AM adventures
This morning started out with lots of wonderful bounciness and a little bit of imitating Game:
On our walk back, outside my building, I saw Doggie bark at a stranger (human, not dog) for the first time. Last night, even in the twiligt of our last outing of the day, he was being a superstar. The person this morning had a toddler strapped to their chest, with the toddler’s legs dangling and moving by their side. If you only saw the silhouette, they would have looked like a person with 4 arms, I imagine. I called Doggie (“pup-pup-pup” is incredibly strong and snappy), and he immediately turned to race back to me rather than continuing to approach the person. He loved the party I threw for him and didn’t look back at the person with the toddler. We also saw not just one, but two barky dogs around the apartment complex this morning – one Chihuahua sized dog on a leash on the other side of the basketball court fence we were playing in, who came up to the fence, and later a slightly-smaller-than-medium white curly dog who was out by themselves, wandering around the parking lot, saw us and started barking. Both times, Doggie just looked and dismissed. I’m very happy with this response – especially given that it happened soon after we got reunited in the morning and I suspect arousal levels may still have been above average!
As for the Chihuahua-sized dog behind the fence, Doggie’s look went hand in hand with a brief hackles-up, and the immediate dismiss went with hackles-down. This is the hackles-up of arousal we see in many young (and some adult) dogs, especially shepherdy ones and other dogs with this type of coat: they’ll often have “trigger-happy hackles.” Sudden/unexpected spikes in arousal express themselves in this way a lot. This is something to read in context. If the context is surprise and the dog comes right back down to baseline or combines it with curiously approaching and loose body language, this is neither what we commonly label as “fear” or “aggression” – it is just the way internal arousal manifests itself. Arousal is neutral – neither “good” nor “bad.”
I’ll try and get a video of arousal-happy hackles sometime; I imagine folks with dogs whose coat is longer or tends to lie flat against the dog’s bodies, is curly or cover them fluffily are not aware of this, and it’s a good thing to know! (You wouldn’t see this in Goldens, rough-coated BCs, Shelties, Cockers or Poodles, for example.)
Handler focus and picking up behaviors
I’ve been throwing a lot of new stuff at Doggie, and am impressed how quickly he’s been picking things up. His handler focus is still strong, and he clearly appreciates genuine praise/pets and feedback (more so than the average dog.) If he checks in or comes back, just praising and petting will make his eyes shine. That’s a lovely quality. He may outgrow it … but it’s cool, however long it will last!
Toy play for Chai and Doggie
During Chai’s outing, we played in the basketball cage today until she was so tired she lay down in a puddle of rain water with her toy. While simultaneously playing with Chai, I taught Doggie a simple game of fetch and used it to strengthen his “libre” release in new circumstances: “sientate” to ask him to sit, “libre” and then toss his ball. I love seeing his understanding grow! Look at this boy sitting to ask for his toy rather than throwing himself at me!
In the video above, I wait for Doggie to voluntarily drop his ball or trade for kibble (“Drop” announces me dropping a handful of kibble, which then allows me to pick up the toy.)
I’m adding behaviors and cues to his game faster than I would otherwise because I don’t have as much time with Doggie as I would with my own dogs, and it could make a big difference in his future life quality. We’re now peacefully asleep after getting to both move and think. Good puppy!
Doggie’s solo training session
Doggie and I went to get some video and practice waiting at the curb. The behavior organically developed into stop at the curb and sit until released. We first practiced on leash, then with the leash dragging and then off leash.1
We’ll work on this every day at every curb on every walk until he goes back to Naucalpan.
We’ve also established that there’s no need for Doggie to walk in a halter. He can be off leash or on any collar; he just needs a fleece tug to carry or tug on anytime he feels the need to, and he won’t pull or bite shoes:
The video above is from September 5 when I had a friend following me and videoing for Doggie’s humans – but we started practicing on September 2. My hope is that this simple trick will allow them to feel less frustrated taking him out, and he’ll end up getting to go on more field trips – on or off leash.
If your pup or juvenile dog is a landsharky breed with boundless energy, try simply carrying something they can hold on to or dig their teeth into anytime they need an arousal release. If the material is fun to bite, dogs who express arousal with their mouths tend to quickly learn to use that biteable pacifier (rather than their leash or your body) whenever they need to!
Nail trims
I don’t know if and how often Doggie has gotten his nails done since he left, but I was curious to see if I could still handle his paws and clip the nails. I could – no problem at all except for when he wanted to play with the nail clippers instead. I LOVE that he continues being good with this procedure that we practiced soooo much!
Nail trims are one of these things some dogs need months and months to learn and tolerate. I’m SO glad I taught Game’s puppies nail trims are normal so their humans will be able to focus on fun stuff instead!
I know that Judge (Oso; purple collar boy) is having an easy time with the Dremel as well. I don’t know about the other three puppies, but will find out when I get a chance!
- The reason I can progress this behavior so fast is that I’m using R- in addition to R+. I don’t want to go into details in this post (I’m not interested in participating in the dog culture wars with this post), but I find it important to acknowledge this here. There is no way Doggie would be able to learn about the sidewalk boundary this fast without the R- component. ↩︎