Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Tuesday Night Tricks Class

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Tuesday evening Delilah and I headed to our tricks class.  What I really love about this class is there is no pressure.  If you don’t do your homework, you don’t get in trouble. 🙂

Tuesday night we began learning Sit Pretty (some people refer to this as Beg,) Over, Target (or Touch) and Balancing a treat on the nose.

Delilah has the basics of Touch, and Over is a given for her, since that’s what I say to her in Agility Class.

Ariane (our instructor) said some of the bigger dogs have a problem with Sit Pretty because of their size, it requires some good strength in their back legs (and a bit of balance too.)

I’ve seen her sit pretty, (I actually thinks it looks the way those trained bears sit from the circus) but I’ve never known how to teach it.

You hold the treat over their head and raise your hand up and back, hoping they will lift their front feet off the floor.  You reward and treat even if they only come up a little.  Don’t worry you will eventually work them so they get farther and farther off the floor.

Does it work?

The proof (as they say) is in the photo.

 

Sit pretty my love. Yes Mama, as long as you give me that banana chip.

 

I knew balancing a treat on the nose was going to be a challenge.  We’ve tried this trick at home.  Sampson can balance the treat and when he is given the okay, can catch it in his mouth.

When we tried this with Delilah you have to move your hand very quickly or it will get caught in a snap.

She. Just. Can’t. Wait.

With a little instruction from Ariane, I worked it this way.  I held a treat in my left hand with it directly in front of her nose.  I used my right hand to place a treat and told her to leave it.

Leave it.

 

In this photo my left hand had dropped slightly and truthfully it sounded more like, leave it, leave it, leave it, leave it.  Whatever, it was definitely easier at home!

Anyhoo, when I showed the trick to Hubby, she actually sat there with the banana chip on her nose for a good 5 to 10 seconds, that may not sound like a lot to you, but believe me, that was amazing for her.

At this point I’m not letting her flip the treat and catch it, I’m actually removing it from her nose and giving her the treat from my left hand.

So ladies and gentlemen (is there a gentlemen that reads this blog?) without further ado…

I’m so freaking proud of her!!

 

I told you she shines in the classroom.

Do you find it easier to train the tricks by having someone show you (like me) or can you figure this stuff out on your own?

Don’t forget to order your calendars!!!

Dogs Helping Dogs

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Last Saturday Delilah and I got to spend the afternoon with my friend Jo-Anne and her dog Achilles.  Achilles is (to the best of my knowledge) a White German Shepherd/Husky mix.

I’ve always found Achilles to be friendly and affectionate, in fact sometimes he freaks me out a little because he will just stare into your eyes.  I often wonder if he’s trying to tell me something.

Something like, I’m really a prince stuck in this body, kiss me and I’ll make all your dreams come true.

It’s a good thing I can’t read his mind because he’s probably really thinking, move a little closer I want to hump your leg.

Jo-Anne rescued Achilles just before we rescued Delilah, in fact Jo-Anne’s rescue of Achilles is what inspired me to rescue Delilah.

Now that I’m thinking about it,  I don’t know if I should thank her or curse her.

Anyhoo…Jo-Anne sent me an e-mail about 10 days ago asking if Delilah and I could help her with a little problem Achilles was having.  Apparently while Lily and Achilles get along just fine, Achilles is having some confusion about the proper way to react and play with other dogs.

Jo-Anne’s new trainer, Marcus asked her if she could find someone with a female dog, that was either a husky mix or a lab.

Enter Delilah.

Marcus asked us to find a neutral place that was fenced in.  I knew of a baseball field at one of the elementary schools that would be perfect.  When we got to the designated spot, there was a young man walking a German Shepherd back and forth.  I was a little anxious because Delilah can sometimes go a bit ballistic when she’s in the car and sees another dog outside.

Great first impression right?  You pull up and your dog loses her stuff.

But it didn’t happen like that.

Turns out the guy walking the dog was Marcus’ brother Thomas, walking Marcus’ dog Tye.  Marcus has been using Tye (who has some dog aggression issues) to help Achilles with his issues.

The first thing we did was take the dogs out of the car.  Marcus came over to introduce himself to Delilah and she turned her back on him and sat down.

Marcus was tickled.

He asked me if he could introduce Delilah to Achilles, I said, “Yes, as long as you don’t hurt my dog.”

Ballsy, I know.

He introduced them and after a second or so, Achilles got a little snarky and Delilah set him straight.

Listen here mister, don’t take that tone with me!

 

I told Marcus, “Don’t worry, she can handle him.”

Once all the dogs had been introduced we started some walking exercises.

Marcus wanted Achilles to get used to walking without reacting to other dogs.

Thomas and Tye, Jo-Anne and Achilles, Marcus and Delilah.

 

We realized there was a lot of glass in the parking area, so we moved the dogs onto one of the side streets.

We were probably about 5 to 6 feet apart.

 

Tye went home and Marcus had Jo-Anne have Achilles sit in the parking lot while Delilah and I walked around them.  The goal was to get Achilles to focus on Jo-Anne and not on Delilah.

Every time Achilles looked at Jo-Anne, he got a treat.

That’s right Achilles, look at your mama.

 

After this we went back to Jo-Anne’s house.  Marcus and Tye, Delilah and I sat on the patio while Jo-Anne worked Achilles in the yard.  The reasoning for this was to help Achilles learn to focus while there were distractions.

After about 15 minutes or so, Marcus said Delilah and I could leave.  He asked me if I could put Delilah in the car before I said good-bye to Jo-Anne.

When I got back to the yard he said he was going to have Jo-Anne hand me a treat for Achilles and I could give it to him when he was sitting properly.

I took the treat and then approached Jo-Anne and Achilles, with my hand out like a stop sign.  Just as I got up to him, Achilles got up, so I turned around and walked away, waited a few seconds and approached Achilles again. This time he stayed sitting.

Success!!

Marcus said Delilah was the perfect dog to work with Achilles because she is calm and exhibits the proper signals to other dogs.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that she can hold her own. 🙂

I know many of you have used or trained therapy dogs, but have you ever heard of a dog working with other dogs?  What would you call that?  Would you do it with your own pup?

Negative Punishment

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I’ve become determined to work with Delilah on her down stays.

It’s not an easy  task.

Since she likes to be in the bathroom with me I figure it’s win-win.  She gets to be in the bathroom with me and I get to work on her downs.  The trouble with this is, she doesn’t always stay in the down.

I thought well maybe the floor (being ceramic and all) is too cold and she’s uncomfortable, so I took the bathroom rug and threw it down.  She still got up.

Listen to your readers.

A couple of posts ago Jan said, “Some of the best advice I ever got was not to try to treat my kids or my dogs the same way. They are all different entities, with different needs and all of them have let me know what kind of attention they want from me.

It was hard to do but I finally learned not to reward bad behavior by giving that kid or dog more attention. Praise the good one and the other will want to copy that behavior.”

This comment really got me thinking.  When I’m in the bathroom and I put Delilah into a down stay and she gets up.  What do I do?  I go back and put her in a down stay again.

I asked myself, “What does this teach her?”

I answered, “It teaches her that when she doesn’t do as I ask, I reward her with more attention.”

Jodi Stone, you are a bad dog trainer!

Look, I don’t want to scare you or force you to burn your retinas out with bleach so try not to visualize this too much.  Today I got out of the shower, dried myself off and applied my lotion.

While I was waiting for my lotion to dry, I decided to blow dry my hair.  Since I have short, fine hair I throw a little product in there, bend over and blow it upside down.

As I’m bent over in this upside down position with my hair dryer in my hands, who comes shoving her way through my legs.

Yup.

First I laughed, because I’m dumb and can’t help myself but then I took the rug and put it on the floor and said, “Down.”

She sat on the rug.

I didn’t battle with her at all, I took her by the collar, led her out into the bedroom and shut her out of the bathroom.

Seeing as this is DELILAH we are writing about, I need to make sure there is nothing lying about that she will decide to chew up or I will need to make sure the bedroom door is shut before I banish her.

Negative Punishment.

“Negative punishment reduces behaviors by taking away or withholding something good or something the dog will work for.”

I’ve been using this technique for a couple of weeks in a number of different ways.

When she does not sit while I am preparing her meals, I stop what I am doing and wait.  My motto is “Nothing moves in the kitchen if you’re moving.”

When we are eating dinner and she is supposed to be in a down on her place and she gets up, she goes in her crate.

Last night we were watching TV and eating our dinner, it was a pretty intense show and we were both fixated on the TV.  I caught movement and realized she’d gotten up and gone over to inspect her bowl.

FAIL.

In the crate she went.

Get excited about this.

Let your mind soar as you think of the possibilities.

Dog doesn’t respond to recall = Dog stays on leash.

Child doesn’t clean room = Child doesn’t go to birthday party.

Husband doesn’t mow lawn = Wife doesn’t,,,,,,,,,,,

buy beer.

Where did you think I was going with that?

Book Update:  I haven’t updated you about my book in a while.  Truthfully, I wrote a really exciting part of the book and then I didn’t know what to do next, so I put it down for a while.  But I’ve picked it back up and my book now has 25,051 words.

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