Since the person writing this post is future C, I can tell you: this is the start of a very long strategy game between puppy Chai and me!
In this first round of distraction recalls, I planned on using my distraction protocol (the way I teach it in Calling All Dogs1 at FDSA). We’d work our way through it – should be a breeze! – and move on to more interesting training projects! (Future C laughs out loud. Oh, past C! You are too cute when you underestimate The Border Collie!)
3 distractions:
Empty plate (easy)
Crumpled-up bag that used to have food in it (intermediate)
Kibble (difficult)
3 locations:
Living room (easy)
Roof (intermediate)
Park (difficult)
3 levels of distraction protection:
Long line
Off leash, distraction behind barrier (helpers and fences)
Off leash, no distraction
I have a distraction training tracker I ask my students to fill in because I know how easy it is to accidentally skip steps. I filled it in for Chai as well. This is what it looked like. The mistake I made was that I didn’t print it … so I soon stopped looking at it and eventually went rogue. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! Like the good protocol-following dog trainer I am, I started with my empty plate in my living room and with my puppy on her long line:
June 22, 2023
After successful completion of the easy distraction, we moved on to intermediate:
Seeing how well this had gone, we took a break and then upped the ante: our most difficult distraction in location #1 on a long line!
What a superstar! We got to check off the first three boxes on the distraction tracker! (Or we would get to check them off, physically, if we had printed the tracker. Since I don’t own a printer, printing stuff involves exporting my Google doc to a PDF, transferring the PDF to a USB stick, walking to a print shop that may or may not be open … You get the picture. It’s easy to start out with good intentions and not follow through when printing is more than just clicking a button!) But hey – I shouldn’t be making excuses for myself. Truth be told, I thought I had taught and used this protocol SO many times that I knew it by heart anyways. Who needs a print-out! Not past C! (Future C cracks up. Oh, dear past C! You’re in for a surprise!)
Which happens to be running this term in case you want to hop in! I’m giving away a free Bronze spot on Facebook – go grab it! ↩︎
Before it got too, too hot, I experimented with Shade’s ideas of using either two targets or no target to encourage Chai to come back to me when tugging. The link above shows our two attempts. We’re not there yet and may have to keep experimenting – but we are having fun! What better morning exercise than a good game of tug?
Solo adventure
Friday is indoors mall adventure day! For the time being, every Friday, Chai and I walk there and then adventure our way through the mall.
Magic hands and R-
On the way there, we came across a scary construction site. Magic hands and negative reinforcement (distance) for the win!
Next stop: the elevator!
Chai did so well on the elevator today! A little bit insecure (maybe because we went on it soon after the construction corridor which had already used up some of her bravery – but once again, she entered voluntarily and stayed quiet throughout the ride (there are some signs of nervousness in her body language, but nothing big). If things are no harder than this, I will just go with repetition: once a week, we’ll ride this elevator until it’s a total walk in the park for Chai!
I also carried Chai up and down an escalator – her very first escalator experience!
On the way home, she waited patiently as I ordered and waited for tortas to go and then again outside a corner convenience store.
Left: waiting at an electronics store; right: foot-on-leash down cue as I’m ordering tortas.
On the way to the mall, I used the magic hands trick twice: once to walk across a manhole cover with holes in it and through a construction site, and once to walk past a trash can full of dog poop bags that were flapping in the wind a little. On the way back, she walked past the poop bags can without issues. The construction site had changed – there was no heavy machinery going – so we looped around it on the other side of the street. It was getting WAY too hot (over 30°C) to keep training.
I thought I’d use the heat to my advantage and work on the manners context in a new street, but Chai’s brain was as heat fried as my own and we went back to sleddog context after a futile attempt.
Tip: if something doesn’t work – don’t force it. Take a break and come back to it another time. (Especially if your city/country is experiencing a heat wave.)
Chai thinks Zane’s empty Corona can makes an excellent toy: yumm, metal!
June 17, 2023: Chapultepec fun and some hands-near-toy practice!
Alan, his girlfriend Vane and I took Kiba and Chai to Chapultepec today. They had a blast (and so did we, the humans!) Here’s a video, set to a song that is sad, but REALLY good – and it happened to be just the right length!
Left: spikey plants! Right: Alan is carrying a tired Kiba! I’m still working on this trick (Chai allowing me to pick her up this way). Thanks for the idea, Alan!
Chai at the busy swimming spot.May and June are the warmest – and June is really kicking our asses this year! Needless to say, the dog swimming spot is busy on the weekends!
Our beautiful girls: left – looking regal, right – being themselves!
We also took a two-ball video for Shade!
And here is Chai … trying to swim-fetch in the cutest way imaginable!
Because we are overachievers these days, we also played another round of the hands-near-toy game with a new element: let go of the toy upon food marker. (I already knew Chai could do that part, but I believe it was in Shade’s lectures.) Mostly, we went back to hands-near-toys.
June 18, 2023: be careful what you optimize for and a second bout of adolescence!
I’ve already told you that the other day, Chai started paying more attention to her environment – such as the goings-on outside the window. I’ve interrupted window-looking with scatters so far. However, I accidentally taught my dog to race to the window to look out in order to get more scatters (of course!) She’d keep putting her paws up on the window and then looking at me: “Treat me already!” Not the behavior chain I was going for!
So as of today, I’m implementing a more nuanced training plan.
Background details that will help you understand why I am choosing this particular plan for this particular dog:
+ I don’t mind window shopping. Unless a dog is clearly hyper-stressed by it (most dogs are not), that is the one advantage an apartment life has over a yard life: you get to see things going on outside anytime you get bored. The reason I’m adding this is that some trainers do not want their dogs to look out windows at all, assuming that window shopping by itself necessarily triggers stress.
However, I do not want to teach Chai to bark at everything she sees – quite the opposite. That’s again because I live in an apartment and I don’t want my neighbors to be disturbed by my barking dog.
The plan: + Randomize praise (and the occasional scatter) throughout the day when I’m home and Chai is NOT looking out the window but doing anything else I like – for example chill on the couch. + If I spot precursor behaviors to barking (e.g. lips or ears tensing up while looking out the window or staring at the door) – cue a scatter to prevent barking. + If I miss precursor behaviors and Chai barks, pick her up and give her a 2-minute time-out in her luxury kennel aka the bathroom.
I didn’t get to video any instances of barking, but in the first video below, you’ll see how fast window-lookingturned into a strong behavior because I had reinforced it with scatters. To soften the blow of extinction, I’ll still praise/pet/engage when she comes over after looking out the window – I just don’t treat. (Yes, Chai likes praise and attention – but I highly doubt that they are strong enough to maintain the looking-out-of-windows behavior).
What I accidentally optimized for was more looking-out-the-window rather than less barking. That’s the tricky part about gamifying or training anything: you don’t necessarily get exactly what you want by pushing a certain lever!
Stop on a regular basis, take a step back, look at the changes you’ve seen and ask yourself: if I was an observer and didn’t know the goal behavior – what would I believe was being optimized here? Sometimes, you’ll find that what you are optimizing for is exactly what you planned. Other times – not so much! That’s okay as long as you keep an eye on it. It doesn’t mean your training plan was “bad” if the results are unexpected: dogs are individuals, and sometimes, what we want to happen … doesn’t! Even if it might have worked with a different dog!
In the video below, you see the result of my original strategy (pre-emptive scatters during nightly window-shopping incidents): I have created a window-shopping addict who will look out the window and then ask to be paid all day long! This is in the morning. Chai went from only-at-night to all-the-time in 2 days. In the video, I talk to her now and then, but don’t give her more attention than that. If she came over, I’d pet her. No treats since in this video, Chai is not concerned about the environment – she simply wants scatters!
The video below shows when I DO feed: this is a compilation of moments I recognized precursor behaviors or precursor stimuli to barking. (Yes, I agree – Game looks extremely annoyed at the state of the world in this video! She can’t even be bothered to get up and collect her part of the scatters.)
… and our goal, of course: rest and relaxation inside while I work; occasionally wandering around or looking out the window without feeling barky or otherwise overly aroused!
Home alone practice: don’t let it slide!
Chai stayed home all by herself while Zane, Game and I all went out to Mexico City’s bike Sunday.
Hello again, adolescence!
I took Chai to Casa Bruna with me for some do-nothing practice. She was able to chill out beautifully for 45 minutes, but then a Border Collie she knows (tricolor puppy Juana) showed up at the next table over, and that was too much: Chai wanted to greet and started barking when I didn’t let her.
We are definitely having another bout of adolescence! Hanging out at Fresa Parque after Casa Bruna, Chai finally got to play with Juanita and an adolescent ACD. She was having a harder time responding to her informal pup-pup-pup recalls today than usual – another sign that both calm days and listening skills overall are getting more difficult in our second wave of adolescence!
June 11, 2023: introducing the concept of weekly calm days
Activity level: low
Calm days
We had a physically calm day today. I have decided to keep Chai – and that means I’ll want a bit more structure in our weeks. Once a week, I’ll go for a below-average calm day. This is important because I live by myself and sometimes I get sick or busy and can’t provide the usual amount of entertainment or enrichment. My puppies learn from the very beginning that some days are calmer than others.
I haven’t always done that, so I’ve learned the hard way that we create expectations in our dogs’ first year of life or so. If every single day is filled with action, this is what your future athlete is going to expect as an adult as well. If you normalize downtime from the beginning, they will have a much easier time just chilling on the couch every now and then.
I’ll track calm, active and average days under “activity level” right under the respective date.
Morning walk and a tiny little bit of off-leash time!
Chai went on a morning walk with Game – and I briefly let her off leash in a very quiet area!
Toy play
We worked on tug on the roof, but Chai’ wasn’t as good at returning the toy as she has been in the last few days’s toy return behavior seemed to backslide. It may already have been too warm when we played this morning (it’s only shady up there in the late afternoon and very early in the morning).
The Game of Chai
Chai and Game spent a lot of time wrestling and playing on the bed. It is hot out – perfect for an indoors day! – but if you’re not an only dog, all that need to move has to go somewhere! That’s what big sisters are for!
Home alone
I took Game to the Paseo Dominical Muévete en Bici for the first time. That’s Mexico City’s Sunday street closure where a number of large streets are closed to motorized vehicles and taken over by cyclists, inline skaters, skateboarders, runners … It’s fun because you don’t need to worry about cars, and you can go quite far:
Random Mexico City fact
In addition to the Paseo Dominical, Mexico City happens to be a very bikeable city in general. In 2022, there were over 200 km of bike lanes (a lot of which are protected bike lanes wide enough for a human and a dog).
Green: bike lanes in Mexico City in 2022.
The goal is to have 400 km by 2024 (source). (I did not google extensively so I don’t know how likely it seems that Mexico City will be meeting this goal. But it’s a great one!)
Anyways, so while Game and I went on a bike ride, Chai stayed home by herself.
Later on, she stayed home with Zane while Game and I went on an evening walk – another important skill: I don’t want her to only be able to stay home alone-alone, but also with friends in my house!
Leash walking – manners mode (collar)
Afterwards, we practiced count-to-15 LLW1 in our street and Chai waited in front of a corner convenience store by herself. Staying next to me behind the invisible line was hard for Chai today – so we went back to feeding after 1 and then after 5 steps before building back up to 15. This is a good reminder to always train the dog in front of you today (who may not be the same dog you had in front of you yesterday or are going to have in front of you tomorrow!)
Husbandry
+ “Claws!” (clip back dew claws). + “Brush!”
Positions
We rounded out the day with a brief round of positions (sit/down/stand) practice with Chai’s remaining dinner!
Calm day of the week – check!
June 12, 2023: fun with toys, friends and training
Activity level: average
Toy play
Today, we went to tug on the roof first thing in the morning, right after getting up: no running, playing with Game or walking and no hot and sunny roof (yet)! From there, we went right back to the apartment and tried some more tugging on the bed. Video evidence here!
Morning walk with Game
Both dogs went on a morning walk – nothing exciting; just two good girls and their human vagando through the neighborhood(s).
Home alone – free in the apartment for the first time!
Chai got another chance to stay home alone by herself while Game and I went to pick up laundry. A little later, I left her home and free in the apartment (rather than in her indestructable luxury kennel, the bathroom) when Game and I went to the bakery, and then again at night – totally free in the apartment – during Game’s solo evening walk.
Today was the first time I gave Chai unsupervised apartment freedom. For now, she is doing well and not getting into stuff. I’ll keep an eye on her of course – she’s still a young dog, and if/when she starts getting up to mischief in my absence, she’ll go back into her luxury kennel when home alone.
Dog friends
We spent 45 minutes with Alan and Kiba at the park. Chai practiced a recall away from Kiba and then our pups got to play and socialize.
Friends.
We also practiced “Paws up!” on a bench. Chai showed me that she wasn’t ready to start right with the cue and you see me chute back down and build up again. You may have to watch this video more than once to catch all the marker cues – I’m too far from the camera for decent audio – but it’s an excellent example of how different marker cues can be used to build duration and setting the dog up for the next rep.
“All done” is my “end of session” announcement.
Leash walking
We practiced going from 5 to 10 to 15 steps of LLW on Chai’s collar out in the street.(1)
(1) Once again, the usual spiel in a footnote: for more leash walking context, check out the leash walking lectures from Out and About in your FDSA library or look here for my December class and a micro e-book on LLW.
+ We worked up to 3 steps between treats behind the invisible line (loose leash walking, LLW)1 #in the corridor of our apartment building. Go Chai!
+ We met our new friends Alan and his Border Collie Kiba, who is just a month older than Chai, at the park and the dogs played beautifully.
+ After having played for a bit, Chai was ready for another round of invisible-line loose leash walking outside! (Because my inside space is limited, it is easier for Chai and me to work on loose leash walking right outside in calm parts of “the real world” – especially since I have chosen not to stop while feeding.) If I worked inside or on the roof, there would be a lot of turns in addition to an increasing number of steps – and for Chai, that’s harder than beginning with a straight line. The park allows for straight lines with a single turn. What’s more, Chai was able to “Ilo it”2 and go right from 5 steps inside to 6 steps between treats outside! If your own dog needs you to back up a little and, say, start over with 3 steps when you change locations, that is perfectly fine as well.
Sidenote for professional dog trainers: the training approach funnel
This brings me to an important point for anyone who works with dogs and their humans professionally. There really is no one-size-fits-all solution. Tailer your approach to the human and the dog in front of you: where and how do they live? What training spaces are available to them? Who is their dog, who is the person and what are their temporal and financial resources? What is their best hope (thank you for teaching me about this concept and phrase, Chris!) for loose leash walking? What kind of training approaches do they feel most comfortable with? It may be one you actively teach or one you may want to refer to a colleague for. Vary your approach depending on all these factors! Some LLW approaches require more time than others. Some require a highly food motivated dog. Some require a patient owner, others are faster and no less valid. Some humans want to work on LLW in a specific way because of their own ethics. Others want to learn about a new LLW method or in order to become better trainers. Others yet may need the behavior for safety reasons: a tiny person who doesn’t feel like they are stable on their feet (maybe they are elderly, maybe they use crutches …) with a large, strong dog with the propensity to lunge and pull into traffic may need a fast solution! All of the above are perfectly fine.
Factors that go into your decision funnel as you pick an approach for the human and dog in front of you and the order I personally consider them in:
(Funnel image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay – thank you!)
… but back to Chai’s park adventures!
+ After the second LLW session, I tethered Chai to a park bench to help her relax while park-officing some more.
Home alone
Both dogs stayed home alone for 3 hours while Zane and I unsuccessfully tried to get haircuts and successfully ate at one of my favorite little places in Narvarte and then walked all the way back home.
Off-leash night walk
Both Chai and Game went on a brief off-leash walk around 2 am. The streets are almost empty at this time, which makes it perfect for introducing off-leash street freedom to Chai. (Only once I have worked through my recall protocol will I also let her off during the day.) She did great at night, and it doesn’t feel unsafe because there is hardly any traffic during the week after midnight.
June 9, 2023:
3 Solo adventures
Running errands
In the morning, Chai and I walked errands and Chai waited all by herself out of sight outside 3 different places. Go puppy!
Waiting outside a store (and blocking half the entrance – oops!)
The mall
In the afternoon, we walked to the dog friendly mall. Chai was perfectly confident walking among a crowd of people and dogs:
My subtitles in the video above mention that I don’t reinforce auto check-ins because I want Chai to “take in the environment.” What I mean by this is that (1) I don’t want her to focus on me nonstop, and (2) I don’t want food to mask her true feelings about the mall. Here’s why:
1. Insecure dogs who trust their handler may focus on them in order to not have to deal with the environment. If your dog’s eyes are glued to you, they do not learn to feel comfortable in the environment you’re exposing them to because they may be tuning it out. An analogy: think of a toddler who turns their head away from a stranger. They may feel safer because it is as if the stranger – or the toddler themselves – were not there at all.
2. Food-driven dogs will eat and may even look happy (due to the food) in environments that, without the food overriding the fear, might feel overwhelming. Just like some dogs focus on you, others focus on their treats. You may be able to walk a dog like this through a big environment like the mall above and not notice that they are actually afraid: eating and thinking about how to earn the next treat can cause them not to sense the environment. (Imagine you are on your smart phone and walk right into a lamp post: the post was there all along, but you simply didn’t see it because you were distracted.)
The glass elevator
Chai was slightly insecure and very brave, riding the glass elevator a few times (it’s more difficult alone than with Game!)
At the mall, Chai also practiced her down and chill on my “foot on the leash” cue while I got money out of an ATM.
She also had another mall-based new experience: we passed a screaming baby up close! I don’t think Chai has heard a baby cry before. She looked slightly bewildered but did perfectly well passing the new stimulus! Go puppy!
Toy play
We tugged on the roof for Shade’s toys class in the morning and a second time in the afternoon (trying to get her to bring the toy back!) In the evening, we gave it yet another try. It’s been challenging to convince Chai to bring me the toy!
Husbandry
+ Announcing “Clippers”: I cut Chai’s back paw fur. + “Brush!”
Home alone
Chai stayed home alone by herself during Game’s noon and afternoon loops around the block.
Night walks
I went on another another 2am walk with both dogs off leash. Chai is doing great – we’ll stick to this new routine for a few weeks!
(1) For more leash walking context, check out the leash walking lectures from Out and About in your FDSA library or look here for my December class and a micro e-book on LLW.
(2) Ilo is an amazing student dog. Her and her human will occasionally be able to simply jump ahead a few steps in a training protocol without skipping a beat! That’s where the phrase “Iloing it” (which all of us should be using all the time) comes from. Shout out to Sylvia and Ilo if you’re reading along!
To go with today’s episode: a video so you can see a messy and comfy dog people studio apartment and meet everyone (except for Game who is in the car crate because we wanted to talk rather than teach her not to eat Norbert) and me because I’m holding the camera – but you can hear me talk a little). And good music because dog play requires good music!
These clips are all from the first day the animals met, not from the day we recorded the podcast. By then, everyone had gotten used to each other and calmed down, and Chai knew how to relax around Norbert and where his personal space bubble started. He set an excellent boundary with her on day #1 (early on in this video!)
When Norbert comes back up from the floor in the middle of the video, you’ll see Niffler do some excellent splitting (he is being a moving fence!) between Chai and Norbert.
Chai’s “I’m not quite sure what to make of you”-pacing resolved itself later that same evening when she drifted off to sleep and Norbert showed more interest in the rain outside the window than in her.
I also felt like the podcast (particularly our accidental conversation about dating and the less accidental part about independence) required some more thought-out thoughts from me. I don’t know who listens to my podcast or reads my blog and ended up writing a whole long personal story about many things I hadn’t said on air.
And then I decided against sharing it. I didn’t get it right, and language (thank you, Saint-Exupéry) is the source of misunderstandings. Just know that there’s a lot of personal stuff I’m not talking about in this episode. That I’ll share with friends like Kayla, but not necessarily on air (not yet anyways). Things that matter to me even if I don’t say them publicly. The podcast is just one of many slices of life.
I’ll leave it at that! And I wish everyone who could possibly read this or listen to my podcast well.
Good morning play: increasingly patient Malinois make excellent chew toys!
The next day – Chai’s 8th day with me – was the first time I took both dogs out together. This still isn’t what I’ll usually do – puppies and adult dogs in my house each get their own walks unless I don’t have time to take them separately. Today, I didn’t have time, so they both went out together in the morning. Walking together means the puppy loses out on one of the most important skills I want them to practice: seeing me leave the house with another dog and being fine. No problem for everyone to go out together every once in a while, but until the puppy is about a year old, I want it to be the exception rather than the rule: FOMO is a thing, and the time to avoid creating it is now.
Left: waiting for quesadillas con flor y queso. Middle: hanging out at the park while I eat. Right: adventures are tiring!
We headed to our usual spot: Parque Las Américas. Chai imitated Game – every time Game peed outside, so would Chai. An excellent idol to teach her that the place to do your business is outdoors!
Together with Game, Chai’s confidence was also bigger. She wanted to go everywhere Game went and trusted that what Game did was safe. Due to Game’s presence, we also got some leash pressure work in: if Game (off leash) went further than Chai’s 5 meter leash allowed, she would reach the end. I’d stop and wait for her to reorient, click and treat.
This is not how I teach loose leash walking (this is the fastest way of creating the behavior chain of pull-in-order-to-get-a-treat!), but it’s a great way to teach a puppy to give in to leash pressure rather than show opposition reflex. We’ll need this skill once we’re introducing distractions for Chai’s formal recall cue, “Schnee” (German for “Snow”).
Parque Las Américas in Narvarte
Today, the only treats Chai got out and about were for reorienting after reaching the end of the leash and, on the way back … from a new friend! We met Hugo, a street vendor who told us they loved Border Collies and had one as well as a Beagle at home. In fact, they had been dreaming of getting a second Border Collie … We spent quite a while talking to Hugo in the street, and Hugo fed, lured and scratched Chai under her chin. We exchanged numbers and made plans to meet up sometime with Hugo and their BC to see how the two got along and for Hugo to get to know Chai better.
Chai has decided the funnest way to play with Game is to use her razor sharp puppy teeth:
Today Chai went to Parque las Américas and saw lots of people and dogs, heard new sounds, walked on different park surfaces and smelled new smells. Before we got there, we had this little encounter:
We then walked all the way to the park on our own four paws and saw and met, among others:
A person who followed my instructions about how to invite Chai to approach: not from above, but from below, being still and letting the dog take the first steps. I decided, after seeing Chai shy away from hands reaching for her a little more than I’d like to in the last two days, that I will make a point of having her meet people “the right way” every day. There is, of course, no one right way – you’ll have to look at the dog in front of you to find out what works for them. In Chai’s case, I opted for asking people to stand still and hold out their flat hand, palm facing up. If and only if Chai approaches, sniffs the hand and looks comfortable, I will then give the person a few pieces of kibble to hold in their other hand and feed them, one after the other, from their flat hand without touching Chai and holding the hand low enough so all four paws stay on the floor.
I would NOT start with food without having Chai opt in and approach voluntarily first, and if she was shyer than she is, I would not use food here at all. Food can backfire extremely easily if used as a lure to get an uncomfortable dog closer to a stimulus they are unsure about: they’ll take the treat and then realize they are WAY TOO CLOSE! With Chai’s level of people curiosity, it is really just the head reaching she has feelings about. And because she is cute, people will reach for her head. I am countering these experiences by means of providing positive ones in the way I described above. My instructions are simple and easy to follow, and they work well for Chai. In the case of my very first helper (random stranger from Costa Rica I met in the street), we chatted long enough that they actually ended up making friends with Chai and being able to scratch her chin:
We also saw a bakery bike!
… and several dogs …
We met another person who also ended up touching Chai on the side of her head – not something I encouraged, but she was okay.
We walked past an outdoors assembly of some kind and saw a person on a skateboard with a dog, a kid in a stroller and more dogs:
And the Chai and I rested in a (comparatively) quiet corner of the park and she posed serenely for a bit before we made our way back home.
How much is too much?
… you may be wondering. Didn’t Chrissi just get this puppy, who had been confined to her house and yard and a crate from 8 weeks to 3.5 months of age, literally three days ago?
Indeed, I did. And indeed, this would be too much for MANY Border Collie puppies with this (lack of) experience. It would have been too much for Hadley right after T got him and it would have been too much for Mick (and would still be too much for Mick today. Mick is a farm dog who wants exactly three things in life: sheep, a person to work sheep with, and zero other people). Hadley today, as an adult, would likely be okay in this environment – he’d just pull all over the place trying to sniff things, I suspect.
Is it too much for Chai? Am I flooding the poor puppy? No – at least I wouldn’t say that I am. But in order for this term to have any meaning at all, I need to first define it. “Flooding” is one of these buzzwords everyone uses slightly differently.
I just looked at the glossary of my 4 go-to behavior books, and it isn’t in any of them. That surprises me – but maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe flooding is a term trainers borrowed from human psychology, or maybe it is simply a layperson’s word. Next stop: Google.
Bingo! I got lucky at the APA Dictionary of Psychology, which sounds like a decent source. Plus it matches my own definition of the term and the way I’ve been using it, which is reinforcing.
So – no, I have in fact not flooded Chai. She is not an anxious dog – just a curious one who lacks experience. I have not exposed her to a maximum-anxiety-producing situation or stimulus. (I would have on day 2 when I was just trying to get a feel for where we were in terms of exploratory behavior, fearfulness and resilience. Based on what I saw on day 2, I made choices for day 3, and based on what I saw on days 2 and 3, I made choices for day 4.
Because Chai is not an anxious puppy and her sensitive socialization window is rapidly closing, I want a lot of exposure to what is going to be normal in her world if she becomes a Mexico City dog. If she doesn’t become a Mexico City dog but finds a home somewhere else, all the experiences she is currently having won’t hurt either. For example if she goes on to be a sports dog, these experiences might help her learn how to focus on what matters (“gate”) in busy trial environments.
I wrote this post on Chai’s third day with me – April 9, 2023. I will keep updating it as I go. It is currently day 20 (April 26)and a lot has changed already! However, I’m publishing this post now because I only just got around to cleaning it up. More to come soon!
My approach to training with food with a dog who likes to eat
I try to train the puppy in front of me. That means I’ve done things a bit differently for every puppy I’ve raised for myself or for someone else. In Chai’s case, most food is for training (because training is fun and I want videos) or big scatters (the ritual I use to end sessions). Chai doesn’t get food outside unless necessary because I want her to really engage with the world and not be distracted from it.
I will use most food for training. Except from her single outing every day – usually the same park because we can walk there – we stay at our AirBnB. I’ve so far trained up all of her daily rations in marker cue discrimination and shaping stuff. She devours kibble, so that’s all she has seen so far in terms of treats (except for the hot dog I used to get her to eat her Bravecto).
Two food training projects for the puppy in front of me: Chai
For Chai, there are currently food training projects (there will be more as we get to know each other better and shift to different behaviors):
+ Stuff I want for my marker cue (and other skills) game that I’m planning to turn into some sort of class or workshop.
+ Shaping because I love teaching puppies about shaping and could do it all day long.
So far, I’ve used up all her food in that way every day. And here’s food for thought: in my experience, just not going above kibble value (if the puppy takes kibble to begin with) has a high chance of maintaining kibble as a treat the dog will take everywhere (that is everywhere they are able to eat – it’s an excellent gauge). In my case, this means … not exactly a closed economy (plenty in life is free), but it means everything is kibble, and everything is at least marker-cued. There are no table scraps, for example (they would make an open economy and devalue the kibble I want to use for training).
I will take a different approach with puppies who flat out refuse kibble. But Chai does not, so this is the route we are going.
My approach to making Chai permanent-home-able
All in all, these are the training projects I am focusing on to make Chai a dog who will be pleasant to live with for her future folks:
+ Being comfortable out and about in Mexico City.
+ Being comfortable with people coming into her space and visiting people in new spaces – I’m aiming for at least 2 visits a week (as soon as I test negative for Covid again) and at least one good out-and-about interaction a day on non-visit days. I’ll get strangers to play for the out and about interactions. Visits will be friends and strangers who follow my instructions about letting Chai take the lead and take the first step rather than reaching for her.
+ Maintaining her ability to stay home alone without whining (she stays home alone at least twice every day when I head out with Game. If I have a puppy, whenever possible, the puppy will get a separate walk. An exception would be if the puppy was extremely shy and needed an emotional support dog – this is not the case for Chai. Game gets her own walks too because she deserves them. I don’t want Chai to become dependent on Game – neither for staying home nor for going out.)
+ Maintaining her crate skills (the crate is in the car right now; I’ll be popping her in there for a bit every day.)
+ Car sickness: we’ll strart driving super short distances on an empty stomach and gradually extend the length of the drive, aiming for once a day.
Behaviors I am likely to get “for free” with this particular dog along the way
Things that will just happen along the way will be recall, leash walking and grooming. She’s not body sensitive, so I’ll likely get brushing and clipping toe nails for free by “just doing them.” Same with her harness/collar: put it on; no problem for her and no need for a slow introduction. While slow introductions and cooperative care are always worthwhile, I want to focus on other stuff with Chai and will safe her daily calories for these other training projects. Harness, leash, brush and toe nails will be announced rather than shaped. For example before I put on her harness, I will let her know what is about to happen by saying, “Harness!” Puppies pick up on this fast, which gives me an excellent way of gauging if she stays comfortable: if I say, “Harness” and she moves away, I know she’s having feelings. So far, this has not happened.
Outside of what I outlined above, we will just chill at home (if I can help it – training is fun!) I don’t want to turn her into an athlete (if someone wants to in the future, that option will always exist – she’s a Border Collie). I want to help her become a dog who is able to live in Mexico City, and with an “average” active family. This includes staying home alone and being ignored when I work or write rather than constant attention. A very easy solution to keep her from trying to get on the table is to reach for her head anytime she does: like most dogs, she finds this aversive. It’s what I consider a benign aversive. For example if I’m eating and she does this, I reach for her head about three times and she’ll lie down at my feet and stop trying to get food from the table, and it’s only day 3 as I’m writing this. She gets praise for this, but no food. Rather than consciously building a desired behavior here, I am making the undesired behavior disappear (yes, this is a euphemism for: I am punishing it with the consequence of reaching for her head and preventing intermittent reinforcement i.e. counter surfing). Intermittent reinforcement is relatively easy for me to avoid in this case because the kitchen in this AirBnB is a separate room and I shut the door when I go there, and I am the only person living here – so I control all the food on counters or tables and don’t leave it out. This is much, much harder to do if you have an open floor plan, cook more than I do or live with other people. But in Chai’s case, it should work out well. After two months of zero success at getting at food, she’ll be set off on the right trajectory and whoever adopts her can keep this approach or teach her a desired alternative behavior like hanging out on her bed when people eat.
That’s it for today! You”ll soon get real video and photo updates of what has happened between days 4 and 20 with Chai – I just have to find time to video edit. “Just.” I know, I know!
The dog training world is very campy. That’s bullshit, but it is the way it currently looks to me. This image is what I’m picturing when I say “left of center” or “right of center” in the podcast. It also shows you where I’d put myself, training-wise … and who I’d consider “my people”: anyone who’s not a campy extremist, really.
However, in an ideal world, there wouldn’t be a continuum at all. Instead, we’d have a menu of sorts, like a menu at a restaurant. On that menu, you’d find everything from BAT to Nepopo. We’d order the menu alphabetically in order to not play favorites.
Every training technique and system ever invented would be on the menu. And we dog trainers would choose one or two or three of them to study and become experts in by means of learning from the ones who came before us (standing on the shoulders of giants, as we always do).
We’d pick in terms of what we want to learn and teach; in terms of what feels good to US as individuals. Our picking would not be judgmental. It would be like picking the flavors of ice cream to go in your cone – not like picking a political party.
By picking your flavors of ice cream, you are not saying the other flavors are evil – you are just saying, these are my favorite flavors (these are the ones I want to learn more about and become an expert in). You can still be best friends with someone who chooses different flavors of ice cream. You can even talk about ice cream or taste their ice cream out of curiosity, and let them have a taste of yours. It would be encouraged rather than criticized: tasting each other’s ice cream is what friends do, after all.
That’s very different from choosing a political party: if you choose a political party, you are making an idiological (rather than subjective) decision, and you feel strongly about it being the “right” or “better” one – at least that’s how I feel when it comes to politics. I only have voting rights in Austria. Austria is a democracy with a large menu of political options. I oscillate between two of them, and have never voted for any other one: the Green party and the Communist party. I like both of them, and which one I will end up voting for is often a close call, and depends on the issues at hand and how they are handling it. I can’t see myself voting for any of the other parties, and some of the other parties (the ÖVP and the FPÖ, for example), I consider downright harmful to the planet, humanity, society and community.
In an ideal world, dog training would be like eating ice cream, not like voting. Thank you for coming to my TED talk!
Here’s a link to the podcast episode this post is riffing off of:
I wanted to add a little extra information to this week’s podcast – it has a funny background story.
Many years ago, as I was just starting out as a professional dog trainer, I took a year-long course for future trainers. I had selected it based on what I had read about it and the fact that I really wanted something in person (rather than KPA online).
The course turned out to be a disaster:it wasn’t at all what the description had me believe it would be. I knew this after 15 minutes of class, but wasn’t allowed to sell my spot to someone who actually wanted it (instead, that someone else had to purchase their own spot, which put us over the promised max number of students).
The teacher used learning theory terms incorrectly and was just really … insensitive and mean to folks. They were one of those people who love dogs and dislike humans. They were PETA-level-type animal advocates who basically thought dogs should live in large enclosures (like zoo animals), receive enrichment, and not be tortured by hikes, sports or clickers. This was not the trainer I wanted to be, and the course frustrated me over and over again.
The person I was back then was definitely edgier than the person I am today. I was self-righteous, radically queer and angry at the world.
From this class, I have taken no dog training knowledge – but it led me to cross paths with two people I wouldn’t want to miss in my life today. It was over a decade ago, and yet, these two connections persist.
One of them is Kenne who I interview on this podcast. They did not even take the course themselves – their wife did; Kenne and I just connected over random parking lot conversations.
The other one is Chris (who happens to live in Graz as well) and who is to this day one of my closest and most trusted friends. We connected right away over a shared love of Standard Poodles (I had Phoebe, who could be Chris’ vicarious Poodle) and shared queerness, a fondness of biology and intriguing discussions of relationship dynamics. Chris, in case you happen to be reading this – know that love you and that meeting you made up for all the suckiness of this course. I can’t even remember or imagine not having you in my life.
Kenne sometimes showed up during class breaks to visit their wife Sarina, who was taking the course. But there was this one time that, I believe, is what caused me to (quoting Rachel) want to keep an eye on this person and what they were doing in their life. Low-effort to maintain, and yet feeling like it is a meaningful connection with someone I so appreciate having met. The person I am today still appreciates Kenne, even though I have probably chaged a lot (and so have they, I imagine. Change, and be ready to change again!) Even though we don’t talk all the time, I feel like if I needed a place to stay in Graz, I could just ask Kenne and they’d say, “Of course!” And vice versa, of course, wherever I am in the world. Some people are just warm and engaging and wonderful to connect with, and Kenne is certainly one of them.
Anyways, back in the day, Kenne happened to be sitting in on the class I was giving my end-of-class presentation in. The edgy, feisty Jack-Russel-Terrier Chrissi of days gone by used this presentation to drive home two points: one, I wanted to show that teacher how to teach an engaging class. How it was done! How engagingly, interactively and fun one could teach! I made people laugh, moved while I was talking and threw high-value chocolates to (at) everyone asking or answering a question. I believe I had even brought a pineapple (thanks for that one, Kathy Sdao!) to add some extra flavor to my presentation. I used big words I had heard used incorrectly over the course of that class, speaking fast-paced and keeping people on their toes. Nobody was going to fall asleep this time!
It felt satisfying. And yet, afterwards, on the parking lot, I realized that the message I had tried to get across had probably gone over most people’s heads. After all, no one teaching or taking this class was a native English speaker, but since the person teaching it didn’t speak German either, it was conducted in English. It did not go over Kenne’s head though. They approached me in the parking lot and told me I was a sexist genius. To the Chrissi from back in the day (flaming red hair and all), this was a big compliment and I loved it. It let me know that Kenne had both read the organizers and teachers as snake oil salespeople, and had been amused by my retort. And as long as one person got it, I was happy. I felt like I had reached my goal.
To me, that was the beginning of our friendship. From my point of view, had Kenne not made this comment that day, we might have drifted apart.
Before recording this podcast, I asked them why they thought we had stayed in touch. Apart from their wife and me, they aren’t in touch with anyone from back then either. And what Kenne said made me smile. It’s something that still resonates with the Chrissi I am today: Kenne said I was an authentic person and they played with my Poodle, so of course we stayed in touch. (Or that’s what I heard or wanted to hear anyways.) So you, Kenne, are also worth having gone through that ridiculous course for. I feel SO grateful to have met you and get to have conversations like this one! Thank you!
