Most of the time I enjoy walking with my dogs. It is a time for quiet reflection for me, a time where blog posts come together in my mind and Sirius, philosophical thoughts take place.
It’s also a time for working with and training my dogs. We are constantly working on SOMETHING.
There are certain areas of our woods where Sampson practices his heeling. These areas are typically the entrances to the park, or to Sampson, the place where he meets people and other dogs.
When the dogs are off-leash in the woods we practice our recalls. Delilah is a work in progress. I’ve worked very hard on developing our bond so I am more valuable and rewarding to her than anything else she could possibly find. Still I’m cautious about letting her have her freedom and keep recalling her back to me in the hopes it will be so habitual that should the opportunity ever present itself, she won’t give in to temptation.
Sampson also needs to work on his recall because he has selective hearing lately. Sometimes he completely ignores me and just continues sniffing whatever it is that caught his nose. Since I don’t worry about him running off like Delilah would, those are the times when I will give Delilah something exciting, like we will run a bit and get lots of treats. Of course, once the straggler comes back to us, he goes on leash or he must heel.
Not coming back to me is unacceptable.
There’s also another command we’ve been working on. It’s called Stop. I typically use this command when the dogs are both off-leash in the woods. Suddenly I will say, “Stop!” and reward them when they do. My thought process is this – to have a command so solid, the dogs will do it without even thinking. So now when that wayward deer shows up and my dog takes off, (and I panic forgetting my recall word) I yell, “Stop!” and my dog will cease what he/she’s doing and actually stop. Once I’ve gotten their attention, (and gathered my wits again) I can easily recall them back to me.
At least this is how it works in my head.
Stop means stop, but stop what?
Yet, I forget that I use Stop for so many things. Isn’t that the problem with commands?
- I say Stop when I’m trying to put a harness or collar on and someone will not stand still.
- I say Stop when someone is licking the counters or the rug, or the cabinets, or… well you get the point.
- I say Stop when Delilah tries to put her cold, wet Kong on my lap.
- I say Stop when Delilah is waking me up in the morning by burying her head in my chest and pushing me backward.
As humans we can differentiate the context in which a word is being used, but our dogs are literal, they are only understanding the command as we are teaching it to them.
I forget these things sometimes.
Last Saturday we took our early morning walk. Delilah is the dog who ALWAYS attempts to cover her business by kicking dirt/grass/leaves etc over it. I want to tell her she’s a big ass dog and grass isn’t going to cover her business, but I keep quiet because she wouldn’t understand me anyway.
So this particular morning Delilah does her business on someone’s lawn and started kicking grass over it. Naturally I want to pick it up, so I say “Stop.”
In my mind I am telling her to stop kicking grass, but Delilah’s mind and my mind do not work the same way and my “Stop” command has taught her to cease moving forward. Still, somehow, miraculously she does stop and she stands there looking at the road. So I bend down to pick up the doody and BAM, a clod of dirt and grass hit me right in the side of my head.
I wondered how hard someone who observed us would have laughed. I know I would have laughed, if I wasn’t the one grass on my glasses and dirt in my ear.
She did stop walking though. 🙂
You might want to clean that dirt out of your ear, you’ll be able to hear me better.
Do you have any commands that mean more than one thing? Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this.
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“Stop” means stop walking for us. I don’t remember if I use stop for other things unconsciously though. 😛
Donna takes great joy in kicking after pooing. I probably will not stop her if not for the fact that she does it at home to her pee pad too. So recently I have started asking her to sit-stay while I pick up her poo. I’m not sure if she can generalise that to the home environment since it’s natural instinct so guess we’ll just have to wait and see. HAHA!
My problem is I will out of habit say “Let’s go” to my husband and Donna will think she gets to go out too. Oops! 😛
Our stop walking cue is “WAIT!” I try really hard to not make cues mean more than one thing. It’s tough sometimes and I’m not very creative. LOL
OMD! Forgive me for laughing at the visual but I can’t help it. An earful of dirt and grass on my glasses would make Ducky’s day! I can just imagine her little happy dance! Shadow would try to clean my glasses for me, sweet girl that she is. 🙂
If I saw her kicking as you were picking it up I’m sure I would have been rolling on the ground. And I know what you mean about using the same term for different situations; I’ve tried my hardest to only use “come here” when something amazing is going to happen to keep it positive but I still catch myself saying it for bad things like bath time or nail trimmings. Luckily the good is still outweighing the bad, but it’s my own damn fault for letting it slip all the time. Us humans need more training than the dogs a lot of the time 🙂
We use wait to stop walking. In fact, we use ‘wait’ for a lot of things, including waiting in the house, on the start line at agility, and more! 😉
Luckily, when Cupcake tries to cover up her business with dirt and grass, her aim is terrible. She does this kick-turn thing and usually is off by a mile by the second kick. So she’s happily kicking away and I’m picking up the stuff safely.
We have stop in our vocabulary too. It is hard with you humans to always know what you really mean. We try our best most of the time, but we don’t always get it right. Maybe you need a go pro strapped to your head on your walks so we can actually see that dirt heading right at the camera on you head??? Frustrating Mom is a huge pastime of ours, it brings us a lot of enjoyment. The best is now that Katie can’t hear well, Mom has to often times really yell if she needs something and it really gets folks looking! It’s not easy being human!
I think we should all chip in and get a Go Pro for Jodi. I’m thinking there would be no end to the entertainment value of that. LOL
We use “sit” a lot. It means stop and sit until released. You can use it in a variety of situations so we stick with that one. Even off lead in the field it is “sit” or a whistle, but the “sit” command is equal to the whistle.
I use the same word for a whole lot of different contexts too. Merlin still understands me though. Our puppy school trainer said to use one word only and keep it at that so the dog doesn’t get confused, which i ignore lol.
I also use different commands for the same thing, for example when he sits to be fed i use the words “go, ok and hammer time” and he eats his food after waiting. Also saying “food and hungry” to him, makes him run to the kitchen. Labs and their food obsessions lol.
I sometimes use “leave it” to mean don’t touch it, or to drop it if they’ve already picked it up. Since “leave it” is still a work in progress with Luke, I can’t really say if he knows the difference between “leave it” and “give”. But a lot of the time I’m pretty sure he knows what I want, no matter what word I use!
This will sound weird, but for the first time ever today, Luke pooped when we were on a walk! I was excited, because to me that means he’s a little more relaxed, not holding it until we get back home. He’s a dirt kicker too, but when I leaned over to pick it up I was so pleased that he just sat there nicely and waited for me!
LOL…That would have been a sight to see. Torrey has a solid Stop, because we spend time in the boonies and I don’t want her chasing critters. I guess I still tell her stop at other times too, but not in the same tone of voice.
Oh Delilah! What would we do without your funny stories to brighten our mornings? 🙂
I try to be good about that but other family members confuse Haley sometimes with using the wrong commands, then they turn to me and want me to explain why she’s not listening or responding to “their” command. Haley’s a good sport about it though!
LOL, I can’t stop laughing. Ms. D-dog’s antics are giving me a serious belly massage. Yeah, that stop command is a tricky one. Clearly judging by his behavior, Sam and I have some serious differences in understanding doglish. I think he knows what’s going down, but I’m clearly an epic fail. 😉 Here’s to keeping dirt out of the ears today! 🙂
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I sure wish someone had caught that on camera. You’re a good dog mama.
Lol – Kori kicks dirt too, she is the only one thank goodness! But on walks we have to keep an eye out for flying dirt and grass too!
Like you I say “stop” a lot but I’ve never thought of having them associate it with a particular act. I guess what I really want is for them to Freeze when I say stop. I wonder how hard it would be to teach Freeze.
Omg I am so sorry but I had to laugh at that cloud of dirt hitting your face! hahaha!!!! Oh i’m so so so sorry!!!!! That just seems like something that would happen to me though, so it just makes sense! LOL!!!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
I enjoy it when I read one of your posts and it all seems status quo and then BAM – Delilah steps in and causes me to burst out laughing. Thank you, sweet D. I get nailed by grass and even poo launched at me/on me on a routine basis while picking up B’s stuff – so it’s nice to know someone else is suffering too. 😉
I am terrible at making one word mean one thing – so Blueberry has had to adapt and pays more attention to my tone than what I am actually saying. I use “stop”, “knock it off”, “hold on”, “quit it”, “whoa, Nelly”, “hang on”, etc to all mean the same thing. It’s truly amazing that Blueberry has learned any commands at all.
Hi Y’all!
I don’t know if some of the commands mean more than one thing, but my Human uses “sit” anytime she wants me to stop and not move. She uses it in lots of real life situations. Most of the time she doesn’t even have to say the word. I’m good at sittin’.
Y’all come on by,
Hawk aka BrownDog
good girl listening to momma, you got a great picture.