My husband's out of the country for a month. This is an annual month when I clean out the closets, sew, and tidy up all the annoying little things that I've been ignoring all year.

Which brings me to an annoying little thing that I've been ignoring for 18 months. Way back in an early blog entry, I talked about Stitch's adventures finding recycled cat food and running under farm machinery to enjoy it. As the months wear on, she demonstrates something I've never had before - she's a dog who absolutely requires exercise or she explodes. She has a certain number of calories she has to use up in a day, and she WILL use them up, if not running in the yard, then running in the house. If not playing with Scuba, then playing with my socks, my shoes, my pant legs. As the winter wears on and I'm not feeling well enough to have been concentrating on her aerobic needs, she's getting worse. You can tell which couch I've been sitting on because there's always a small mountain of stuff she's accumulated from around the house and brought me - pens, books, pop cans (full and empty), gloves, boots, grocery bags, dog brushes - the list goes on.

So I arrive at my annual cleanup month with a dog who is a bit over the top energywise, who knows there are many better things to do in the farmyard than stick with me, and who has no greater joy than chasing the feral cats in the yard.

And to my horror I realize that I've been studiously training her to think this way for her entire life.

What brought this so suddenly to my attention? She killed a duck. Duck ran, Stitch ran on top of her, I plodded along through the snow trying to catch either one of them. Plucked to death on the run. Yuck.

This is really difficult for me. The duck died for my sins.

Stitch never goes out in the front yard without a leash on. When she does manage to get out the door, she takes off after the cats at a dead run. There's no possibility she'll ever catch one, but she has a great time trying (it never occured to me that she'd be a danger to a 20-lb duck). She has SUCH a good time that she does an occasional bunny-hop spy leap.

She's not going anywhere, I tell myself. The yard is a fairly secure environment, and at any rate, she's not escaping, she's just joyfully chasing cats. She dropped her tail and ran at the Portuguese Water Dog Specialty in Maryland. And at a local agility trial last weekend, she and I managed to hold on by our toenails. So she's not running away, she's just running. She'll be right back. Right after she finishes plucking the duck.

 In a recent post on a list, Morgan Spector said "Bob Bailey articulated three criteria for applying punishments, and I endorse them: (1) the behavior must pose a danger to the physical health or safety of people or other animals, (2) the behavior must be suppressed across a broad spectrum, i.e., it must never occur, and (3) the behavior cannot be resolved through counter-conditioning."

(1) Well, clearly her behavior now poses a danger to both other animals and to herself. The duck incident very strongly brought home to me that if this running happens in the wrong place, Stitch is going to get smeared on a road.

(2) Yes, the behavior must stop. It must NEVER occur.

(3) Can the behavior be resolved through counter-conditioning? I truly believe it can. I also truly believe that, as things stand with Stitch's enjoyment and physical need to run, and with my physical condition and growing hysteria over the situation, I've reached the point where I don't think *I* can resolve it. Between managing it and ignoring it, I truly have tried many ways of getting rid of it. I've succeeded in convincing her that when she's on a leash, she is completely under control and wouldn't even THINK of tightening the leash or, really, even think about thinking of the cats. And when she's not on leash, she's free to chase them.

The plan, then, is not to try to catch her, but just to "hunt her down". She takes off, and I start walking towards her, muttering any nasty thing I can think of in a moderately-loud, deep, angry voice - but NOT yelling. When I get close to where she is, she decides to see if there are any cats over THERE. She runs over there, and I don't try to catch her, but just keep walking and swearing. She chases phantom cats around the yard for nearly 10 minutes with me walking toward her the whole time. The first couple of minutes, she's oblivious to me, but after that, she appears to be pretending to have a good time to convince me that nothing bad is happening. She's lowered her tail from running-dropped to unhappy-dropped, she's not spy-hopping, and she's glancing back at me over her shoulder frequently. I've resorted to reciting nursery rhymes in a crabby voice, but I'm still talking, and I'm still walking after her. I understand the Apache used to walk down wild horses - this may be as close as I ever get to that.

Finally she can't stand all this bad language any more. After running around me several times, she finally creeps up to me and lies down. I walk up to her still talking, give her a poke on the side of her neck with two fingers accompanied by a louder bark, turn, and walk away.

She cavorts around me in relief, giving me her whole repetoire of calming behaviours. I ignore her. We go in the house.

Many (many, many) years ago (1975, I think) someone had the novel idea that a dog could be taught to ring a bell. Sounded like fun, so I gave it a try with a 7 month old Giant Schnauzer named Panda. The only way I could think of to get her to interact with the big brass cowbell I had was to smear a little wiener on it.

I smeared, she licked, I praised. I smeared, she licked, I praised. The third time I smeared and she licked, she licked hard enough to make the bell ring. I got hysterical, jumping around, whomping her on the side, and telling her how wonderful she was.

After this display, I smeared weiner juice again, and sat back hoping that she would eventually figure out that it was the sound I wanted.

Panda had other plans. She didn't lick the bell. She looked at me. I encouraged her to lick it again. I showed her the meat juice on the bell. She stared at me. Then she turned to the bell, lifted one Giant paw, and whacked the bell into next week. Then she looked at me again.

If nothing in the training philosophy I was exposed to had allowed me to use food to teach the dog to do anything, be VERY sure that nothing in that philosophy would acknowledge, let alone account for, a dog thinking. I didn't understand WHY it happened, but to this day I remember that I was so overwhelmed with astonishment, so gobsmacked, so amazed, that I started to cry.

Panda at that point had 2 legs on her CD, was a finished Champion, and was my first homebred Giant Schnauzer. A week after she asked me if I wanted her to make the bell ring, she was hit by a car while walking beside me through a farmyard and broke her back. For three months as she recovered she rang her bell with her paw to tell me she needed to relieve herself. She went on to be the first Giant bitch with a Utility degree, a scent hurdle racing champion, the lead dog on my competitive sled dog team, and my heart dog. People I had never met called her a Renaissance dog, but for all she did, all she was, and all the amazing storing I have about her, the one moment that defined her for me for all time was when she asked me that question.

I have a better philosophy of my relationship with other animals now, but witnessing that moment of clear thought and communication still makes me cry.

I have never in my life successfully taught a dog to put a paw over her muzzle. This is a really cute trick, but I have failed with every dog I've ever had. To prove the point, here's a post I wrote in 2000 about trying to teach this trick to another Giant.

I've spent the last three days trying to teach Stitch to put her paw over her eyes. I wasn't successful. My "thinker" wore out, so I asked on the Training Levels list for ideas on how to teach it. I got some dandy answers, but the one I started with tonight was to have her lying on her side. I'd taught her to duck her head to get a treat under her elbow. And I'd taught her to target my hand with her paw. From these I was getting her turning her head in a particularly cute manner, and a really good Sieg Heil salute, but no inclination to curl her paw back toward her nose.

When in doubt, try shaping. I get her lying on her side and I start clicking any motion of her paw. I click for a tiny twitch. Then I click for a full motion. Then I click for scraping the floor. Then I put my hand above her nose - which previously has resulted in the straight-legged salute - and she curls her paw over her nose, holding it there waiting for the click.

For holy cow. I LOVE THIS STUFF!

Service Dogs - so useful. They save you so much time, they save you so much energy. Dear little Tats.

I take my Service Dog out to the car. Drive over to the gas tanks, get out, put fuel in the car. Just as I'm finishing up, I hear that lovely little clunk-Beep noise indicating that my Service Dog has tried to get the keys out of the ignition and has put a tooth on the LOCK button on the keychain.

So now I'm writing in her blog and waiting for a tow truck. It occurs to me that pushing the UNlock button on the keychain might be a useful skill, but unfortunately I have neglected to teach that to her. And NOW seems a trifle late, barn-door wise, if you catch my drift.

Sunday there are two CARO Rally trials. Stitch and Scuba are both in Novice B. The trial secretary has kindly put Scuba near the head of the line and Stitch at the end, so I have plenty of time between them and I get to do the first run with Scuba, which means I don't have to think TOO much about the dog and can concentrate on doing the course. I screw up Scuba several times, but manage to pull through for a 197 out of 200 - which tells me she could pull off a perfect score if her handler knew anything about Rally.

I'm a bit nervous about Stitch having drifted off yesterday afternoon so I don't give her any breakfast, thinking she'll be working for it during the day and she'll be sharper if she's a bit hungry. Another mistake. She appears to be a low-bloodsugar dog, as she's still laggy and seems to have difficulty concentrating on what we're doing. She gives it an excellent try, though, and pulls in a surprising 194. My friend confirms my opinion that she appears tired and distracted, so in the couple of hours between runs, I give her breakfast and then just sit in various places around the building working quietly on watching me and getting faster and more confident.

Scuba's second run is EXCELLENT. I have high hopes for it. I can't imagine how it could have been better. I don't make any mistakes, I have slowed down and I have time to read each sign to make sure I know exactly what we're supposed to do at each station, and Scuba is bang on, eager, sharp, enthusiastic, precise, and pretty. And yes, she gets a 200. The run was my real reward, though, it was one of those times when you feel that it couldn't have been better and you were privileged to have been in attendance.

Stitch is feeling MUCH better but not yet super. As my friend puts it, she's doing everything, but you get the feeling that it's hard work. She's trying too hard to pay attention and stay with the program. So I'm not happy with that yet. Still, I remember to reward her frequently, read the signs, give her a decent time, and get everything done. With a superb sense of the dramatic, the secretary leaves her score until last - and she's pulled off a 200 as well!

Dang, this is one hot little dog. It makes my fingers tingle just thinking about how easy it would be to mess her up!

In case I wasn't paying attention to Stitch's regular caloric intake last weekend, we have a horrific trip involving airplanes, lost luggage, missed connections, and an unexpected overnight in a hotel. Stitch performs brilliantly. Her gaiting is correct, her leash is loose, her attention to other people is minimal (she does find the loudspeaker at the airport interesting). There's a well-behaved but rowdy child sitting next to us in the waiting area for several hours and Stitch lies quietly at my feet throughout. She picks up everything I drop, she's unobtrusive, and she manages to appear mildly amused but somewhat bored while the stewardess makes continued coochy-coo noises at her.

It's the end of the second flight of the day when things start to go downhill. We started the day at 5 AM with a very light breakfast. By 3 PM we should have finished a 2-hour bus trip, been picked up and been enjoying second breakfast, but my suitcase fails to arrive, and they can't take it across the border when they do find it, so I elect to stay in a hotel overnight and take the bus the next day - hopefully with my suitcase. By the time we get to the hotel, Stitch is all but comatose. I ask her to pick up her leash and all she can think of is to lie down on it and put her head between her paws. I get settled as quickly as I can and we go down the block for fish and chips. We're the only ones in the restaurant, everyone's ignoring us, and I give her half. By the time we get back to the hotel, she's starting to wake up. I'm concerned about being in a (quite fancy) hotel with a dog who's eating strange food, but apparently she has a cast-iron bowel and suffers no ill effects.

I order a room service breakfast of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, and a bagel. I get all the orange juice and one egg. She's feeling much better and finishes the trip willing and awake.

At our destination, there are four other Portuguese Water Dogs. How fun and interesting to watch Stitch's incredible language skills as she meets the other dogs - one old lady who needs respect and gentleness, one middle-aged dominant bitch who demands respect and needs some cajoling and kowtowing, one testosterone-poisoned lad who needs teeth snapping in his face on a regular basis, and one teenager who's eager to share a good long race around a huge yard.