canes, and walkers are normal, that stairs are not scary, and that old men are nice people who might feed him. All of the above adds up to Puppy Love.
And then there is Puppy Fever, which is what I have so bad for my new Aussie that I can hardly stand it. She will be four weeks old on Monday, which means I have three more weeks till I can bring her home. (Maybe four.) Her name will be Arizona Annie Oakley, and her call name will be Annie. (I am embarrassed to admit how often I look at her puppy picture on the breeder's website, so I won't.) The other day her breeder put up new video of Annie's litter as well as the other litter she has (11 days younger than Annie's litter). I've watched the video about five times and am so, so in love with that whole litter. The other litter, too. Annie is an adorable red merle with a gorgeous full white collar and white blaze, which I love in Aussies. There are also two beautiful blue merle females, one of which is already sold and the other one of which is still available. Then there are three gorgeous red tri males. I have wanted a merle female for such a long time I cannot believe I still look at those red tris, but I do. Baby Aussies look just like guinea pigs -- fat and round with the same basic color patterns as most guinea pigs. I just can't wait to pick up that new puppy and, now that Zsiga is starting to get a sense of self-control as well as the whole housebreaking thing, start in again with a whole new blank slate who doesn't know anything.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)