Tag: dog adventures

Week 20 digest (August 13-19, 2023)

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August 13, 2023

Activity level: calm

We started our day off with 45 minutes at Fresa Parque. It’s nice how quiet it is at 7:30 on Sunday! Then our friend Dina joined the party and Chai and her got to run lots together.

Chai is now contently sleeping on the couch. This was a perfect start for the day! Game and her also found a bunch of stuff to scavenge on, including a bag of mysterious salsa.

Home alone

Game and I went trigger hunting, ran errands and park-officed for two hours while Chai stayed home. Really glad I made time for leaving her home alone – I need to make sure I keep up with Chai staying back and Game heading out with me as Chai is pretty much able to do as much as any adult dog, but still at an age where repetition is crucial for her to not develop FOMO.

Park-officing at Parque Morelos!

Now that we’re back, Chai is chewing on the Nylabonbe I got her yesterday. Based on her chew choices, I suspected she would like the hard rubber. And I was right! She is the first dog I’ve ever had who is into Nylabones! She looks blissed out chewing on it on the couch while Game couldn’t care less.

Solo adventure

In the late afternoon, Chai and I went out for about 20 minutes. We walked to the Toy Play Plaza on her back clip harness. I let her run around for a few minutes and, since there seemed to be a Squirrel Party going on, used her formal recall cue “Schnee,” marked with “Birds!” and ran with Chai to point out a squirrel. She had a blast! It was an easy recall with a big “IT’S A SQUIRREL!” reinforcer.

I then quickly set up for distraction recalls at the barrier stage with liver in container #1, location #2, reinforcing both with liver from my hand and the liver from the container. Today, Chai started towards the container while still chewing on the treat from my hand. She already knows she’ll get the distraction, and she is waiting for me to open her containers! I love it! I’ve been hiding my camera behind trees or bushes so it doesn’t become too much of a set-up cue. However, I suspect Chai still knows when things are set-ups. She’s just too damn smart to trick.

We walked back home in collar mode, making it between 5 and 20 steps between treats (20 only once: calm days are hard! That’s why we’ll make sure to keep at them!) Collar mode walking treats is how the Border Collie earns her keep on calm days that don’t have a lot of shaping in them!

House training …

August 14, 2023

Activity level: average

The AM

We spent 30 minutes at Fresa Parque. Chai played with the black whippety dog and a few others. When she plays with this dog, it becomes really clear that she isn’t the fastest Border Collie on the block! That little black one runs circles around her! She’s not slow and her movement pattern looks great, but she isn’t the fastest Border Collie I’ve seen. 4-months old Maki is already as fast as Chai. (You won’t see little Maki in pics and videos anymore because she moved back to the farm she was born on yesterday. She had made it clear that she NEEDED to have herding in her life. Viri and Esteban listened to her needs. It was a good and brave decision – a hard one, but the best decision for all of them. I am sorry, Esteban and Viri. It takes strength to do what’s best for our dogs, and you did!)

After today’s stint at the park, neither one of my dogs was “played out.” So they continued wrestling on the couch while I worked. Now, after playing and shaping, they are both soundly asleep!

Shaping!

We played two-toy fetch with two 10-peso coins and then shaped one object in another with both a clicker and a coin in the water bowl. Chai ROCKED it! You go girl! I love how toy skills and shaping are coming together to make this trick happen!

Solo adventure

We walked to the Dead Poultry Park. While Chai ran around chasing ardillas, I stealthily set up container #1 in its third location, with liver in it, for our barrier recall. I didn’t record this time because I didn’t have my phone with me. Unlike most previous reps, Chai and I had to stroll past the distraction area multiple times before she noticed it. As I suspected, the tripod is a cue to look for and then recall from a distraction! Going forwards, each container will have at least one rep I don’t film – just to be sure Chai generalizes the behavior when there isn’t a tripod. In any case: she was being a superstar!

She also found puke in the tall grass and ate a lot of it. We’ll see what her stomach thinks of that. She then played for quite a quite a while with a 10-months old German Shepherd, an adult mix and a Boxer. She mistook a Chihuahua for a squirrel – but only for a moment. Clearly, we need more Chihuahuas in our life! If you’re in Mexico City and have one who’d like to befriend a Border Collie, reach out to me!

On the way home, we walked in collar mode between 5 and 30 steps (we managed 30 several times – Chai was tired and a superstar about walking next to me)!

Back home …

I decided against shaping today: it means I won’t video, which means I’ll save myself video editing time. I am slowly but certainly getting sick of editing, but am still committed to this project of documenting every day in Chai’s training life. And there are SO many videos I still need to catch up on editing from the last couple months! Every new one adds to the pile. I am now at a point where most days, I edit more than I add or manage to break even. Slowly but certainly, the backlog is shrinking!

Instead of shaping, Chai rested back home, wrestled with Game and then ate the last remaining pieces of the Nylabone I had gotten her yesterday. (No, it is – supposedly – not edible, but according to Chai most delicious.)

Home alone

Chai stayed home alone when Game and I walked to a pet supply store to pick up a few things – among them a Nylabone-replacement for Chai. It’s an off-brand chew, but Chai approves – and so far, it seems a lot sturdier than the original Nylabone!

Hours later, that toy has been played with and chewed on and is still intact!

Another reinforcer test

I also did a reinforcer test today. A few days ago, Chai found a pile of irresistible fish treats at the park – so I got fish treats (at a RIDICULOUS prize). I thought they might make another single-protein option if Chai’s stomach agreed with them. After all, she seemed CRA-ZY about the ones she scavenged. Well, pitted against dried beef liver (which we already established is the same value as cooked chicken), the fish clearly lost!

I wonder what the fish treats at the park had that the ones I got don’t have. They looked the same and I got them at a store close to the park to maximize our chances that they actually were the same brand. Maybe the ones she found just sat in a puddle of lukewarm rainwater for a while and went deliciously bad while the ones I got were still boringly safe for consumption?

House training

Just gotta keep it up two more days and I’ll get the next brownie!

August 15, 2023

Activity level: average

The AM

We started the day with 45 minutes of being dogs at Fresa Parque where Chai got to play with a park friend.

Game did NOT beat up a Whippet who didn’t see her and accidentally crashed into her at full speed. She was going to and I immediately interrupted her. I don’t think she would have stopped before having told the Whippet that this behavior was inacceptable in the past. I have Pat Stuart to thank for this! Thank you!

Left: Chai and two of her park friends. Right: Game being a good girl who stays out of the commotion.

Home alone

Both dogs stayed home for a little under two hours while I worked with Scarlett and Panucho, a Golden who is taking his first steps towards being a social butterfly (rather than a grumbly grouch). He did fantastic and so did our helper Pau!

Panucho: breaking hearts with extreme cuteness since 2021!

Solo adventure

Chai and I walked to Kiba’s Park. I let her run and sniff and did a barrier recall with container #2 in location #1, reinforcing with liver from my hand and from the container. Like yesterday, I casually placed my distraction and then came across it; no tripods giving its presence away. Chai was being a superstar!

We saw Nicole, a kid who is crazy about dogs, knows all the dogs at the park and LOVES Border Collies. Chai has learned to stay just out of their reach since Nicole likes calling and picking up “their dog friends.” Chai has figured out how to dodge that bullet by now, doing casual drive-by-s but staying just out of Nicole’s reach. It soon started raining … time to head home after a shorter-than-expected adventure. Chai wasn’t done running yet and needed a high rate of leash-walking reinforcement.

Shaping

Over the course of the day, we had 3 four-in sessions and I did one session practicing my timing and mechanics without a dog. We’re down to (struggling with) my smallest bowl already! I’m proud of my girl.

House training

One more check mark tomorrow!

August 16, 2023

Activity level: average

The AM

We spent half an hour at Fresa Parque. Chai had lots of fun playing with Doodle puppy Pipa and her friend Dina. Game got brushed and had fun greeting Dina and two of her human friends. We’re now at a point where Chai gets really excited to see Dina while Game gets really excited to see Dina’s human Daniel, who may already be regretting that he told me Game was welcome to Malinois-hug him anytime.

Chai also found a most delicious dead squirrel (nice and smelly after probably having been dead for a few days) and had some of it before I threw it out. We’ll see what her stomach thinks of that input tomorrow!

Home alone

Both dogs stayed home alone while I ran errands.

Noon and beyond

Around noon, the three of us walked to the Toy Play Plaza. Game and Chai had a blast trying to run up vertical palm trees after squirrels while I worked. We then did barrier recall with liver in container #2 in its second location. I tried setting up as casually as possible: first the tripod, then walk away, then walk past it, then place container #2 while Chai wasn’t watching. Of course she turned and saw it, moved towards it … and did a beautiful formal recall. I had planned to walk some more before encountering it, but this worked too. It was lovely to see the recall work just as well in Game’s presence! (Usually, I only take Chai for her recall set-ups.)

After 1.5 hours of chasing squirrels, getting treats for checking in while I was working and (Chai) practicing a recall and playing briefly with a mix, the girls are back home and sleeping peacefully on the couch. The highlight of this outing, I am sure, was finding and sharing a pile of what looked like gooey tortilla chips with some sort of salsa.

Shaping

We did three sessions of 4 in with only the smalles bowl (blue, bowl #6). Chai is doing great and much more confident than only a few days ago!

Reinforcer test

We ended the day with another reinforcer test. Since Chai had so clearly preferred the liver over the fish treats, I wanted to know whether fish was even better than kibble. I used a blanket this time to give the fish better visibility in case camouflage had been their disadvantage in the last session. If the other day was any indication, these fish need every bit of help they can get!

Believe it or not – kibble is better than fancy fish treats!

House training

We DID it! Anther week – another brownie!!

August 17, 2023

Activity level: average

The AM

We started with 30 minutes at Fresa Parque – we had half an hour before it started raining. Since it was already drizzling, not a lot was going on this morning but we walked for 30 minutes and greeted a few dogs.

Shaping

We had three sessions of 4 in with the smallest bowl (#6). So much fun!

Solo adventure

TW: dead animals. If you don’t want to read about them, skip to the next heading (Home alone).

Chai and I walked around for two hours and she got off-leash time at the Dead Poultry Park where we practiced barrier recalls, did easy “Schnee” (her formal recall) recall games and a “Schnee” recall reinforced by “Birds” (squirrel chase marker). She very much knows what the marker cue “Birds” means by now and gets just as excited as Game does!

Chai also found another dead critter (not a chicken this time) – she’s getting annoyingly good at finding smelly carcasses. Of course, she enjoyed some of it before we agreed on leaving it behind. (I’d let her eat the entire thing if it wasn’t for her stomach issues.) Whatever this carcass was, it wasn’t a squirrel like the other day because it was BIG, but already decomposed to an unrecognizable degree. What is the deal with this park anyways? Is this where everyone goes to die?

On the way back home, we walked in collar mode with 5-30 steps between treats. (30 only once but she did well today in general!)

Home alone

Chai and Game stayed home alone in the morning when I ran errands and got my hard-earned brownie for yesterday’s weekly streak (it was delicious!).

House training

The brownie I earned for the weekly streak I completed last night!

New week – new streak!

August 18, 2023

Activity level: average

The AM

The three of us spent 40 minutes at Fresa Parque – then we left because Chai had found some delicious spot to insist on licking for-e-ver, which meant she was done playing with her park friends. Other people get fancy licky mats – I just take my dogs to the park. Game is a pretty foodie dog, but Chai is another level of food motivated – probably my dog foodiest one so far. I’m not complaining! Not only does she not tire of working for kibble, she also gets super excited about low-budget frozen Kongs (filled with soaked and squished kibble).

Home alone

Chai and Game stayed home alone for 3.5 hours while I went to a no-dogs social thing.

Shaping

We did four 4-in sessions with the smallest bowl …

Rainy park times

… and then Game and Chai spent 40 minutes walking to and running around Fresa Parque in the light rain and waited for me outside a store. Walking on her back-clip harness on the way out was hard for Chai today! (Game was off leash and ahead of us.)

A little more training

I didn’t record it to avoid “having to” edit the video, but I LOVE how well Chai did! Fold-back downs on a verbal cue – no lure! I’ll record the next session.

House training

Two days into the next weekly streak, and it wasn’t a tie! Yay!

August 19, 2023

Activity level: average

The AM

The dogs and I spent 45 minutes at Fancy Park I for our morning outing. It was a fun change for them, included play in the fountain and hide and seek.

Playing in one of the fountains! Chai was intrigued by the moving pillar of water!

Note to self: if going to Fancy Park I on the weekend, go early and parking will be easy!

Being in an area with bars and restaurants on a Saturday morning meant there was A LOT of food everywhere. I was daring greatly and recalled Chai away from two tiny yogurt containers with her formal recall cue (after pup-pup-pup failed). She came running and I sent her right back. Go puppy!

Photo proof of the first time I used “Schnee” in the real world away from food Chai had found, fed a handful of kibble and sent her back to finish her prize! So proud of you, puppy!

This, unfortunately, made me overly confident. I tried a second time with a food container while she was already eating. Chai did not respond. Ooops. Error on my side. I “helped” her let go of it, repeated my formal recall and then sent her back to eat more of it twice. She also found a mount of cream cheese with a tiny bit of bagel around it and thought it was the best thing ever. I did not try any recalls or leave its there but leashed her and walked her away after letting her lick a third of it. It was A LOT of cream cheese and I don’t think her stomach would have supported all of it. That said, I am going to get cream cheese and try using it as my highest value reward!

Scavenging and life quality (an opinion)

By now, I am less stressed about letting Chai go back to small amounts of food after a recall (or just letting her have small amounts of found food in the first place.) Small amounts seem to have become okay with her stomach. Judging by my observations over the last couple weeks, Chai’s highly sensitive puppy stomach has slowly, but steadily grown stronger and does now tolerate of a much wider range of food! A huge relief because I see scavenging as SUCH a species-typical dog behavior and want my dogs to have it in their lives.

After reflecting on this some more, I’ve decided that I’ll even take the occasional diarrhea day. I don’t want to create a dog who lives in fear that I’ll take away a treasure they find. I want a strong recall that works away from any kind of food source anyways and am working up to it in our distraction sessions – but I’ll only ever use it when absolutely necessary. When Chai finds the next delicious food container like she did this morning, I won’t call her away from it (for now – we’ll get there after more distraction recall practice) but celebrate the find with her. And I’ll send Game (if available) to help finish the job so Chai only gets to inhale 50% of whatever she finds.

Life quality (being able to show species-typical behaviors such as scavenging) matters more to me than diarrhea-free dogs. I put scavenging in the life quality category because I suspect that’s what the dogs would tell me if they could weigh in. My readers may see this differently and that’s totally okay. Like in most things life, there is no one right way of being out in the world with our dogs. You do you and I do me!

Allowing scavenging is of course not a recall cop-out: the way I see it, strong recalls also go into the life quality category. The stronger their recall, the more freedom I can safely give my dogs. I absolutely want a recall I can rely on even under the most challenging food circumstances, and because of who Chai is, I’m positive we’ll get there – probably not in a straight line, but we will. From what I’ve seen so far, I suspect that food will stay her biggest recall challenge, but food is a controllable distraction and she’s a trainable Border Collie who doesn’t guard resources. With that kind of dog, food is the best biggest recall challenge you could possibly have! (This is not true for all dogs. Add resource guarding or low biddability to the mix and things look different for sure.) Chai isn’t the most biddable Border Collie I have worked with by far, but that’s part of what makes her so much fun for me. It’s not only her Border-Collie-ness, but also her quirks and the ways in which she challenges me that make her a great fit for me.

Shaping

I was going to continue with 4 in and the smallest container, but Chai said she wanted a break from this exercise. So we stopped. I’ll give it a week and then continue where we left off.

We worked on positions instead!

Afternoon adventure

I took both dogs to Fresa Parque when the rain died down. Chai got to play with Pipa (the Golden Doodle puppy) and Lola (Pipa’s older Old English Sheepdog sister). I usually chat with Pipa’s human, so this was fun. Their friend was here too and they invited Chai to play monkey in the middle together with Lola and her baseball.

Monkey in the middle with Lola and her human!

Chai didn’t have a solo adventure today, but she’ll have a big one tomorrow! And then I’ll have to take Game on a longer solo adventure of her own – probably a bike trip – next week to make sure Chai gets some longer home-alone time without Game. It’s an important skill to maintain! It’s also important to me that Game gets her fair share of solo adventures herself. I’m too busy to do it every single day these days, but two or three times a week are usually possible.

Home alone

Both dogs stayed home alone when I quickly went to the grocery store.

House training

Today’s pee outing was unsuccessful – but fascinating! Game didn’t pee because, I suspect, she didn’t have to and it was thundering. I cued Chai to “potty” in a spot Game often goes, and she immediately squatted but didn’t pee. I have captured squatting, but not peeing! Her cue to squat is, “Potty,” her prompt to mark is Game’s fresh pee on the ground and her cue to empty her bladder is having to go when not distracted from the bodily sensation by the environment. FASCINATING! I have exclusively rewarded after the potty cue when I saw at least a few drops (marking). And YET, squatting is what Chai has learned as the meaning of the cue! Dogs are SO fascinating!

Chaiary – week 14 digest: July 3-9, 2023

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July 3, 2023 (day 88 with me)

Activity level: average (low physical, high cognitive)

The AM …

We started the morning with our usual walk. Today we took our time, looped the park twice and greeted and dismissed several dogs – good puppy!

2-toy tug reinforced by fetch at Fresa Parque

We dropped Game off at home and Chai and I walked to Fresa Parque in harness mode. There, we had a lovely session of 2-toy fetch and then enjoyed the park some more before heading back home in collar mode. Chai did really well!

Later, we started shaping two tricks from Silvia Trkman‘s first to-do list: “Earn it!” in the apartment and a 2-front-paw target on the roof. Chai is a dog who is happy to keep working and shaping for a long time. She reminds me of the first time I took Sue Ailsby‘s shaping class with Phoebe: we could work and work and work and she wouldn’t tire; I could have spent all day shaping. Chai, at her current age, is like that too – SO much fun!

Staying home alone

She then stayed home alone for Game’s early-afternoon walks and while Game accompanied me for a hair cut.

During Game’s evening walk, Chai got to practice staying home alone a second time.

More shaping!

After coming home, I continued Chai’s 2-paw target shaping. We ended with a relatively consistent 1-paw on the target and will progress to 2 paws tomorrow … I’ve already fed her almost twice her meal in today’s shaping sessions so it’s probably time to stop.

Prepositions for announcements

Today, I started adding prepositions to the announcements I’ve been using for Chai. Is she going to learn and understand them? I don’t know but I assume that with time and context, she will. And even if she doesn’t – striving for the greatest possible clarity when communicating with our dogs (or anyone else) is a worthwhile pursuit in any case.

House training adventures

I am proud to report that our streak continues! Week one of the game couldn’t be going any better! If I make it two more days, I’ll treat myself to a fancy browny – and then we start week 2! Sadly, Chai’s diarrhea is back as well. Here’s to making the shower her default pooping spot! She went there by herself, too.

July 4, 2023 (Day 89)

Activity level: low

The AM …

Chai greeted a few dogs on our 2-dog morning loop and then did well on the retractable leash while Game was off leash – hardly any circles or food reinforcers needed!

Almost home, we found a creepy bouquet of artificial flowers on the ground. Magic hands and Game walking right up to investigate it for the win! If I had already had coffee, I would have turned the bouquet into a toy – but sans caffeine, I really wanted to get home and fuel up.

2 trips and one toy play session at the plaza

After a bit of work, I took Chai to our neighborhood plaza for a quick 2-toy game according to Shade‘s instructions. I’m planning to make today our “calm” day – it’s a good one because I’m meeting a friend and can leave her home. Plus I want to resist the temptation to keep shaping until the diarrhea is gone: my home remedy for diarrhea is 12-24 hours of fasting.

Chai did great walking to the plaza and back with the leash attached to her harness. I replaced most food reinforcers with brief spouts of personal play or running together and needed hardly any circles. At the park, Chai saw someone move a giant water-spouting hose – a new and interesting experience, but not a scary one! Brave puppy!

Play went well even though Chai answered the question whether she could tug without misses first with a “not really – I like my misses.” It may also have been that she expected the first play move to be a chase and was taken aback when I cued a tug.

First time off leash on the sidewalk during the day

Chai will be an off-leash Mexico City dog. When I first got her, I worked on this by means of exclusively walking her on a long line to simulate an off-leash experience (while keeping her safely on the sidewalk next to a busy car street). We’ve also been working on being an off leash city dog for about a month by taking off-leash urban walks between 2AM and 4AM when there are almost no cars in the street. (Furture me chiming in here: the nightly walks are a tradition I stopped a few days after writing this Chiary entry. It led to very tired days for me and after a month, I needed a break!) Other off-leash city dog elements:

  • Working towards a solid formal recall.
  • Practicing “Leave it” (and its generalization to stepping off the sidewalk) and …
  • “Wait” at the curb.
  • Being off leash when there is a barrier of shrubbery or parked cars between a park and the street.

My plan is to have her drag a long line – no Game present, just Chai – during the day as soon as we make it all the way through our distraction tracker for the formal recall (formal recalls are emergency breaks).

Yesterday, I made an exception to the rule of not having Chai off leash in the street during the day just yet: a neighbor’s dog came bounding down the sidewalk as we were on our way back from the plaza. Since the playful dog was running directly towards us, I unhooked Chai’s leash so she could play. They did for about a minute on the sidewalk and then I walked the last 30 meters home off leash as well. Chai didn’t leave the sidewalk. Good girl! Back to the original plan though as long as there are no playful pups around!

Staying home alone

Game and I are about to head out and meet a friend – time for Chai to be a good stay-home-alone puppy and for Game to get a bike run in!

Game, being a hipster dog for a day. We are street food people, but sometimes – usually when friends want to go OR when I want to dog-train – we head to a place like this one. And yes, of course: “somos lo que somos.

Chai did great staying home alone for 3.5 hours, and Game enjoyed a 20 minute bike ride, 2.5 hours of hanging out at a café and chewing her rawhide bone and 30 minutes of biking home on a different route.

Chai got to stay home again a second time during Game’s evening walk. We’ll count today as the calm day of the week! Our second calm day (the one to make up for last Sunday’s high activity day) might be Friday.

Housetraining

The streak continues! Wheee, it is fun to see my arrows turn green! We’ve almost made it through a week!

July 5, 2023 (Day 90)

Activity level: average (low physical, high cognitive)

The AM …

We had an uneventful morning walk.

Home alone

After work, both dogs stayed home while I bought supplies for trick training, and then Chai stayed home alone again while Game and I headed out for a bit.

Shaping, shaping, shaping!

I shaped away one day’s worth of Chai’s kibble for paw target experiments (we both love this game).

2-toy tug and fetch and waiting at the ice cream store

… then we walked in harness mode to Fresa Parque and played a short 2-toy game before being rudly interrupted by a tall barky stranger Mal mix. As by Shade’s suggestion, I tried cueing “chase” while Chai was tugging rather then after she dropped and offered eye contact to reinforce the tugging rather than the drop.

Chai then waited patiently for me as I got ice cream:

Her right ear has been in a floppy mood!

… and more shaping!

Back home, I shaped a second day’s worth of kibble away in 6 short sessions and then took Game on her evening walk while Chai stayed home alone a third time.

(And yes, there was work too in between all of this, cooking and a post-icecream nap for me.)

House training: the streek continues!

As of today, we’ve made it through an entire week without peeing in the living room! I’ve earned myself a browny! The week 1 streak in all its glory:

July 6, 2023 (Day 91)

Activity level: high average

The AM …

Our morning walk was shorter than usual because I wanted to get home and finish work before meeting Alan and Kiba for our train-and-play date. Work went fast and I had time to clicker up Chai’s daily food ration again. Shaping this dog is FUN! My way of not going overboard is only having the daily food ratio available and stopping once I’m through it (if I can help it). It’s also not one continuous session, of course – one session is either what fits in my hand or what fits in my hand plus another handful of food from my pocket. Then there’s a short break; then we might do another session.

Knowing how much and how fast juvenile dogs change, it is difficult for me not to get carried away with shaping and tricks while I have such an avid learner: there is no way of knowing whether Chai’s stamina and enthusiasm for training will be the same a week from now or once she’s an adult. (My own training stamina and enthusiasm is off the charts these days but will probably wear off a bit in the future.)

Home alone

While Chai is on pee-standby in the bathroom, Game and I are about to head out. After practicing impulse control on her mat, it’s time to give her a little outdoors freedom before Chai gets all the action again!

I used the opportunity to get my week-long streak reinforcer:

Yumm! Game (nose at top left corner) thinks so too!

2-toy tug/fetch and dog/dog play time!

Alan had to cancel our training meeting because he got sick. Instead, I recorded Chai’s toys homework for Shade sans interruptions and then Chai got to play a little bit in the dog park. I decided to go in because there were only two dogs who looked calm. Chai got them to play, and we practiced two recalls out of play for chicken. I had planned on doing this with Kiba today, but since there was no Kiba, these two playmates would do! Chai was a star – however, I’m sure this was easier than Kiba would have been. Kiba is her best buddy and hard to disengage from while Chai has never met these two dogs before and generally recalls well from strange dogs. (Still: this is the very first time I recalled her in the middle of playing – and she came back right away! Go Chai! This may actually have been an excellent step before practicing with Kiba.)

The video below shows Chai’s dog park socializing and the two formal recalls we did – the second one out of full-on play.

More paw target shaping

Back home, we took a break and then shaped for (almost) an entire second day’s meal. We now have two mostly steady paws on 3 different targets: a plastic tupperware lid, a plant saucer and a porcellain plate!

Husbandry

+ “Brush” announcement and brushing!

Toy play Silvia Trkman style

It was thundering and rain-storming and Game was scared (of the thunder). I don’t want Chai to adopt Game’s fears, so we casually played with always-out toys on the couch. There’s also a TV show running in the background … distraction training AND play! I want her to chase and tug on any toy I offer and also learn more about her favorites and preferred play style in a casual context.

(The reason Chai and I can play in this video without Game joining in is that Game is too worried about the thunder to play.)

House training

… week 2 of 4! The streak continues! If Chai makes it another 7 days without accidents in the living room (only in the shower cabin or outdoors), I’ll get another browny. After a 4-week streak – which we may or may not get to on our first attempt – I’m going to treat myself to something bigger. In any case – if all I ever win in my streak game are brownies, that’ll work for me too!

July 7, 2023 (Day 92)

Activity level: low

The AM …

I let Game and Chai run around the park a little more than usual because I’m planning on a calm day today. Chai got to greet several dogs she knows and then we walked back home – Game off leash, Chai on the retractable leash.

Shaping!

After work, we started another project for Silvia’s class: 4 in a box!

A brief 2-short-leashes pee walk

later, I headed off to co-work with a friend at a favorite queer meet-up café while Game and Chai stayed home for about 4 hours.

More shaping!

We did one more 4-in session (Chai was a superstar!) and then called it a day.

I have succeeded in keeping today a light, calm day! AND I made up for all the kibble I fed over the last two days by feeding (i.e. training) less today! (Remember my rule: one day a week has to be calmer than average. If I do a high (rather than average) activity day, I will try to balance it out with a second calm day in that same week. Tomorrow will likely be high activity again – we’re planning on a trail hike. More keep-it-calm challenges for me to come! (Calm days are the hardest for me! Seeing friends helps because it takes up time I would otherwise spend training.)

Housetraining

Streak game week 2, day 2 – we earned another green check mark! Woohooo!

Empty puppies – and empty puppies only! – get to chill on the bed.

July 8, 2023 (Day 93)

Activity level: average

Los Dinamos – finalmente!

After the briefest of morning pee walks (the dogs) and coffee (me), we made our third attempt to head to Los Dinamos, a nature park in the south of Mexico City. And we did it! Finally, nothing got in the way of our plans.

This was Chai’s first “real” nature walk – not in a city park but jumping across fallen trees, scrambling up and down hills and rocks and exploring the slippery rocks and muddy ground of a shallow river. She had a blast – and so did Game. Game loves running in spaces like this and I can tell how much she’s missed it when we go again after a longer break.

I found out that Chai doesn’t yet know she has to keep an eye on me in this kind of environment in order not to accidentally lose me. So I played a lot of hide and seek (hiding behind a tree or rock when she wasn’t looking, letting her worry just a little bit and then waiting for her to find me and celebrating with social feedback:”Yay! Did you lose me? You found me! What a good puppy!”)

Here’s an excerpt of Game and Chai adventuring at Los Dinamos:

Chai also discovered she likes to eat horse poop and found several bone parts of deceased animals to nibble on. I could “Schnee” recall her away from horse poop and successfully traded all bones for chicken. Superpuppy!

In terms of structured sessions, after first getting there and peeing (Chai), I had a 2-toy session for Shade’s class. This space felt different to her than city parks – I could see it in her slightly lower-than-usual focus. Apart from that, she did really well!

We had fun in the shallow river and both dogs got to play with a (non-training) ball in the water.

Otherwise, I just let them be dogs and run around for an hour. We met a couple suddenly appearing people and dogs – very different from the constant buzz of the city! – but Chai, after looking at me questioningly the first time it happened, did well. Game knows the drill and just curves around strangers.

Before we left, we saw a horse – someone was cantering down the trail at full speed. Game barked and wanted to give chase (a “leave it” brought her right back to me – chicken for the big girl!) Chai, who has never met a horse, barked after Game did and scrambled back to me as if she had just seen the devil. I’m looking forward to an opportunity for her to meet more horses – quiet, steady ones who are not crashing down trails! – in the future to ensure she feels neutral about them.

We headed home after only about an hour. So there is still lots of kibble left for shaping in the afternoon, and since we weren’t out very long, I don’t have to worry about overdoing it!

Shaping 4 in!

I used up the remainder of Chai’s daily food ration in two medium-length shaping sessions in the afternoon. We ended with 4 in from all the angles! Good puppy!

Pee walk and bakery

In the late afternoon, Chai and Game got to join me on a mini pee walk to the bakery around the corner, wait outside and then help explain some dog training things to the good folks at the bakery who collected my phone number for a neighbor with two barky adolescent Xolos.

Game imitated Chai’s peeing, I got my “Potty” cue in and reinforced, and we went back upstairs: the empty puppy earned living room privileges again!

Thunder

It is thundering again tonight. Not only is Chai not concerned – Game is feeling way better than last time as well!

Housetraining

Happy to report that my second brownie is getting closer …!

July 9, 2023 (Day 94)

Activity level: low average

The AM …

Given that the AM starts at midnight, I am sad to report that our AM started in a less than relaxing way: someone right around the corner must have been celebrating something (it was Saturday night), and as we came back from our night walk at around 1:45 AM, there were LOUD cohetes.

Fireworks are new for Chai: she looks at me and Game to figure out the appropriate response. So I spent the next hour counterconditioning: big boom – scatter. Big boom – scatter. Chai was happy about her scatters, ate a lot of kibble and then, before I could assess whether she was already happy about hearing big booms, the booms stopped … and we could all go back to sleep. The only one who didn’t get a lot of sleep, I’m afraid, is Game. She looks very tired this morning.

Toy skills!

We did two sessions of tugging reinforced by chase today. Chai now needs less misses in order to enjoy her tug! Good girl!

In the first session, she needed the visual of my outstretched arm with the second toy after my “Chase” cue to let go in the first chase-past-tug rep. In the second rep, she let go of her toy on a verbal “Chase” alone.

In the second session, Chai responded differently to the verbal “Tug” than to the verbal “Chase,” and she let go on the verbal “Chase” alone both times and showed prediction behaviors for chasing, with the other ball still out of sight! Woohooo! Go puppy!!!

Dog socializing

Chai also got to run around a bit and play with a bunch of dogs before we went to a café to work (me) and practice chilling on her mat (Chai). I wanted to make sure she got her need to move and greet dogs out of the way first to set her up for success.

I made sure not to tire her out during our break – I don’t want a dog who lies calmly on her mat because she is exhausted, but a dog who lies calmly on her mat because her social needs and needs to move have been met and she’s ready to watch the world go by for a bit.

Café training

We stayed for about 40 minutes, and there was a lot going on! Chai did VERY well!

Left: waiting outside while I order at the coffee shop – next to another unfamiliar dog who is also waiting for their person! Right: chilling on her mat at the café. This is a fancier place than I like going, but it’s at an wonderfully busy corner – it’s great for training.

Then we left for another round of park play and socializing before Chai got too wound up. 40 minutes of sitting relatively still at a busy corner restaurant is a lot for a young dog! We then returned to the café and I finished up my workload for the morning with Chai being a superstar again.

Here’s a post about the art of doing nothing with a video of our practice session at the café.

Home alone

Chai stayed home alone during Game’s noon and afternoon (pre-rain) walks and during her evening walk.

Housetraining

Chai peed at the park without needing inspiration or a role model to follow! You go girl!

We’re past the halfway mark for the week! Yay! And no accidents of any kind in the living room! I can smell you already, yummy brownie!

Chaiary – week 13 digest (June 26 – July 2, 2023)

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Monday, June 26 2023 (day 81)

Activity level: low

Not a lot going on today. We started off with an attempt at playing tug reinforced by fetch with two balls on a rope at Fresa Parque. Shade had suggested we move to a place where Chai can really run and I can throw the ball further than on the roof. While our last session went well, today we had some pretty intense dog interruptions – but Chai was able to fetch despite being body-blocked by a Whippety dog! Go puppy!

After toy play, Chai got to run around a bit with the other dogs at the park and then had her morning walk with Game. The rest of the day was lazy.

Chai stayed home alone while Game and I walked errands for about an hour – good puppy! And then a not-so-great puppy when I took a shower: I closed the door to the bathroom and Chai had an accident on my bed. Note to self: always lock Chai into the bathroom with me when the door isn’t open!

It has finally started raining this week, so Game and I walked around the block during a rain break and Chai got to practice staying home alone again. When I got back, I found that she had even worse diarrhea than she had this morning. Pobrecita! I hope it passes soon and we’ll be able to go back to eating and training!

Tuesday, June 27 2023 (day 82)

Activity level: average

Good news of the day: no more diarrhea! Chai gets to train and eat again!

Morning walk

Chai started her day with the usual 2-dog morning walk.

Staying home alone x3

She stayed home alone 3 times during the course of the day: when Game and I went to drop off laundry, when we went to pick up our laundry again and for Game’s evening walk.

Toy play

We played two rounds – the first one rudely interrupted by an entire manada of dogs – at a park Chai hadn’t been to before. I like it for training: it tends to have less food on the ground than some of my other favorite parks. Chai did well tugging and getting reinforced with fetch!

We used my Magic Hands1 strategy on a circle of stones. Magic Hands worked fast AND I got video of it:

Magic Hands

Loose leash walking – Manners Context

Heading home from the park, we practiced loose leash walking in collar mode. Chai was a superstar! 5, 15 and then 20, 20, 20 … steps for the win! Two of her 20-step treats were replaced by a “good” treat for waiting at the curb and one by a”get it” to reinforce a “leave it.”

Fun at the park with Alan and Kiba

Chai spent two hours playing with Kiba, Loki and a new pup. We then walked to the market, went inside and practiced lying down and chilling at the pet supply stand and the chicken stand.

A different kind of doing nothing: waiting patiently in a down in the presence of delicious chicken smells!

At the market with Alan and Kiba.

After another round of running and playing at the park, we walked Alan home and then worked on our LLW on a collar some more! Played-out puppies are successful loose-leash walkers!

Manners-context loose-leash walking back home

Chai’s collar walking is really starting to look good! More and more, I am able to swap the twenty-step treat for naturally occurring reinforcers: a cued wait at a curb followed by “good” and a room service treat, or a “leave it” followed by a treat toss behind me. These treats (wich I would be giving Chai anyways; Game also still gets them for stopping/waiting and “leaving” things) are starting to replace LLW treats. I have faded most hand touch treats and soon, I’ll add environmental rewards to the game! The biggest success of the day: we curved out into a quiet street past two leashed dogs while keeping up the 20-step treat rate! Go Chai!

“Floor” protocol

You’ll notice the dark blue arrow in my image above. “Floor” is a marker cue that means I will place a treat at the heel of my foot on the dog’s side. Placing it on the ground is arousal-lowering because the dog can’t sniff for it/eat it and bounce up and down at the same time. It is similar to what I’m doing when passing the Pitbull in this post (May 31; first video in the post), with the only difference being that the marker cue is “Floor” and the treat is being placed at my heel. When I use one “Floor” treat after the other – every step or every other step – I call it the “floor protocol.” When walking past new dogs for the first or second time, I will often use this approach with Chai and then change to feeding from my hand once she knows the dogs are there.

Wednesday, June 28 2023 (day 83)

Activity level: high average

Adventures in house training

After Chai’s and Game’s usual morning walk, Chai sadly had a pee accident on the bed when taking a moment’s break from wrestling with Game. I had everything washed after the accident yesterday, but it is possible that something got into the mattress and it still smells like pee … I also wonder if Chai is like one of these puppy mill puppies who have spent a sensitive period of their puppyhood in a crate and need to poop and pee where they sleep, and if therefore, she will never be fully house trained. Puppies don’t usually pee where they sleep (and start showing this behavior at 3 weeks old already, according to a student’s breeder!). Chai sleeps on the bed during the day, so if she had read the manual, she should technically not pee on it. Good thing I love Chai too much to particularly care about the occasional accident.

At night, she had another pee accident – next to rather than on the mattress, woohoo! We are making progress here! (This is me being sarcastic in case you couldn’t tell.)

Eye contact

Chai got treats for making eye contact and I added a cue to the behavior for the first time: “Watch me!” We played while Zane was having breakfast and learned to offer me eye contact rather than beg for his danish.

Relax while people are eating

When I stopped the eye contact game, Chai offered lying down. I fed a treat between her front paws any time she was not looking at me. Zane was still eating and she stayed relaxed – that is precisely the behavior I want around people having food. I don’t want Chai to focus on me either, so I am waiting for looking away to feed.

Dog fun and recalls at Fresa Parque

After my morning work, we went to Fresa Parque. On the walk there, we passed someone working with an angle grinder. Chai was neither impressed by the noise nor by the flying sparks!

My plan was to work on distraction recalls at the park. Before we got started, Chai got to play with two dogs her size who enjoyed running games and confidently met her first Irish Wolfhound.

Then I set up my camera and the first distraction (see this post) and casually skipped 10 entire steps of my distraction tracking protocol without even noticing. The protocol I have taught others for years! THIS, my dear students, is why I want you to print out your distraction tracker and look at it before every session.

I completely forgot that I hadn’t done the barrier stage “in real life” yet and jumped from barrier recalls in locations 1 and 2 straight to off-leash recalls at the park. Chai passed distractions 1 and 2 in flying colors but failed distraction #3 (kibble). Only then did I realize how many steps I had skipped! Note to self: practice what you preach! Print out Chai’s distraction tracker (I tend to only look at stuff I print).

I was going to get us quesadillas for lunch and passed the dog park on the way there. Since the dogs in in it seemed calm and there was a Great Dane, I decided to let Chai inside briefly so she could meet another large dog. She did phenomenal just like she had with the Irish Wolf.

Adventures at Fresa Parque and a Great Dane in the dog park. Yep, she’s a dog park puppy!

We got water, looped the park again, did some personal play and then headed to the quesadilla stand. Chai did a fantastic job lying down when I stepped on her leash! It is becoming a pretty solid cue, and like in the morning, I am treating – without marking, thanks to Matthias‘ post in the Canine Paradigm discussion group the other day – when she looks away: shaping relaxation in the face of distractions.

Standing on the leash as a cue to lie down and shaping relaxation at the quesadilla stand.

We got back home after about an hour and 20 minutes, having trained up almost all of Chai’s daily kibble meal. Chai was a fantastic (aka sleepy) coworking pup for the next several hours.

Being a good coworking puppy.

Positions

We worked on positions in the kitchen when I took a work break. Messy but fun!

Squirrels, toys, magic hands and sits!

I took Chai and Game to the plaza around the corner that we discovered for toy play yesterday – I want to get our daily toy practice session in there!

The two girls got to run around and chase squirrels for a bit and Game got brushed, and then I put her on her mat and played – interruption-free! – a brief game of 2 balls on a rope tug reinforced by fetch with Chai. She did awesome! I’m keeping things short and fun to build her stamina and joy for both games. (No video.)

Game, meanwhile, also did amazing and held her stay on the mat even though Chai and I were tugging and tossing balls right next to her.

Chai has started imitating Game’s tree jumps after squirrels. She’s going to like critter-chasing quite a bit with this role model!

Example of a trademark Game tree jump/climb.

We ended the field trip by playing in the fountain. Next to it, there is a suspicious metal lid with holes covering the loudly whirring water pump. We did Magic Hands and I added Game’s Magic Sit on the metal cover, and after a few reps with “Get it” treats tossed away from the fountain, Chai put two paws on the concrete rim around the metal cover! Brave puppy!

Chai also found a piece of chocolate today. Here’s to hoping it won’t mess up her stomach for the second time in a week!

Husbandry

+ Brushing

Thursday, June 29, 2023 (day 84)

Activity level: average

The AM

We started the day with our usual morning walk. Chai confidently met three new dogs of different ages and morphologies. On the way back home, I got lots of check-ins on the retractable leash while Game was off leash. Chai needed and hardly any circles! She realized when she was nearing the 5-meter mark and stopped on her own! Good girl!

Plaza work and another stab at real-world distraction recalls

Chai and I walked to a nearby plaza on her harness. After looping the park and greeting a few dogs (and eating grain someone had put out for the birds), we started over with barrier recalls in the real world: time to take another stab at those distractions! Chai struggled with distraction #2 (paper bag that used to have food in it) the first time, but tested out of all 3 barrier distractions over the course of the AM. After each session, we took a break and another loop and occasionally met another dog. I am proud to report: barrier recalls in the real world: achievement unlocked! Our next step will – or should anyways! – be off leash in the house.

Real world informal “pup-pup-pup” recalls have also been working well: I had two or three opportunities to use them when Chai was trotting towards a leashed unfamiliar dog and she nailed it every time. It’s only her friend Kiba who is difficult to recall away from!

We then had a toy play session: 2 balls on ropes; tug reinforced by fetch. I added the “Tug” cue and Chai did great – even when a young husky showed up! She kept tugging!

After another off-leash park loop, we played magic hands with the pump at the fountain again:

We walked the entire way back home in mostly 20-step collar mode. Real-world reinforcers have started becoming “a thing”: stopping behind me to sniff something? Absolutely! I will wait for you to be done! “Leave it”? Bring it on; another non-leash-related reinforcer! This route is also convenient in that it has several crosswalks to practice “Wait” at the curb reinforced by “Good” (room service), replacing another LLW click. We even dismissed and then walked behind a group of 5 dogs for about 30 seconds before they veered off in another direction.

Once home, we went up on the leash and took a video for a new Out and About (FDSA) bonus lecture: walking towards a distraction on a loose leash! Now, Chai is passed out on the couch next to Zane, being a most excellent coworking puppy again.

Chai then stayed home (in the bathroom – her “crate”) – with Zane while Game and I went to the market at Fresa Parque to get lunch. Thrusday is market day here – and the market doesn’t feel fresa at all. It was great! My favorite day at that park so far!

More loose leash walking challenges!

In the afternoon, we were going to film invisible-line challenge #2 on the roof … but right as I was starting to set up, it started raining. We worked on it in the house instead. This is significantly harder in small spaces but Chai was being a superstar and soon understood! This time, we did not walk towards, but past the distraction (2 pieces of kibble on a plate). Not only did we practice the manners context – we also practiced our “Leave it!” cue in the same session. In the end, Chai got to eat the distraction, of course!

Housetraining gamified!

We have not had any accidents in the living room so far! Go Chai! And go me: I have successfully kept full puppies in the bathroom and only let empty puppies into the living space. And I’ve turned my mattress into a Murphy bed to give the puppy less inconvenient (for me) surfaces to pee on. But – let’s not count our ostriches before they hedge. It’s only 16:45 and there is still plenty of time for accidents.

Final accidents-in-the-living-room count for today, right before going to sleep: 0! Woohoo!

I’m starting a streak game and aiming for 4 weeks with zero living room accidents! After 7 days without a living room accident, I get a fancy brownie. After 4 weeks, I get a deep tissue massage. If there is an accident, it only resets the current week. Once a 7-day streak is completed, it is locked in and cannot be lost (i.e. at the very must, I will loose 6 days.)

Wrestling and intelligence

I have been interrupting Chai and Game wrestling on the bed when Game starts barking. I announce to Chai that I will pick her up – and inadvertantly, I’ve been saying, “Let’s take a break!” before doing so. Chai has now picked up on this and stops playing and lies down when I say a sentence with “break.” As a result, Game stops barking and I won’t pick up Chai to put her away for a few minutes. I love observing this puppy learn!

Evening fun with the rest of Chai’s daily meal

We used up the remaining kibble of the day with positions in two sessions: one was sit and stand and one was down and stand. I need to get clear about when I want to room-service mark (good) and when I want to click. Chai, for her part, did great and she is FAST!

Friday, June 30, 2023 (day 85)

Activity level: average

After our usual morning walk, we walked in manners context from my house to the Plaza and back. Chai practiced 20 steps between treats, sniff reinforcers, waiting at curbs, dismissing dogs and “leave it”s and was a very good puppy. It was a little harder today than yesterday because she hadn’t had much of a chance to get rid of all her puppy energy beforehand!2

After a work break (work: me, break: Chai), we walked to Fresa Parque on Chai’s back clip harness and Chai got to run around there off leash and meet and greet several dogs. We also repeated the teeter and stairs exercises in the dog park we had done last week. It was only a 30 minute outing because I didn’t want to be late for a lunch date with friends.

Home alone

Chai then stayed home with Zane for 2.5 while Game and I biked to Condesa to meet friends and give Game her much-deserved only-dog time.

Two 20-minute Ecobici rides and a coffee outing later, Chai was ready to attack-play with Game!

Positions

I cut the crazy short by doing a single longer session of sits, stands and downs. Stand and down are going really well! We’ll focus our next session on sit versus down.

2 dogs on short leashes

After resting, wrestling with Game, drinking A LOT and more resting while I worked, I took both dogs on a short loop around two blocks to get milk. This is the second time I’ve walked them both together on short (2 m) leashes; Chai on her back attachment harness.

Usually, Game is either off leash or one dog is on a long line or the retractable leash while the other one is on a short leash. Like the first time, they did well! Chai’s initial excitement wore off soon and after some circling, she was able to sniff the world and not rush to the end of her leash. The reason I brought both of them out was that I wanted Chai to pee … and I knew she’d follow Game’s example. She did, and now the empty puppy and the empty Game are passed out in the living room without the danger of furniture being peed on. Plus they got to practice waiting outside the mini market together while I went in for milk!

Recalls!

We practiced off-leash recalls away from unprotected distractions #1 (empty plate) and #2 (plastic bag that used to have food in it because I couldn’t find a paper bag) in the house and got a single rep success on each of them. Go Chai!

For distraction #3 – the kibble – 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 in my house, 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. (No video.)

Toy play a la Silvia Trkman

Since I’m currently watching Silvia’s Puppy Diary (10/10 would recommend to sports and especially agility folks), I decided to play with their approach to toy play: create some sibling rivalry by playing with more than one dog – and more than one toy – at once. Game and Chai and I had fun with three always-out toys on the bed (decent grip for playing partly on the slippery floor!)

Husbandry and a lazy evening

Chai stayed home with Zane while Game and I ran errands and Game got some well-deserved only-dog time again. Chai was still sleepy when I got home, so after dinner, she got Zane snuggles, got brushed and then fell asleep on the couch until I transfrred her over to her luxury crate aka the bathroom for the night.

I said her potty cue right before she peed on her pee pad in the shower cabin – this is the second or third time I’ve named the behavior.

Housetraining

0 accidents in the living space! Streak counter:

Saturday, July 1, 2023 (day 86)

Activity level: average

The AM …

We were going to go on a hike today, but my friends couldn’t make it and I woke up REALLY tired this morning … So I decided to take it easy instead. We started with a longer morning walk with Game. Chai got to play with lots of different dogs at Fresa Parque and I recalled her running towards different new playmates two or three times successfully, rewarding with chicken and sending her right back. She was being a superstar and had lots of fun, again meeting dogs of new sizes, ages and morphologies.

Meanwhile, Game practiced being calm and getting fed for holding sits and just watching the craziness around her unfold. (Game is neutral with others but can tip over into bullying mode if dogs she doesn’t know very well are running like crazy, so I won’t let her participate.)

Chai continues being much better (hitting the end less often) on a 5 meter leash even when Game is off leash ahead of her. I let them play when one of them is wearing a long line or retractable leash but enforce a no-play policy when both are on short (2 meter) leashes. So far so good! At the park, Chai is off leash and Game, depending on how much dog traffic there is, on leash or off leash. In the streets, Game is off leash and Chai on a long line/retractable leash or they are both on short leashes.

After getting home and some morning wrestling, they are both contently sleeping on the living room floor.

Formal recalls revisited!

Since I fucked up my distraction plan and Chai got to the kibble in the park (what with me skipping a few steps), we worked back up slowly. After yesterday’s long-line stage, Zane agreed to be my helper next to kibble in the house with Chai off leash. She nailed it on her first attempt! Single-rep success: check!

We headed up to the roof after a little break. Here, Chai kept going after “Schnee” (my formal recall cue) the first time and then recalled in the second break of this session.

Since my criterion for moving on is a single-rep success session, we took a little “just be a dog” and ping pong recalls break on the roof and then tried again. This time, she succeeded right away, got her chicken and a release to the kibble … good girl! Achievement unlocked! (No video.)

Now Chai is in the bathroom with a chew to relax and unload. I’ve learned my lesson: only empty puppies get to be in the living room. The strategy has given us two days sans accidents. We’ll see how things continue …

Skipping recall steps again – and Chai knows how to exploit my absent-mindedness!

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to go from kibble protected by my helper to unprotected kibble at the park we already failed at. Click here to find out what happened …

Human barriers out and about

Chai, Zane and I returned to Fresa Parque in the afternoon – the park where Chai has failed distraction #3 in the past. I didn’t want to repeat the barrier stage for the easier distractions, but thought it would be a good idea to give them another try with kibble and my friend’s help. I was right: Chai went for the kibble on the first approach, and my helper picked up the plate. Keep reading here to see the plot thicken!

2-ball tug

Zane went to get pastries while Chai and I switched gears: our homework for Shade’s class is to get a good 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!”

(Shade Whitesel)

Post-recall dog socializing

We then headed home, needing almost no circles at all: I believe I have never seen Chai this tired before! Part of it must have been the sheer amount of food she got at the park and part of it the warm day.

Another short outing with Game

Since Chai hadn’t peed at the park, I took her out on Game’s pee walk. At this point, we entered the sleep-deprived toddler stage, needed lots of circles and threw ourselves at Game on the way down the stairs. Game peed right around the corner and Chai – good girl! – followed suit. We headed right back home and Chai fell asleep right away. No accidents so far today – the third day in a row!

Husbandry

+ “Claws!” (This is how I announce nail clipping and then just do it.) I try to do all paws once a week. Chai was great today – 3ish hours after our outing, she was still zonked and didn’t mind me clipping nails.

+ The last thing we did today – after a break after “claws” – I spent some time cutting the fur between Chai’s toes. She likes this less than nail clipping. Today, I introduced the announcement “clippers.”

+ Brush.

Home alone

Chai stayed home alone for Game’s evening walk. That’s the first time in 3 days she has truly been alone: for the last three days, Zane and I co-worked from my house and there was always someone there when I left with Game. After visiting for a month, Zane went back to Chiapas in the afternoon today. It’s going to feel lonely here without his company! I’ve been in this apartment for only two more nights than he has!

Sunday, July 2 2023 (day 87)

Activity level: high

We started the da with a short morning walk, a wrestling session on the couch (the dogs) and coffee (me).

I’m planning on working partly from Chapultepec today, so after coffee #2 and two FDSA forum responses, I’ll change locations before the parking at Chapultepec fills up.

Chapultepec and Chai’s first real swim!

Chai recalled away from strange dogs she was moving towards … and then swam (retrieved balls from Lago Mayor) for the first time! Go Chai!

And then – unprompted! – she pooped outside! Praise and treats! We take house training success wherever we can get it!

Chai met a younger puppy who had a blast playing with her, and then discovered she is a Border Collie: here she is bordercollying and then forgets what she’s doing, which I use as a recall opportunity.

2 toy fetch and tug

We played tugging reinforced with fetch – and I had the idea to hold the ball as if it was a tug toy! This may be our ticket to good strikes!

I settled down under a tree to continue working after about half an hour of water-and-dogs fun. Chai, wet and zoomy, is playing with Game around me and about to start inviting a younger puppy to play. Can’t imagine where I’d rather work from!

Water fetch as a recall reinforcer!

We had another swim, and for the first time, I used “chase” as a recall reward for “Schnee” two or three times. Turns out this Border Collie loves the water – it makes a perfect reinforcer! There was a lot going on the second time we were there. It reminded me of Silvia Trkman’s “all the toys and all the dogs are out” philosophy that teaches their puppies to not let anyone steal their toy – better bring it all the way back to your person! I created a similar scenario even though I hadn’t planned on it.

The video below shows Chai meeting a bunch of new dogs, Sunday chaos at the swimming spot, water fetch fun and formal recalls for Chai (recalling away from dogs other than Kiba is easy):

We then walked around the lake, followed by another brief water fetch session (I want to keep them short for the puppy to be sure they stay special and fun! I bet swimming uses muscles she isn’t used to using yet.)

Below our walk around the lake. There’s lots of people, animals and things for a puppy to see: bikes, people of all ages, rollerblades, kid cars, strollers, all the dogs, fish, birds, runners, music, street vendors, toys, giant soap bubbles, boats …

We ended with another walk the other direction, through the sculpture gardens where I took a few recall videos away from dogs Chai was approaching because I want to show them to a student:

After 3 hours at the park, we all piled back into the hot, hot car and headed home. Both dogs are passed out and content, and so am I. Content, that is, not passed out … yet.

Loose leash walking on the collar

After Game’s solo evening walk, I remembered I wanted to go to the bank. It’s just around the corner, so this time, I took Chai while Game stayed home. We walked on her collar there and back, practiced waiting at several curbs and passed a leashed barking, lunging dog up close (with one click-and-treat right after the other). In the ATM cabin, Chai got to work on her foot-on-leash-means-lie-down cue. She did amazing on this evening outing!

An interesting observation: Chai’s hand touches are already getting sloppier now that I don’t feed them anymore. (I only feed the first one that gets her in position before I attach the leash to the collar.) Of course, in other contexts, I still feed all hand touches – but they get used most often during LLW. I’ve started feeding some of them again. Today, I fed two and enforced some other slow responses with Chai’s leash pressure cue. It’s a balancing act between creating a behavior chain of pull – touch – feed (I don’t want that) and pull – don’t touch, or take your time responding – no food (I don’t want that either). See my June 30 leash walking video in this post to get a glimpse at hand touches not being reinforced.

As always, every dog is different and not every dog will create a behavior chain at all. I know Chai will, so in her case, it is important to keep an eye on her hand touches and their reinforcement history. If I get more pulling and beautiful hand touches, I am clearly reinforcing too many. If I get slow responses to “touch” and lackadaisical touches, I haven’t been reinforcing enough. We’re still looking for that perfect balance – and it will likely keep shifting since Chai is a juvenile dog who grows and changes every day!

Take-away of the day: observe and train the puppy you have today and stay aware of the fact that tomorrow, things may look different! Whatever the training project – never stop observing your puppy!

Husbandry

+ Brushing

Housetraining

0 accidents in the house and an unprompted poop at Chapultepec! Peed twice on cue in the shower cabin and got rewarded with a treat and the opportunity to join Game and me in the living room! Go Chai!

  1. There’s a brief explanation of how Magic Hands works in this post, under the Magic Hands heading (June 13). ↩︎
  2. Wanna learn how to do what I do in the video below? I’ll teach a class on this in December; mail me to learn more or sign up! ↩︎

Chaiary, day 49-50: a calm day and a full day!

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Day 49 – May 25, 2023: not a lot going on!

+ Both Chai and Game got to go to UNAM and run around the campus.

+ We had a single positions-practice session.

+ Husbandry: I clipped Chai’s nails on both front paws and she got brushed, and I cut a little around her front paw fur (another thing I’d like her to get used to in case she turns out to be a furry-paw Border Collie!)

+ Both dogs stayed home alone for a few hours.

Day 501 – May 26, 2023: Huayamilpas, kids, cohetes … a full day!

Today was a BIG day!

Training

We started the morning with some more position work. I pulled out the fold-back down and we did two rounds of down with “good” (room service: stay in position; the treat is coming to you) versus “get it” (chase the treat marker) – one round for breakfast and one for lunch. In the video below, you’ll see me work with a hand signal to get the fold-back down some of the time and with a lure some other times.

The reason I help relatively quickly rather than waiting Chai out is that she would otherwise default to a sit (and then try a down from the sit if the sit didn’t work).

I specifically want a fold-back down rather than a down from a sit, and the way to teach this is from a stand.

The video below is an uninterrupted 10-minute session with a 5-months old puppy. As I said in an earlier post, this is not what I’d recommend most clients do (unless they have really worky puppies). I happen to have a worky puppy who loves training and so do I – so I get to do this on days I need something to obsess over or something that I can focus on without thinking about anything else in the world! Dog training is that thing for me, so here we go – both having fun!

Note that often, I will have heavy-training days followed by little or no other adventures or very low-key days like yesterday. I don’t want Chai to turn into a super-athlete who needs to either train or run nonstop. So heavy training days tend to be low-physical activity days (just not today) and heavy physical activity days tend to be little-to-no-training days.

Husbandry

+ We did some cutting of Chai’s front paw fur and I brushed her.

Indoors spaces

+ We went to ride the elevator.

+ We toured the busy Walmart corridor (people, shopping carts) and a bank with Chai in her backpack. (Thank you so much, Scarlett, for lending me the puppy backpack! It is GREAT!)

Tarps blowing in the wind

It’s a windy day today, and on our adventure loop we saw a tarp blowing in the wind and Chai got a little spooked. After watching it for a while, she was able to cautiously walk past it. This is the second time I have seen this reaction – that’s my cue that tarp feelings aren’t a one-off thing and we need to work on things blowing in the wind! When I got home, I set up the fan and pointed it at the curtains:

It never hurts to learn about the safety of objects and situations in set-ups you can control before encountering them in the real world (again)!

Huayamilpas

In the late afternoon, we spontaneously returned to Parque Ecológico Huayamilpas briefly before 6pm: when we were there a few days ago Chai barked at suddenly appearing strangers (and they all started to appear around 6 after we had had the place to ourselves all afternoon). I wanted to make sure to counter the experience by orchestrating positive interactions with suddenly appearing people at the same spot (I haven’t seen her bark at people before and I would love for it to stay that way).

Unfortunately, things didn’t start out as well as I had hoped they would: soon after we got there, someone elsewhere in the park, but clearly not far, set off a bunch of REALLY loud firecrackers (you can hear them in the video but they are muffled by the microphone – this doesn’t compare to the real-life volume). I don’t think Chai has heard firecrackers before – and definitely not at this volume. She got worried – not panicky, but worried enough to tuck her tail and seek my consolation.

Right after, the first person suddenly appeared. Not the best antecedent arrangement to set her up for success! Luckily, the person had a dog and Chai trusts dogs. After watching the two approach suspiciously, she greeted the dog and a little later, I had the person do a version of our food protocol (they had already reached for her so I just gave them treats to feed). All was well with Chai and she even jumped up on them for more. We hung out for a bit and talked dogs, and Chai and the other dog – Kipper – socialized and she did drive-byes with both of us humans.

We then followed the next pair of passers-by for a little – an adult and a kid. As we turned around to look back, a family with several kids had come to the concrete snake in the center of the park and we turned around to see them up close. Since Chai could see the family from a distance, this wasn’t a sudden environmental change (which I specifically wanted to work on). Still, she had positive interactions with people at the snake!

Because it went so well, I waited longer and Chai got to briefly greet an adult and a kid walking with two dogs. Then, we called it a day and made our way towards the exit.

Sadly, right as we were walking away from the snake, the nearby firecrackers started up again. Chai was – again – concerned. All I had was kibble, but she was able to eat and I fed one after each boom. Still, the insecurity lingered after the firecrackers stopped. Unease is not the emotion I want her to associate with the snake, the park or firecrackers. So I will probably be going back for another round of sudden environmental change – hopefully without the firecrackers.

The saving grace today was a Lab mix we met at the parking lot: Chai and the dog played for a minute or so, and then Chai, tail proud and high, eyes shining and body language loose left the park on a good note.

By the time we got back home, it was dark out. On the walk from the car to the apartment, Chai got spooked by people unloading stuff from a truck. We watched for a bit, curved around and then I encouraged her to watch some more, but she was ready to leave. Note to self: take more night walks around weird stuff and people carrying strange objects!

Growing up and changing

Today was quite the day! Our outings were not very long, but jam-packed with things going on. Puppies and adolescents change every day – and these days, Chai is highly sensitive in all directions: picking up behaviors from older dogs and having an easier startle response than she usually does. However, the good news is that her recovery is still amazing (playing with that Lab mix a minute after hearing firecrackers? Go Chai!) and that even in a state of firecracker insecurity, she was able to eat kibble.

It is also interesting to see a dog who learns really fast overall have sensitive days: they are impactful in a different way than in the last two puppies I raised (Puzzle and Game). It is like watching Chai have an experience and then assimilate it into this 10 000-piece puzzle that is the map of the world in her head. Nothing exists in isolation. Every experience Chai has gives her a puzzle piece, and she is quick to find the exact spot it belongs in the map of the world she is creating for herself. If we think back to the elevator experience: her baseline assumption about the world is an optimistic one, but she is fast to learn what to exempt from optimism (such as this particular elevator – I don’t know about others because this is the only one I have currently access to and the first one she’s ever been on).2

A slice of Mexico City’s subway web. Maps are necessarily an imperfect representation of the world. Subway stops are one of my favorite way to conceptualize big cities. Once I have a subway map in my head, I’ll generally find my way around. Subway stops are my favorite landmark.

As far as I can tell, Chai’s initial hesitancy around people was based on a lack of exposure and my two protocols (the one for strangers and the one for expanding her circle of friends) have helped her become a socially optimistic dog. She’s a Border Collie, not a Lab, so she is never going to have problems with hyper-sociability towards strangers. But she is now significantly more confident around them and open to making new friends.

In everybody poops news …

(Feel free to skip this paragraph if you’d rather not read about my puppy’s bowel movements!)

Chai peed AND pooped at the park without another dog to imitate! Our house training project is coming along! In fact, she has only had a single accident inside what I define as the living space of our Coyoacán apartment in the last month, since we’ve been here! (She will go to pee/poop on the outdoors patio. If I leave her by herself, I do so in the bathroom, and she will pee/poop in the shower when she has to go rather than waiting – as far away from where my bed as is possible to set up in this small space. All of this is great news for a dog who had no idea about defined toilet spaces when I got her. If I had a yard, she might be doing all her business there already (apart from the occasional accident even adolescents still have).

Sidenote: fear periods

People like talking about the elusive “puppy fear period” or “adolescent fear period.” Some trainers even define at what age exactly fear periods (sometimes called sensitive periods) are supposed to happen and how many of them there are.

To my knowledge (readers: please correct me and send me peer-reviewed sources if I’m wrong!), there is no scientific evidence that fear periods exist or that every dog has them. (Most of the puppies I have raised have not had anything I would label “a fear period.”) In the absence of scientific evidence for “fear periods,” I don’t generally use the term.

Instead, I just think of any young developing brain: there are changes and shifts in hormone levels and neurotransmitters and neural connections and all kinds of other things I do not know about because I have no medical degree. Young brains are brains under construction. When constructing, say, a house, there will be days electrical wires are exposed (and you hope it won’t rain). Similarly, there will be days that a growing brain (the wires) is more sensitive to external stimuli (the rain) than others. Other than with the wiring of your house, you don’t know when this will be because you are probably not cutting open your puppy’s brain. So you just hope that if and when your puppy is having a sensitive day, they happen to not encounter the kind of stuff that would trigger an electrical fire. But if it happens? Well, it happens. Nothing you can do about it. No one’s fault – sometimes life is a shitshow.

Observe your puppy and if you see the experience have a permanent impact (it won’t necessarily have a permanent impact at all, no worries!) or you just want to be on the safe side, give it a few days (to be sure the exposed wiring of your house has been covered) and then repeat the situation under different conditions, setting your puppy up for success. This is what would have happened today with the snake head had there not been firecrackers.

Apart from the fact that young brains are under construction, dogs of all ages – just like other animals of all ages – sometimes have a less-than-ideal day. Sometimes, you wake up with a headache and it just shaves a little bit off of your patience with your coworkers or your friend or your partner. Sometimes, your dog is in pain – it may be invisible pain – and this too can cause a slight shift in their response to otherwise uninteresting stimuli.

How sensitive a dog’s behavior is to pain differs greatly from one individual to the next, just like it does in people. Personally, I’ve observed myself having a shorter fuse under (very specific) pain conditions.

On the other hand, my grandfather has been livingwith a crumbling hip bone for a decade, refuses to take pain killers or go in for surgery and is still the kindest and most patient person you can imagine, just like he has always been. People are different. Dogs are different. And your puppy is a different person every day because they are still in the process of becoming themselves! (We could argue that we all are always either in the process of becoming ourselves or we are dead – but that’s a blog post for another day.)

(1) Day 50 (the 50th day Chai has been with me) – half way to 100! – is a good day to change my diary approach. Going forwards, I will mostly share general Chaiary videos and videos that don’t fit into one of my categories (play, foundations, obedience, socializing, the art of doing nothing, recalls, leash walking, tricks, being brave) in my daily reports. The categories themselves will each get their own posts that specifically talk about THAT category and feature our progress from start to finish (if/when there is such a thing as “finish”). I will link to these more specific posts in future Chaiaries instead of directly inserting the videos every day. You’ll re-encounter some sessions you have already seen under these specific headings.

(2)Update from the future: Chai did not generalize her elevator fears to other elevators! It was just the one. Fundamental optimism for the win!

Day 46 & 47 – May 22-23, 2023: brief puppy updates

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Day 46 – May 22, 2023

Today, Chai and Game got to go to Las Islas at the UNAM campus and met quite a few dogs:

Game and Chai are meeting new folks at Las Islas.

Chai also had a solo adventure: we rode the scary elevator once and she joined me at the bank and on a loop through the Walmart corridor in her puppy backpack.

Finally, we practiced walking past the Pits. Chai is getting better and better at anticipating her treats rather than having intense feelings about the barking dogs! Go puppy!

If Chai keeps going at this rate, she’s going to turn Game into a dog/dog snuggler!

Not much to report otherwise and I didn’t take any video – so today’s update is a short one. Stay tuned for more (and more exciting) Border Collie puppy adventures!

Day 47 – May 23, 2023

Another update on the shorter end today!

+ Husbandry: “Brush!” Chai keeps being a great sport about husbandry!

+ Chai and I went to Parque Ecológico Huayamilpas where she met a few dogs and walked on a metal-grid staircase like a pro. Only downside: she gave two brief barks at suddenly appearing people after we had hung out at a particular spot for a while. This is the first time I’ve seen this behavior in her – I’ll be sure to nip it in the bud by coming back to the same spot later this week! She also pooped outside not just once, but TWICE! This is rare and amazing and clearly facilitated by us hanging out in the same spot for a longer period of time.

What looks like a lake on the map is actually all dried out. No swims for puppies! Sad face.

Huayamilpas, an ecological park that’s part of the Coyoacán neighborhood.

+ She walked through a new street market and did really well.

+ Today’s adventure included two Uber rides. For the second one, her belly was full of all the treats (kibble) she had earned along the way – and she did perfectly fine! No throwing up! Go puppy!

Back home and ready to snuggle away the rest of the day with big sister Game!