We started the morning with a session of lots of street-crossing practice in my neighborhood.
Then, we went to the dog park1 for the last time of Doggie’s stay with me. His confidence has continuously grown from one day to the next, and today, he started playing! All the dogs in the compilation below are unfamiliar to him. I think it’s safe to say that when Doggie gets greater freedom at home now, he’ll be chill around new dogs (who he hasn’t had access to while being mostly confined due to his suicidal street-crossing maneuvers.)
A relaxed car dog
After practicing sidewalk behaviors and socializing all morning, we headed back to Naucalpan around noon. Doggie slept through the car ride – an hour is just the right time for a juvenile Mal to recharge!
The handover session
I spent the afternoon with Doggie’s humans for a thorough handover session. It was great to see how happy and excited Doggie was to see his favorite people again, and how excited and newly motivated they were to keep working with him! Eduardo had already shared my videos and explained things in theory to his sister and dad. When I got there, everyone was already on the same page.
First I showed them what Doggie and I had practiced in person, and then they took turns working on all the different steps. With a little help, Doggie did great for everyone – both stopping at curbs until released with “¡Libre!, listening to his leave it/stop itcue (¡Alto!) and his sit cue, fetching toys in the field next to the sidewalk without stepping on the street and tugging on a toy instead of the leash.
We ended with a few theory tips about how to help Doggie relax around Eduardo’s young nieces and nephews.
Speaking of nieces and nephews: there is only thing I regret not having done while Doggie stayed with me. When the neighborhood kids asked to pet my dogs when I was out with Chai and Doggie, I said no. I’m used to saying no because Chai is not a fan of being touched by strangers. I missed out on this opportunity for Doggie to refresh his puppy memory of interacting with children. He’d have benefitted from it, especially now that I’ve heard that unlike his dad Drago, Doggie hasn’t been allowed around Eduardo’s nieces and nephews so far. That said, I hope that with a plan in place, he’ll get to be around them in the future either way!
Trueques
My new windshield wipers aren’t here yet – but soon! I love when we’re all helping each other through exchanges of knowledge or things rather than money. It feels more personal and fun. Eduardo’s family knows they’ll always have a dog trainer in their corner, and I know I’ll always have someone who knows about cars! When they need someone to look after one of their dogs, I’ll be here for them – and when I need someone for Game, she’ll be welcome with her bonus family there. It takes a village!
The weeks ahead
Doggie is still a juvenile baby raptor, full of energy and the need to go-go-go. Eduardo and his family will continue implementing the training I started and up his exercise and play routine a bit. We’ll reassess in a few weeks. If necessary, Doggie will spend another week with me in the end of September where I can make him my priority before being tied up with FDSA from October 1st, or I’ll come back for another session or two (it’s unfortunately a bit of a drive.) The hope is, of course, that Eduardo and his family will be able to work with him themselve going forwards, with only minor hickups! But with juvenile Mals being juvenile Mals, you never know.
The benefits and risks of living life off leash
I’ve talked about this on several occasions in the past, but this is a good opportunity to share my own point of view again.
Doggie’s best life, the one we all want for him, is one that is like his dad Drago’s: being able to roam freely. Drago was able to do this from the day he came home to Eduardo. Doggie, as a small puppy, fearlessly wanted to play-jump on strangers and cross roads. This led his humans to restrain him more than their other dogs in order to keep him and everyone around him safe, and that, in turn, caused Doggie to be difficult to live with because he had lots of energy and not enough places to put it.
It is of course risky to allow dogs off-leash freedom around cars. None of us are kidding ourselves about this. It is also a question of life quality. Not everyone has yards, cars, time to drive to dog training facilities and hiking trails, or dog parks within walking distance. They aren’t the only ways of giving powerful, high-energy dogs their best lives. I’d venture that being around one or more family members all day long, getting to hang out while they are attending customers, playing on the field with neighborhood dog friends or the dog’s humans and toys whenever nothing else is going on, and going on long off leash walks or learning new tricks as soon as Eduardo gets home from work at night make for a damn near perfect life of freedom, exercise, enrichment and dog/dog as well as dog/human social interactions! Our hope is that Doggie is a few steps closer to having this life now too.
I’ll update you on “what happend next” with Doggie and the other rebelde puppies as soon as I get around to it … The backlog of what I want to share is large – but slowly, step by step, I’m making my way through it! I want to continue transparently sharing the ups and downs of their lives with you all!
If you’re in the Global North and part of a particular slice of the dog world, you may be apalled by the fact that Doggie is going to a dog park to socialize. The local dog culture here is different, and so is the dog park culture. The way I live and work with dogs changes depending on where in the world I am. ↩︎
This morning, a friend followed us around the neighborhood and took videos of our work for Eduardo, Doggie’s human. We practiced and recorded all the skills Doggie had practiced. Below are two of them, showing things I haven’t shown in my previous posts.
Stop and sit at the curb
The first video is the goal behavior for our city puppy: Eduardo’s greatest challenge has been the fact that Doggie isn’t afraid of cars and hasn’t learned to stay on the sidewalk. He could be roaming freely if only he learned to respect sidewalk boundaries. Doggie’s other high-energy challenges come from the fact that Eduardo’s family doesn’t have a yard, and that unlike their other Mals, Doggie is the kind of dog who will run back and forth across busy streets – and they live in a busy car neighborhood. To keep him safe, he has been confined or on leash – and that has made it hard for Doggie to keep his teeth and paws to himself whenever his humans have time for him!
The goal behavior is for Doggie to stop at the curb even if the human gets going and even if food is dropped (not on video, but we’ve worked up to this successfully), and sit before being released. I still use a sit cue (¡Siéntate!) in this video, but as Eduardo and his dad and sister keep working on this, it will eventually become an offered sit. The sit is a safety behavior in addition to stopping: once it is well-rehersed, if one behavior breaks down, it will be the first one – sitting – rather than the second one – staying on the curb. A dog who stands on the sidewalk rather than sits is better than a dog who jumps in front of a car!
I’ve only worked on this behavior for a week. While we’ve generalized to many sidewalks, Eduardo and his family will need to continue working on it to really turn it into a habit. In the video below, I show how to help Doggie if he steps off the sidewalk before his release cue (¡Libre!)
We also went into the dog park again (no video), where Doggie’s confidence around new dogs had grown even more than on day #5, and my friend took a few pictures of Doggie and me – I want memories of Doggie’s time with me! This one is my favorite:
After a longer outing, we headed back home where Doggie practiced staying home alone with the girls while I went back out for a lesson with the young gentleman below:
The manual for being a juvenile Mal
Doggie was being a good, relaxed boy for the rest of the day … until I had a video consult! As the manual for being a juvenile Malinois requires, he woke up just in time to unplug my Internet not just once, but twice. Unfortunately for Don Doggie, he got tethered before he had a chance to kick my clients off the call a third time.
We ended the day – our last day together! – rolling around the couch in an attempt to get all four of us in a picture … with varying levels of success!
Doggie was a bit of a desperate maniac when I finally released him from his prison this morning. I opened the door to the outside world for him to see what would happen (I need coffee before or while taking out the dogs these days; my brain won’t brain otherwise.) The open door is something he’ll need to learn for his humans, who worry he’ll take off. It’s safe here since we live on a plot that’s part of a high rise housing thing with a giant shared “yard” in the end of a dead-end street. His humans live right on a car street, which makes the same thing a lot more dangerous.
Our start into the day: getting to lo leave and choosing to stay; meeting a stranger and a new dog and imitating Chai’s toy games
Doggie did great: took himself out to potty, stayed close and came right back in. He sniff-explored within sight of the door and kept coming back in to check on me until I had transferred the coffee into my thermos mug (thank you, Chris) and was ready to head out.
I let Doggie observe Chai’s morning play session, and he picked up on it and started running along with her and showing signs of trying to imitate our game! Smart boy!
He also curiously approached1 the person who feeds the pigeons around here every morning. The birds flew off and the person waved the feed-bag (a big black trash bag) in his face and told him to get lost, and he calmly deferred and came back to me. Lovely job there, Doggie! I’m focusing a lot on observing at this point to find my best training angles.
We also met our first free-roamer this morning. The dog came over to greet us because they didn’t know Doggie yet (they know Chai and Game), and he was completely neutral towards them, just like he’s been with the various strange humans we’ve seen. I’m very happy with this – so far, the only thing I’d like to be different is that I wish I had gotten more sleep. I’m glad our first two days are a weekend where I have less non-Doggie things on my plate!
Time to train!
All three pups have settled down as I’m typing out my morning notes2, so Mr. Doggie is going to get a training session next! If possible, I use sessions to reinforce being chill (rather than reinforce bouncing-off-the-walls with training.) I’ll use half his breakfast and then the other half for the outing I’ve planned for later this morning. The preliminary plan for Doggie’s second day and, if it works well, the days ahead:
+ Short morning outing with either play or exploration. + Non-Doggie work until/while he’s calm and sleepy. + First training session of the day for part of breakfast. + Work until/while he’s calm and sleepy again. + Longer outing by himself or with Game and/or Chai to observe, move his body, play, potentially train in public. + Work until/while he’s calm and sleepy again. + More training. + Work until/while he’s calm and sleepy again. + Depending on the day, more training or right into the … + short evening outing. + Calm down and bed time.
Day #1, session #1: revising the suitcase (“¡Maleta!”) and adding distractions
Remember: the goal is for Doggie to default to staying on sidewalks/stop at curbs unless/until released to step off. I’m using the suitcase to explain the basic principle that differences in surface height have meaning.
Doggie did fantastic this morning! Not only did I work up to opening doors and going out of sight while he stayed on the suitcase; I even added Chai as a distraction in the end of the session.
Now Mr. Doggie is chilling out again. I like how quickly he was able to down-regulate after the session. This may be either because he didn’t get a lot of sleep last night or because his morning needs for moving and thinking have been met. Either way – I’ll take it!
The longer outing
We walked to “the”our” park in the next neighborhood over. It was as busy as it gets on Sundays! I had Doggie wear a head halter because I’d seen him pull badly on a collar. He didn’t pull at all, but carried his leash in his mouth and occasionally shook it or gave a tug. No feelings about the head halter at all – he walked in it as if he had done it all his life.
At the park, I let him off. He ignored or politely greeted all dogs we met. He was interested in a sweets-selling stand and tempted to jump on one person who carried a bag of food (our old “Pup-pup-pup!” recall worked again!) He curiously approached about 3 people who encouraged him for pets. He ran after a soccer ball kids played with, but once again called off the moving ball with “Pup-pup-pup!”
Outside of this, he often chose to stay close and make physical contact with me – not out of fear, but because he was clearly over the moon we were out and about together. It feels great to see how strong the early puppyhood relationship we built is showing up so many months later!
On the way back, we worked on “Espera” – “Libre” – “street is lava” with several street crossings. Doggie picked things up fast!
Back home, he quickly relaxed on the cool tile floor. Excellet job, little one!
Toy play!
We’re starting to build interest in interacting with balls! When Doggie doesn’t seem interested in cooperative play – Game to the rescue! I ended the session below the moment I noticed he was about to opt out. Ideally, we’ll never beg our dogs to play (if at all, the other way round!)
The video angle is a bit weird, and in addition, it’s a wide angle video – but you get the idea!
… I don’t remember what else we did that day – not enough note-taking! But I do remember Doggie being very, very cute:
Sweeter dreams!
After a longer evening outing with Game, his second night was already calmer than the first one.
To clarify: letting my off-leash guest approach busy strangers is culturally acceptable in Mexico City (except for certain gentrified and foreigner-heavy neighborhoods.) People will communicate with the dogs they run into rather than expecting the owners to do it for them. ↩︎
The note-taking I’m talking about in the present tense here happened on September 1 – unlike my pre-publish editing of this post, which is happening on September 28, 2024 (right now). My blog posts will often involve some time travel. ↩︎
Last week, I visited Doggie (red collar boy) and his folks. He’s turning into a beautiful dog – strong, full of energy and fearless. He recognized Game and me at once and immediately tried climbing in my lap. Doggie is the puppy who went to live with his father Drago in Naucalpan in Mexico State. Towards the end of week 8, he had been the barkiest of all puppies and the second bitiest one (first place in terms of land-sharkiness was my favorite girl Chispa).
I hadn’t seen Doggie since he moved out, and it was SO cool to meet him again!
Eduardo and their dad mentioned that they’ve been struggling to keep Doggie calm: his energy is boundless and they haven’t let him off leash because unlike their other dogs, Doggie hasn’t picked up the concept of staying on the sidewalk. They have no yard and he doesn’t have the other dogs’ freedom to run, roam, play and train in the public field next to their house because it borders a street. For the same reason, he doesn’t get to go on off leash errand around town.
When leashed, he’ll bite and tug on the leash a lot, and he has learned to get attention by biting shoes and pants. Eduardo’s dad showed me the “battle scars” on their arms: what is to be expected from a bitey little landshark interacting with someone whose skin isn’t young and flexible anymore.
They mentioned that Doggie’s needs for exercise and stimulation were among the highest of any Mal they’ve had (they’ve had quite a few.)
I can’t help but feel proud of the boy: he’s exactly what a Mal should be. But I could see they were struggling to meet his needs, which in turn caused Doggie to struggle to relax. They haven’t found an affordable trainer nearby to help them out. Since I’m not nearby enough either (it’s about an hour’s drive, depending on traffic), we agreed that he’d stay with me for a week, and then we’d do a handover day. If they needed more help, I’d be able to make time or take him for another week in September.
No one has mentioned their puppy getting car sick. I know for sure that at least 2 of them never have; with the other 3, I haven’t had a chance to ask. Our numerous early puppy car adventures may have paid off (or it maybe it’s entirely genetic.)
A week later, I picked up Señorito Doggie without Game and Chai. He was calmer than he had been on my last visit – they had made sure to take him out for a walk before I got there. We drove by my place and I added Game and Chai to the car. Then we headed to Bosque de Aragón. I put a tracker on Doggie (just in case I needed to unexpectedly collect him somewhere) and let them all loose in a big field.
Testing who Doggie has grown up to be at Bosque de Aragón!
He was amazing. He was more interested in staying close to me than anything else, even though he took the world in with interest. For the first 15 minutes or so, he was SO happy to try making physical contact at all times as we walked, tail high and proud, wagging nonstop, shiny eyes! It took some walking until he had convinced himself I wasn’t going anywhere, and started exploring with the others.
It was the weekend, so a little more than usual was going on at Aragón. We walked off leash past joggers, other dogs, ducks, children, a skate park, food stands, bikes, giant animal statues and four-wheeled pedal cars. Doggie was a superstar. He fearlessly followed me up a bunch of stairs (the kind Chai had struggled with in the beginning), fell off on the way down and just kept going like nothing had happened. He remembered his puppy recall (“Pup-pup-pup!”) and turned on a dime whenever I called. First impression: he’s growing up to be a little superstar!
Doggie has the kind of environmental confidence I’ve been hoping for with my extreme early socialization! With this particular puppy/juvenile dog, at this particular moment in time, it looks like I have accomplished this goal. Nothing fazed him – he was neither repelled by nor overly attracted to interesting people and dogs: he had seen it all.
I’m biased, but isn’t he beautiful?
I did, of course, get some shoe biting and jumping for attention – he had learned this skill well since we’d been apart and was generalizing to me lightening fast! For the time being, I picked him up anytime he bit my naked feet (because I wore sandals and it hurt) and set him down again a few steps later. It was management, not training, since he didn’t mind being picked up at all. As we had worked on in the last … I think two weeks with me, in a variation of Julie Daniels’ puppy protocol, he just relaxed and went floppy in my arms to be let down again. When he felt like it, he’d take another run at my feet right away.
This is an interesting observation to me because for many puppies, picking them up can be used as a harmless punisher for unwanted behavior (because they don’t like being picked up.) Not with a puppy – at least not with this puppy – who has been picked up a lot by a lot of people, and built all the positive associations to it!
Back home: a break
Hard to believe, but true: even 5.5 months old Mals fall asleep eventually!
#1 training priority: respect sidewalk boundaries by default
After Doggie resting and me working on non-Doggie stuff, he got his first formal training session for training goal #1, the first priority for his humans: the concept of staying on sidewalks. Before we could work on this out in the world and with actual sidewalks, we needed a few things in our toolkit:
A shared language
A food marker (¡Sí!)
The concept of shaping and/or luring
The concept that offered behaviors pay off (R+)
The concept that “keep doing what you’re doing” pays off
A release cue
The concept of boundaries having meaning
The above would be true for any dog I worked with. In Doggie’s case, I only have a week to teach him what I would otherwise take my time with – perhaps several months. This means I’ll add other elements to our communication to speed up his learning, even if I wouldn’t usually use them. For this particular project, I added
as part of the shared language:
The understanding that offering behaviors can turn off environmental stimuli (R-/escape conditioning in the sense of: if I plug in my seat belt, the car will stop beeping at me.)
The concept that avoiding certain behaviors keeps certain environmental stimuli turned off (P+/avoidance conditioning as in: as long as I don’t unplug my seatbelt, the car will remain silent.)
R- was going to be key in speeding up the learning process. I was confident I’d be able to teach the goal behavior in a week and generalize it to all sidewalks with its help. You’ll find out whether I was right in the posts to come!
I was also sure that I could use R- without emotional fallout for Doggie, in a way that would increase clarity much faster than if I didn’t use it. Maximizing clarity fast would get me results fast. Getting results fast would result in increased life quality for Doggie in the years to come – so my pragmatic math was simple: of course I was going to use whatever I needed to in order to help Doggie archieve the life quality and freedom I wanted him to have.
I taught all parts of our shared language over the course of 3 sessions in the absence of distractions with the help of a suitcase: the suitcase served to explain the basic concept that changes in surface height – such as steps and sidewalks or, in this case, suitcases! – can be meaningful.
Here’s our very first suitcase session. I first attempted to shape Doggie, but since he didn’t know how to chase treats, I quickly went to luring instead. I love teaching dogs to shape, but for our particular project, I knew I’d be faster if I just lured my target behavior and then rewarded.
After the session above, I introduced our release cue (¡Libre!), a cue for going on the suitcase (¡Maleta!) and the P- element (the “floor is lava” game, aka an equivalent to the seat belt beep in a car.)
#2 training goal: an alternative way of asking for attention
Doggie had already learned to get attention by biting shoes/feet and jumping on his humans. I was going to offer him an alternative: sit to ask for what you’d like! I marked and reinforced all his sitting with food and attention that first day.
Typically, this is all I’d do. I’d redirect to a chewable item and withdraw attention for biting and jumping until it just stopped happening. However, since we were on a time crunch – a week, and I wanted to see no more shoe biting at all! – I added …
another part to our shared language:
A punishment marker (¡Alto!)
Not only did jumping and biting my shoes no longer work to get attention – it now produced undesirable consequences. Not results Doggie hated (there’s no need for that); just something he was not looking for under these circumstances, similar to Sarah Stremming’s “milk, not water” analogy. This was simply something we worked on throughout the day, all day, starting on our first day together – as soon as we had gotten home from Aragón, where I had learned that picking up wasn’t undesirable enough.
Luckily, Doggie only bites his humans’ shoes, but not the shoes of strangers – that would have made things a lot harder!
By means of the undesired consequence followed by helping him into a sit if he fell back into his old habits, he started offering his first sits for attention that very evening. I was proud of my smart little snuggler! Apart from biting shoes and feet, he is actually a very snuggly puppy – as long as the attention he needs is provided!
Sound sensitivity?
We had a loud thunderstorm that first evening, and Doggie couldn’t have cared less. I’m SO glad that so far, as far as I know, none of the puppies show noise sensitivities. (Again, I know this for sure about two of them, but haven’t had a chance to ask about the remaining 3.)
That said, Game only became noise sensitive after having moved to Guatemala – so if she’s passed on some of those genes and my early noise-desensitization did not do the trick, it may still develop for the rebeldes later in life. So far so good though!
The first night
… was difficult night for Mr. Doggie. I wondered whether he had separation issues in general (his humans hadn’t mentioned it) or whether being back with me in a place he wasn’t familiar with (this isn’t the apartment or house he grew up in) was just too difficult to sleep through the night. He had a hard time not sharing the bedroom and woke me up a few times.
Game is currently the only dog with bed privileges, and she likes her peace at night. Chai voluntarily puts herself to bed in an open crate in a different room when she’s ready to sleep. I had Doggie sleep in Chai’s room, but he found it difficult to settle there. I was pretty sure Doggie would sleep peacefully in my bed, but just to be safe, I’d want Game elsewhere if he was there. That didn’t seem fair to her. I decided to give Doggie sleeping in Chai’s space another try our second night rather than giving in to his snuggle wishes just yet.
Update: I asked, and was told Doggie didn’t have separation issues at home. That’s great to know! I’m glad he doesn’t. This greatly increased the probability that he’d settle more and more peacefully in Chai’s room in the nights to come!
I’ll refer to the puppies by there (provisional) names from now on because it’s a lot of fun to name dogs! Here’s the run down again, matching names to collar colors. Also and perhaps most importantly, I’ve decided what Black’s name is going to be! Since she is the one puppy who has stood out to me in having more tentative days than the others (so far! It may change tomorrow!), and since she had a few days where she very much did her own thing rather than hanging out with the puppy pile, she’ll get to carry the litter theme forwards: she’s Rebelde (rebel.)
Blue is Chispa, Purple is Oso, Green is Bravo and Red is Fierro. Three puppies have ended up with the names I had on my list of rebelde-themed names. Oso and Rebelde weren’t on my list. Oso just works for Purple (right now anyways; he’s a big fluffy teddy!), and Rebelde fits better than anything else I had on my list. It’s also a strong, brave name, and I want Rebelde to be strong and brave! If she is the most sensitive – which may of course change – she will need it the most.
Back to today!
Before heading back to Teotihuacán, we went to Fresa Parque early in the morning and got in some more dog interactions:
Park time before our puppy road trip.
Once again, two strangers asked me to sell them a puppy. This is getting old!
By 8AM, we hit the road. The shade structure did a great job and we got to our temporary yard before it was unbearably hot.
Open roads (with good music) and cats symbolize freedom for me. To be untethered to places because you choose rather than need to feels sleeping-under-the-stars kind of good.
More de-parasiting
Everyone had their first round of Heartgard, on the same day it was Game’s and Chai’s monthly turn. Oso (Purple) had the easiest time eating his and did so right away without hesitation. The others took a little longer. Only Rebelde (Black) needed hers diluted in a little milk or she wouldn’t touch it.
6 weeks, 2 days (May 7)
Game and Chai enjoyed a round of morning fetch in the yard while the puppies (who were smart and got out of the way) watched with curiosity. When a ball became available, two of them went for it!
Solo adventures
Bravo
I took Bravo (Green) on a 20-minute solo trip in the carrier. Even though it was already very hot when we got out, he didn’t complain at all. We met a free-roamer I let him sniff to bring up his dog count, which is the lowest of them all right now. He walked up to the wagging dog lying in the shade and investigated the waggy tail. No pictures because I wanted to safe myself some editing time! We went to a butcher shop and got ground chicken: the better food I’ll start adding to most meals in order to teach the puppies that hands near food are great news rather than a cause for concern. I also got chicken feet to gnaw on for everyone. I took Bravo out while the store owner ground up our meat and he got to see the goings-on.
Fierro
At 2PM, it was Fierro (Red)’s turn to go on a solo adventure to El Chichimeca. It was hotter now and he hung out under the bench, panting. For the first time, I saw him startle at a motorcycle sound. He didn’t respond to the second motorcycle going past.
A thought on socialization periods
I wonder whether we really are in the most important socialization and environmental exposure period now, and whether my early socialization has made a difference. OR if the main socialization period is already over, contrary to common knowledge, now that startle responses have intensified and fear responses set in. I’d probably have to have at least another litter with the same sire and do things differently to find even a little bit of an answer.
… and Fierro again
Tonight, I took Fierro on an errand without the carrier. At first, he was a little stiff in my arms, then he relaxed and soon fell asleep. I had been hoping we’d run into a free-roamer to catch up on his dog count, but no luck today.
Preventing resource guarding
This is what the ground meat is for! Today was the first day I added something better to the puppies’ kibble: raw meat! The idea is to create the association that my hand near food means good things for dogs: I will either add something better to what the dogs are currently eating or trade something they are playing with or chewing on for something better; then give the first object back right away. The hope is that by learning this from the beginning, the thought of guarding food or toys won’t cross their minds in the future because human hands near food mean good things. If someone happens to visit while I feed the puppies, I’ll have them do it too to generalize a little.
My raw meat is in the tiny plastic container and I just sprinkle a few flakes of it over the kibble every time my hand approaches. It doesn’t have to be a lot – it just has to be yummy!
So social, so interactive, so mobile!
Everyone continues getting bitier, which is delightful. Tonight, Fierro and Rebelde tugged with each other on a rope for the first time, and Oso discovered that he could try and dig holes!
For the last three or four days or so, they’ve also shown a new play move: they will sneak-stalk up to each other Border-Collie style and then play-attack! It is VERY cute. Yesterday, Bravo had the first puppy zoomies in the yard. Today, the others followed suit!
6 weeks, 3 days (May 8)
There were morning firecrackers – I suspect the left-overs from the saint’s day last Friday. The puppies are most playful in the morning, and we played through all of the firecracker background noise for about half an hour. (These aren’t the next-door firecrackers anymore, but a little further out. Still – good practice for any dog who’ll live in Mexico State!)
A thought on noise sensitivity
We could, of course, wonder why most dogs I know in Mexico, including free-roaming ones, are not comfortable with firecrackers, given the fact that most of them grow up with firecrackers. I wonder if the population – pre-firecrackers – started out average: most of them not noise sensitive, but with the possibility to sensitize (like Game.) Once they had sensitized, they had litters and those litters socially learned from their dams to be afraid. OR they themselves sensitized later in life. OR it is something epigenetic. In any case, my favorite scenario would be the one where the puppies socially learned to be afraid: that is the only scenario in which my puppies won’t eventually be afraid of firecrackers because I’m removing my adult dogs when the firecrackers get too loud and pairing firecracker sounds with play. I have no idea how likely or unlikely the social-learning hypothesis actually it is. (If you read this and know – show me a study; I’d love to read it!)
Here’s a few excerpts from our morning play! The puppies now play with each other as well as with anything they find: figs from the tree in the yard, a rope, my socks, my pants, balls, toys, Chai, long grass roots, twigs from a shrub, sandals, my phone’s lanyard. Everyone and everything is a toy, and I love it!
Chispa (Blue) and Rebelde (Black) say, lanyards make great tug toys!
Here’s Bravo having fun with a sock I let either Fierro or Chispa win – both of them got one each. I’ve been slipping socks for particularly fervent pulls like we do with bite sleeves in bigger dogs.
So! much! play!
It strikes me just how much play there is. I knew there was going to be a lot – but not the true extent of that lot. The puppies must be using ALL their muscles this way! By now, they chase each other as well as wrestle, and they roll all over the place in all the ways pretty much nonstop. What a way to exercise and learn about their bodies and each other! I would absolutely love to have another litter for them to play with – I bet this would have HUGE advantages for them: the newness of dogs AND play. It would be an amazing opportunity! I’m hoping to find someone on Facebook who is willing to have a playdate with us.
Solo adventures
Purple
went on today’s Chichimeca trip. He left the carrier, lied down in the shadiest place he found under the bench and complained: the heat. I feel it too. It’s too much!
Frontlining
Everyone got Frontline-sprayed again while asleep. I want to minimize them having to deal with the terrible smell, so half-asleep puppies are perfect. Nobody complained! Now that the pups are bigger, I’m using the spray the way it’s supposed to be used (more of it and massaging it in.) This way, we’ll hopefully be able to go a little longer before the next round!
Crate training
Fierro
mastered his 9 minutes (slept through them like a stone) and
Oso
mastered his 8!
Once they are up to 10, I’ll increase duration in 5-minute increments rather than 1-minute ones. My goal is to get up to 30 before one of these two boys goes on their plane trip.
Husbandry
everyone got the nails of their right front paws clipped – for the first time today, with the “big dog” clippers! They all did well – Fierro, Oso and Chispa were rather awake during their turn though and struggled to get off, having more important things to do and places to be. It’s not a fear-based but clearly a “Hold on, I’d rather be on the ground and do that other thing” kind of struggle. Big difference! Rebelde and Bravo got their turn later at night, and were very chill and relaxed – it was sleepy times already. Nobody batted an eyelash at the big dog nail clippers.
6 weeks, 4 days (May 9)
Velociraptor morning greetings are getting more fun by the day! I’m still slipping socks and sandals when they pull strongly. I’m loving my mornings: it’s the good kind of pain. Like getting a tattoo.
When I took Game and Chai for their morning walk, EVERYONE flooded out the gate. So far, it has always only been one puppy, and they’d been more tentative about it (usually Fierro or Chispa.) Today, everyone wanted to come!
I wish I lived in a street where I could let them come on an abbreviated morning walk, but as is, this is not a puppy-walking street. There’s about 2-3 cars a minute, but they are fast and I have already seen them not stop for dogs. It’s not that kind of town – other towns – even with more traffic – absolutely are. It is fascinating to me how within the same state, the human/dog culture differs.
This particular street also has a lot of barky dogs behind fences. This, too, isn’t the case in all towns, even if the number of resident dogs is similarly high! In any case, to get to the place where walking is enjoyable (it’s still a cactus desert, but without cars), we need to walk through the street with barking left and right and cars who won’t stop for dogs. Walking two adult dogs who mostly stay on the sidewalk is just the right number to do so relatively relaxedly. I’m going to drive to the cactus wasteland with everyone and the puppies though … maybe tomorrow. That way, they can have a little walk with the big girls without getting run over. And we can stop to meet our free-roaming friends. When I’m not bringing the puppies, I’ll have to move the x-pen to the gate to create an airlock … this morning, the simple act of leaving took me a couple minutes because they were very determined. I don’t expect them to want to go to the same extent if the adults don’t head outside, but just seeing Game or Chai them step over the threshold is now enough to make them want to come along. It would be fun to live in a super quiet street where I could watch them naturally expand their home range without worrying about cars. This morning showed me that they’d venture off this fenced property by now. Bravo even ran a few meters after a pedestrian passing! Yay for being attracted to new folks!
Social life
Solo adventures
Chispa
went on a brief out-of-carrier solo adventure to the store, and the person attending the store briefly held her. One new human – check!
Rebelde
went to El Chichimeca in the carrier. She was fast to leave it, briefly explore and soon fell asleep under the bench in the shade. It is SO hot!
Fierro
went on my evening hunt for ice cream. I wasn’t going to take anyone, but he was latched on to my sandals when I tried to leave – so picking him up and bringing him along for an adventure was the easiest solution. The first two places were out of ice cream (have I mentioned it is hotter than in Mexico City?) So our adventure was longer than expected – and Fierro got to meet a friendly free-roamer and take turns eating pieces of kibble with him!
Heading home with Fierro after finally succeeding at our ice cream hunt. Marveling at the beauty of not only murals, sidewalks and fading paint, but also rooftop water tanks. Everything turns beautiful under the right kind of sky.
Visitors
Around noon, Carla, Emmerson and Axel visited for a bit. Every puppy got held by either Carla or Axel – we’ll count them as new people again! Fierro was the first puppy to show object play with a person other than me: he tugged with Axel! What a good boy!
All puppies played with each other while Emmerson (the 3-year old) ran around the yard. These little social visits are perfect: they usually stay for about half an hour because by then, Emmerson gets bored. Both for me and the puppies, that’s an excellent amount of time to socialize.
We’ve done these visits over my lunch break so far, which is also convenient: during the hottest hours of the day, none of the puppies have enough energy to eat visitors, making it a great time to have a kid over and running around. Earlier or later in the day, I’d worry, especially since Emmerson is a bit tentative around the puppies. They are fast now, and I can see Emmerson running and screaming while 5 Malinois puppies think this is the best game ever, catch up with Emmerson, latch on to them and … ahm … like the cute tiny dinosaurs in this Jurassic Park scene:
In the evening, when it cooled down, I decided to try 2-puppy adventures this week as a change from solo- or everyone.adventures. The first two puppies got to go today:
Oso and Fierro’s 2-dog adventure
I carried them a little in the carrier, then set it down and gave them a chance to come out (once we were off the car street my temporary house is on). Both did so pretty quickly – when there are two rather than one, their confidence doubles! I walked a few steps and called them. Sure enough they came running! A piece of kibble for everyone and the opportunity to go back into the carrier. Both ate the kibble and wanted to stay outside, so we walked some more along the sidewalk. We saw several people, got touched by someone and Fierro responded slightly suspiciously when someone shooed him away from their plastic cup of beer. With a little encouragement, he then ran past them when I called. Brave Fierro!
I walked ahead and called a few times, feeding a piece of kibble or two each or offering water. I LOVE that they are already eating kibble out and about, and it was great to see their confidence on the sidewalk, and how they approached rather than retreated from two strangers (who reatreated into a portón before the puppies caught up with them.)
They also met a free-roamer, upping both their weekly dog count by one! Go puppies!
Tomorrow, I’ll take the next two. I’ll spontaneously decide who gets to go!
Crate training
Fierro
was tired and did his 10 minutes without issues as I was getting ready for bed.
Oso
was still wide awake. Both he and Chispa were in sleep deprived toddler mode, which goes along with panting quite a bit. I waited until Oso had chilled out and then went for his 10 minutes. Unfortunately, I hadn’t given him enough time to be able to modulate his energy down from crazy to asleep. He complained at a noise level 1 in the carrier, starting about a minute in. He stayed at a level 1 though and there were brief pauses. He was tired … until he saw Game head outside for her evening pee. At that point, he escalated to a level 3, and then back to 1 when she came inside again. Don Oso will do another 10-minute round next time!
Changes!
Purple used to be a very even-keeled and slightly lazy puppy until about Sunday. Now, he’s becoming more and more active and intense! They change SO much, all the time!
6 weeks, 5 days (May 10, 2024)
Adventures, field trips and socializing!
We went to our usual morning walk spot, but I drove the part that has cars and dogs barking behind fences so the puppies could come! I parked at the cactus wasteland and let everyone out right away. It is wild how much of a difference it makes in the puppies’ confidence when Game and Chai are around – especially Game! Since the big girls couldn’t wait to get out of the car and get to their running spot, the puppies followed suit. Chispa needed a bit of convincing – she was the only one who observed from under the car for half a minute before taking off into the open field. (Once again: notice how much they change: last week, the hesitant puppy would have been Rebelde while Chispa would have been one of the first ones to explore. Today, the tables are turned!)
What I was most fascinated by was that the puppies weren’t big on exploring this new environment. Instead, they did what they usually do in the morning: latch on to my pants and sandals to tug ferociously! Chispa, once she had decided she wanted to come, was all wiggly and happy when she finally got to me and then, of course, cashed in on her price of tugging away. Not a second look at the environment even though the big dogs were ahead and exploring! (Chispa is my current favorite because out of all the puppies, she seems the happiest to see me, and she has a facial expression that goes with an open mouth, ears back and fast wagging. She turns into the personification (canification?) of joy. None of the others can do that kind of expression. The random details we love about them are fascinating in and of themselves!)
My left leg and my right leg as I’m trying to walk further into the field!
I’ve only consciously reinforced tugging on my pants (it is something that typically only happens in the morning, when everyone is extra excited to see me and it’s still coolish) a few times – maybe between 3 and 5, for no more than 30 seconds each, and not with every puppy each time. And WOW, what a result! Going forwards, I’ll carry toys for them to latch on to instead. Unfortunately, I have no closed shoes, and my feet are pretty scratched up by now. It IS fun, but it’s also a lot to put on the puppies’ new homes! It would be nice to get them to target toys instead over the next few days, before they move out. Without having done any conscious drive building except for letting them tug on me a few times and slipping socks/shoes, I have unleashed the monsters! It is WILD to me how easy a genetic disposition to be mouthy can be turned up! (I continue being delighted, of course, but since they won’t stay with me, it’s time to tune things down in the eating-humans department.)
There is a very easy trick to get a puppy to let go, by the way: pick them up. The puppy, that is, not the thing you don’t want them to tug on.
After doing so a few times on our wasteland adventure, they shifted their focus to the environment (phew!) Here’s our first encounter with a cactus:
After meeting Mr. Cactus, we saw (well, at least Game did) cattle in the distance and I used the opportunity to whistle-recall the adults, knowing that the puppies would come running after them. Not only was there a scatter – the puppies also got reinforced with social attention (praise and pets) as well as an opportunity to reach Game’s teats for a drink (it is warm already and milk is liquid – the perfect reinforcer.) The scatter is mostly for the big dogs, but some of the little ones snatched up kibble as well. I believe social reinforcement is still pretty strong for them, but food is starting to increase in value.
In the video above, you may have seen that the person with the cattle has a dog as well. In the clip below, that dog has come closer and after eating a scatter (everyone except for Chispa, who observes the dog), we get to say hi. I call Game back twice to make sure she doesn’t get too intense with them. I haven’t let her meet dogs together with the puppies before. On the second up-close meet, before I have a chance to call them back, the dog feels outnumbered and heads off. This was a great opportunity for the puppies to meet a new dog, and see peaceful meetings modeled by their two big household dogs!
I’m only putting down one new dog for Bravo since he was the one who directly approached and sniffed the dog up close. I’m excited it was Bravo, since his dog count is currently the lowest (he had the least dogs “roll over” from last week.)
… and for the final adventure puzzle piece of this morning, we all climbed a wall (i.e. a wall that’s part of a ruin, making it climbable even for puppies:
This entire outing was around 10-15 minutes – there was just a lot that fit into a short time. If I walked at my normal speed, it would have been 3 minutes to do this small loop from the car and back to the car. The reason it was 10-15 is that we first spent a bit of time with me standing still and puppies hanging on to my pants, I stopped a few time to take pictures, I recalled them, we waited when they checked out the cactus …
Rebel & Bravo’s 2-dog adventure
Around lunch time, I craved quesadillas, so I walked to the quesadilla plaza with Rebel and Bravo. I first had them both in the carrier, then let both out and they followed me, then carried them both, let both of them walk a little again and, on the way back, took turns having one in my arms and one in the carrier.
We made it to the quesadilla plaza, and I let the puppies have a drink and run around. Rebel was out first. She had also been the first one out on our first stop in the street, and the first one to say hi to a person we met. Not a shy puppy this week at all!
Apart from seeing passers-by, we interacted with 3 people: two who pet them for a little bit (without lifting them up) and a 3-year-old (whose pink tulle dress looked like a great toy to rip up; I’m glad it was hot enough for the puppies to not sink their teeth into it!) who didn’t dare touch them, but danced and ran around them, came close and retreated again while we waited for my quesadillas. The puppies were, at this point, tired and watched with interest, but not in a hurry to get up or appraoch: they had just interacted with two of the four dogs on this plaza as well, staying on the ground, approaching voluntarily. Both dogs were friendly to them; it was great! By the time we met the kid, everyone was ready to pass out.
I’m counting two dogs and one human for both puppies. I’ve decided my human count will be 1 for every person who holds the puppies and, now that they are at an interactive age, 1 for every 3 people who interact with the puppies without picking them up.
When walking a bit along the sidewalk on the way to the plaza, I called the puppies successfully with Pup-pup-pup a few times, reinforced with pets and kibble and the opportunity to go into the carrier if they wanted, and occasionally a drink of water. They both took food (even though they had just had lunch before we left!) and were doing great. Bravo found his first scavenge-able little pieces of meat under the quesadilla stove. I had forgotten my phone, so no pictures or videos of this outing – but it was a most successful one! I just wish it wasn’t quite as warm. By the time I got home, I was ready to take a nap too!
Crate training
I usually crate train when everyone gets tired at night … but this morning, they were all wiped out from our field trip, so I used the opportunity to get some sleepy training in before it got too, too hot!
Oso
started talking to himself half-way into his repeat-9 minutes. He talked to himself on and off (lower than a level 1) until almost the end; I took him out when he happened to be quiet after 9 minutes. Since I’m aiming for total calmness, he’ll repeat the 9-minute stage again.
Fierro
took his first stab at 15 crate minutes. He started complaining softly 11 minutes in, talking to himself, escalated to noise level 1 around the 12 minute mark and to levels 2 and 3 another minute later. 15 again it is for Fierro! He started out really well though!
Oso – again
I gave Oso another go at 9 minutes after Fierro’s turn because everyone was still wiped out from this morning and it wasn’t yet UNBEARABLY hot. He aced it this time! On to 10 minutes for his next round!
Fierro – again
After Oso, Fierro took another stab at his 15 minutes – and he DID it! What a superstar! He woke up twice during his turn. Once because of a firecracker – he fell back asleep a few seconds later. And once at about minute 15, when the neighbors’ dog started barking. He was awake, head up, listening and looking for his last minute, but no complaints! Go Fierro! His next turn will be 20 minutes!
Oso aces his 10 minutes!
Tonight, Oso had another go at sleeping in the carrier for 10 minutes – and he DID it even though he woke up in the very end when the dog next door started barking! Go puppy! On to 15 minutes tomorrow!
Resource guarding prevention
Apart from Oso’s crate training win, we only did two things tonight: I used the mop as a “don’t eat my feet” toy (it works great for most puppies except Fierro!) and then added little pieces of raw to the puppies’ dinner kibble. I’ve been doing this for 1-3 of their 4 daily meals over the last couple days and am now starting to see cheerful anticipation when I approach!
6 weeks, 5 days (May 10)
Caden’s don’t-eat-me protocol
Below, day 1.5 of The Mop Mission for unteaching your litter of Malinois puppies to eat you. To successfully apply:
Have a baby gate between you and the puppies. Entice them with the mop before stepping over the baby gate for a better chance that they will target the mop (rather than you.) See 02:26 in the video below. The camera angle isn’t great, but at this point in the clip, I’m behind the baby gate in the front door to the house – and the puppies are outside. I’ve already moved the mop back and forth in circles and ∞ movements for about 20 seconds when the clip starts.
Move your mop AWAY from the puppies rather than towards them. Just like you would when teaching them to tug: toys try to escape like prey animals; they don’t try to jump into the preditor’s mouth.
Only if absolutely necessary use the mop as a barrier between you and a puppy. Note that this puppy, if there’s a reinforcement history for eating you, is learning to fight past the mop to get to you rather than to target the mop! My puppies have this reinforcement history.
If a puppy latches on to you, don’t pick up your leg or foot or shoe – this tends to cause Malinois puppies to latch on even more strongly! Instead, pick up the puppie. They are likely to let go (at this age anyways.) Place them behind the mop so they get another chance of chasing something they will be allowed to keep biting.
After daily practice, I’ll show you what this looks like next week!
Tugging with three puppies (the two sports prospects and my favorite)
Why? Because I have TIME for it. If I had gone to the city and done what I originally planned – socialize, socialize, socialize – I wouldn’t have. I’m using this time wisely to have a little fun!
Play with one puppy out at a time – but if you have several puppies, let the others watch from behind a barrier! They’ll want to go next!
Tug for 1-2 minutes (stop before the puppy gets tired!)
After some 50/50 strength struggle (thank you for that percentage suggestion, Shade Whitesel!), let the puppy win the toy when they give a good tugging effort: let go of it and let them have it.
Let the puppy keep the toy and do what they like with it for at least 20 seconds.
Announce a trade: show them something edible and delicious, take away the toy, give them the food, give back the toy.
Let them have the toy for about 20 seconds more and then distract them away from it if they are still interested. In Oso’s video, I start tossing figs since we happen to be under a fig tree. Pick up the toy when the puppy doesn’t notice.
Session over! Transition gently from interaction to puppy-amusing-themselves time, for example with snuggles or personal play.
Oso
Fierro
Fierro impressed me: he didn’t let go of the toy throughout his session! This is one tenacious puppy (today he is anyways – remember that at this age, you’ve got a different puppy every day!)
Chispa
When it was Chispa’s turn, she was too tired to play – or in any case, she didn’t feel like it. It was HOT! I first played in the usual spot by myself, but quickly gave up. These are Malinois puppies. If anyone is going to beg to play, it’s going to be them begging me!
I then briefly tried engaging her up closer – and she started chasing the toy! However, she soon stopped again and I ended the session. Take home message: don’t beg your dog to play. If it’s not the right moment for them, just try again later.
At night, after the rain, Chispa was big time into tugging with Chai on that same toy!
2-dog adventure
Chispa and Fierro went on their 2-dog adventure this morning. I hoped to find a person for Fierro and a dog for Chispa to meet. We found someone for Fierro: the tamales salesperson I bought my breakfast from was happy to hold him. No dogs for Chispa though. We saw one, but he was mistrustful so we left him alone.
The most interesting part was when we walked past a rubbish fence (made out of car parts, steel mats and corrugated metal) that had three (?) dogs behind it who started barking suddenly and all at once. Both puppies got scared (very clearly a fear response, not a startle response) but responded differently: Chispa booked it towards home and stopped maybe 15 meters from me on the sidewalk. The barky dog yard was between us. Fierro ran my direction and gladly jumped in the get-away carrier the door of which I held open. I tried pup-pup-pup calling Chispa, but she couldn’t come. Only once I had walked back towards her side of the barky dogs did she come (which didn’t require her to run past the barking, but still towards it rather than away from it – brave girl!)
Both puppies recovered within no more than 20 seconds. They voluntarily left the carrier again – Fierro before Chispa – and walked with me for the last part of the way home. Fierro even latched on to the belt of the carrier and tugged. And yes, that last bit was on the car street sidewalk, but the puppies were tired enough I trusted they’d stay with me.
The fascination of opposite responses and the onset of fear
I found two things fascinating today: one is that the two puppies showed opposite responses to the barky dogs: away from me and towards home (Chispa) and towards me (even though that was the opposite direction from home): Fierro.
It also was a clear sign that by now, at 6 weeks and 5 days, every single puppy (maybe except for Bravo? I’ll have to go back over my notes to see if I’ve seen a fear response in him yet) is physiologically capable of experiencing fear. The earliest I’ve gotten a puppy was at 7 weeks. That puppy was also a Mal. So really, there is very little chance that when you get a (Malinois) puppy, that puppy isn’t already past the sensitive socialization window (if we define that window as the time the puppy is socially receptive, yet entirely unable to feel fear.) The 7-or-8-week-old puppy’s fear response will still be smaller than the fear response of an older puppy – but like it or not, it’s going to be possible to show up while being entirely impossible at an earlier age.
The puppy you invite into your life
This is why I give young puppies ALL the opportunities to socialize that I can. As much as possible, even if it’s hard on them and they are very busy as a result of my socialization efforts.
I also advise new owners to do a lot in the very beginning (the no-fear opportunity is gone, but the fear response is still smaller than it will be in a week or two.) Once the fear response is noticeable when confronted with new experiences (depending on the breed and the individual, this may be at 7 weeks, at 12 weeks or anywhere in between), we slow way down and I suggest one or two calm days a week where the puppy learns that sometimes, nothing much happens and we still don’t tear the house to shreds.
Once the opportunity to reap the unique benefits of the time when curiosity is greater than fear has passed, we’re not in a hurry anymore and can focus on other important, but less time-sensitive things such as learning to be calm and not not always “be on,” crate training, marker cues, play and other life skills we may practice at home.
Up until then, we very much are in a hurry and quite busy socializing, going all the places and having all the visitors! But starting when the fear response is more than just a moment’s hesitation, I want the puppy to have the greatest possible agency over approaching or not, being touched or not, and the distance from whatever stimulus that feels right to them. This is when we may introduce CU games, desensitization and other more systematic (and hence less “organic”) protocols: while we didn’t need them for very young puppies, we do now!
Solo adventures without a carrier
Oso
came on an errand to buy milk. I had hoped to hand him to the convenience store person to hold while I scrambled through my wallet, but unfortunately, the store of our choice was closed and the person in the one we went to instead wasn’t quiete as dog-enthusiastic. Oso is still missing one human to complete this week’s count. This is the first time all puppies needed their rollover extra humans from last week because I didn’t go to the city today, where socializing puppies is easier!
We’ll go dog hunting tonight and tomorrow and find Oso a human to complete this week’s quests for everyone!
Rebelde
came on an ice cream mission in my arms a little later today. Almost everyone is out of ice cream! But we hunted some down!
Resource guarding prevention: toys
Everyone got a round of toy-guarding prevention: my hand approaching a toy means I’ll take it away, feed something delicious and give it right back. I worked with all of them, but didn’t take video of them all. It was fun to observe how some went right back to the toy while others were looking for more food!
While only 3 puppies got to play with me this morning, everyone got a round of playing by themselves with the resource guarding protocol!
Rebelde
Bravo
Fierro
Going forwards, I’ll only do toy play and trade after. Toy play is way too much fun to swap it for boring toy – food – toy exchanges!
The adventure that didn’t happen
When it cooled down a little, I put all the puppies in the big dog crate and drove them to the town center in the hope of human and dog socialization. However, just as we got there, it started pouring. I waited about 10 minutes, but the rain didn’t let out, so we drove back home – not having left the car. Silver lining: the puppies got another car ride in the big dog crate, and they heard rain on the roof of a car.
A note on play
It is fascinating to me that the puppies seem much more interested in playing with each other and with me than in playing with the adult dogs. Never before has it been THIS clear to me how important puppy/puppy play must be! Sadly, no news on my search for a litter of a similar age, even though I’ve now posted in two more local and semi-local dog Facebook groups.
Thought of the day
Grief comes in waves.
7 weeks (May 11)
Socialization adventure
Since we – that is I – had been too tired to go to the city this weekend, I took another stab at the town center this morning. No more rain and today, we were much luckier! Not a lot was going on yet on a Sunday at 7AM, but this made the stimuli there were the more salient. We met 5 dogs at varying levels of closeness. I’m counting 2 per puppy. This gets almost everyone to their weekly dog-interaction count (taking the rollover from last week!) There were also several people who touched some of them. I want one more round of this, and I’ll count one person for everyone too, which would also get everyone the required people count.
Everyone came and ate when I called, ran away and sprinkled breakfast kibble. Eating out, getting pets, practicing puppy recalls – check.
Curiosity, approach behavior … and scaring off two big dogs once they noticed HOW MANY little raptors were coming to say hi to them. Thank you for being kind to the first ones, you two!
Fierro also barked at another non-threatening free-roamer. This is the first time one of them has barked at a stimulus! Plus: we’re climbing stairs as if it was the most natural thing in the world! See for yourself:
We then met a fourth free-roamer and almost got run over by a trash cart. Almost! What’s most interesting in this clip to me is how Chispa approaches the dog with her tail tucked. She is clearly feeling tense. There is no reason for her to approach. I am at a distance from this dog, taking video – she could come to me or go any other way. And yet, she chooses to approach despite her tail saying that she isn’t entirely at ease! Curiosity wins – and nothing bad happens! Go Chispa!
Thank you for the person with the trash cart for stopping when I asked you to! We were getting in your way, after all!
After meeting the trash cart, the puppies found bread crumbs to enjoy and reconnected with the black free-roamer. They also ran after a bike for a few metters and after a pedestrian (I had to call them away from the pedestrian; they themselves stopped with the bike.) Bravo tried eating the pedal of a different bike. That’s not on video – but here’s Bravo and Rebelde learning to scavenge and our free-roaming friend! I usually don’t feed free-roamers, but I do these days because I want them to stick around me and the puppies. You’ll also see me having to call Rebelde away from a stranger in this clip. I lowered the camera when calling because the person looked like they’d like to be left alone, so you can’t see Rebelde’s nice response.
Folks were just starting to set up for the Sunday market when we got ready to leave (to avoid going home in the heat!) Everyone walked through the market corridor together – including our new found friend, of course! In the video below, you see me calling the puppies after the corridor. They are slower to respond – Rebelde seems to not be sure which direction my call is coming from, and everyone else is just tired by this point! Our new friend, funnily, is fast to respond to the recall she doesn’t know!
At this age, social reinforcement tends to be most valuable. I feed now and then anyways because I want the puppies to learn how to eat, and that food can be a consequence of behaviors. But not always: I want social reinforcement to stay strong and not turn every interaction into a transaction.
I would love to go to the city at least once this week before returning there on Thursday … but due to the heat, I think I’ll leave it at working here in town. I’ll just have to head out every morning and every evening (as long as we don’t get rained out, like yesterday.) Hopefully that way, we’ll come close to meeting our dog and people goals. We’ve still got tonight to break even for this week, and I hope to make it count!
This evening’s social trip
I looked for other plazas in and around town, but the only other one there is (as far as I can tell) – the quesadilla plaza – was pretty dead. So we headed back to the center again. And wow, was it fun! Much more alive than at 7AM! There were not as many dogs as there usually are at city parks, but plenty of people who wanted to interact with the puppies, including kids. Older kids running, couples lying on the low walls of the grassy parts, a balloon salesperson, a few arts stands (probably the same we saw setting up in the morning), people with strollers and lights in the trees. It wasn’t crazy crowded, but just right. Everyone met a tiny 8-months old Chihuahua who wanted to play (until my guys became too much when they found all their confidence) and another friendly free-roamer who was approached by Bravo (he’s the most confident, ventures the furthest and is the first to approach people and dogs these days), Rebelde, Fierro (who first barked and then had a good time) and Chispa (who I held up to both this dog and the Chi to sniff because she was being sleepy or tentative.) Oso got held by a new person, so he officially mets his people count for the day as well. Since everyone else got touched by all kinds of people, but not picked up, I’m giving them all an additional people mark too. Plus one Chihuahua for everyone and one free-roamer who wanted my pets, but not my food for 4 of the puppies. It’s going well! We’ll make this park a staple, twice a day for as long as the puppies are here and it doesn’t rain!
Crate training
Oso
Shortly after we got home from our evening adventure, there was a power outage. Nothing much we could do – but Oso got 15 minutes of crate time and rocked it! Both he and Fierro are looking at 20 minutes next.
While Oso slept in the carrier in the kitchen, everyone else was asleep outside the baby gate, outside the house … except for Rebelde. She vocally complained about wanting to be let in. I did something I haven’t done before. Since everyone was out there with her and peaceful, it was a familiar place and she wasn’t confined, I knew she wasn’t scared – she just wasn’t content and wanted inside, and she is someone who says what she wants. I waited her out, puttering around nearby but not letting her in. She calmed down after 20 minutes. About a minute later, I let everyone in for the night.
Did we meeet the new dogs and new humans goal (at least 7 a week for everyone?)
YES! I tallied up this week’s dogs and people, and thanks to today’s two outings and Carla, Emmerson and Axel’s visit this week, we made or overshot our dog and human goals this week as well! (Granted this is the first time we counted rollover dogs and humans from last week.) I have a good feeling that we’ll get things done in week 8 as well, now that we have a plan for mornings and nights!
I got the fridge-temperature beer can delivered to hand in between two rice-can reps, but off screen – so not sharing that video.
January 28, 2024: phone success and another fridge-temperature can video
I got the phone 3 times in a row! Woohooo! I didn’t add any easy objects; just did 3 spontaneous phone reps. Phone – check! Crossing it off the object-goals list!
I also repeated the fridge temperature can, this time on video – no easy objects. Chai dropped it a few times, but did well enough for me to decide it is ready to be crossed off my object goals list as well. Definitely not using this can again; we have dropped it too often for it to still be safe. Will occasionally repeat with new cans or new rice-filled cans.
Rice-filled can (Jan. 21, & Jan. 22 & Jan 23 & Jan. 24, 2024)
Porcelain mug
Highlighter
Phone
(Rice-filled) can
February 5, 2024: thermos mug success!
Today, I used the familiar porcelain mug in combination with the second mug – a new one for Chai: the thermos mug (thank you, Chris). I thought the familiar mug might make a good introduction to the new one. Turns out the thermos mug was much easier for Chai than the porcelain mug! I’ll remove the porcelain mug from the easy-objects list (I don’t want it to break if Chai keeps tossing it around like this) and replace it with the thermos one instead. That’s the one I use (and drop) more often anyways.
Rice-filled can (Jan. 21, & Jan. 22 & Jan 23 & Jan. 24, 2024)
Thermos mug
Highlighter
Phone
(Rice-filled) can
February 6, 2023: retractable leash success and thermos mug struggles
I’ve been slowing down a bit since I’ve gotten a little tired of this trick – I’m ready to switch to another one! – but I am determined to make it through my fetchable objects list first! So here we are again, using the thermos mug as an easy object to get more reps in and the retractable leash as a new object. Turns out the thermos mug was harder today than yesterday! Chai did it though, but good thing we kept it in the rotation. The retractable leash turned out to be surprisingly easy. I’ll bold the thermos mug in my easy objects list to remember to use it again soon. The retractable leash has another session to look forward to as well – next time playing the part of the easy object.
Rice-filled can (Jan. 21 & Jan. 22 & Jan 23 & Jan. 24, 2024)
Thermos mug (Feb. 6, 2024 & Feb. 20, 2024)
Highlighter (Feb. 20, 2024)
Phone
(Rice-filled) can
Retractable leash (Feb. 8, 2024)
Next session(s):
Do a mug game with yogurt on the handle before using the thermos mug again.
February 8, 2024: checking off the credit card goal!
Today, I took a break from mugs and used the retractable leash as an easy object. Go Chai! I also did a few more credit card rounds. I set myself a goal that would allow me to check credit cards off my fetchable objects list: pick up the bent/chewed-on card from the floor, whichever side is up, and pick up a new flat card (no tape, no raised numbers) from the puzzle mats. This was my compromise for actual credit cards on the floor (the only useless plastic card I had didn’t only not have raised numbers but was only half as “tall” as a credit card). I would have loved to try an un-chewed credit card with the numbers facing the floor on the floor itself, but I only have the one I still use and don’t want it to potentially die between the teeth of a Border Collie. I’ll just have to wait until it expires; in the meantime, the other card was a good compromise. Chai did great with these three tasks. Which means I get to check off credit cards! Go (not so) puppy!
Also, random note: I wish the flag on the wall behind me was Valentino Vecchetti’s updated one. I’ll give it away this year or swap it for the new one. It bothers me every time I see it on video. That said, as by my rule that I only keep things I use, it’ll stay up for now.
We now only have one new object left: a leather leash. I’ll swap in the thermos mug for this one, but only after giving Chai a chance to lick yogurt off its handle.
February 10, 2024: licking yogurt and granola of the thermos mug handle and giving the leather leash a try!
My goal with this food toy is to make it more likely Chai will pick up the mug by the handle in our fetch anything sessions.
Unfortunately, the session we had after – thermos mug and leash handle – didn’t go as I had hoped: Chai didn’t target the handle of the mug and continued struggling to pick it up. The leash handle did not appear pick-up-able to her at all. Before having another leash handle session, I’ll try dipping it in something delicious. The other route would be to cut off the handle and teach Chai to pick up just that part – but I don’t want to ruin my leash unless I have to.
February 11, 2024: licking sweet cream off the leash handle
Again, my goal here is to make the handle of the leash the most appealing part to be picked up. The last time we tried, Chai didn’t pick up the leash at all. This time, I dipped it in sweet cream and turnd it into a food toy: I hoped she would carry it to the couch after (as she likes to do with most found treasures) if I just left it on the floor, but Chai wasn’t interested once she had finished her sweet cream feast.
February 20, 2024: highlighter, thermos mug, cut-off leash handle … and leash handle attached to a leash on a dog! Go Chai!
We had a bit of a break because our training time was spent videoing new demo videos – both Game and Chai got to play!
Now we’re back for more “Gimme” and taking another stab at the last object on our fetchable object goals list: the elusive leash handle!
I admitted defeat: having Chai lick tasty stuff off the handle of my old leash didn’t transfer to picking it up. So I cut the handle off my current leather leash (sniff), bought an identical one, taught Chai to hand me the cut-off handle and then the handle on the actual (new) leash.
This is the session with just the leash handle piece I’ve cut off. I’ve already added Game to the picture because in the final scenario I imagine using this skill, there will be a dog on the other end of the leash I drop:
After a break, I had another session – the break-through one! We can now retrieve leashes and will pick them up by their handle!
I get to cross off my last object on the retrievable objects list. Wohoo! Mission accomplished! Before generalizing the behavior to new environments, we’ll take a break from this trick. Time to work on something else for a while – I’m ready for a change!
Acclimation (by my definition – different trainers have different definitions!) means allowing your dog to satiate on the environment you want to play, train, work or trial in. Students often say their dog never satiates on the world, and that is likely true. But the environment you’ll be working in is much smaller than the whole world – so it’s not really a problem. Let’s imagine you live near the beach (because that’s what I found a royalty-free image of):
Royalty free image by “Pexels” from Pixabay – thank you!
Let’s further imagine you want to practice recall games in the red oval that I put on the image. In the oval, there are 4 palm trees and a bunch of sand. This is not the whole world – it isn’t even the whole part of the beach that is in the image. It’s 10 to 20m2 (about 100 to 150ft2).
Acclimation phase
In our example, acclimation would mean:
Keep your dog on a leash.
Walk the perimeter of the area you want to work in (walk along the border of the red oval in the picture above), stopping to let your dog sniff however much they want.
Repeat if there’s a lot to sniff until they walk with you looking bored, not sniffing anymore.
Go into the red oval and let them sniff every spot they want to check out. Let them pee on the palm trees. Let them pick up a shell if they feel like it. Let them roll in the sand or dig a hole. Zig-zag and walk, following their lead, around the surface area of the red oval until they have had a chance to investigate every square foot of it.
If they want to leave the oval, gently stop them with the leash: no need to acclimate outside the oval because that’s not where you’ll be training.
Walk around the small area you have defined for training, play or work until your dog is bored of it.
Engagement phase
ENGAGEMENT is started by your dog – not by you. As the human part of the team, your job is to let the dog investigate for as long as they need to. Don’t try to distract them from smells or other interesting stimuli and activities. As long as they sniff, pee or dig, they are not done acclimating.
Being done looks different for individual dogs. It might look like offering to walk next to you rather than looking/sniffing around, and maintaining eye contact. In the case of my Mals, it could either be an offered sit with 5 seconds of duration eye contact, offered heeling or personal play initiated by the dog.
Go with whatever engagement behavior your dog naturally offers!
Let’s imagine the behavior your dog offers is walking next to you and not paying attention to the environment. Define a specific duration they need to keep up this behavior for it to count as letting you know they are done acclimating. For example, you could say: when my dog walks next to me on a loose leash, occasionally glancing up at me, for at least 10 seconds, I get to start playing, training or working.
Warm-up/are you ready? phase
Before you go into more difficult work, training or play, gauge how your dog is feeling. A good way to ask this question is to invite them to play a simple marker cue game, like tossing 4 treats back and forth for your dog to chase. Observe them: do they stay engaged throughout those 4 treats (not distracted by the environment), eat every treat at once and turn on a dime for the next one? Great! Your dog is ready to start working/training/play!
Do they hesitate, get distracted or not eat a treat? Go back to acclimation!
Note that some dogs don’t need the warm up/are you ready? phase – they can go right from engagement into work/training/play. It is still useful to practice because a dog who doesn’t need a warm up in familiar environments may still benefit from it at a new, difficult or trial environment. Having practiced it means you can just pull it out your pocket, ready to use.
Work/training/play
Use the surface area of your oval to train or play whatever you were planning to for however long you were planning to … but make sure YOU are the one who ends the fun. We want our dog to stay engaged from the first step (e.g. first treat/first marker cue) of the warm up phase until you finish your session with an “all done” cue and end-of-session ritual.
Try this the next time before you train, play or work out and about! Observe your dog’s distraction level! Do they have an easier time staying engaged throughout the session? Perfect! This strategy is a winner! Do they still struggle? We’ll dig deeper and try something else!1
All done announcement and end-of-session ritual
Don’t just stop out of nowhere and go from full-on engagement to ignoring your dog – that’s rude! It’s as if someone walked away in the middle of a conversation with you and just left you hanging, or got up in the middle of a two-person meal in a restaurant without an explanation and walked out the door.
Instead, you’ll verbally announce to your dog that the session is over (I use “All done!” for this), and then follow it up with a transition behavior that helps your dog move from a working state of mind back into a just-being-a-dog state of mind. An easy option is doing a treat scatter after your all done cue (scatters are calming). Another option is personal play or calm petting.
Trying something else would, at this point, usually mean one of two things: giving the acclimation ritual itself more structure (for example with CU games or start buttons), or adding a longer and more structured “ready to work” routine after acclimation. Shade Whitesel shares a great example of a ready to work routine in this blog post. ↩︎
January 18, 2024: wallet, phone and rice-filled beer/soda cans
We started today playing another round of 2-toy fetch with the rice filled cans. As before, I just picked one of those up in the street – I’m not even sure what kind of drink used to be in the dark one; I don’t think I’ve seen it in stores. It’s pretty though and it has a cool name: París de Noche. Anyways, this is to say: the streets are filled with food and toys. What a life for a dog (and their human)!
Since this went so well, I then added a rice-filled can to our fetch-anything-to-hand game! I’ll use the rice-filled can for practice (no danger of exploding) and eventually swap it out for a “real” can. That one’s gotta have beer in it just because.
For today’s fetch session, I used my wallet, the phone and one of the rice-filled cans. I love how in the first rep, Chai is so fast that I don’t even have time to put the wallet on the floor! Loving that confidence!
Starting at 00:54, you can see that the 2-toy session has worked its magic: Chai is now confidently picking up the rice-filled can! The wallet is the easiest to pick up and the phone is the most difficult. I keep interspersing easy objects to keep Chai’s confidence high.
Now let me transfer over our lists of easy objects and goals from the last post … I’ll modify; I’m happy with the keys as they are for now.
Fetchable-object goals:
Wallet, credit card (D), keys, phone, beer can, bank bill, full plastic bottles, coin, 2 types of mugs (D), leash handle (D), retractable leash (D), keys, silverware.
Easy-objects list:
20-peso bill (Jan. 9, 2024)
Spoon (Jan. 10, 2024)
Fork
Knife
Coin (Jan. 12, 2024)
Keys (Jan. 11, 2024 & January 14, 2024)
Glue stick
Empty spray bottle
Wallet (Jan. 17, 2024 & Jan. 18, 2024)
Rice-filled can (Jan. 21, 2024 & Jan. 22, 2024 & Jan 23, 2024)
Next session(s):
Lickable stuff in porcellain mug and on its handle.
Use rice-filled can as easy object to build confidence and get practice – just in case the actual beer can explodes!
Keep the phone in the game; alternate between floor and puzzle mats.
“Gimme” cue!
January 21, 2024: woohooooo for porcelain mugs!
I played a third cup game today. I didn’t have peanut butter, so I used something a little less sticky: yogurt. After I had stopped filming, Chai eventually picked up the cup (I just left it on the floor) and carried it to the couch. Over the course of about 15 minutes, she dropped it off the couch four times, it made noise falling on the floor or on the treadmill, and Chai jumped after and picked it back up, taking it up on the couch again. No footage of the couch action, but here is a snippet of Chai enjoing her yogurt cup:
Because I had observed her like this and saw her interact with it on the couch (trying to chew and lick it some more), I decided to put it into today’s object fetch session … and it was a huge success!
Notes on this session: I’m interspersing an easy object – always the first one on my check list (see above) – with difficult and/or new ones. Because I know the mug is difficult, I go back to the rice-filled can after the first successful rep (00:06). There was a little hesitation about first picking it up. After the rice-filled can rep, we are ready to take another stab at the mug (01:12). Chai is more confident about it this time! I probably could have done more than the one mug rep here but I wanted to reinforce with an easy object and switched back to the can again after a beautiful single mug rep (01:19). The mug rep at 01:24 is difficult – but look at Chai working confidently at finding a way to pick it up! Superpuppy!
Next session(s):
Maybe another cup game before the next session?
Two-toy game with credit cards.
Keep using the rice-filled cans as an easy object to build lots of confidence (in case later the real beer can explodes). No liquid-filled cans yet!
Get some more phone reps under Chai’s collar.
January 22, 2024: credit card, rice-filled can, phone and porcelain mug!
Today, I repeated the first two cup games (no video). Then, I played the two-toy game with an expired credit card and some other plastic card I don’t need. Chai did great picking them up off the bed (easiest surface) and the puzzle mat. She could only pick the credit card up from the floor – and that may be because at that point, it had been chewed and bent in such a way that it wasn’t flat against the floor anymore. The other plastic card still was, and Chai didn’t manage to grip it until I added a piece of heavy tape to its sides (the tape is about 1mm thick). Chai was then able to grab it off the floor.
I then did a session of 3 difficult objects interspersed by a single easy one – the beer can. I couldn’t resist the temptation to try the card right away, and Chai was SO good! Only problem: I forgot to hit record. I did a second session, and that one got recorded:
January 23, 2024: no video, but a great session
Chai did really well on 3 reps with the rice-filled can (easy object) followed by 3 reps of the mug (twice lying down, once standing up), followed by one more rep of the can. I used the “Gimme!” cue every time, and for the first time, I didn’t set up the puzzle mats (the training picture Chai is used to) but just the floor. I’ve lowered the amount of food Chai gets for each successful rep in this session as well.
I’ll do one more session like this where I’ll include one porcelain mug rep with the mug turned upside down – this is the most difficult position because Chai needs to topple it over (almost impossible on the slippery floor without puzzle mats) or pick it up by the handle. Note to self: have some more sessions of mug game #1 on the floor (not on the puzzle mats) before asking Chai to “gimme” an upside down mug!
I also want to do a similar session with the phone, getting it from the floor 3 times in a row, and then I’ll cross phones as well as porcelain mugs off the “fetchable-object goals” list and move them to the “easy objects” section.
In terms of the can: I plan on doing one more session with the rice-filled cans, and then I’ll intersperse the “real” can at room temperature once. In a subsequent session, I’ll intersperse the real can at fridge temperature once. For now, I won’t use the same “real” (bubbly-liquid-filled) can more than twice to keep the danger of exploding cans low.
Next session(s): re-read today’s notes; focus on mug, phone and can(s).
January 24, 2024: porcelain mug in all positions – check!
We started the day with mug game #1. Chai did really well, picking the mug up at the handle every time! Then, we did a session of “Gimme!” Since the session below went so well, I’ll move the mug to the “easy objects” list!
The next session involving cans will have a REAL can at room temperature interspersed! Woohooo! Let’s do it!
I wanted to finish the phone challenge so I could move phones to the easy object list too. However … no luck. Not yet. I want 3 pick-ups in a row without Chai or me dropping the phone, and she dropped it one time. The good news: we got a fun easy-object rep in with the fork!
I’ve crossed off the porcelain mug (and split out the two mugs) and removed my “E” (easy), “M” (intermediate) and “D” (difficult) predictions – they have turned out to be wrong more often than not!
Easy-objects list:
20-peso bill (Jan. 9, 2024)
Spoon (Jan. 10, 2024)
Fork (Jan. 24, 2024)
Coin (Jan. 12, 2024)
Keys (Jan. 11 & January 14, 2024)
Poop bag roll (Jan. 24, 2024)
Wallet (Jan. 17 & Jan. 18, 2024)
Rice-filled can (Jan. 21, & Jan. 22 & Jan 23 & Jan. 24, 2024)
Porcelain mug
Highlighter
The porcelain mug has been added to the easy-objects list, and I also put the highlighter back on now that it’s been a while since I’ve used it. The easy objects I want to rotate through next are bolded.
Next session(s): repeat phone session with butter knife as the easy object (no need to video) OR do a 3-rep can session: rice can, real can at room temperature, rice can. Definitely video the latter one!
We went with the cans session next! The dark can is the rice-filled one and the Modelo (the white can) is a “real” beer can at room temperature. It’ll now go in the fridge so I can do a fridge-temperature session next! Superchai!
I wonder if the reason Chai dropped the rice can twice in the video above is that I’ve used cans SO much lately (to build resiliency in case the beer can explodes) that she isn’t being careful about it anymore.
Next sessions:
3x butter knife – 3x phone – butter knife
Rice can – fridge temperature beer can – rice can (if successful, take a can break!)
… turns out I don’t have a butter knife (that’s the knife I’d have Chai pick up). So our silverware will be limited to forks and spoons (I could have sworn there were knives and I had trained with them, but oh well). Instead of the knife I had planned to use as an easy object, I used the glue stick together with the phone. I didn’t get the phone 3 times in a row – it is still difficult. I won’t cross it off my list just yet. However, I’ll take the knife off the list and replace the glue stick with a poop bag roll. (Let’s be honest: how often do I use glue sticks? Almost never. How often do I use poop bags? Every day. Having Chai pick them up when I drop them is going to be much more useful.) She already loves carrying these rolls around, so it was easy to just plug them in with the similarly-shaped glue stick. I’ll also take the empty spray bottle off my list above because the spray bottle that used to be empty is in use now and no longer empty.
While Chai ended up handing me the phone successfully, I’ll only cross it off once I get it three times in a row without either of us dropping it during the hand-over. (I don’t mind earlier drops, but I want Chai to target my hand well with all the objects.)
Next sessions:
Rice can – fridge-temperature beer can – rice can (record and, if successful, take a can break!)
3x Highlighter or poop bag roll – 3x phone – highlighter or poop bag roll
I’m layering easy objects in between new or difficult ones to keep Chai’s confidence high. Today’s easy object: a highlighter.
Chai found the 20-peso-bill VERY easy and did okay with the apartment keys + car keys. I’ll keep them in the rotation and play with them between rotations; they are more difficult than either key by itself.
Here’s our longer list of fetchable object goals:
Wallet (M), credit card (D), keys, phone (D), beer can (M), bank bill, full plastic bottles (D), coin, 2 types of mugs, leash handle (D), retractable leash (D), keys with new (yet to be acquired) key chain (D), silverware.
Next session(s):
Repeat keys (still difficult) and change the highlighter for another easy object!
January 9, 2024: exploding beer cans and a bit of fetch
I got two bottles of juice and decided to first play with them and then, if that went well, use them as the new object in today’s session. Since I was already at the store, I also picked up two cans of beer. I couldn’t find anything non-sparkly in a can, so beer it was from the beginning – even though I know about the dangers of exploding cans when playing with dogs. Well – we had fun with the juice. Chai also started out really well with the beer cans … until …
For the actual fetch session, I decided to leave the beer can be, but integrate a juice bottle. I didn’t realize how hard the juice bottle would be – the exploding can definitely had some bleed-over into Chai’s juice bottle feelings! She was being brave though after I made the juice bottle fun again. I ended on a successful rep and will add the bottle again next time to build more confidence. Lots of improvement on the keys though! I’ll add them in one more time before checking them off – basically, the next session will be a repeat of this one.
Next session(s):
+ Play with EMPTY cans. + Repeat today’s fetch session with keys and the juice bottle. Switch the easy object for a different easy object.
January 10, 2024: spoon, car keys, juice bottle
Chai did REALLY well today! I’ll keep the juice bottle for one more session – I want to catch it 3 times in a row before calling it done. That said, me dropping it in the first rep of today’s video is all me. The keys are turning into an EASY object! Wow!
I’ll keep my lists here, copy/pasting and adding new stuff when I think of it:
Fetchable object goals:
Wallet (M), credit card (D), keys, phone (D), beer can (M), bank bill, full plastic bottles, coin, 2 types of mugs, leash handle (D), retractable leash (D), keys with new (yet to be acquired) key chain, silverware.
Easy objects to rotate through and use “Gimme” cue on. The one(s) I want to do next are bolded:
Highlighter (Jan. 6, 2024)
20-peso bill (Jan. 9, 2024)
Spoon (Jan. 10, 2024)
Fork
Knife
Coin
Keys
Glue stick
Empty spray bottle
I’ve also found a rule structure for this trick that I plan on sticking to:
Start with 3 cued reps of an easy object. (More and more objects will move into this category and I will rotate through them to keep picking them up well oiled).
Do a familiar, but not-yet-perfect object, aiming for 3 great times in a row.
Do one easy-object rep if (2) was easy or 3 easy-object reps if (2) was difficult.
Use a new or difficult object.
If (4) went well, end after (4). If (4) was hard, do between 1 and 3 reps of the easy object and then end.
Every object should be picked up both from the puzzle mats and the floor.
New for future sessions: cue “Gimme” for the easy object of the day!
Next sessions:
Use the juice bottle again; new easy object with “Gimme!” cue (keys or coin).
Play with empty cans.
January 11, 2024: keys, juice bottle, wallet
I used the keys as today’s easy object … but they weren’t all that easy today! I’ll make sure to keep them in the easy-object rotation. The juice bottle was difficult as well; I will add it again in our next session. Where Chai knocked it out of the park was with the entirely new object: my wallet! She retrieved it to my hand 3 times as if it was the easiest thing in the universe! The wallet gets added to my easy-object list! I may take off the highlighter instead since Chai has been REALLY good with that one and done lots of reps with it already.
And, yep – I forgot to say the “Gimme” cue with the keys. That’s okay – next time!
Fetchable object goals:
Wallet, credit card (D), keys, phone (D), beer can (M), bank bill, full plastic bottles, coin, 2 types of mugs, leash handle (D), retractable leash (D), keys with new (yet to be acquired) key chain, silverware.
Easy-objects list:
20-peso bill (Jan. 9, 2024)
Spoon (Jan. 10, 2024)
Fork
Knife
Coin
Keys (Jan. 11, 2024)
Glue stick
Empty spray bottle
Wallet
Next session(s):
Use juice bottle again
Play with empty beer cans
Remember to use “Gimme!” cue for easy objects!
June 12, 2024: coin, juice bottle … and definitely no mug (“How about some rawhide instead?”)
Today’s easy object was the coin. The juice bottle went well … I’m declaring it done for now! Go Chai! The mug, on the other hand, was a no go. I’ll have to think some more about how to introduce picking it up. Porcellain doesn’t seem to feel good on dog teeth! I found it very funny, smart and cute that Chai went and looked for something else to fetch, and ended up bringing me a piece of rawhide (something I’ve never asked her to fetch)! Also a win: I remembered to say, “Gimme!” when I meant to!
Fetchable object goals:
Wallet, credit card (D), keys, phone, beer can (M), bank bill, full plastic bottles, coin, 2 types of mugs (D), leash handle (D), retractable leash (D), keys with new (yet to be acquired) key chain, silverware.
Easy-objects list:
20-peso bill (Jan. 9, 2024)
Spoon (Jan. 10, 2024)
Fork
Knife
Coin (Jan. 12, 2024)
Keys (Jan. 11, 2024 & January 14, 2024)
Glue stick
Empty spray bottle
Wallet (January 17, 2024)
Juice bottle (plastic) (Jan. 14, 2024; Jan. 16, 2024)
January 13, 2024: can and cup games for confidence
Today, we didn’t train-train (I was tired after our hike). So first, I left two empty cans out on the floor for the dogs to convert into toys – they did so quickly!
Following Game’s lead, Chai quickly picked up the empty cans carried them to the couch to chew on them. The Tecate is an empty can I found in the street. I don’t drink enough beer for this trick!
At night we played two cup games for the dogs’ dinner. You can see that Game is more confident toppling the cups in the first food game, but Chai is starting to pick them up in the second one! What a superstar! (Game had her kibble-in-a-cup while stationing on the couch while Chai was working on hers on the puzzle mats.)
Next session(s):
Play with beer cans filled with rice
Say “Gimme” on the second rep of easy objects (first rep is to test the waters)
Mug games: smear peanut butter on handle.
Sunday, January 14, 2024: cellphone success!
Wheeee! Today, Chai REALLY impressed me! I hesitated about simply adding the phone, but she was able to pick it up!!!! Go (not-so) puppy (anymore)!!! So proud!
Next session(s):
Play with cans filled with rice (for weight).
Use “Gimme” cue when I know she’ll fetch it!
Repeat phone with two easy objects! I’m not putting it on the easy list or checking it off my goals list yet – I want to see a few more fetches first; I can’t quite believe how well she did picking up such a difficult object!
January 16, 2024: I’m impressed by Chai’s phone skills!
I am tired today, so I just did a quick session, sliding the phone (which, in my mind but not in Chai’s, is still a difficult object) between two rounds of the plastic juice bottle. I wanted to use that bottle one more time before drinking it. Once again, Chai did amazing with the phone!
Next session(s):
Play with beer cans! (I filled them with rice last night; they are ready to go!)
If playing with them goes well, do a session of phone and cans and (if I feel like it) one other object: the wallet! If we get 3 phone reps in a row without dropping it, at least one of which from the floor rather than the puzzle mats, I will check it off my list!
Remember to use “Gimme!” when I’m sure Chai will fetch.
Note: instead of continuing to copy/paste my lists, I’ll be editing the previous one as we go.
January 17, 2024: wallet, phone and beer can play
We played with the two rice-filled beer cans. At first, Chai hesitated about picking them up even though she had chewed on the empty ones the other day. After making them seem special by juggling them and trying to “hide” them from her, she was ready to pick them up when rolling on the puzzle mat or being thrown on the bed. She’d carry them back to chew on the sofa, so I had to be quick to get them back to avoid rice-sized holes in the cans. No good video. I feel like we’re not quite ready to fetch them yet – I’ll do another round of this game tomorrow.
Our “Gimme” session went really well – I played with the phone and my wallet. For the first time, I put the phone on the floor (not the puzzle mats) as well. It was clearly harder to pick up there, but Chai rocked it! Go (not-so) puppy (anymore)!
I want to do another session with the phone on the floor before checking it off my list – I’d like to build a little more pick-up skills. And then … I get to sell that phone! I also wouldn’t mind a few more wallet fetches. While this is easy for Chai, we haven’t done a lot of repetitions yet. Our next session might look just like this one.
Once Chai knows how to place objects into different containers, my hand will become just another container! Let’s see how we get from A to B.
October 12, 2023: first session of adding my hand to a familiar container
Nice start! In our next session, I’ll start with my hand in the bowl and then only offer my hand.
October 13, 2023: a lovely coin session!
I’m happy with today’s session!
October 17, 2023: Hand me a coin, continued!
Next time, I’ll vary the object!
October 26, 2023: I sit in a chair and Chai hands me a coin, tape, toy and toothbrush! Go puppy!
This is looking better and better! Some more generalizing of my body position, the location and the objects (this should also refine Chai’s targeting skills), and then the trick will be ready for a cue! (I’m thinking “Gimme!” or “Gimme, gimme, gimme!” – that ABBA song.)
October 29, 2023: different objects; no bowl to start with!
Chai did great today and understood what I wanted even though I didn’t start with a bowl! First object: the familiar baseball toy. No problem for her!
Second object: a squishy spiky ball. More fun to chew than hand to me!
Third object: the rubber thing that’s on my kitchen faucet. Tempting to chew at first but can then be handed over!
Fourth object: metal spoon. A little difficult to pick up the first time, but once she had figured it out, she did great!
I’ll keep working on this trick once or twice a week. I already have a couple winner objects I’ll keep mixing in: baseball toy, spoon, nail clippers, coin, glue stick. When using any of these, I’ll start using the “Gimme!” cue in the future.
I have a semi-new object (I used it but at an point in our training journey) I want to also use – no cue yet: an onion.
I also want to add the following new objects – maybe not every single one, but these come to mind: nail polish bottle (easy – I think), lime (easy – I think), plastic bottle lid (easy), beer can (medium – I think), mug (difficult to pick up), credit card (difficult), cellphone (difficult), wallet (medium), bill (difficult to not destroy?), keys (medium). No cue yet on any of these for sure.
I want to add a cue to all of the above and then try and get the same result when I’m standing up. Later on, I’d like to teach Chai to hand me objects I drop with the dropping itself being the cue.
October 21, 2023: adding the “Gimme” cue and standing up
Today, we worked with the glue stick, a 10-peso-coin and a spoon:
November 11, 2023
The keys on the keychain were too difficult … I’ll either take off the chain or use a different novel object next time!
January 3, 2023: Picking the fetch-anything-to-hand trick back up after a break!
I only used objects I thought would be easy and didn’t use a verbal cue in this session. I wanted to see how much Chai remembered!
Nice job, little Border Collie! She did really well and remembers the idea!
Notes for the next session:
I’ll use different objects next time – maybe start with the highlighter because it’s easy – and generalize a bit more before adding the “Gimme!” cue again and moving on to more difficult objects. I won’t use the DEET spray again because it probably tasted disgusting and may create aversion to this trick.
January 4, 2024: new objects!
Today, I tried some new objects and the keys Chai had struggled with when they had the chain attached … turns out they are still hard without a chain, as is a full water bottle:
Notes for the next session(s):
Keep up the 3-successful-reps-in-a-row strategy before switching objects!
Water bottle strategy: start with an empty one and work up to bottles containing more and more liquid (add weight) OR buy two full bottles and play a 2-toy game with them (like I did with the coins) to teach Chai she can pick them up.
Keys strategy: turn it into a game to teach her she can pick them up. Maybe 2 sets of keys for a game of 2-toy fetch?
Objects I want to eventually work up to (no rush): wallet (probably medium), credit card (probably difficult), keys (difficult), phone (probably difficult), beer can (probably medium after I’ve taught heavy, i.e. full, plastic bottles), bill (easy except for the danger of being ripped to shreds).
January 5, 2024: solving the key chain mystery!
I decided to play with the keys to see if I could encourage Chai to pick them up this way. My original suspicion, after trying with the full-length key chain attached, was that it was the keychain (the size of the object) that made it too hard to pick up. When I unclipped the chain (except for its little end piece) yesterday and Chai still couldn’t pick up the keys, I thought it was most likely the car key (the electronic key; maybe something inside of it smells weird or vibrates in some scary way you bite down on it). I tested this by first only using the keys, and then the keys with the keychain, and then only the car keys … turns out Chai is happy to play with both the keys and the car keys – but NOT with the little end piece of the key chain! Fascinating! I don’t know what it is about that piece, but I’m just going to have her let a say in this and will get a new keychain!
Without further ado – here’s our play session:
And the subsequent fetch session:
Here is a list of the overall fetch-to-hand objects that matter to me and the ones that I’ve already accomplished. Some of them are for fun; some of them are potentially useful service dog tasks if I drop stuff. This list is longer than yesterday’s list. E stands for “I believe it will be easy,” M for “medium difficulty” and D for “difficult.” This is just my suspicion; she may surprise me!
Wallet (M), credit card (D), keys, phone (D), beer can (M), bank bill (easy except for the danger of being ripped to shreds), full plastic bottles (D), coin, 2 types of mugs, leash handle (D), retractable leash (D), keys with new (yet to be acquired) key chain (D).
I’ll put at least one of the above we haven’t yet conquered into each new rotation! Eventually, I want “dropping the thing” to be the cue for Chai to pick it up and hand it to me. Same goes for pointing and “Gimme” if I haven’t dropped the thing. Only the beer cans may go into a more complex trick if I feel like it (open fridge, get beer, close fridge, bring beer …). The phone may be put on a “find my phone” cue if I feel like it – I am very talented at displacing my phone, so this may be neat and more useful (though less fun) than teaching Chai to fetch it when it rings.
