With the addition of the new puppy, Talos, our training has sorta gone out the window. Not anymore. We're back on track. Get ready, dogs, school is back in session.
Nemo's toenails are ridiculously long. Scary long. Rip you wide open long. I've not Dremeled them in a long, long time. So today, we got started back on nail trims. I used super good wet puppy food for the reinforcer and it went smoothly. I worked on three or four nails today - only a total of about 8 minutes or so. Short and sweet, that's how we do training around here
Tango's nails are pretty long, too, but I haven't accustomed him to the Dremel yet. So we went way back and just worked on getting him comfortable just having his feet handled. He's a lot less go-with-the-flow than Nemie, so our progress will be slower, but steady nonetheless. Same yummy wet puppy food as the reinforcer. It's amazing what a high-value reinforcer will do for training! Lots of succes when the reinforcer is magnificent!
Lily puts on her best what-about-me pout if I don't work with her, so I had her doing some simple, remedial work. She just loves to train, period. I could ask her to take out the trash and she'd relish the opportunity to work.
Talos is learning a LOT of new things. One of the most important things he's learning is self control. He's going to be a huge dog - manners and self control are going to be of paramount importance. He's got to learn that good things come to those who wait, that he doesn't need to charge forward or barge in to get something good; that waiting is what brings those things to him.
To help him learn this, I started teaching him eye contact a while ago. If he looks at me, I click and deliver a goody. He got that simply looking at me was a pretty good thing. Nice. Once he was pretty good at that, I kept the reinforcer (the goodie) in sight. At first, he tried to bust in and just take it. It's easy enough to pull the goodie behind my back and make it inaccessible to him. He tried only a few times to muscle me out of the goodie, then he just sat. Click! Awesome job, buddy.
Once his default response to seeing the treat was to sit, I held out for eye contact. It's not good enough that he doesn't go for it, I need him to look at me first. It took a few seconds for him to look at me, and I resisted calling his name or otherwise "helping" him out. The instant his eyes met mine, CLICK! And he got the goodie delivered to him. Excellent work.
It's fun to watch all the dogs learn.
Finally, it's Slumber Party Copper! She's here for the week while my parents are in Vegas, living it up. She's quite the handful (there will be a blog post about her shortly). She's a neat little Rottie my parents rescued from the shelter about 10 months ago. Absolutely no training whatsoever. My parents have chosen to ignore the fact that their daughter is a professional dog trainer, and repeatedly tell Copper "No!," complain that she won't come when called (I ask "Have you taught her what "come" means?"), and call her stubborn and hard headed. She's a bundle of energy, but she's not stubborn or hard headed, she's just never been taught how to do anything.
So today, she got her first clicker lesson. She's never heard a click before in her life. She has no idea that her actions could be so beneficial (i.e. that her actions could cause me to click and deliver her a goodie). My mom has been trying to teach Copper to shake for a few months. Nothing doing, says Copper. Again, the label of hard headed is thrown around. Ha. Hard headed my foot.
In less than 5 minutes, I had Copper offering me her paw. I was even able to add the cue "paw." She's on a roll! More training tomorrow for all the dogs, Copper included.
A side benefit to training: it works their brains. Every dog is fast asleep!
So Nemo had to have surgery on Friday to remove a lump that had been hanging around a little too long. It was a quick and easy one this time. (Nemie's had more than his fair share of surgeries in his three short years thanks to a wicked fungus he contracted when he was just a year old.)
The good folks at Kingsbrook Animal Hospital always pull out all the stops for their good friend Nemo, so I knew he was in good hands. Still, it's hard to leave with him whining as I go...
This is Nemo's fifth surgery so we know just how to get him settled when he gets home. He wants to be wherever the other dogs are. I'd been gone most of the day, so the other dogs wanted to be outside. And the sun was so warm, it was a nice afternoon to sit in the Adirondack chair and throw the ball for Tango. So Nemo joined us. I wanted to share with you his drunk look he sports after being under anaesthesia. He's a little wobbly, as you can see.
The other dogs are careful around him, they give him a wide berth. They're good dogs like that.
Once we got back inside, all Nemo wanted to do was curl up in a lap and go to sleep. He's always cold after surgeries, so we get him a nice big blanket, let him crawl up and lay across us, and then cover him up.
He's still on some pain meds, but hopefully by tomorrow he won't need any. We'll get the biopsy results back in 5 - 7 days. Keep your fingers crossed that it was nothing yucky...
He's the best cuddler, biggest lap dog, goofiest, and most playful dog we've ever had. And we couldn't be happier to celebrate his third birthday.
I'm not a math whiz, but let me tell you what I mean by 1 + 1 > 2. I've been working with Tango on his loose leash walking and dog-greeting skills at Baker Park in Frederick over the summer. He's made great strides and I was eager to show off our work to my husband.
A few weekends ago, we took Nemo and Tango to Baker Park and I was quite ready to show off Tango's new skills to my husband.
As soon as we got out of the car, I noticed a difference in Tango. He wasn't his usual laid-back self. He was "on his toes," glancing here and there, not paying me one bit of attention.
We saw our first dog and Tango began to pull ahead. Odd, I thought. What's going on? As we approached the dog, Nemo's tail is wagging furiously and Tango begins wuffing. Not a real bark, but nothing I was used to when he and I alone walked the park, either.
After spending the morning at the park with no measurable improvement in Tango's greeting behavior, it finally dawned on me what was different: We had Nemo with us!
Tango and I had done all our work in the park alone, by ourselves, with no other dogs. So the key to this equation was the presence of Nemo. .
Tango, by himself, is quite appropriate. Nemo, by himself, is also appropriate. However, Tango + Nemo together did not equal appropriate! The mere presence of another dog caused Tango's behavior to regress backwards.
A word to the wise: If you have more than one dog, work on getting one dog's behavior perfected before you add another dog into the mix. If Tango's behavior hadn't been really really good when he was by himself, his behavior would have been considerably worse when we added Nemo to the walk. When you add that second dog into the mix, be prepared for the other dog's behavior to regress a bit.
We'll get Tango's behavior to improve when he's with Nemo, it will just take a little more practice. And that means more time spent with the dogs at the park. Not a bad deal, after all!
