Blog8weeks

STITCH

the weBlog of a Service Dog, competition dog, pet and friend In Training

THE SECOND WEEK HOME (8 weeks old)

Retrieving Sit instead of grabbing Eye contact Sit around the house Fear period starting	We do some "work" this morning on the third part of retrieving - play retrieve. Throw a crumpled paper about ten times. She runs after it, grabs it, brings it back. The last one is a little roundabout, so I quit and give it to her. Scuba and I will pick up the pieces later. Take her breakfast out to the screen room to work on retrieving. Glad I'm paying attention. She decides it would be easier to jump on the couch and get the food right out of the dish. Fortunately she's too small to jump on the couch, which makes her mad, so she walks around for a minute yapping and whining. Finally glares at me and plunks her little butt down - CLICK! TREATTREATTREAT! Oh, she figures, I guess this really is easier than jumping up. So we work Sit and Watch for a while. She's doing so well with the eye contact that I put both my clicker hand and my food hand out on my knees so she can see them. THAT throws her for a bit. Look at the clicker? Look at the food? Clicker? Food? ARGH neither of these is working! What to do? Oh YEAH - eye contact! CLICK! TREATTREATTREAT! From there we're off and running. She's doing so well I start using the cue, Watch. How incredibly rewarding for me to see this tiny puppy deliberately looking past food to find my eyes! Did I mention I'm all googly about this little thing? THEN we move on to the dumbell. Touch in hand, moving quickly to touching only the bar, and we get one accidental open-mouth hit on the bar. Very good. Next we put it on the floor and she goes for it - to the left of her, to the right, behind her. It's amazing how much you can get done with 150 kibbles. I'm going to have to be alert - she's very fast and she's hit the dumbell with her paws a couple of times. I need to be careful that I don't click those. Excellent session. And around the house, under the right circumstances, she's responding to her Sit cue - Plant It (I don't think my brain or my mouth are up to Stitch Sit). She ducks slightly when I pick the dish up off the couch. Going into her 8-week fear period? I'll have to keep my eyes open.
Cleaning ears another Discussion about handling more clues to the beginning of a fear period	A Medical Morning, and another big Discussion. Her ears are a little goopy. The vet tells me that a good cleaning will probably take care of it without any drugs, so I wait until she appears a little sleepy and start cleaning them. She tells me to stay away from her ears. I tell her to knock it off. She tells me to Stay The Hell Away From Her Ears. I pick her up by the scruff and ribcage and KNOCK IT OFF again. Her response is short but furious, teeth flying. When she gives up, she lies still, perfectly happy to let me clean her ears. This is what I expect from the start of a fear period - the pup gets a bit too big for her britches. Another clue: this morning when I put Scuba's breakfast down, the twerp actually tried to muscle her out of the way to get the food. Mwah ha, small and foolish! This might work in your dreams... The actual fear period then will be her over-reaction to the world's response to her obnoxiousness. Totally equated to the Terrible Twos. All I need to do is make sure the rules are in place and I don't lose my temper. The mantra of the puppy owner: we'll all live through this. We'll all live through this. We'll all live through this. The mantra of the puppy: NO!
Out of the ex-pen and into a crate Getting her to shut up in the crate	She's been doing so well in the small ex-pen around the kitchen table, going willingly to bed, staying dry, and sleeping through the night. Time to get back to the crate before we lose the wonderful work Elaine's done getting the litter comfortable with crates. So we take down the pen and I put her to bed in a small crate under the table with her litter blanky and her toys. Hmmm, obviously not the same as the puppy carrier or the pen. She lasts about five minutes before she starts yapping. Think, Sue! Oh, right. Ron's still watching TV. So bring the crate upstairs, put it on the bed, turn out the light immediately. Two more minutes of yapping, then silence. I know I'm playing a dangerous game responding to her yapping by putting her on the bed, BUT. BUT she's been doing brilliantly going to sleep alone in the pen. BUT when I did this with the puppy carrier, it only took once or twice and she was content to go to sleep. and BUT I think there's way too much concern about "letting her win" and not nearly enough attention to the idea that this is a baby. Besides eating, the only other job of a baby is to stay with her family to be safe. If she's not with her family, she SHOULD be screaming for help, and hopefully mom will find her before predators do. What I'm trying to teach her is that the places I put her are safe places, MY den places, and not puppy-lost-in-the-wilderness places. I don't think that will be best accomplished by yelling at her or ignoring her I'm-alone yaps. So, one night of catering to her yapping before putting the crate on the floor beside my bed. The next night the crate will be on the floor beside the bed, and with any luck the following night it will be back downstairs under the kitchen table. If that doesn't work out, I'll put Scuba's crate door-to-door with it as I did with the ex-pen. But I don't think I'll have to. I think tonight she'll either follow her treat into the crate, or go in ahead of it in anticipation. When I got up this morning Ron had put Scuba, Stitch and the little crate in the dog room with access to outside, and Stitch was asleep in her crate with the door open. She's not a morning person, thank goodness.
Woo hoo! We go for a walk around the dog yard. Scuba finds a scrap of cloth and tries to get me to play tug with her, so I take it away from her, hand one end to Stitch, then give the other end to Scuba, and Scuba spends about 5 minutes playing with her. She's very gentle (remember Scuba grew up playing tug with Giant Schnauzers), backs up, lets the puppy pull her forward again. When Stitch lets go, Scuba even parades the scrap in front of her asking her to latch on again. Unfortunately Stitch is a bit too intimidated to just walk over and grab it, so I have to take it away from Scuba each time, get Stitch going with it, then give the other end back to Scuba. When they're done playing, Stitch has a wrestle with the end of Scuba's tail, and Scuba doesn't say anything. Normally, "nobody touches the flag, Jack!"
Coming in spite of distractions Starting the underwater retrieve	Doing this blog is good for me. Keeps me focused on what I'm doing and why. I take her breakfast up to the bathroom and dump the dry kibble into about an inch of water in the deep end of the bathtub - some on dry land, some wet, some floating. Her first day as a Portuguese Water Dog. When I thought of this, I thought it didn't have much to do with service dog training, but I change my mind as we go along. First I feed Scuba in the kitchen, then ask Stitch to follow me up the stairs. "But the FOOD is in the KITCHEN!" No, it isn't. The food is with me! "But SCUBA'S eating FOOD in the KITCHEN!" Takes her a minute to decide to follow me a third of the way up the stairs, where I give her a little handful to reward her. Then she wants to go back down to the kitchen and I have to persuade her to keep following me. That's a good lesson I wouldn't have thought of - even if you KNOW there's food there, come here. Kitchen Zen. Then I put her in the tub, where she has to contend with the little bit of water and the slippery tub with her feet - doesn't bother her at all, but another good lesson. Then she gets into the Water Dog stuff - trying to get the food out of the water without swallowing or breathing the water. Pretty soon I start hearing bubbles as she figures out she has to breathe out when she's putting her nose under water. Clever child. She eats about 3/4 of the food - silly of me to put the whole meal in the tub, duh - and drinks what looks like about a cup and a half of water. Scuba cleans up the rest. It'll be a good afternoon for housetraining! I have a sailor's account of a trip down the coast of Portugal 300 years ago. He describes these dogs exactly, down to the white markings, and talks about how they taught the puppies to dive by holding bits of fish at the water, then further and further under the water. Hmph, new-fangled food training! It'll never work!
Giving her more treat per click Retrieving	Spend another meal on retrieving. I decide the reason she's a bit sluggish about getting into the training is not that she's working for kibble, but that she isn't really noticing the tiny kibbles as they go down. Rewarding her with TWO kibbles for each click vastly increases her interest and decreases her response times. Start with about 25 clicks for eye contact and sitting in front. Then present the dumbell. Today I won't click for touching the bell, only the bar. She spends some time again trying to force me to give her the food by jumping on the couch, whining, etc, but gives up and starts touching the bar. Soon she's really getting into it, and starts giving me an open mouth on the bar maybe every fifth touch or so. Ee hah! Then I put it on the floor and click her for touching the bar with her mouth. She seems to have forgotten that yesterday she was trying to bang it with her paw. She's fast today, and accurate. When I move the dumbell around on an 8X12' rug, she goes once back in the direction it used to be, then starts looking around for it. Very deliberate, and when she finds it, runs to it. Excellent session.
MY food, turnip!	Later, in the living room, I'm eating a sandwich on the couch when she decides that she can get it if she tries hard enough. She flings herself at the couch a dozen times (I'm ignoring her as she obviously isn't going to get high enough to get on the couch), and finally succeeds in getting up. !! So I put her back down and put my leg in her way so she REALLY can't get up. She tries another dozen times, then gives up and just cruises back and forth in front of the couch until I finish eating. The white tip on her tail looked remarkably like the white tip on the dorsal fin of a reef shark as she goes back, and forth, back, and forth...
Beginning shaping	Sit down on the indoor couch with her breakfast. The plan is to start some serious shaping - aiming at getting her to go 10' from the couch to the dog bed in the corner, and eventually get on it. As I recall this took Scuba about 3 sessions. Start with a leaping/yapping tantrum as she tries again to get the dish off the couch. With no response whatsoever after about 30 seconds she tries Sit and eye contact. We do 30 of those to get her In The Game and then I ignore her again. She starts turning her head in the wrong direction, which I also ignore. After 5 of those, she begins looking around the room and swings her head in the right direction. c/t. OH! Click for that X20. Then wait for something else. She reverts to staring at me. That Sit/stare is very strong. OK, I'll do a bit of luring to get her off her duff. Wait for another head swing to the right, click and toss the treat over toward the dog bed. Have to toss four before I land one close enough to her that she knows it's there. Didn't I used to be good at tossing treats? Well, from there we're on our way. She stares at the dog bed, walks toward the dog bed, walks around the dog bed, backs up so her butt's on the dog bed, runs toward the dog bed. Every time I wait for her to get on the dog bed, she skirts it to one side or the other. I'm almost out of treats (and thinking about getting a smaller, lower dog bed for tomorrow) when, with a mighty leap, she throws herself into the middle of the dog bed. I don't really believe in jackpots, but I'm so surprised I throw the entire second-last handful of food at her. When she's cleaned that up, she turns around and climbs back into the bed, so I give her the last little bit and finish the session. Wow, good session, smart pup!
Retrieving	Amazing to think that three days ago I was in love with the twerp, but not really connected. Suddenly we're a team. In the olden days I said that I liked puppies, then didn't like them until they were in Open obedience, when I started feeling like we were communicating. Since I switched to clicker training, I've noticed that the communication feeling was brought on, not by age, but by retrieving. Stitch and I and half a wiener go out to our training room and start working on the dumbell again. Every initial touch is a tentative open mouth, and by the tenth repetition she's grabbing and holding the dumbell. I'm thrilled. A play retrieve is a good thing, but it is, in no way, a trained retrieve. To think we used to wait until a dog was 6 months old to start training, then until it was through Novice before starting the retrieve. I'm so excited.
Ron gives them a long piece of cotton rope. With very little encouragement, Scuba gets one end of it and Stitch the other and they're off. Later Stitch gets to jump on Scuba's head and pull on her tail without consequences. Scuba's deciding the twerp can stay.
Silent night	As expected, she goes nicely into her crate by my bed, gives 15 seconds of whining after eating her goodnight cookie, then sleeps until 6:30. I am deciding she can stay. Dear little Tat.
Retrieving	Work on retrieving again. A slow start because I expect her to start where we left off. She touches the dumbell a couple of times but I'm not going to click until she takes it and holds it. So she touches it a couple of times and wanders off, then comes back and flings herself at the couch a few times. Finally she tries Sit and Stare. By that time I've screwed my head back on and I click her. Three times for that, four times for touching the dumbell, then she starts grabbing it again. Duh. Very good session. Then I put the DB in various places on the mat behind her. MUCH better response than before, actively seeking it, running to it, bopping it hard enough with her nose to move it around. Then I keep her busy with the treats and put it somewhere else. A few seconds of thought, then she goes hunting for it again. She's gonna love that sucker like a mother before we get done with this!
Small communi-cations	Fascinating to think of all the small communications she doesn't know yet. She doesn't know when I touch her tail to play with her, and when I really want to touch it. Same for her muzzle and her paws. She doesn't know when I'm asking her to give me something ($50 mail-in rebate card) and when I'm inviting her to run away (bit of crumpled newspaper). The easy answer, of course, would be to "never let her win" and not play with her at all. What a bore. What a sorrow. What a terrible lack of communication. We WILL learn these things. These are not "big lesson" things, but things that are taught every time I put my hands on her. Every time she approaches me. Without thinking about it, we have learned that she cannot jump out of my arms - something she CERTAINLY didn't know two weeks ago! But when she struggled, she "earned the prize" of staying in my arms until she settled. I have never put her down unless she was calm, and now she's assimilated that little-dog queen-riding-on-her-elephant attitude when I'm carrying her. "Assimilated" brings to mind "Resistance is futile" - just as true for puppies as for Borgs.
What a glorious thing is an 9 year old dog. Can't see the main llama herd this morning, so I take Scuba and the ATV out around the outside of all the pastures looking for them. No discussion required. She leads me out all the way, three strides ahead. No matter how fast or slow I go, she's always three strides ahead of me. An extension of myself (but her beautiful body works). We find them relaxing in deep grass where we couldn't see them from the house. Then she leads me all the way back again, joyfully scattering the feral cats when we come back into the yard.
Beginning show stacking Go To Mat Working one thing at a time What we've working on so far	Pursuant to my "small communications" speech, the first half of Stitch's breakfast is spent on show stacking on the grooming table. I start her in a semi-stand facing right with my left hand securely gripping her left thigh and hip. Feed her a lot, one at a time, in this position. Gradually I start giving her a kibble, then pulling my hand away for half a second before giving her the next one. Pretty soon she's standing waiting for the next one instead of following my hand away, so I can give her one, then reach for the next one instead of having them all in my hand. Then I'm able to let go of her thigh and "make the ring" with her tail while feeding her one and then another and then another. Quick study! Right now she's carrying a size 13 running shoe around, growling like a jungle cat and trying to shake it to death. Then we work again on Go To Mat (my cue for this is Hit The Rack). I'm very pleased with her. She's In The Game immediately, trying to figure out what to do, quickly moves to experimenting to see what she needs to do next or if she REALLY needs to do THAT much - do I HAVE to step on the mat with all 4 feet, or would it work if I stand close to it and look at it really hard? I'm glad I know where I'm going with all this. Today I'm understanding all those people who have asked "Do we work on one behaviour until we've learned it, or lots of things at once?" and the answer, of course, is ummm, yeah. If I didn't know where we were heading, this training would feel very disjointed, yet I AM working on one thing at a time - though the time may be only a minute or two. And we ARE working on lots of things at once, though never more than one thing in any given minute. In two weeks we've worked on Come, Settle, Kennel, Go To Mat, Touch, Zen, Bite Control, Housetraining, Going Through Dog Doors, Go To Sleep, Be Held, Stack, Let Me Hold Tail/Paws/Head, Find Food On Floor, Find Food In Hand, Sit, Down, Stand, Follow, Leash, Collar, Eye Contact. I'm sure I've forgotten some. Oh, UH!
Follow me Duh	Follow is a biggie for me. Whether I'm out with the llamas, out with other dogs and people, or out in public with my service dog, I need her to stick with me, and NOT because of the lead. Sticking with me is a default behaviour I want to build in immediately. Fortunately, puppies are born with a stick-to-the-pack gene, so all I need to do is put some effort into building on what's already there. This morning Ron's working on a grain bin, so Stitch and I gofor a walk out in the field nearby. I'm thinking of all the wonderful things she's learning being out in the field following me brilliantly around, praising and playing with her whenever she comes close enough, encouraging her to come when she gets too far away, just feeling like an incredibly good dog trainer. Then she finds some moldy, semi-moist cat poop and picks up half of it. I of course respond not by UH, c'mere cutie! but by yelling ARGH ARE YOU CRAZY? SPIT THAT OUT YOU MANGY LITTLE... at which point she runs under the auger and effectively stays away from me until she has chewed and swallowed the whole thing. Then while I'm telling Ron why I was yelling, she swoops back in, steals the second half, and runs under the truck. Stick with me, guys, I'm a professional.
A good week. We're beginning to communicate. She's starting to fit into the household routine.		PREVIOUS Homecoming	9 Weeks Old NEXT