We started the morning with a session of lots of street-crossing practice in my neighborhood.
Then, we went to the dog park1 for the last time of Doggie’s stay with me. His confidence has continuously grown from one day to the next, and today, he started playing! All the dogs in the compilation below are unfamiliar to him. I think it’s safe to say that when Doggie gets greater freedom at home now, he’ll be chill around new dogs (who he hasn’t had access to while being mostly confined due to his suicidal street-crossing maneuvers.)
A relaxed car dog
After practicing sidewalk behaviors and socializing all morning, we headed back to Naucalpan around noon. Doggie slept through the car ride – an hour is just the right time for a juvenile Mal to recharge!
The handover session
I spent the afternoon with Doggie’s humans for a thorough handover session. It was great to see how happy and excited Doggie was to see his favorite people again, and how excited and newly motivated they were to keep working with him! Eduardo had already shared my videos and explained things in theory to his sister and dad. When I got there, everyone was already on the same page.
First I showed them what Doggie and I had practiced in person, and then they took turns working on all the different steps. With a little help, Doggie did great for everyone – both stopping at curbs until released with “¡Libre!, listening to his leave it/stop itcue (¡Alto!) and his sit cue, fetching toys in the field next to the sidewalk without stepping on the street and tugging on a toy instead of the leash.
We ended with a few theory tips about how to help Doggie relax around Eduardo’s young nieces and nephews.
Speaking of nieces and nephews: there is only thing I regret not having done while Doggie stayed with me. When the neighborhood kids asked to pet my dogs when I was out with Chai and Doggie, I said no. I’m used to saying no because Chai is not a fan of being touched by strangers. I missed out on this opportunity for Doggie to refresh his puppy memory of interacting with children. He’d have benefitted from it, especially now that I’ve heard that unlike his dad Drago, Doggie hasn’t been allowed around Eduardo’s nieces and nephews so far. That said, I hope that with a plan in place, he’ll get to be around them in the future either way!
Trueques
My new windshield wipers aren’t here yet – but soon! I love when we’re all helping each other through exchanges of knowledge or things rather than money. It feels more personal and fun. Eduardo’s family knows they’ll always have a dog trainer in their corner, and I know I’ll always have someone who knows about cars! When they need someone to look after one of their dogs, I’ll be here for them – and when I need someone for Game, she’ll be welcome with her bonus family there. It takes a village!
The weeks ahead
Doggie is still a juvenile baby raptor, full of energy and the need to go-go-go. Eduardo and his family will continue implementing the training I started and up his exercise and play routine a bit. We’ll reassess in a few weeks. If necessary, Doggie will spend another week with me in the end of September where I can make him my priority before being tied up with FDSA from October 1st, or I’ll come back for another session or two (it’s unfortunately a bit of a drive.) The hope is, of course, that Eduardo and his family will be able to work with him themselve going forwards, with only minor hickups! But with juvenile Mals being juvenile Mals, you never know.
The benefits and risks of living life off leash
I’ve talked about this on several occasions in the past, but this is a good opportunity to share my own point of view again.
Doggie’s best life, the one we all want for him, is one that is like his dad Drago’s: being able to roam freely. Drago was able to do this from the day he came home to Eduardo. Doggie, as a small puppy, fearlessly wanted to play-jump on strangers and cross roads. This led his humans to restrain him more than their other dogs in order to keep him and everyone around him safe, and that, in turn, caused Doggie to be difficult to live with because he had lots of energy and not enough places to put it.
It is of course risky to allow dogs off-leash freedom around cars. None of us are kidding ourselves about this. It is also a question of life quality. Not everyone has yards, cars, time to drive to dog training facilities and hiking trails, or dog parks within walking distance. They aren’t the only ways of giving powerful, high-energy dogs their best lives. I’d venture that being around one or more family members all day long, getting to hang out while they are attending customers, playing on the field with neighborhood dog friends or the dog’s humans and toys whenever nothing else is going on, and going on long off leash walks or learning new tricks as soon as Eduardo gets home from work at night make for a damn near perfect life of freedom, exercise, enrichment and dog/dog as well as dog/human social interactions! Our hope is that Doggie is a few steps closer to having this life now too.
I’ll update you on “what happend next” with Doggie and the other rebelde puppies as soon as I get around to it … The backlog of what I want to share is large – but slowly, step by step, I’m making my way through it! I want to continue transparently sharing the ups and downs of their lives with you all!
If you’re in the Global North and part of a particular slice of the dog world, you may be apalled by the fact that Doggie is going to a dog park to socialize. The local dog culture here is different, and so is the dog park culture. The way I live and work with dogs changes depending on where in the world I am. ↩︎
This morning, a friend followed us around the neighborhood and took videos of our work for Eduardo, Doggie’s human. We practiced and recorded all the skills Doggie had practiced. Below are two of them, showing things I haven’t shown in my previous posts.
Stop and sit at the curb
The first video is the goal behavior for our city puppy: Eduardo’s greatest challenge has been the fact that Doggie isn’t afraid of cars and hasn’t learned to stay on the sidewalk. He could be roaming freely if only he learned to respect sidewalk boundaries. Doggie’s other high-energy challenges come from the fact that Eduardo’s family doesn’t have a yard, and that unlike their other Mals, Doggie is the kind of dog who will run back and forth across busy streets – and they live in a busy car neighborhood. To keep him safe, he has been confined or on leash – and that has made it hard for Doggie to keep his teeth and paws to himself whenever his humans have time for him!
The goal behavior is for Doggie to stop at the curb even if the human gets going and even if food is dropped (not on video, but we’ve worked up to this successfully), and sit before being released. I still use a sit cue (¡Siéntate!) in this video, but as Eduardo and his dad and sister keep working on this, it will eventually become an offered sit. The sit is a safety behavior in addition to stopping: once it is well-rehersed, if one behavior breaks down, it will be the first one – sitting – rather than the second one – staying on the curb. A dog who stands on the sidewalk rather than sits is better than a dog who jumps in front of a car!
I’ve only worked on this behavior for a week. While we’ve generalized to many sidewalks, Eduardo and his family will need to continue working on it to really turn it into a habit. In the video below, I show how to help Doggie if he steps off the sidewalk before his release cue (¡Libre!)
We also went into the dog park again (no video), where Doggie’s confidence around new dogs had grown even more than on day #5, and my friend took a few pictures of Doggie and me – I want memories of Doggie’s time with me! This one is my favorite:
After a longer outing, we headed back home where Doggie practiced staying home alone with the girls while I went back out for a lesson with the young gentleman below:
The manual for being a juvenile Mal
Doggie was being a good, relaxed boy for the rest of the day … until I had a video consult! As the manual for being a juvenile Malinois requires, he woke up just in time to unplug my Internet not just once, but twice. Unfortunately for Don Doggie, he got tethered before he had a chance to kick my clients off the call a third time.
We ended the day – our last day together! – rolling around the couch in an attempt to get all four of us in a picture … with varying levels of success!
Juvenile Mals are a lot of dog first thing in the morning! As of today, we’ve found a place for Doggie to put his early-morning arousal: as soon as his day starts, he gets his tried and true fleece tug pacifier to hold on to. I keep the other end of it in my hand so he can’t loose it.
Chai’s on a retractable leash first thing in the morning, and Doggie would like to chew her leash – but if there’s his fleece tug, he’ll choose that instead, no questions asked. It’s got to feel a lot more fun to bite down on! So this morning, our first loop consisted of Doggie tugging/holding on to the toy almost nonstop – it feels like holding a kid’s hand as we walk – while Chai does her own morning things on the retractable leash. Then I went back and switched adult dogs. Game is always off leash in the morning, and by the time we got to her loop, Doggie had down-regulated enough for me to leave the tug in the apartment without getting jumped on, humped or my feet chewed.
Doggie explored and sniffed alongside Game, sat for treats, checked in for praise a lot and did his morning peeing and pooping. Superstar! All of this off leash for him – only Chai is currently leashed in the morning (until we’ve got our cat chasing sufficiently under recall control – we’re almost there!)
Thoughts on Mals and Border Collies
It’s been a lot of fun to remember how intensely worky juvenile Mals are! Chai, the last dog I had at this age, has been super chill in comparison. Part of it may have been that she constantly had diarrhea at that time and may have felt physically weaker. A lot was still new for her at 5.5 months, so she may have had less muscle and satiated on stimulation more easily because of it – who knows! Hadley, the Border Collie I raised for an ex, was certainly higher maintenance at this age than Chai, but no comparison to any of my Mals or even to Phoebe.
The Malinois I’ve raised are different from the Border Collies I’ve raised (I haven’t raised a lot by any means, so these observations really only apply to my own dogs and a few puppies of friends I know well.)
When Game and Grit were puppies, I had a yard and a 2-person, 5-dog household (for Game’s first 6 months and Grit’s first 1.5 years.) Game took a colleague’s weekly puppy socialization class, we trained all the foundations at home, and anytime she wasn’t sleeping or working with me, she’d find herself a playmate in one of our other dogs.
When I went to Thailand after, we didn’t have a yard, but the dogs certainly got a lot of physical and mental stimulation: weekends running at the beach, and during the week, I slowly worked Game up to twice daily treadmill runs of 30 minutes each (Game did an hour in one go), we went on short neighborhood walks every morning and evening and occasionally Game worked at chilling under the table when I went to a corner food place for lunch. We also spent time at the Siam Crown training fields and yards most days where the dogs got to run free on a giant property and we trained a little. I worked on tricks around the agility equipment with Game and we did bitework foundations, and we played and trained (and the dogs swam) around/in Siam Crown’s saltwater dog pool. Sometimes in addition and sometimes instead of Siam Crown, we went to walk banana plantations and swim in irrigation canals, watch huge monitor lizards and look for Thailand’s beautiful snakes, or walked around some of the temples of Sam Phran and interacted with free-roaming dogs. Grit and Game played a lot with each other, and Game also had a Mal friend who was her age and a Boston Terrier friend.
At home, Game also worked on nosework almost every day.
Every single calory she didn’t earn in training came from a Kong, Squirrel Dude (basically a more difficult Kong) or was a frozen raw meat bone – chews to keep her busy.
When we moved to Guatemala, we had a yard again. Game’s physical activities included lots and lots of mountainbiking and uphill bikejoring, long daily hikes and running with my car because I lived on an almost traffic-free dirt road. The training activity of our choice at this point was sniffing out fake cadaver scent in huge outdoor areas. She also went almost everywhere with me, from visiting friends to getting my hair cut and eating out to being my demo dog when I worked with in-person clients.
Up until last year, whenever I didn’t have a yard, I spent around 3 hours outdoors with Game every day (in addition to a little bit of training or informal play) unless we did A LOT of intense brain training.
When Chai joined us, Game and I started doing a bit less – it was made up for by lots of play between the two, especially when Chai was a puppy and juvenile dog. Then Game was busy with her puppies who sure took lots of energy. I’ve built her stamina back up after. She continues not needing quite as much exercise anymore and being a chill and content dog in the house, but she also has a treadmill again for days I’m sick or can’t take her out as much as we’d like to for another reason.
None of the Border Collies were as physically strong and intense as the Mals when they didn’t get their cognitive and physical needs met. Hadley sure had issues as a puppy, but they expressed themselves in less destructive ways. Mals get “angry” or destructive. Border Collies get depressed or neurotic.
There sure are similarities (two working breeds who generally like cooperating with humans), but they are SO different too. It’s hard to put my finger on the key difference. Being serious, as a personality trait, seems stronger in Mals – including in goofy ones like Game. Game is un-serious for a Mal. There is still more of a “this is serious business and I am working on this” vibe to working with any Mal I’ve ever met, while my Border Collies and most other Borders I know well have had a more playful vibe. They too could train all day long, but they seemed more light-hearted.
Mick may be an exception; he was always serious, and his single interest in life was sheep. Or maybe Mick was the rule and Hadley and Chai are exceptions. Who knows! Maybe there is no rule. I like that thought best!
Urban adventuring with Doggie and Chai
For our training walk, I took Chai and Doggie to our usual park. Doggie needed 2 or 3 reminders at the curb – it’s still a new behavior, AND I just added Chai to the mix, and also ducking out of sight behind parkeded cars to reminding him to keep an eye on me – but he did SO well that I had him off leash for the entire walk today! He’s doing fantastic and learning fast!
Dog park adventure
I took Doggie and Chai into the dog park again. Doggie reciprocated dogs greeting him and showed interest in a 4 months old Border Collie puppy (who was so much smaller than him! It’s wild!) Either the fact that we came back to a familiar space, as opposed to it being new yesterday, or the fact that Chai was around as well (or both) helped him approach other dogs. There were more dogs here today than yesterday, and Doggie ventured further from me and even stole a ball, and showed real interest in the Border puppy.
There was, however, also a situation in the dog park that was a bit much for Doggie: people wanting to interact with him while there were also All The Dogs around (see the video below.) I let him find out that he was safe for himself.
Depending on the dog, I’d handle situations like this differently. For example, I would not have put the much more sensitive Chai into this kind of situation – to this day, I’m very adamant about her not having to deal with strangers reaching for her. Doggie’s confidence, even when he’s insecure, is far greater and he doesn’t spiral up in greeting scenarios – so I let him find out what it’s like to walk up to and be greeted by people and dogs for himself. You can see in his body language in the video below that these aren’t stress-free interactions, but ones he is perfectly able to handle nevertheless. He is also free to leave and does so (I didn’t catch the second time on video.)
In a different situation today, Doggie checked in with me on two occasions when a dog barked at him. This, I’d venture, is a tentativeness-based response. I reinforced the check-ins and will facilitate some more meet-the-dogs outings in the next few days. I can see how he’s coming out of his shell at the dog park. If he lived here with me permanently, I’d take him there every day for a month or so and expect him to then be back to his puppy self around dogs, simply by meeting lots of different ones off leash every day.
Everything we did not chase today
No bike chasing, kids chasing, trying to play with the broom of someone weeping the sidewalk or chasing of passing dogs or even Chai when she was crittering … I’m very proud! The only one who got briefly chased a bit exuberantly was the Border Collie puppy when we met them again outside the dog park, and Big Doggie was like, “Hey, I KNOW you!” and ran towards the puppie who took flight. I was able to call him off with his “pup-pup-pup” recall. Its strength keeps impressing me.
Doggie earned A LOT of food out and about AND found a large junk of chicken for dessert. A successful outing! Chai, for her part, only found bones. But then again, she came across an entire bolillo last night. It’s not as if the streets had been stingy with her either.
Arousal behaviors and calming down
Barking and drinking
Doggie likes to talk: barking is part of his attempts to get Chai to play, and before we established “sit to ask for stuff,” he vocalized while shoe-biting me too. Game also used to like to vocalize when she had opinions at his age.
Doggie is also an arousal drinker: when highly excited, he’ll drink a lot. Adolescent Chai used to be that way too. I am seeing Doggie’s arousal drinking go down already as he settles in with us more and more every day.
Clarity
I can’t ask him, but get the impression that clarity and structure also make a big difference in terms of Doggie’s arousal. (Part of this may be my confirmation bias, of course: I get the impression that worky dogs in general do best with clarity, which makes me likely to attribute positive behavior changes to increased clarity.)
Down-regulating
Doggie’s down-regulating after coming home from today’s outing to the park was fantastic too. He only followed me around the apartment for two or three minutes, curious what I was up to. Then he laid down to rest. Briefly after, he got a second wind and tried to get Chai to play – but before long, he peacefully passed out on the couch.
Closed doors
As of yesterday, Doggie is able to stay behind closed doors, for example when I go to the bathroom, without scratching them. Goodest boy!
Late afternoon outing: kids and adults, bikes and bread, running and yelling …
There was A LOT going on around the apartment towers tonight; from someone selling bread out of their car and announcing it loudly to someone selling random little snacks at pop-up tables to what felt like all the kids running around and yelling or riding bikes all at one, and all the adults taking strolls between the buildings. I don’t think I’ve seen things here THIS busy before (I’ve only lived in this neighborhood for a few months and am still learning about it.) We walked a little, then I picked Doggie up and carried him past the main commotion because I didn’t want to risk him running after a kid. I had forgotten the fleece tug, and I didn’t want him to practice chewing on his leash or pulling either. Conveniently, he’s still easy to pick up and carry, and just like we practiced when the puppies were tiny, he’ll go limp in my arms and relax.
We went to the part of our space that has all the wild, giant large-leaved plants and tall grass and bushes. Everything was still wet from the rain, and Doggie got the best kind of zoomies (while mom Game found THREE avocados that had fallen off a tree and ate them all. Lucky girl!) Doggie had a great time zooming, and in between bouncy, high-speed loops, he’d come back and sit to ask for a treat.
Two dogs in two different windows saw Doggie running laps and barked at him. His response to this was to come and check in with me. He’s a little tentative when dogs are yelling at him.
On the way back to my place, he gave one bark towards a suddenly appearing person who was moving away from us and took off towards them, full-on “I’m a big and powerful Mal, look at what I can do!”, tail high and confident and arousal-hackles up. I called him; he turned on a dime to come and eat his scatter.
This was interesting to observe! Either Doggie was wound up from his zoomies OR he is getting used to this environment and starting to regard it as “his,” so if someone we haven’t invited comes into our zoomie space, we tell them who’s boss. The bark-run towards the person looked like an adult Malinois response, not like a fear-based or conflicted behavior to me. From what I’ve seen (he’s a big, friendly boy,) if I let him run up to a person in this state of arousal, he’d probably end up jumping and asking for attention once he got there rather than continuing to bark – but I don’t know since, of course, I called him back instead of letting him scare the person.
As we were almost back home, four kids playing some game came running and yelling towards us from four directions at the same time. I put Game on Doggie’s leash and picked up Doggie. On the way out, a little kid on a bike fell right in front of us (we were being good and eating a scatter rather than going to investigate), but running kids at this age, this speed, this number and this noise level … not exactly a scenario I want to add two Malinois to! Doggie gave one soft bark as the kids kept coming super close and running right around us, yelling. I held on to Game’s collar and we waited until the craze had moved on. Both dogs continued their walk back home without giving the kids a second thought.
I wonder what it’s like to grow up here. I suspect it is fun: this apartment complex has to have 6000 or more inhabitants (which is more than the entire town I grew up in.) The reason I know it’s at least 6000 is that it is part of some city neighborhood-something initative, and only housing projects of 6000 or more people get to be a part of this initiative. The supposedly biggest housing project in the city has (numbers vary) between 8 and 9000 inhabitants, which is twice as many as the town I grew up in. It’s wild to think how many people fit into such a small area if you just make your buildings taller instead of urban-sprawling all over the place!
Turn taking
Doggie did great staying on his suitcase when I worked with Chai in the same room today. He’s really coming along nicely! I’m happy with his day.
We walked from my apartment area to the park in the next neighborhood over on leash. Doggie had an easy time dismissing dogs we met on walks. No problem passing them up close on the sidewalk. We practiced sitting and waiting to be released with “Libre” at the curb before crossing any and all streets we encountered, choosing a different route than the previous days: I want to mix it up to help him generalize. He’s getting better and better!
Choosing the pacifier tug over leash biting
During bouts of juvenile-dog-ness, by now, Doggie reliably chooses the fleece tug (when I have it on me) when his arousal gets high! Rather than jumping at me or biting my clothes/shoes, he simply holds on to his pacifier. Since this is actually more fun for him, he looks happy and calms down quickly – as opposed to occasionally looking desperate before I introduced the pacifier. I love how fast he learned to choose the fleece tug over leashes, human limbs and clothes!
Walking home off leash
Today is the longest I’ve had Doggie off leash in an urban environment: after our park adventures I’ll talk about below, we walked all the way home off leash. Doggie rocked it! I’m proud of him!
At the park: curiosity and neutrality towards unfamiliar dogs, handler focus, the tug pacifier and redirectability
Like aunt Chai, Doggie discovered how much fun it is to play in the fountains!
Today – a day WAY less busy than when we first came to this same park on the weekend – I had a few opportunities to record! The video below shows Doggie’s curiosity (first clip) as well as neutrality around other dogs, his handler focus (he chooses to happily play and walk with me rather than explore) and how easy it is to redirect him (last clip.)
If you’re located in the Global North, let me clarify something before you watch. The dog culture is different here. At this park (it’s in a somewhat, but not yet extremely gentrified area), there’s a 50/50 split of on and off leash dogs. Unless an on-leash dog’s human shows that they don’t want to be approached, on-leash greetings are welcomed by humans and dogs.
I know the Schnauzer in the first clip (but Doggie does not.) The reason I added this clip to the video is not to upset anyone, but to share Doggie’s curiosity – and, most of all, the “arousal-happy hackles” I mentioned in my post about day #1!
A fun detail to observe: “arousal-happy hackles” in puppies and juvenile dogs with a certain coat structure
You can see them well in the clip above, where Doggie interacts with the Schnauzer (watch his neck), and you can also see the loose body language. In the second clip, there’s still a bit of “arousal-happy hackles” from exploring the world.
Hackles up doesn’t necessarily mean a dog is grumpy. We need to read it as part of their overall body language. Think of it as a word in a sentence or a sentence in a paragraph: in and of itself, hackles in breeds with a certain coat structure (Malinois among them) mean arousal – no more and no less. The same goes for wagging tails (in all dogs): by themselves, they only mean arousal. They do not necessarily mean the dog is happy or friendly.
Unfamiliar humans at the park
As for humans, it’s been easy to redirect my off-leash guest at the park. He’s interested though and it doesn’t take much encouragement from a stranger, and he’ll approach. Running children are also tempting (but easy to redirect from.) I suspect if I didn’t redirect, he’d play-run and jump on kids. At 5.5 months, he is confident and playful with humans.
In the dog park
I also took Doggie into a dog park for the first time today. Below is a snippet of this part of our field trip:
This video is interesting. One, ideally, I would have hidden my treats and the toy to be less of a magnet for Doggie. He offers a lot of sits for me to get a treat (and since we are only just learning this behavior, I keep up my continuous reinforcement schedule.)
Doggie ignores the other dogs in the park in order to ask me for food instead. While this is lovely, it also shows that Doggie hasn’t been around non-household dogs: since he hasn’t been off leash outside and likes tugging on the leash, he has rarely been out and about with his humans. So it’s been a while that he had the opportunity to interact with unfamiliar dogs.
I’m reading my dog park observations the following way: Doggie is comfortable around dogs (I started recording right after going in, and the Basset Hounds came up right away to try and mug me for treats – no problem for Doggie.) At the same time, he doesn’t quite know what to do (how to play) with the unfamiliar dogs because he hasn’t had a chance to practice dog/dog play over the last few months. A dog his age and of his breed, with his level of energy, who isn’t afraid of other dogs should technically try to play, play and play even more (like he tries to convince Game and Chai to do.)
Watching him here, I decided to keep bringing him back into the dog park every day he’s with me to provide an opportunity to loosen up and start playing with the others. I might have to hide the food and tug the next time!
In any case, I’m really happy how chill he is around dog park dogs! My extreme-early-socialization bias wants to attribute this to the fact that he met between 50 and 60 different dogs in his first 8 weeks of life with me. If he hadn’t had this many interactions early on, I’d expect to see a fearful dog. Mind you, this is just me going off what I’ve seen in dogs this age who have not had a chance to interact with many other dogs since they moved to their humans at 8 weeks or so, and who have not experienced extreme early socialization.
In Doggie’s case, I see (I want to see!) a juvenile dog whose early puppyhood experiences have immunized him against fear of dogs. He hasn’t honed his dog/dog play skills with new dogs in months and therefore switches to known behaviors instead: sit to ask me for treats.
Thoughts on dog parks
We dog trainers will often tell folks to keep their dogs out of dog parks.
In reality, there is no one-size-fits-all solution: some dogs do great in dog parks. Others do not. Depending what part of the world a dog park is located in and what that dog park looks like, we can also either expect it to be filled with well socialized dogs … or with poorly socialized ones.
I don’t tell my international clients to take their young dogs into dog parks. I also don’t hesitate to take this puppy who I have raised with extreme early socialization into a Mexican dog park for continued juvenile socialization. Doggie is going to benefit. If he was a different dog or we were in a different part of the world, my decisions might look completely different. They’d also look different if I was a different person. There is no one right way, but there usually is what’s right for you and your dog right now – tomorrow may be different.
Free-roaming dogs around my apartment complex
I live in a neighborhood that’s not (yet) gentrified (not the same one as the one with the park I showed you), which means we get free-roaming dogs here.1 Today, I recorded Doggie’s encounter with two of them. If I remember correctly, he has seen both these dogs once before (but I don’t have it on video.) It’s lovely to see how quickly he dismisses the white dog and shows interest in sniffing/scavenging instead! No hyper-greeter feelings, no fear. Just doing his thing and co-existing. He’s a lovely boy!
Thunder? So what!
In other news, it’s been thundering and raining at least once a day since Doggie got here, and he has either not stopped whatever he was doing or slept right through it. SO happy that he’s doing so well! Even when a transformer fuse exploded today, he didn’t miss a beat! Yay! I’m aware that noise sensitivity can develop later in life, as it did in Game – but so far, so good!
Latin American dog culture differs widely, largely depending on two factors: (1) the socioeconomic bracket of a neighborhood and (2) whether it’s a rural or an urban area. ↩︎
Doggie was a bit of a desperate maniac when I finally released him from his prison this morning. I opened the door to the outside world for him to see what would happen (I need coffee before or while taking out the dogs these days; my brain won’t brain otherwise.) The open door is something he’ll need to learn for his humans, who worry he’ll take off. It’s safe here since we live on a plot that’s part of a high rise housing thing with a giant shared “yard” in the end of a dead-end street. His humans live right on a car street, which makes the same thing a lot more dangerous.
Our start into the day: getting to lo leave and choosing to stay; meeting a stranger and a new dog and imitating Chai’s toy games
Doggie did great: took himself out to potty, stayed close and came right back in. He sniff-explored within sight of the door and kept coming back in to check on me until I had transferred the coffee into my thermos mug (thank you, Chris) and was ready to head out.
I let Doggie observe Chai’s morning play session, and he picked up on it and started running along with her and showing signs of trying to imitate our game! Smart boy!
He also curiously approached1 the person who feeds the pigeons around here every morning. The birds flew off and the person waved the feed-bag (a big black trash bag) in his face and told him to get lost, and he calmly deferred and came back to me. Lovely job there, Doggie! I’m focusing a lot on observing at this point to find my best training angles.
We also met our first free-roamer this morning. The dog came over to greet us because they didn’t know Doggie yet (they know Chai and Game), and he was completely neutral towards them, just like he’s been with the various strange humans we’ve seen. I’m very happy with this – so far, the only thing I’d like to be different is that I wish I had gotten more sleep. I’m glad our first two days are a weekend where I have less non-Doggie things on my plate!
Time to train!
All three pups have settled down as I’m typing out my morning notes2, so Mr. Doggie is going to get a training session next! If possible, I use sessions to reinforce being chill (rather than reinforce bouncing-off-the-walls with training.) I’ll use half his breakfast and then the other half for the outing I’ve planned for later this morning. The preliminary plan for Doggie’s second day and, if it works well, the days ahead:
+ Short morning outing with either play or exploration. + Non-Doggie work until/while he’s calm and sleepy. + First training session of the day for part of breakfast. + Work until/while he’s calm and sleepy again. + Longer outing by himself or with Game and/or Chai to observe, move his body, play, potentially train in public. + Work until/while he’s calm and sleepy again. + More training. + Work until/while he’s calm and sleepy again. + Depending on the day, more training or right into the … + short evening outing. + Calm down and bed time.
Day #1, session #1: revising the suitcase (“¡Maleta!”) and adding distractions
Remember: the goal is for Doggie to default to staying on sidewalks/stop at curbs unless/until released to step off. I’m using the suitcase to explain the basic principle that differences in surface height have meaning.
Doggie did fantastic this morning! Not only did I work up to opening doors and going out of sight while he stayed on the suitcase; I even added Chai as a distraction in the end of the session.
Now Mr. Doggie is chilling out again. I like how quickly he was able to down-regulate after the session. This may be either because he didn’t get a lot of sleep last night or because his morning needs for moving and thinking have been met. Either way – I’ll take it!
The longer outing
We walked to “the”our” park in the next neighborhood over. It was as busy as it gets on Sundays! I had Doggie wear a head halter because I’d seen him pull badly on a collar. He didn’t pull at all, but carried his leash in his mouth and occasionally shook it or gave a tug. No feelings about the head halter at all – he walked in it as if he had done it all his life.
At the park, I let him off. He ignored or politely greeted all dogs we met. He was interested in a sweets-selling stand and tempted to jump on one person who carried a bag of food (our old “Pup-pup-pup!” recall worked again!) He curiously approached about 3 people who encouraged him for pets. He ran after a soccer ball kids played with, but once again called off the moving ball with “Pup-pup-pup!”
Outside of this, he often chose to stay close and make physical contact with me – not out of fear, but because he was clearly over the moon we were out and about together. It feels great to see how strong the early puppyhood relationship we built is showing up so many months later!
On the way back, we worked on “Espera” – “Libre” – “street is lava” with several street crossings. Doggie picked things up fast!
Back home, he quickly relaxed on the cool tile floor. Excellet job, little one!
Toy play!
We’re starting to build interest in interacting with balls! When Doggie doesn’t seem interested in cooperative play – Game to the rescue! I ended the session below the moment I noticed he was about to opt out. Ideally, we’ll never beg our dogs to play (if at all, the other way round!)
The video angle is a bit weird, and in addition, it’s a wide angle video – but you get the idea!
… I don’t remember what else we did that day – not enough note-taking! But I do remember Doggie being very, very cute:
Sweeter dreams!
After a longer evening outing with Game, his second night was already calmer than the first one.
To clarify: letting my off-leash guest approach busy strangers is culturally acceptable in Mexico City (except for certain gentrified and foreigner-heavy neighborhoods.) People will communicate with the dogs they run into rather than expecting the owners to do it for them. ↩︎
The note-taking I’m talking about in the present tense here happened on September 1 – unlike my pre-publish editing of this post, which is happening on September 28, 2024 (right now). My blog posts will often involve some time travel. ↩︎
Last week, I visited Doggie (red collar boy) and his folks. He’s turning into a beautiful dog – strong, full of energy and fearless. He recognized Game and me at once and immediately tried climbing in my lap. Doggie is the puppy who went to live with his father Drago in Naucalpan in Mexico State. Towards the end of week 8, he had been the barkiest of all puppies and the second bitiest one (first place in terms of land-sharkiness was my favorite girl Chispa).
I hadn’t seen Doggie since he moved out, and it was SO cool to meet him again!
Eduardo and their dad mentioned that they’ve been struggling to keep Doggie calm: his energy is boundless and they haven’t let him off leash because unlike their other dogs, Doggie hasn’t picked up the concept of staying on the sidewalk. They have no yard and he doesn’t have the other dogs’ freedom to run, roam, play and train in the public field next to their house because it borders a street. For the same reason, he doesn’t get to go on off leash errand around town.
When leashed, he’ll bite and tug on the leash a lot, and he has learned to get attention by biting shoes and pants. Eduardo’s dad showed me the “battle scars” on their arms: what is to be expected from a bitey little landshark interacting with someone whose skin isn’t young and flexible anymore.
They mentioned that Doggie’s needs for exercise and stimulation were among the highest of any Mal they’ve had (they’ve had quite a few.)
I can’t help but feel proud of the boy: he’s exactly what a Mal should be. But I could see they were struggling to meet his needs, which in turn caused Doggie to struggle to relax. They haven’t found an affordable trainer nearby to help them out. Since I’m not nearby enough either (it’s about an hour’s drive, depending on traffic), we agreed that he’d stay with me for a week, and then we’d do a handover day. If they needed more help, I’d be able to make time or take him for another week in September.
No one has mentioned their puppy getting car sick. I know for sure that at least 2 of them never have; with the other 3, I haven’t had a chance to ask. Our numerous early puppy car adventures may have paid off (or it maybe it’s entirely genetic.)
A week later, I picked up Señorito Doggie without Game and Chai. He was calmer than he had been on my last visit – they had made sure to take him out for a walk before I got there. We drove by my place and I added Game and Chai to the car. Then we headed to Bosque de Aragón. I put a tracker on Doggie (just in case I needed to unexpectedly collect him somewhere) and let them all loose in a big field.
Testing who Doggie has grown up to be at Bosque de Aragón!
He was amazing. He was more interested in staying close to me than anything else, even though he took the world in with interest. For the first 15 minutes or so, he was SO happy to try making physical contact at all times as we walked, tail high and proud, wagging nonstop, shiny eyes! It took some walking until he had convinced himself I wasn’t going anywhere, and started exploring with the others.
It was the weekend, so a little more than usual was going on at Aragón. We walked off leash past joggers, other dogs, ducks, children, a skate park, food stands, bikes, giant animal statues and four-wheeled pedal cars. Doggie was a superstar. He fearlessly followed me up a bunch of stairs (the kind Chai had struggled with in the beginning), fell off on the way down and just kept going like nothing had happened. He remembered his puppy recall (“Pup-pup-pup!”) and turned on a dime whenever I called. First impression: he’s growing up to be a little superstar!
Doggie has the kind of environmental confidence I’ve been hoping for with my extreme early socialization! With this particular puppy/juvenile dog, at this particular moment in time, it looks like I have accomplished this goal. Nothing fazed him – he was neither repelled by nor overly attracted to interesting people and dogs: he had seen it all.
I’m biased, but isn’t he beautiful?
I did, of course, get some shoe biting and jumping for attention – he had learned this skill well since we’d been apart and was generalizing to me lightening fast! For the time being, I picked him up anytime he bit my naked feet (because I wore sandals and it hurt) and set him down again a few steps later. It was management, not training, since he didn’t mind being picked up at all. As we had worked on in the last … I think two weeks with me, in a variation of Julie Daniels’ puppy protocol, he just relaxed and went floppy in my arms to be let down again. When he felt like it, he’d take another run at my feet right away.
This is an interesting observation to me because for many puppies, picking them up can be used as a harmless punisher for unwanted behavior (because they don’t like being picked up.) Not with a puppy – at least not with this puppy – who has been picked up a lot by a lot of people, and built all the positive associations to it!
Back home: a break
Hard to believe, but true: even 5.5 months old Mals fall asleep eventually!
#1 training priority: respect sidewalk boundaries by default
After Doggie resting and me working on non-Doggie stuff, he got his first formal training session for training goal #1, the first priority for his humans: the concept of staying on sidewalks. Before we could work on this out in the world and with actual sidewalks, we needed a few things in our toolkit:
A shared language
A food marker (¡Sí!)
The concept of shaping and/or luring
The concept that offered behaviors pay off (R+)
The concept that “keep doing what you’re doing” pays off
A release cue
The concept of boundaries having meaning
The above would be true for any dog I worked with. In Doggie’s case, I only have a week to teach him what I would otherwise take my time with – perhaps several months. This means I’ll add other elements to our communication to speed up his learning, even if I wouldn’t usually use them. For this particular project, I added
as part of the shared language:
The understanding that offering behaviors can turn off environmental stimuli (R-/escape conditioning in the sense of: if I plug in my seat belt, the car will stop beeping at me.)
The concept that avoiding certain behaviors keeps certain environmental stimuli turned off (P+/avoidance conditioning as in: as long as I don’t unplug my seatbelt, the car will remain silent.)
R- was going to be key in speeding up the learning process. I was confident I’d be able to teach the goal behavior in a week and generalize it to all sidewalks with its help. You’ll find out whether I was right in the posts to come!
I was also sure that I could use R- without emotional fallout for Doggie, in a way that would increase clarity much faster than if I didn’t use it. Maximizing clarity fast would get me results fast. Getting results fast would result in increased life quality for Doggie in the years to come – so my pragmatic math was simple: of course I was going to use whatever I needed to in order to help Doggie archieve the life quality and freedom I wanted him to have.
I taught all parts of our shared language over the course of 3 sessions in the absence of distractions with the help of a suitcase: the suitcase served to explain the basic concept that changes in surface height – such as steps and sidewalks or, in this case, suitcases! – can be meaningful.
Here’s our very first suitcase session. I first attempted to shape Doggie, but since he didn’t know how to chase treats, I quickly went to luring instead. I love teaching dogs to shape, but for our particular project, I knew I’d be faster if I just lured my target behavior and then rewarded.
After the session above, I introduced our release cue (¡Libre!), a cue for going on the suitcase (¡Maleta!) and the P- element (the “floor is lava” game, aka an equivalent to the seat belt beep in a car.)
#2 training goal: an alternative way of asking for attention
Doggie had already learned to get attention by biting shoes/feet and jumping on his humans. I was going to offer him an alternative: sit to ask for what you’d like! I marked and reinforced all his sitting with food and attention that first day.
Typically, this is all I’d do. I’d redirect to a chewable item and withdraw attention for biting and jumping until it just stopped happening. However, since we were on a time crunch – a week, and I wanted to see no more shoe biting at all! – I added …
another part to our shared language:
A punishment marker (¡Alto!)
Not only did jumping and biting my shoes no longer work to get attention – it now produced undesirable consequences. Not results Doggie hated (there’s no need for that); just something he was not looking for under these circumstances, similar to Sarah Stremming’s “milk, not water” analogy. This was simply something we worked on throughout the day, all day, starting on our first day together – as soon as we had gotten home from Aragón, where I had learned that picking up wasn’t undesirable enough.
Luckily, Doggie only bites his humans’ shoes, but not the shoes of strangers – that would have made things a lot harder!
By means of the undesired consequence followed by helping him into a sit if he fell back into his old habits, he started offering his first sits for attention that very evening. I was proud of my smart little snuggler! Apart from biting shoes and feet, he is actually a very snuggly puppy – as long as the attention he needs is provided!
Sound sensitivity?
We had a loud thunderstorm that first evening, and Doggie couldn’t have cared less. I’m SO glad that so far, as far as I know, none of the puppies show noise sensitivities. (Again, I know this for sure about two of them, but haven’t had a chance to ask about the remaining 3.)
That said, Game only became noise sensitive after having moved to Guatemala – so if she’s passed on some of those genes and my early noise-desensitization did not do the trick, it may still develop for the rebeldes later in life. So far so good though!
The first night
… was difficult night for Mr. Doggie. I wondered whether he had separation issues in general (his humans hadn’t mentioned it) or whether being back with me in a place he wasn’t familiar with (this isn’t the apartment or house he grew up in) was just too difficult to sleep through the night. He had a hard time not sharing the bedroom and woke me up a few times.
Game is currently the only dog with bed privileges, and she likes her peace at night. Chai voluntarily puts herself to bed in an open crate in a different room when she’s ready to sleep. I had Doggie sleep in Chai’s room, but he found it difficult to settle there. I was pretty sure Doggie would sleep peacefully in my bed, but just to be safe, I’d want Game elsewhere if he was there. That didn’t seem fair to her. I decided to give Doggie sleeping in Chai’s space another try our second night rather than giving in to his snuggle wishes just yet.
Update: I asked, and was told Doggie didn’t have separation issues at home. That’s great to know! I’m glad he doesn’t. This greatly increased the probability that he’d settle more and more peacefully in Chai’s room in the nights to come!
+ Chai went into heat on November 1st, at 9.5 months of age. Unlike Game, Chai keeps herself very clean – no need for diapers at all. She did very well only walking around on leash and not going to the park pre- and -post her meros días, since I’m still figuring those out for her. Several calm days in a row and she aced it!
Weekends were, of course, spent out and about in the middle of nowhere, hiking for hours, partly with dog friends. Fun fact: Chai and Kiba went into heat the same week. Gotta do everything together with your best puppy buddy I guess! I wonder if the two of them will outgrow each other or not. They don’t play as much as they used to because both of them have become less playful as they’ve matured, but they still seem like close friends when they’re together – just not two puppies anymore.
+ Ever since Chai’s heat, her interest in socializing with dogs who aren’t close friends has gone even further down. She’ll almost exclusively play with her friends and ignore other dogs. Little Border Collie, you have grown up so fast!
In other news …
+ Chai has now, through weekendly outings and strategic scatters (counterconditioning) learned that lone hikers are no more creepy than city crowds! No more barking when a person suddenly appears out of nowhere on a hike!
+ We have progressed from dragging a leash to being off leash on the sidewalks! Chai is being a superstar!
+ We’ve stuck to leaving the city for a day at least every second week … and are tempted to bump this up to weekly. It feels SO good to be in green spaces! Here’s Salazar (Mexico State) on a route Daniel and Dina showed us:
… and here’s goofing around with the phone camera:
Right as I am getting the hang of really using my phone’s camera … I‘m about to drown it in the ocean.
A road trip and Chai’s first time at the beach!
Chai went on her second-ever road trip, had her first hotel stay and saw the beach for the first time. Every one of these elements was a win:
+ No more throwing up in the car, even on long rides! No peeing or pooping in the car crate!
Lush, hot and humid: stops along the way, somewhere in Puebla state.
+ She generalized/I helped her generalize by strategically placing a pee pad the use-shower-as-toilet behavior to our hotel room! YAY!!!
+ Chai loves running along the ocean together with Game and took to it as if she’d done it all her life.
+ Chai off-leashed it in a mid-sized and a tiny Veracruz town and did VERY well seeing (but not chasing) cats, chickens and sheep and being neutral about every free-roaming dog we met. Superchai! There are not a lot of pictures because I drowned my phone in the Gulf of Mexico, but here’s two more:
Left: Nautla, Veracruz. Right: La Vigueta, Veracruz. We had A TON of fun at the beach in La Vigueta, but I drowned my phone the first time we went – sadly, no beach pictures or videos. We’ll just have to go back!
After succeeding at the barrier level, I came up with a plan of how to – potentially – set myself up for off-leash recall success. By now, I know that Chai is either a pragmatic dog or is going through a pragmatic phase (she’s a juvenile pup – a different dog every day!)
Either way, I don’t want to wait for her to be older to continue training my formal recall. I’m very much enjoying our strategy game here: Chai’s goal is to get to the distraction as fast as possible, and mine is to convince her that it’s worth her while to come back to me as soon as I call. We are playing a game in which the two of us have different goals. My way of getting closer to my goal is to set up the game board in such a way that it maximizes the probability that I’ll get a recall. Chai’s way of getting closer to her goal is to try and see through my game board set-ups (OR train me to up my reinforcers!)
I’m having fun with this, so I’ll continue. If you were a student of mine, I might ask you to take a training break and revisit the challenge when your dog is a little older. That would be to make things easier for you in case it was a phase rather than your dog’s personality.
In any case, I decided, since Chai has “won” when I presented her with unprotected food distractions in the past, to break down the big step from protected to unprotected distractions by using an in-between step: opening the barrier she has already succeeded at, but leaving that same barrier there in order to remind her of how well things used to go for her when she recalled away from said barrier. After recalling her away from an open barrier (in my case the open plastic box), I’d then recall her from the same distraction without a barrier present.
Note that at this point, I am not following my recall protocol anymore, and quite consciously so: I’m just experimenting with my own dog and I am also curious what I can get away with and how Chai will respond to different set-ups. Having eliminated the empty plate at our last stage, I’ll also eliminate distraction B (the bag that used to have food in it) at this new stage I’m inventing for Chai:
While I’m breaking down the step from closed to open container, I’m no longer splitting down environments. I want to find out if we can take this additional step (open kibble container) as a short-cut to off-leash food success (kibble without barrier in the real world).Note that experiments like this, where I don’t know what the outcome will be, are something I LOVE doing with my own dogs but wouldn’t ask a student to do. My students get tried and true protocols – it wouldn’t feel fair otherwise.
(Still) July 17, 2023: our first park experiment with the open box!
We play at our usual spot, but it’s unusually busy – and a number of the people out here are eating. So we have people weirdness and distracting food smells, which leads to a slower recall response and to a hesitant approach of the kibble box once I release Chai. Since I want to see a response at baseline speed (as fast as if there was no distraction) and the usual joyful approach of the distraction itself after my “okay” release, I’ll repeat this same set-up before checking the box off the list above. She did very well though and recalled despite all the distractions!
We hung out and explored the park for 15 minutes, and then tried again:
Oh puppy! You are making me laugh! This session was really interesting!
Sometimes, the best way is to end and go back to the drawing board, which is my plan here. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but wonder on our walk back from the park: WHY did Chai blow through this recall after nailing it the first time? Here’s a few possible explanations I can imagine:
She only recalled the first time because the people were confusing and Chai didn’t realize what she was even recalling from.
She didn’t recall the second time because the first time, she learned that the kibble container was open. in the second session, she KNEW that we were working with an open rather than closed container and went for it. In the first session, she may only have learned that the kibble had been accessible all along after my “okay” release.
She didn’t recall the second time because right before, during our break, I had removed her from eating something that looked and smelled like a mixture of poop and unidentifyable dead animal (Chai has a sensitive stomach; if not, I would let her eat whatever she finds, like Game) – about 3 or 4 times. (I kept releasing her once we were at a distance from the disgusting food source because she wanted to play with her adolescent Doberman friend Sam. However, inevitably, after a little play, she ended up back at the food source and I ended up walking up and removing her again – it was too good for our “Leave it,” which is still under construction, to work.) Maybe this frustrating experience did not set her up for success in the recall session right after.
We’ve worked on impulse control (“Earn it”/Zen bowl/a marker cue for taking food from a bowl) quite a bit today. Maybe after all this impulse control – impulse control is hard for puppies! – she couldn’t help it and HAD to go for the distraction right away.
Or one of countless other possible reasons!
In any case, I’ll need to come up with a game plan! This distraction recall step is tricky – it keeps coming back to bite us in the butt! I might need to gamify this for myself some more …
After having succeeded outdoors, I stuck to the plan this time – hence the title: round 2 (the 2nd stab at distraction recalls) .3 (level 3: off leash) in our first location with our first distraction.
FUTURE ME CHIMING IN HERE FROM A BIRD’S EYE VIEW:
Steps we have already tested out of are indicated by a check mark, past steps I skipped are crossed out and the steps I am tackling in this post have a green arrow in front of them. Future steps have a square:
Off leash recall away from an empty plate in the house
Reinforcer: a piece of cooked chicken from my hand and “okay” release to check out the distraction.
Extracalifragilisticexpialidocious! Upwards and onwards: distraction #2 – the bag. I didn’t have the paper bag anymore and used a plastic bag that used to have pastries in it instead:
Off leash recall away from empty plastic bag in the house
Chai nailed this distraction as well! Go puppy!
According to my notes, I did not trust that Chai would recall away from kibble off leash. I did not take video, but this is what my notes say:
Long line recall away from kibble in the house
I wanted to go back a step due to my faux pas the other day where I skipped a few steps and she got the kibble. My helper was still working and I don’t have a barrier other than him, so I went back to a long line. And indeed: she hit the end two (or was it three?) times before we could end on a success: recall on a loose long line, chicken from my hand and release to eat the kibble.
So we did end on a success … but not at the off leash (level 3) stage.
July 1, 2023: revisiting the barrier/helper level (level 2)
I had my helper back and revisited the barrier stage with Chai off leash and Zane protecting the most difficult distraction – kibble – in the house. She nailed it on her first attempt! (No video.)
Next, we went up to the roof for an off-leash kibble recall with Zane ready to pick up the kibble plate: by now, I had realized I hadn’t done the barrier level for kibble on the roof the last time.
It took two sessions with a break in between: Zane had to lift the kibble plate in the first rep of the first session. In rep #2, Chai nailed it. We took a recall games break and then had another helper session, getting a single-rep success on the roof (no video).
At this point, future me with his bird eye’s view can proudly show you the following table:
Yay – no more skipped steps! But will I remember that I haven’t yet worked on off-leash kibble in the living room? Stay tuned to find out …
June 27, 2023: tugging at the park and dog interruptions
Here’s the text I shared in class along with today’s video:
I left a little of our dog interruption in because it‘ it‘s hilarious: they just keep coming! (Disclaimer: explicit language!)
The second short session at the same park was interruption free! My 50% estimate (half the time, we don’t get interrupted) seems pretty accurate!
I liked the last rep of tugging I did. What do you [Shade] think about that one? More or keep it this short and gentle for now? Should I name tug already? Should I let her have the ball I’m getting out for tugging without having her chase it around my body first? Or maybe keep doing a few more reps like the (better) ones in this clip?
June 29, 2023: nice tugging reinforced by fetch!
My proud-of-Chai comments to go with this video:
Look at that tug despite the interruption! Definitely getting stronger! To be fair, that dog wasn’t body blocking her – but still, how cool! Have I mentioned that I love this puppy?
July 1, 2023: trying to get a better strike
Shade’s comments on my last video:
“So, let’s start concentrating on her strike. […] When you are about to let her strike, make sure the ball is still. So, good “misses” look like: ball is still, dog locks on to target, ball is whisked away, repeat. Try that in your misses, so we can start teaching her to have a good strike. When she gets a good successful strike, she’ll like it more!“
Me:
I know exactly what you mean about “good misses” and then getting a decent strike after. It’s easy with tug toys and a dog who is into them! Turns out it is VERY hard for me to do the same thing with balls on a rope! Help please! Which one of the ones below – if any – resembles our goal? Watching the video I feel like I never really got the kind of still-ball-and-then-miss that I’ve gotten quite easily with other dogs and tug toys. We’re having fun though! And no interruptions today!
July 2, 2023: trying out different ways to get that decent strike
Shade’s comments on my last video:
“[Y]ou are moving the toy in slow motion when you make her miss so that you don’t have enough time when she is far away to set the target.“
Me:
“The tricky part is that when I move it faster, the ball starts swining and I don’t have a still target anymore. Hmm. I need to experiment some more with this!“
The video below is me experimenting. I don’t think I submitted this particular video to class, but here are my thoughts on it:
I had the idea to hold the ball as if it was a tug toy! This may be our ticket to good strikes!
July 3, 2023: Shade’s advice
Below is the next video I submitted to Shade after reading their response to my comment about experimenting:
“Whisk it away quickly diagonal to a spot about 18 inches from your hip (if facing the still ball). Dog goes flying by you, which allows you time to turn and set the target again 2 feet from your belly button. You’ve got the good still target, but faster on the misses and away from her and diagonal to her path, not up.”
My response, going with the video submission below:
This is really helpful! Thank you! I was planning on this after reading your response this morning but ended up moving it to the side (or up again) rather than forwards for some reason.
July 4, 2023: more tug reinforced with “Chase” and some misses
Shade:
“[S]he’s going to get the string […], but I don’t know that it matters? […] Ask her if she needs the misses before the actual tugging.“
Me:
Okay, let’s decide it doesn’t matter! […] I’ve still got an upwards tendency on the misses, but am staying more parallel to the ground than before. The video shows the first of 3 tugging reps in this session. The first one sans misses, right as we started the session.Her tugging on that first one felt less energetic/weaker than usual (even though I’m not sure you can tell from the video).
After the session, I realized that I changed two variables on her at once: I’ve started these sessions with “Chase” rather than “Tug” up until now, and today I started with “Tug.” So there’s no way of knowing whether the tugging in the first rep felt less enthusiastic because I didn’t make her miss or because she didn’t get a chase before. I’m thinking I should do a chase first and see if her non-miss tugging looks any different tomorrow. What do you think?
Otherwise, I really like her tugging here. She’s MUCH more into it then when we first started! Still dropping her toy right away after because she knows that every tug rep will be reinforced with at least one “Chase,” and Chase is still her favorite toy game. But it feels like she’s having a good time tugging as well!
July 5, 2023: Cueiung “Chase!” while tugging
Shade:
“A couple chases, then ask for the tugging immediately after the drop of the ball and see if you can get the strike and the carry over of the chasing. Maybe alternate? One with misses, one just strike, that sort of thing.“
Me:
I experimented with this today and got stronger tugging without misses! I like the plan of alternating between tug with and without misses and will keep starting the session with “chase” for now.
Shade:
“It’s also worth noting that the dropping is getting reinforced by the chase, not necessarily the tugging itself. What you could start to do is cue chase when she is tugging the best she can tug. Then, when she lets go, throw the toy that she was tugging with. That way the tugging is directly reinforced.”
Me:
Did you mean cue chase while tugging and then I let go of the toy we are tugging with and wait for her to let go too? Or did you mean cue chase while tugging and I hold on to the toy we are tugging with until she lets go first and then I throw it?
I tried the latter version today; she didn’t let go on “chase” when I held on to the toy so I waited a second and then threw the second toy for her. I wonder whether throwing the second toy while she’s still tugging is even better than waiting for her to drop her toy anyways because this way, I really am directly reinforcing the tugging (rather than a drop)? Let me know what you think. Below is what I tried today!
Otherwise, I bet if I cue “chase” and let go of the toy I am tugging with, she will let go as well. She is used to letting go right after I let her win.
July 6, 2023: More tug reinforced by “Chase,” cued while tugging
Shade:
“Keep holding onto the toy you are tugging with while cuing chase. If she doesn’t let go, still hold on to it. Show her the other toy you have, wait until she lets go then, and then throw that second toy. The second toy in sight should prompt her to let go, but the marker cue happens when she is tugging. She’ll get faster and faster!”
C:
Let me make sure this is what you had in mind before I keep practicing! Hold the toy Chai is tugging on still after the “chase” cue and make the other one interesting?
July 8, 2023: … and even more tug reinforced by cueing “Chase!” while tugging!
Shade:
“Remember how we held the ball out to the side to get the drop? Do that immediately after cuing chase. That way she’ll remember the signal and likely think more dropping thoughts. Try to hold the one you are tugging with as still as possible-not an easy feat with the balls on ropes I know.”
C:
Is this what you had in mind? I put a “Chase” subtitle starting right when I say the cue in case you can’t hear it over the background noise.
I find it interesting that in this video, it looks like the game Chai would have chosen as I was holding out the second toy after marking “chase” was switching to a second tug toy rather than chasing!
July 9, 2023: the second chase/tug session of the day
I’ve been keeping sessions short and only doing one a day – I want it to be special, and Chai is not as pushy as my Mals (yet?). Today, I did two brief sessions before and after coffee-shop relax practice. Both were chases interspersed with 2 tug sessions. In the first session (not on video), she needed the visual cue of the second toy to let go for the first post-tug chase. In the second tug-to-chase rep, she let go on the verbal “chase” and predicted a chase, not a tug!
The second session (see video) also was chases with 2 short tug sessions in between – that’s in the video below. Both times, she let go on the verbal alone without seeing the second toy, and did not confuse it with “switch” (which is not yet a game she knows)! This is making me so happy! She’s also needing less misses in order to be exicted to tug!
July 10, 2023: adding behaviors to toy play
Shade suggested I start adding behaviors to Chai’s toy play to introduce this concept early. I only have one behavior that is relatively reliable on a verbal cue outdoors, and it’s a hand touch. Here is me giving it a try:
Our conversation preceding the video and my thoughts as I handed it in:
Shade:
“We don’t have bring to hand for more tugging-but… we don’t actually need it.”
C:
Help me see the big picture, please! If I eventually want to use tugging as a reinforcer for obedience … would I just not let go of the toy/always combine tug with chase? I’m used to having the dog push back into me for more tugging when I let go of the toy we are tugging with – and then we continue.
Is this something you believe Chai will offer with time, or do you assume this just isn’t a behavior she is going to go with? In the latter case, how would you (in the future, way down the line) use tug as a reinforcer for other behaviors? Or would you stick to chase or a chase/tug hybrid game for good? Paint me a session picture, say, one year down the line, please!
Shade:
“So, our next step would be adding some simple behaviors in there after an offered drop, and reinforcing with chase or tug. I’d like to try that!”
C:
Sounds good! I just tried this. I only have one behavior I believe is fluent and generalized enough on a verbal to work under toy play arousal (I have positions on cue, but only reinforced with food and so far, I’ve only worked on them in the house – I don’t think they’re ready for toy reinforcers quite yet). So my one behavior, and the one I went with, is a hand touch.
I started with chase-es as usual – you see the last one in the beginning of the clip. Then at 00:04/05, my touch cue (I cue without my hand present, then bring out the hand). Chai does it but with her mouth open and a jump – I suspect that she expected me to whip out a tug toy from behind my back. That catches me off guard so my first “Chase” marker is super late. Ooops.
00:13-00:17, she is being goofier with the ball she just fetched than she usually is. I wonder if that’s a tell that the touch just before was HARD. What do you think?
00:30 The second time she returns the chase toy, she is back to normal: bring it back, drop, offer eye contact right away.
So I try another touch cue. She does not actually touch my hand at 00:32 but stops half an inch short of it, so I don’t reinforce that one.
00:36, I get the touch that I’ve trained: mouth closed, strong touch.
00:37 I marked a little late, but better than before. Trying to reinforce with tug this time and not presenting the toy as a good target to strike – I’ve got some practicing to do myself here! I’ll do some of this with Game to get my mechanics figured out and then go back to Chai. (So convenient to have an adult dog who knows all the toy games and will let me focus on my own mechanics!)
00:47 I cue “Chase” to reinforce good tugging, but I don’t get the immediate out on the “chase” cue. Again, I wonder if that’s a tell that this is difficult!
After the video ends, I did two chase-es, then a tug, then another chase. For that one, she was able to let go on the verbal alone again: I went back to just tug and chase and things got easier; she could do it again (is my interpretation).
I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts!
I suspect that the touch is a harder behavior here than a sit would be because my hand motion will remind Chai of the toy being whipped out from behind my back. On the other hand – it’s a great verbal discrimination exercise! Maybe just one touch per session to keep it fun? She’s good at verbal discrimination; I do think she’d figure out when I want a touch and when I want a tug within a few sessions. (Oh! Writing this down, I just realized “touch” sounds an awful lot like “tug”! Argh! Is that too much verbal discrimination to expect under toy arousal conditions? Should I try for it anyways? So many questions! Happy questions, of course. I love a good challenge! I apologize for today’s novel-length post!)
I didn’t save Shade’s response but remember the jist of it. Shade recommended I get positions on solid verbals out in the world and then use them in toy play, and suggested changing my hand touch cue to make it more different from my tug cue. (I’ve since done the latter – it used to be “touch” but is now “bump.”) I’ll practice and if/when I get stuck reach out for a 1-on-1 to keep going.
We haven’t practiced as much as I’d like since the class ended – but we do and are slowly but certainly progressing!
This video concludes the toy class series. Hope you had fun!
If you enjoy the series, take the class at the Gold level yourself! Shade does a truly fantastic job of tailering advice to the dog/student team in front of them – whether you have a drivey dog or a reluctant player!
Urban art clue #8: this is your last clue. Our art piece is 66 steps from A (the corner of the building), walking down b. If you are taller than me, you’ll probably need less steps. If you are shorter, you might need more. Found it and want tacos? Mail me a picture of the art piece you took and I’ll pay!
