Friday, January 24, 2014

16 Months: Training - Days 251 - 254

Emma before we started her new protocol.
Tuesday

I make an effort to meet Emma's owner outside when she drops Emma off so I can watch and evaluate their communication when walking.  I have been slowly fine tuning it and trying my best to help the walk from the car to me improve over time, but it's still been a bit off and it wasn't until the last time she had been dropped off I realized what it was.  Emma has a bad habit of sniffing the ground when she's walking and not paying any attention to her handler, not just her owner but I experience it also at least half of the time.  I had worked on it with her by adjusting how I hold the lead and how I communicate through it and was happy with her improvement with me.  I had then relayed to her owner that to keep her head from going down they needed to shorten the lead so she had less of a chance of sniffing.  What I didn't relay was a proper way to hold the lead.

Emma is their second dog and as hard as they are working to learn and understand her, they don't have the experience I do with dogs.  I have lived with, walked and raised dogs all of my life.  I have a ton of experience of holding a lead and just walking with the dog with a relaxed body and relaxed lead.  They do not.  It's like driving a car or learning to skate.  There is hesitation and a ton of things that need to be remembered and put into muscle memory.  Do you remember when you first started driving?  Checking the gauges, looking in the mirrors, making sure you were in alignment in the lane, gauging how wide the car was and more were ALL on your mind ALL at once and there was a lot of slow movement and hesitation in figuring out how to park or turn a corner.  Driving in a straight line didn't come naturally and only with experience did it become second nature.  The though of drinking a cup of coffee and eating a burger while turning up the volume on the radio and driving at the same time would have been overwhelming!  It's the same when learning how to walk with a dog and keep it fluid and the communication clear - a hundred tiny things to figure out and remember and try to do and all the while you are WALKING at the same time.  No wonder it is a struggle for both ends of the leash.

Now some dogs make it look easy.  They just get it and walk nice and loose on the lead and plod along at your pace.  Some people also never had the struggles of learning to drive either; they just got into the car and drove and it was perfectly natural.  Some people have the knack to get it and work a dog without hesitation or issue and the dog just gets it and follows along.  Some people can put on roller blades or skates and just go too.  Those people or dogs are rare and Emma is not one who just gets it nor is her owner able to just pick up the lead and have that wonderful communication.  There is nothing wrong with it and the family is doing nothing wrong, but it does mean I need to evaluate what I now do naturally (having driven a dog since childhood) and must break apart and share.

Thus, this morning I met her halfway down the ramp and explained why things were going a bit funky with poor Emma.  She had the leash in her right hand (the tail of it) and about halfway up the length of the leash she had in her left hand and she was lifting up (as per my instructions as she understood them) making a straight line from her to Emma with the leash and putting tension on the leash at all times.  This triggers an opposition reflex in the dog, which she wouldn't know, and for Emma adds stress to the generally pleasant walking experience.  How to explain what I do that is different and explains things better, but helps keep Emma's nose up?

We discussed it and I took Emma's lead (her excitement level was perfect, she was thrilled to be there and excited by the smells and totally distracted) and I curled the leash in a loop in my left hand to take up the excess amount and left about 1 to 1 1/2 foot between her and I - IE, just enough to let the leash be loose when we walk and my hand hangs down (the owner had her hand about shoulder height to keep the leash high enough to prevent her from sniffing) and just short enough to prevent her nose from reaching the ground without my knowing and being able to gently curl my wrist and shorten it just enough to catch her attention (without a leash pop or correction) as her head went down and bring her attention back to me.  My body was relaxed, my arm hanging normally at my side and I made myself a bit more exciting than the environment and got her into position and we walked up to her owner with minor sniffing and mostly loose lead.  I explained what I was doing and what I was looking for to prevent her from pulling by activating the reflex and give her a bit more communication through the lead that wasn't tense or worried - which trust me, I have fed that down a lead in the past also and it just makes the dog more anxious.  It took  me a long time to realize that was EXACTLY what I was doing to Dieter and a longer time to fix my own mistake.

I then handed the lead back to the owner and had her walk Emma up to me (about 5 to 7 feet) and low and behold Emma was paying attention to her suddenly and doing a nice job.  I have to say, her owner did a great job of listening and working with me and I appreciate the effort she put in.  It isn't easy to learn how to walk a dog where the two of you are in perfect sync, but once you know how it feels, boy howdy, do you want to have every dog from the point on do the same thing.  I may have to have her walk Jack sometime to feel it.  Jack is the best lead trained dog I have right now and he's like walking air.

Over the weekend Emma's owner worked on the protocol for Teach Your Dog to Eat.  They stuck to their guns and Emma was eating without issues and completing her meals by the time they brought her back.  Since Emma lives in two houses and there are, by default, difference in rules and structure in both home, she decided to try this morning to see if the new rules at her other home were the same ones here.  She is ONLY working on this protocol until she's eating with relish and looking for more when she finishes and not training task or basic skills at this time.

I set her bowl down, counted to five slowly and when she just stood looking at me picked her bowl up and set it aside for the day.  That was it.  It's a huge thing to train a dog to eat and the protocol that Sue Ailsby uses is highly effective and has taught all the other dogs in the house that have done it to eat and work for food.  It's Emma's turn and she's learning.

The rest of the day we used play to build impulse control and just enjoyed being together.  Her first day or two in my house is a no snuggle day due to some perfume the family uses in the home.  It makes my sinus' swell and makes it hard for me to breath.  It also makes my eyes water.  It's not strong on her coat most of the time, but due to her coat type it is deeply embedded by the time she returns and any very close contact causes me to react.  The last few times I have had troubles breathing if she puts her fur up in my face and I get a deep breath of it.  I am allergic to it and need to let her air out a bit before I can be close to her.  I need to find a better spray to put on her coat to remove the scent so I can be close to her sooner.  She's starting to get it though. She'll curl against me, but not put her head in my face until I invite her too.  It's a solution, but no the best.  Poor girl loves to cuddle.  Being able to play and get that type of interaction is important, since her favorite full body contact is out for a short time.

She is doing very well on her impulse control in play, but gets very jumpy.  At mid-day I decided to click for her feet hitting the floor and reward with physical contact.  I have muted the clicker I use in the house and can carry in my pockets and she's responding better to it. The instant I clicked and then petted her she lit up.  Very good.  We'll use that for a while and build impulse control while she works on learning to eat.

This evening when I put her food down she decided I was as serious as her owners about her eating her food and ate her entire dinner with only a brief stop to peer at me when I blocked the other dogs from entering the kitchen while she was eating.  After that she didn't stop eating until she finished.  Slowly she'll build confidence in eating with me nearby (a problem for her) and with the other dogs moving around (a problem for her) and with the gate opened or closed (closed is a problem for her) and learn that eating is safe and easy to do.

Wish us luck!


Hey, I was here first!
Wednesday

Emma is out of the food her family feeds her at my home and her family was supposed to bring me some when they dropped her off this week.  By accident it was forgotten and her owner stated she would bring it this morning.  Jack was not due to come today due to a schedule conflict, so I took a bit of extra time letting the muscles in my legs wake up before starting our day.  Emma had been fussy all night and woke me several times when she flopped across my legs or body slammed my legs.  It was always my legs and below my knees, so I think her sensitive self was aware I was in a great deal of pain - which was why I hadn't been able to fall asleep until well after 1 AM.  She's never done this before, but I suspect her boy has bad leg nights and she's grown used to pinning them to help him rest.  That is what it felt like she was trying to do - stop my legs from doing the jig.

I had expected her family to arrive with her food between 7:30 AM and 8:30 AM and so was waiting for them at that time.  Generally they arrive at the end of the hour, so I got my coffee and let them out for a run and then started to do my dishes, but my feet and hip still hurt, though not as bad as they did the day before.  Read Malcolm's post for this week to discover what type of day I truly had.

By 9 AM it was clear that her family had forgotten to bring her food, so I decided to feed her the same food my dogs eat and got everyone's breakfast.  I am currently feeding Emma out of a ceramic bowl after the fear reaction she had of the metal bowl when she returned.  I don't know what type of bowl she eats out of at home, but I am working up to her being able to pick up and hand her bowl to her handler to make it easier for him to be part of her daily care giving.  To do this she needs to eat out of a metal bowl (plastic bowls tend to collect bacteria and speed up the graying of the muzzle) and learn to pick it up.  When she was 4 months old I accidentally dropped her metal bowl right in front of her and frightened her badly.  It took months to recover from that one incident.

Before she went on vacation she was eating out of the metal bowl, but she was still stiff in the hind legs and a little leery of it, but I was seeing her relax more each day with the bowl.  She was able to slide it along the floor and had heard it drop a few times and not freak out.  When she returned she was back to the almost peeing herself frightened of the bowl.  Not sure if it's a phase and she just needs a little break from it or what, but I first want her willing to eat and THEN reintroduce the metal bowl and re-teach her to eat from it.

She is eating now without too much hesitation.  She goes right to the bowl and starts eating within 1 second of being released to eat.  She raised her head once today while I was moving to block Malcolm and Max from entering the kitchen while she ate, but went right back to her meal and finished it.  I am introducing distractions while eating slowly.  I have stopped shutting the gate and have turned my back on her.  That helped.  I stood still yesterday, but today moved around while she ate.  As she finished I let the dogs into the kitchen and retrieved her bowl.

The rest of the day would be spent cuddling and playing and visiting with a friend who dropped by.  She was very happy to meet him and curled up in his arms for a while during our visit.  In the evening I put her bowl down and this time waited until she was almost done before letting the dogs into the kitchen.  She was eating without issue and even with Malcolm standing close to her she continued to eat and finished her meal.

For the remainder of this week she'll work out of the ceramic bowl and I'll just allow the dogs into the room sooner until she's okay with the idea of them being in the room while she eats.  Next week we'll start from the beginning with the metal bowl and do it all over again.  By the end of next week she should be completely reset on her eating habits and I can, near the end of the week, start training her with some of her kibble.

Upper Left: Dieter, Middle Left: Emma, Middle Right: Malcolm,
Lower Left: Max and Lower Right: Jack
Thursday

It's funny how teaching Emma to eat improves her overall confidence.  I have been slowly introducing distractions in the room she's in while she's eating.  First it was my being in the room and still and then my being in the room and moving and then I added the dogs entering the room while she was just finishing her meal and finally the dogs entering the room while she's eating her meal.  She's able to eat without stopping now and there is not hesitation in her starting her meal.  I still see some stiffness in her body, but it's slowly leaving and her confidence each meal is increasing.

This change in her is bleeding over into her daily life.  Since I am not clicker training her while we work on her learning to eat I play games or just cuddle with her during the day.  Mostly, I am teaching her she's okay even if I am not paying attention to her.  She's always been one of those dogs that needs a ton of input from her humans to feel secure.  She wants verbal, physical and emotional support on an almost constant basis and it's truly exhausting.  These past two weeks I have rewarded her with affection and attention or food when she came out from behind my recliner and whenever I pass the recliner and she's laying in it I just stroke the top of her head and look at her.  It seems to be just enough to make her feel okay with her world.

When I am relaxing in my chair and I don't want a dog on me she's learned she can lay at my feet and it's okay.  She's discovered she can go into the big crate and enjoy a bone and all I do is walk by and praise her.  She's also learning that getting excited and barking gets her nowhere.  She's started this bounce and bark habit in the past month when I get up or it's time to go outside and it riles the whole house up.  It doesn't help Max does much the same with yakking at me in GSD speak and I am now hearing Emma use the various vocalizations he uses when she wants to convey her excitement to me.

Today I simply stopped and ignored every dog in the house when she and Max got into a bark off.  Once they quieted I would take a step and if they barked and wound up again I stopped.  It took 20 minutes to cross from my kitchen to my front door, but both her and Max got the message and it was quieter going to the door for the remainder of the day.

She also learned that going into leaping fits of excitement stopped my progress to the door and she's calming down a bit on that too.  It's a work in progress, but every dog in the house is given the choice to be over excited and stay in or calm and go out.  Since the reward is to go play outside, they are quickly picking up on the rules.

She is quickly and without fear or hesitation going into the smaller molded crate when I call her name and cue her.  She is staying quiet in the crate and waiting to be released whenever I have company come without fussing or protesting.  The new routine of crating her and Jack, putting Max in the office and Dieter in the bathroom and clipping a lead on Malcolm has helped with answering the door.  Every so often Emma or Jack will go in a room with either Max or Dieter on their own and I am okay with that - I just want them to have a given routine and to know mugging guests is not okay.

Today I dropped a bowl while working with Jack.  I was in the kitchen and Emma was in my recliner.  I glanced to see how she reacted and she didn't even hardly move and then decided to lift her head and watch me calmly over the arm of the chair.  This same event a month ago would have been too much for her and she would have run behind my chair.  I was very pleased to see that.

Later I was talking to her while I stood behind the gate to the kitchen and tapping and rattling it while she stood less than six inches from it and she was upbeat and didn't show stress or fear signs.  This is also a huge change from the week before when the gate and the sounds of the gate bothered her.  This evening I was playing fetch with Max and the ball banged and bounced off the gate while it leaned against the wall and she didn't flinch or become worried and when the gate to the bedroom fell and rattled a storm she startled, but recovered quickly and checked in with me to see if she should be worried.

These are all huge changes for her and I am happy to see them.  Right now, while she's learning to eat, we are not going on public access outings.  I am getting a solid baseline for her mood and her ability to handle stress now that she's eating well and feels more confident and when we return to public access training with her again I will get a better idea of what is and isn't causing her high stress and what type of fall out a public access outing causes her.

This has been a good thing, teaching her to eat, and I believe it will help her progress faster once we are done with this training protocol.

Friday



It's been a productive week with Emma.  She is eating each meal without hesitation and faster each day.  She is not nearly as worried when she's eating and she can now handle sounds and movement and other dogs while eating.  Her confidence slowly improved with the praise and affection for randomly asked for known behaviors and not being forced to work for her food during this time period.

Today I share a video with you of Emma on a Friday and looking pretty happy and confident.  If you review the videos from this month you'll see not long ago my first Friday video was of Emma being almost completely shutdown and unable to train until I did something to build her confidence.  Even then, she wasn't relaxed or happy or even in the game.  There was a ton of worry in her body language in that video.  My next video showed her training and looking much better, but still not fully in the game but happier and more relaxed - that second video was shot less than a week later.  The next video, shot one week after the first showed Emma up and happy and a in a much better mood, but we weren't training, just playing.  It was the contrast between the second and third videos that helped a friend and I deduce that Emma is uncomfortable with the more serious structure of training and we'd need to make some changes for her to make training fun.

So, stage one - train her to eat.  This part is going very well and next week we'll be working on training her to eat from a metal bowl as well as she eats from a ceramic bowl.  The next step was using praise, affection and play to get behaviors she already knew and associate them as rewards and keep focus.  I have worked on that this week.  The video above shows the outcome of that.  She's not totally up, but her focus has improved by droves and she's able to do more and work harder with me this time and with less fall out afterwards.

I will introduce praise, affection and play paired with food to make food give her the same happy feelings the former does and start working on basic behaviors to do that to improve success.  Hopefully, by the end of next week I will see almost no fallout after training and a happier dog as a result.

By fallout I mean stress signs.  After the video I shot today Emma climbed in my chair and went into stress relieving chewing on a bone for about 15 minutes.  This behavior should reduce when she is in the game and she'll be able to handle stress overall better as a result.


Level 1
Zen Target Come Sit Down
Step Completed Completed Completed Completed Completed

Level 2
Zen Come Sit Down Target
Step Completed Completed Completed Completed Completed
Focus Lazy Leash Go To Mat Crate Distance
Step 3 Completed 2 Completed 2
Jump Relax Handling Tricks Communication
Step 1 3 Completed Completed Completed

Level 3
Zen Come Sit Down Target
Step 3 Completed 2 1 1
Focus Lazy Leash Go To Mat Crate Distance
Step 0 Completed 0 4 0
Jump Relax Handling Retrieve Communication
Step Completed 2 Completed Completed 1

Level 4
Zen Come Retrieve Target Relax
Step Completed 0 Completed 0 0
Focus Lazy Leash Go To Mat Crate Distance
Step 0 Completed 0 5 0
Handling Communication


Step Completed 0


Saturday, January 18, 2014

16 Months: Training - Days 246 - 250

Monday

Are you awake?  I need to pee.
Emma was in a much better mood on her arrival than she had been on her departure.  Poor girl had me worried.  I think the 2 weeks of rest time helped and my changing how things work here helped too.  I had more changes in mind to help her learn better and a new plan on place after seeing the bell curve her week was previously. I would rather a more stable week and if a single, quiet public access outing continues to create such a bell curve in her week and doesn't flatten out and become a stable learning curve, I will have to make the decision she'll work in home only for her handler and not push her any further on the public access.  I will make this decision after the 18 month mark, but work slowly on her public access material to see if she can't find a balance in the meantime.

I had mentioned this to her owner, who understood that I could never promise she would work out as a public access dog and understood that at some point I would need to make an honest evaluation of her ability to work in public and decide what is best for her emotionally.  I am glad she understands that and understands that even as an in home service dog, Emma will provide a great deal of support and independence for their son.

Part of the problem is Emma internalizes her stress when out which results in her displaying stress signs at home.  She become harder to work with, more fearful and less willing to join training because of this.  The trick is to build her confidence in small increments and hope, by the time she's out of this fear period, we've shored her up enough she can do her job in public as well as home.  If not, then Emma will be designated for in home service work only and we'll focus on how she can do her job in that setting.

Part of that is giving her more space while we are training and reassuring her she's safe during our training sessions.  High rate of re-enforcement and no wrong choices when we set out to train will make things easier on her.  Since I had a busy weekend and didn't get my household chores done during it, I decided to start our morning a bit differently.  I decided to do the chores first and get my house in order to make my mood better.

Emma has had a problem with the vacuum since she was little, so I was very pleased to see her carrying a bone around me while I vacuumed and not running to hide.  She was stressed, but not so stressed she'd decided she needed to hide.  What a lovely change.  I have been, since our return from vacation, rewarding her coming out of hiding and ignoring her going into hiding.  It's improved her mood and made her less worried about the world around her.  I am glad I worked that out over vacation - I like this change in her mood.

After that I got the dishes, laundry and steaming of the floor done.  I normally feed the dogs between 8:30 AM and 9 AM when I am feeding them out of their bowls, and generally have training for all three done by 9:30 AM when training for kibble.  This time I didn't even start until almost 10 AM and worked with Emma last, which made her meal nearly 11 AM by the time I started.  The change was immediate - she took her first kibble without hesitation and worked straight through with a better body language than previously.

I also decided to change her warm up routine from basic Level 1 behaviors to Click to Calm lessons.  I played the Up/Down game and the Side to Side game (much like the Come Game) and LAT with her.  She is worried about Max and Jack on the other side of the gate and being gated in the kitchen with me.  That's okay, we'll work on her confidence in this setting and relieve that worry and then work on training.

For Rounds 2 and 3 we just worked on Tug Tasks.  She again couldn't focus and it turned into a LAT session instead.  I had Malcolm in the crate, but just having Max and Jack on the other side of the gate and laying quietly was a bit overwhelming for her, so whenever she peered at them I clicked and rewarded.  By the end of Round 3 she was up to taking the tug in her mouth and starting to pull back - she chose to return to the lesson on her own, I just went with what she needed and helped her regain focus.

Since I had a long day with Jack I didn't do another training session with her.  Instead, when it was time for dinner I put the gate back up and gave her her food in the kitchen and left the kitchen.  She took about 2 minutes to decide she could eat in peace and ate the rest of her daily allotment of food.  Excellent.


Tuesday

We are having a much better week!
Sending the dogs out to play when Jack arrives has improved everyone's mood.  Emma and Jack and Malcolm have a high romp in the yard for about 15 minutes and come in happy and tired.  It's been a good choice to stop having the flooding of four dogs mugging Jack the moment he comes in and my trying to calm everyone down from their high excitement of having him join the party.

I again waited for a late start on the day for training Emma.  Making her a bit hungry helps her want to train and I wanted to see if the day before was a bit of a fluke or a solid observation.  I got my shower in and watched a bit of TV and ate my breakfast (which I normally don't do) and let the dogs have   a couple good romps outside before pulling up the bowls and starting the lessons for the day.

Emma is no longer defaulting to behind my recliner and is instead just laying in it and relaxing.  She watches me approach and doesn't move to get out unless I ask and accepts my pats on her head without stress signs.  It's a good thing.  When she comes to see what I am doing or checks in somehow I reward with praise, affection or food.  She is becoming more a part of the herd of dog seeking what I am doing and less the dog who goes and hides when I am surrounded.  Nice to see.

I gated the kitchen to work with Jack and Emma raised her head.  Seeing the gate goes up means its her time with me and I am seeing an interest in that.  Nice.  After I finished with Jack she came to me and we started out lesson.  I once again did Click to Calm games of Up/Down, Side to Side and Clicking for every two steps while she followed me.  Once again she was eating without hesitation, which is fantastic, this means her stress levels are lowering and she's feeling more confident.  She is still slow in her movements on the Side to Side and Up/Down game, but I am seeing an improvement in speed in the Up/Down game.  She seemed to calm the most with the moving game.  

In the beginning of the three minutes she was a bit hunched, a bit low and her tail was tight to her rear.  At the end of the three minutes she was standing tall, her tail was relaxed and she wasn't hunched as much as when we started.  The hunching and slow response was about all that told me she was still feeling stress.

For Rounds 2 and 3 I wanted to work on Tug, but she needed to work on LAT.  I had left Malcolm out of his crate this time and though he wasn't whining or banging on the gate, his presence was hard on her.  I worked LAT for the entire second round with only two attempts to work on Tug by her choice.  For the 3rd round I switched from clicking when she looked to clicking when she looked back.  In the second round she was stuck staring at the other dogs and while she was sitting, her body was clearly tense and her shoulders were rolled and her head was ducked down a bit.  By the end of the second round she was relaxed, her shoulders were square and her head was up and her ears were flaring forward as she looked.  This meant she wasn't so much stuck as I wasn't giving her time to choose to look away.  On the third round I withheld the click and she turned to look at me.  Her body was still relaxed and her head still high and her ears still flaring forward to look at the other dogs.  It was a relaxed look at them and wait for the click.  Okay, good, now I want her to focus on me and not them.

It worked, she could look at them and back to me and off and on offer a look, touch or grip on the tug.  We didn't get anywhere on the tug task, but we got somewhere on confidence.  She stood up and I saw her tail flash with a wag whenever I clicked.  Her tail was loose, her head was up, she breathing was normal, her focus was improving and her body was tall.  It was the best session ever, it was true communication between us and not a single word was said by me.  I just clicked to tell her that I got it, the boys worried her with that gate, and it was okay and she could work on her task and be safe.  Fantastic communication.

Just now the kids (also known as dogs) all got to rumbling around me while I sat working on the IPad typing this blog in my wheelchair.  I had just moved to get the sun out of my eyes and had deployed my cup holder for my Pepsi and set my e-cig on the holder while I worked.  Malcolm came around that side of the chair and knocked it off.  Emma went through the throng of milling dogs, picked up the e-cig, walked around to my more open side and handed it to me.  That folks, is the first sign her confidence is truly improving.  She got lots of love for such a fantastic auto retrieve.  Good girl!



Wednesday

Good morning sleepy head.
Good lord, it's 10 PM already and I still have Jack's blog to update before bed.  What long days I have during the week.  No wonder all I want to do on the weekends is nothing!

Emma woke me just prior to 7:30 AM this morning with her insistence to go outside.  I let her and the boys out for their potty run and when they came in curled up in bed with them.  She loves to drape across my body first thing in the morning while I wait for the pain of first standing on my feet to leave and the spasms in my legs to let up.

While she was turning upside down and trying very hard to win Cutest Dog on the Planet contest, I noticed that Malcolm, who normally goes in the other room and then returns every 5 to 10 minutes, had not returned for 15.  I got up to find he'd been destuffing my recliner through a hole in the seat.  It was decided at that moment I should cover it and thus the picture you see shows Emma on the newly covered recliner.

My morning schedule that thrown for a loop right after my morning coffee.  Having quickly showered and dressed after Jack's arrival and the mighty romp and run in the yard they enjoy each morning, I decided I would actually sit down and enjoy my morning coffee instead of drinking it while training.  I had just started Malcolm's training and finished his first round when my oldest called.  The phone call resulted in an hour and half delay in getting back to training the dogs and a 15 minute remind and recoup after getting off of the phone.  I didn't get to Emma for training until almost 11:30 AM.

I filmed all of the dog's morning lessons.  I wanted a base line of Emma's mid-week behavior prior to her public access outing so I could film her after she'd been out and see how much body language differences I could see.  I have attached that video for your review.

Click to Calm/Tug/LAT


We are working on confidence building, so our first lesson is a couple of pattern games - the Up/Down game and the Ping Pong game.  Her speed on bringing her head up and her going to get the treats when I toss them has improved.  I am glad to see that.  The cat came in during that round and Emma was thrown a bit by her being there, but continued to work with me.  The pattern games are helping her - she doesn't have to think, just follow a pattern and therefore it calms her.

We went to work on Tug for Rounds 2 and 3 and she was needing to do LAT less and could work on Tug more.  She was up to lifting and pulling back on the tug rope by the end of Round 2.  It was Round 3 that went sideways.  Max, who had been laying quietly outside of the gate, decided to charge it due to the cat.  He banged the gate and went into a bark and bang fest for a moment and then went into a more active circle and bark fest in the living room.  Poor Emma lost all thoughts of Tug and turned to face the gate and moved closer to me.  Her tail was tight to her hind end, but not tucked.  Her head was up, but her body was tense.  Her body was up, but she was very still.  She was taking in the situation and could take food still and moved closer to me because I am a safety zone, but she couldn't focus to work anymore.

In the afternoon we went in to work on Tug again and Emma simply couldn't not stare at the gate.  I simply sat on the floor and worked with her on handing me her paw or touching my hand or giving me a down.  Her focus is gone again, but she's not so over threshold she can't eat.  I may not be as set back as I had thought in the morning, but I will have to work carefully to get her confidence shored up.

I do have to say, Emma has taught me a great deal about working with a soft dog and splitting behaviors in to very tiny bites to increase success.  Letting her lead me on her ability to work and giving her a chance to resolve some of her worry has truly improved both our communication and I am happy she's helping me become a better trainer overall.

I offered her another quarter cup of food when I fed the other dogs their dinner, but she didn't want it.  She self regulates on how much she eats and I respect that.  She'd eaten all of her food (she eats a cup of kibble a day) and I wasn't worried about her calorie intake, just her tummy being a bit grumbly during the night.  The night carrot will help with that.

Thursday

She loves to curl up where Attitude used to always sleep.
I had planned to take Emma out this week for a public access run, but circumstances on Wednesday, the day I planned it, resulted in it not happening and today I came to the conclusion I didn't want to take her out this week.  Instead I want to build up her confidence and not tank her week by taking her out when she's having a fairly good week.  She's been more up than down, more confident than fearful and more engaged that hiding - why mess with that when I can spend some time building up the skills she'll need to do better in public access settings?

Instead we just played Click to Calm games, tug and other fun things that Emma enjoys to feed her her breakfast.  She's getting better about eating her kibble, but not like the other dogs do.  Max, Malcolm, Dieter and Jack would happily stand on their heads for a bit of kibble as a reward.  Mind you, Jack, Max and Malcolm are less excited about kibble as a reward in a higher distraction area than the house so we use higher value food for those times, but in the house kibble should be a solid and worthwhile reward and it is.  For Emma, kibble is a hit or miss reward and if she's even slightly off in her mood she won't take it.  This makes progress with her very hard due to inconsistent training sessions.

I had a similar situation with Jack when I was working with him prior to the vacation.  Though kibble was a perfectly good reward his ability to focus was inconsistent and so some sessions he was spot on and some he was so food stupid he couldn't think his way out of a box.  I was in a holding pattern with him and couldn't seem to get anywhere when he suddenly became so focused on the food he couldn't learn any longer.  The answer for Jack was Zen.  We worked hard for the month of December on It's Yer Choice and Zen and on his return I had a dog who was flying through his lessons because he could suddenly think.

I have two problems with Emma which actually may be a single problem - Emma doesn't know how to eat.  When she arrived Attitude was in the end stages of congestive heart failure and eating high value foods just to get her to eat.  Max, Dieter and Emma all found her food far more interesting than their kibble and I can't blame them.  She had raw medallions of beef, lamb or chicken at one point and porridge another (which had lots of tasty smells) and in the end grain free moist food.  It's hard to eat kibble when one bowl in the house smells like heaven.  I put a little of whatever Attitude was eating on the other dog's food to get them to eat their food and leave hers alone.  Emma learned that kibble came with high value food.  Period.

After Attitude died I had moist food to finish before it went bad (I had bought a new case of food) and so every dog got a spoonful of moist on their food for a while and it was my mistake that I kept buying it and adding it to their bowls.  When my money became too tight to continue the practice I went back to straight up kibble and low and behold Jack, Dieter and Max happily ate the dry kibble without complaint.  They had been taught to eat (we taught Jack to eat when he first arrived).  Emma, who returned to a new training system with dry kibble as the reward for the day couldn't make the change.  She gets water on her food at her home during the weekends and had been getting moist here and suddenly she's but on bread and water rations according to her.  She's picky, like little Attitude had been, and it's affecting our training.

So, starting tonight I decided to train her to eat.  This morning told me how important it was to do so.  She's eating the kibble, but her ability to focus is not as good as I would like and her communication of whether she's too worried to eat about a change in her environment or she's not willing to eat because of her level of hunger isn't clear.  So, tonight when I offered her her dinner I counted slowly to 5 and picked up the bowl when she didn't eat.  She actually looked surprised I had done so.  I think she's grown used to our pleading she eat and to tell the truth I went through that long enough with Attitude I am not going to do it with a perfectly healthy 16 month old dog.

I will email the family and ask them to read that section in the book and implement it at their home also.  Until Emma is eating with the same gusto that everyone else does we won't make progress.  She needs to know how to eat - period.

Friday

Emma just being Emma.


I started the protocol for training Emma to eat last night.  She was offered her food, given a slow count of five, didn't eat her food and it was picked up.  This morning she came in with Dieter and Max after playing in the yard with all of the dogs.  I fed Max, Dieter and her while Jack and Malcolm played in the yard.  I took her into the kitchen, set her food down and walked 5 feet away from it and did a slow count to five.  This time she approached the bowl and sniffed the food, but turned away and walked to me and sat behind me like the food scared her.  I picked up her bowl and put it away.

This may seem like a cruel thing, but not knowing how to eat can cause problems overall.  I have 3 dogs of my own I feed on a schedule.  I know how much they eat, I can tell when they don't feel well because they don't eat and I can catch a problem sooner because of that.  Dieter, who ruptured a disc right after Attitude died, is still walking because I caught he wasn't feeling well long before I realized he'd injured his back.  He wasn't crying or dragging his feet yet, but he was a bit roached (which I took note of when he turned away from his bowl) and he refused to eat.  Dieter would eat dirt if I put it in his bowl, so his not eating was a clue to his well being.

Emma can and does refuse to eat on an almost daily basis.  I can't tell if it's because today the food didn't meet her expectations, she wasn't hungry when I offered it or she's not feeling well.  This could lead to missing a serious problem in her future and not getting the medical treatment she needs in a timely fashion.

As a working dog or a pet dog, being on a schedule makes it easier to potty the dog when they have to go.  Knowing about how long after a meal she needs to poop makes it easier to plan when to give her a meal if you have to be away from the house or if she's working in public, how long before you leave so she's not uncomfortable during the outing.  This can't be done with a dog who free feeds because they are filling their belly off and on and so don't have a set schedule for when they need to go.

A dog who quickly eats their meal makes it easier to feed in the morning or evening when you are in a hurry.  There have been times I needed to go to an appointment after Max's dinner time and fed him quickly before we left.  He was able to finish his meal in a couple of minutes and be ready to go without causing an undue delay.  With his stomach full, he was able to relax during the appointment and sleep.

And finally, Max, Dieter, Malcolm and Jack will work for the food I feed them because it has value.  If they don't eat what I offer they may not be offered anything else.  Emma is willing to see if what is offered will be replaced with something better.  Raising the value of her kibble makes training her in the home easier and maintaining her weight easier.

So, what we are doing is vitally important on a lot of levels for Emma's overall well being.  It isn't cruel to let her decide that what is offered is of value and to eat it when offered.  She won't starve herself and she will be easier to train.  Mind you, I have known of one dog who couldn't be taught to eat and it turned out to be a fatal health issue that over time took his life.  If Emma cannot learn to eat we have more concerns than if she'll do a retrieve or learn to tug open a door.  I don't see any health issues with Emma.  There were other signs with the dog who couldn't learn to eat - small signs that were clear in hindsight which Emma doesn't display.  I believe we just need to make her kibble of value to her and she'll take an interest in working for it.

So, the remainder of our day was rewarding good behavior with play and praise and just letting her be a dog.  We will continue to work on training her to eat for the next couple of week to improve her desire to work and return to working on confidence and task training once we have achieved our goal.  In the meantime I will work on confidence by using praise and play as motivators.


Level 1
Zen Target Come Sit Down
Step Completed Completed Completed Completed Completed

Level 2
Zen Come Sit Down Target
Step Completed Completed Completed Completed Completed
Focus Lazy Leash Go To Mat Crate Distance
Step 3 Completed 2 Completed 2
Jump Relax Handling Tricks Communication
Step 1 3 Completed Completed Completed

Level 3
Zen Come Sit Down Target
Step 3 Completed 2 1 1
Focus Lazy Leash Go To Mat Crate Distance
Step 0 Completed 0 4 0
Jump Relax Handling Retrieve Communication
Step Completed 2 Completed Completed 1

Level 4
Zen Come Retrieve Target Relax
Step Completed 0 Completed 0 0
Focus Lazy Leash Go To Mat Crate Distance
Step 0 Completed 0 5 0
Handling Communication


Step Completed 0


Tuesday, January 14, 2014

16 Months: Training - Days 241 - 245

Monday

Emma is in a new fear period which makes her days
up or down and sometimes both at the same time.
Emma was on vacation for 2 weeks with her family.   Believe it or not, Emma has been training for a year now and I believe a break was in order for her.  I also needed a break.  I have had a lot happen since Emma arrived over a year ago and began her journey.  I lost a friend suddenly within the first week or so I was working with Emma and a second shortly after that.  I also lost Attitude in April and am only now finding my footing after so many losses.  Jack joined the program and then I ended up with an emergency foster dog and finally Malcolm has joined the family.  I was circling on lessons and lost focus as a trainer - which is not good for any of the dogs.

I needed a break so I could look back and evaluate what would work best for all the dogs concerned.  Emma, unlike the others, is a softy who seems to need more attention than the other dogs.  She demands physical affection and wants to be in constant contact with people, unless and clicker and treats come out and then she's nowhere to be found.  It can be frustrating when she hides behind my recliner as I set out to begin a training session.  She is also picky about her treats and if she doesn't approve of what I have pulled out she won't work for it.  This goes for her meals also.  She won't eat her kibble unless we doctor it in some way.  This is in part my fault - I had a dog with congestive heart failure and fed her moist food.  The strong smell of high value food had every other dog in the house hovering over her at meals and to prevent that I put a spoonful of moist in all of the dogs food for months on end.  Emma was the only one who couldn't go back to dry kibble after that.  This means that I need to teach Emma how to eat.

During the break I came to the conclusion my lesson plans were not meeting our needs anymore and I needed to restructure them.  Part of it was a tendency to not time them.  I loose track of time and can either train too long or not long enough depending on how time feels to me.  For Emma this can be an issue - she may be feeling pressured to train longer than she's able to and I need to return her to enjoying the lessons and not dreading them.

Today I changed how food was given to the dogs.  Max and Dieter are fed while Malcolm, Jack and Emma play outside in the morning.  Emma, Malcolm and Jack's daily allotment of food is doled out in their bowls (Malcolm's will be in the treat pouch because I am still capturing good behaviors the instant I see them with him) and each SDiT will be earning their food during the day in their lesson plans.  This means, Emma will be working for dry kibble.  The horror!

Today, after working Jack and Malcolm for their morning lessons (4 two minute lessons with a 2 minute breaks between them) I called Emma, who had gone behind my recliner, out and started her lesson.  She wasn't excited about the idea and refused the kibble I offered.  I told her that was fine and let her go.  After that, whenever I saw something good (such as coming out to join the family from behind the recliner) I rushed to her bowl and got a kibble and offered it to her.  She finally started to eat them about noonish.  I figured hunger would play a role in her choosing to work for kibble or not.

I got about half of her breakfast down her before she once again decided she didn't need to eat kibble again.  She had been rewarded for trying to pull the tugs on the cabinets, offering sits, touch, downs and keeping her feet on the floor.  She started to eat kibble again around 2 PM and worked for the remainder of her breakfast offering behaviors I liked, such as not jumping on me, making eye contact and having her head high.

By dinner time, when I was now too tired to train, I offered her the remainder of her daily food in her bowl.  She looked in and decided she didn't want it.  That is fine.  I picked up the bowl and put it up for the night.  She will probably not eat well until Wednesday, but hunger will lead her to accept that she should eat what is offered.  If at the end of the day I offer her the remainder of her daily food and she doesn't eat it in a timely fashion I will pick it up for the night.  She won't starve, but she will learn to eat when offered food and it should reduce her picky nature about what we train with.

At this point, I suggest we follow Sue Ailsby's "Teach Your Dog to Eat" routine to improve Emma's ability to eat.  If, by the end of this week, she doesn't take to working for her kibble, I will do the full protocol next week and teach her to eat.  Here's hoping a modified version works for her and she quickly catches on she needs to eat the food offered her.

Tuesday


She spends a lot of her day napping in my chair.
After a rough start on Monday of Emma hiding behind my recliner and not wanting to take kibble for rewards she did a complete turn around on Tuesday.  She and the boys went out to play at the beginning of the day (I have found sending them all out to play for a few minutes in the yard when Jack first arrives takes a lot of the tension out of re-uniting the dogs each morning and everyone seems happier and more relaxed).  I opened the door to call them in and found she alone standing before it.  That was perfect.  I asked her in and set the timer and started warm up exercises with her.

For Emma, she needs quick and immediate success to want to stay in the training game and asking for her best known behaviors first lesson of the day gives her that.  She isn't wrong once and as a result she gets a high rate of re-enforcement that lets her feel good about herself.  Sit, Down, Target and Stand are her best behaviors, with Stand being a bit weaker than the others.  Target seems to be the ONE behavior that gives her the biggest emotional boost and the one I use the most to bring her into the training game with me.  As Sue Ailsby states, when dealing with a shy dog use Target to bring them into the game with you and with a bold dog use Zen.  I have two bold dogs and one shy, Emma is my Target to start the day dog, while Jack and Malcolm are my Zen to start the day dogs.

The boys continued to play outside and Emma, now happy and bouncy after a shaky but successful start, was surprised when I ended the first round of our lesson.  Her shaky start was she didn't want the first 2 kibbles I offered her, but accepted the praise I gave instead.  After that, she was happily chewing on the kibble and working for it.

Her second lesson was working on Tug.  She has some tug tasks she'll need to do and just before vacation I taught her, through shaping, to pick up the cord on the cabinet door and lift it.  She remembered that lesson and now was picking it up and waving it around and poking it into the door.  Good enough, high success rates are important for her and in short order my timing on her picking up and pulling back was spot on and she was pulling the door open by a 1/16th of an inch.  Huge advance for Ms. Emma.  She was standing tall, her eyes were bright, her head was up, she was working the problem and taking the food and her tail was waving happily with it set just over her spine.  This was a dog who was in the game and willing to work the problem.

On our third round she was laying in my recliner and watching me while I drank my coffee and checked the status of my kitchen (someone had made dirty dishes, but hadn't done any clean up! Who could that be?) when the timer for her break went off and she BOUND out of the chair to join me as I reached for the clicker and the kibble!  Yes!  For Emma, my picking up a clicker and treats has always sent her behind my recliner.  Part of it is her getting "out of the way" when I am training the other dogs and the fact I normally sit in my recliner to train and part of it is her worry that I may select her to be the dog I am training.  Did I say soft personality before?

This bounding to join me was a whole new thing and wonderful to see.  It meant she was enjoying the training and wanted to continue.  How fantastic is that?  She again worked on Tug with the cabinet door and got to 1/4 of an inch open.  This was fantastic work and I could see her go "But I wasn't done!" when the timer went off.  We played and had too much fun afterwards and I called the other dogs in.

I  have restructured our training to 3 minute sessions with 2 minute breaks in between so both her desire to continue is high and she has time between lessons to think on what we worked on.  On Monday I changed each lesson when we returned, but realized that not working the same lesson at least twice with her or the other dogs wouldn't cement the idea of what they were learning as well as it could.  So, for the second round I decided to work Sit/Stay with her.  She has a solid Sit/Stay and Down/Stay with low distractions, but not with high distractions.  I use each dogs nightmare distraction to build up duration yet again and for Emma it is eye contact and being spoken too in a happy voice.

I had her dog a Sit/Stay at the edge of the kitchen and then started slow.  The first round I tapped the walls, banged cupboards and made noises as I wandered between 5 and 15 feet away from her and returned.  The duration wasn't an issue I was working on, just her staying in a Sit/Stay while I made the noises or actions around her, which meant the click/treat was happening at a high and varying rate of 0 to 5 seconds with an average of 2 seconds throughout the 3 minutes.  She rocked it.  Solid all the way through she didn't break her stay once while I clicked (I teach them to stay despite the click and wait for a release word instead after they first get the idea of Sit/Stay with duration).  At the end of 3 minutes I released her with the cue I use for all of the dogs ("Hup Up") and set the timer for her 2 minute break.  I drank coffee and acted like no dogs were in my house and looked for other distractions to try for her until the 2 minutes was up.

The second round went just as well.  I decided the best distraction was standing before her and clicking while I said things like, "Aren't you just the cutest thing on the planet?" (Click/Treat) "Is that a baby greyhound?" (Click/Treat) "Can I pet her?" (Click/Treat?) "Are you a good dog?" (Click/Treat) and more.  At first she would bound out of position and get excited, but when I only clicked for her sitting again and reward she got it.  In short order she was a bit wiggly in position, but holding it and the rate of re-enforcement was an average of 1 second.  I would say she had a 60% success rate of controlling herself when eye contact and verbal communication was made and that was amazing for this high energy, highly excitable dog.

The third round was done the same way.  We repeated all of the same fun sentences and kept the rate of re-enforcement high as she learned how to stay in position during a nightmare distraction.  I added no Distance or Duration (though the average moved to 2 seconds during round 3) and just worked on the Distraction itself.  Remember, there are 3 Ds in training - Distance, Duration and Distraction and when you work one, you have to decrease the others.  For Emma, this was a huge change in what I was asking of her and she clearly needed a single D worked on while I taught her a new level of self control.  She had a 80% success rate of staying in position and I was tickled pink with that dramatic increase and her very engaged and relaxed body language all through our lessons.  I was also pleased she worked for 90% of her meal for the day already!  What an amazing change from the day before!

By noon I am pretty exhausted and my personal pain levels are through the roof.  I was feeling burning between my shoulder blades and a sharp pain in my left shoulder blade from using my arm so much.  My legs felt wobbly and my overall body was at a Level 8 pain level for me (for people who do not suffer Chronic Pain, my Level 8 is their Level 15) and I was mentally exhausted sharing so much of my energy for the day with the dogs.  I had spent half of my day already training them and updating their Facebook pages and my mental and emotional energy for the day was spent, yet I still had training to finish for all of them, chores that needed done and I had hoped to take Emma out for a public access run to a local smoke shop I frequent (e-smoke, no real smoke around her ever).

It was snowing, which meant a pressure change in the weather, which meant my energy would be sapped that much more.  That I could deal with, but the fact that the ground was already covered in about an inch of snow meant I wasn't leaving.  The last time it snowed and I took Emma out I slipped and slid through an intersection because my tires are summer tires and not designed to deal with winter weather.  I refuse to risk any of the dog's safety just for the sake of training and thus cancelled the trip.

I had finished Jack's morning meal with our second round of training and Malcolm had eaten most of his breakfast and lunch during our first rounds of training.  Emma wouldn't sleep well on an empty stomach, so I decided to wait until later to train her again, which never happened.  I had hit my wall and just fed Malcolm and Emma the last of their daily food in their bowls after Jack was picked up.

Emma started to eat her food out of her bowl when I fed the dogs.   I had put her food back into a ceramic bowl after seeing her fear of the metal bowl return and moved her from the kitchen, which she wouldn't enter to eat either, to the living room by the entry and she was willing to come out and eat.  That is, until Malcolm walked her way to see if she was done and she bolted away and refused to finish her meal.  Okay, more changes need to be done to make her feel confident eating in my home with Mr. Pushy.  Got it.

Wednesday

It's hard to get a good picture of her. She worries about the
camera when I point it at her.  I wish she would give me a
big smile when I go to take he picture!
Who would have thought that all of the dogs love carrots, including Ms. Emma.  When Malcolm was in early potty training I would restrict water at 7 PM until bedtime.  Malcolm got ice cubes for bedtime to help keep him from feeling like he was being dehydrated from the inside out and it became the exciting treat of the night for all of the dogs.  I make the ice cubes in a Kong ice cube tray and use a mixture of 1/2 cup chicken broth and 1/2 cup water for them.  The dogs adore these cubes and so now nightly everyone gets an ice cube for bedtime.  They actually line up at the fridge waiting for me to pull them out of the freezer.

When Malcolm started teething to the point he was crying just to have his muzzle softly touched, I started to freeze whole carrots for him.  Again, the other dogs wanted in on the prize I was handing out.  At first it was just Max, so I would grab two carrots (one from the fridge and one from the freezer) and give the boys their carrots as I crated Malcolm for the night.  Then Dieter wanted in.  Now that Dieter, Max and Malcolm actually wait for me to pull their nightly carrots out (no longer freezing them for Malcolm) Emma was curious about what everyone else was getting.  What the heck, she can have one too.  I pulled out one for her and she took off and happily had a bedtime carrot with the family.  Whatever, it's a cheep and easy nightly treat they can all enjoy without loading up on calories.

Once again Emma trained her morning round with the boys playing outside.  She was ready to play the game and took the very first kibble I offered her and just flew through her warm up lesson.  This "routine" for her is important.  Without it she is lost and can't seem to get her day started for training.  I am okay with that.  Refresh and review on known behaviors she enjoys and doesn't have to think about to get her tummy working and her brain engaged enough to train is good for both of us.

I continued to work with 3 minutes on and 2 minutes off.  She did Tug again for her lesson and was amazing.  She got the cabinet an 1/8th of an inch open and is actually working out she needs to pull back to open the cabinet.  The best part was her happy attitude about the work we are doing and her "hey, we were training here!" attitude when break time comes.

She once again bound off the recliner to join me for training for round three, but this time it was with the three boys in the house.  She doesn't count Dieter as a problem, but Max, Jack and especially Malcolm seem to worry her.  I crate Malcolm while I train her and that helps a great deal.  I see I need to give her more space (Jack was in the kitchen, but parked by the hall and Max was parked by the Baker's Shelf and out of her zone of worry) and see if I can't get her a bit more focused for the more "active" lessons she needs that the big boys try to join in on.

Since I didn't get her out of the house for the public access training the day before, I decided to pack her up now that the weather had improved and the roads cleared.  My Mom had dropped by to give me new snow boots and a cable for my Roku so I could easily transfer it from the bedroom to the living room and back when I desired and I noticed that Emma was trying everything possible to get Mom's attention while fighting very hard to keep her feet on the floor.  Will need to come up with a click/treat plan for her to better explain the type of behavior I want and give her gentle guidance when company is over to go and find a quiet spot to lay once she's said her hellos.  She gets stuck wanting 100% attention when I have company.

The smoke shop I go to is called Smokin' Legal and is on Sprague and Freya.  I have permission to train the dogs there and I love the location because it's small, quiet and has very little foot traffic.  For Emma, this is perfect.  She isn't expected to be perfect and can work out what she needs to know and how to behave while I train and she isn't flooded by foot traffic and activity.

Emma does a lot of displacement sniffing when we first arrive anywhere and I am clicking for when she brings her head up, but that can take some time.  I need to work more of the Up/Down game and other pattern games with her in these locations to relax her and help her focus.  The woman who clerks early in the week was so happy to see Emma.  She met Emma early in her training when we were doing socialization outings and loves to see her progress when we come in.  Emma has since been there twice more and each time she comments on how much improvement Emma has made.  It's good to hear, as a trainer I can get stuck on what is not working and miss what is working.  Nice to have someone say that the dog is looking more confident and happier and focused than when they saw her last.

I explained to her what Emma's nightmare distraction was as I worked on her head coming up from the floor and what I would need from her when she wasn't working with a customer.  She was happy to be part of Emma's training plan.  After purchasing a new atomizer for my e-cig I took Emma to the seating area and we settled in for a rousing round of Level 1 behaviors.  Sit, Down, Target, Stand and Shake were all used to get Emma working with me and less worried about the quiet location we were in.  She was happy to perform all of her behaviors without hesitation, including her Down after the first round.  Her down is her weakest behavior when in public and a true sign of how comfortable she is feeling in a location.  She was hesitant to lay down the first time I asked, but with a lure and heavy reward she was slamming into downs after that.

Then we worked on chin down with my clicking for progressive relaxation.  She laid down in a "about ready to bolt" position and then rolled onto her hip after a second.  Click/Treat.  She dipped her chin and got rewarded and slowly she started to put her chin closer and closer to the floor.  This was much like working at Diamonds in the Ruff (a bit of "wow, exciting" and then "oh, I know what to do") and was perfect for her.  Soon she had her chin down and I got up to 5 seconds duration.

Whenever a customer came in I clicked and treated for seeing them and staying in her down and then asked for a Retrieve or a Target and rewarded again.  I had to break her retrieve apart again in this setting.  Where at home she'll pick up the item and then step up into my lap and give it to me, she couldn't do that.  So, I cued her to step into my lap without the retrieve item (a wash cloth) and clicked and treated and after doing that for 5 rounds I handed her the cloth and cued her off my lap and took the cloth and rewarded her.  I then dropped the cloth and had her just hand it to my hand 5 times and then asked for her to step up on the 6th and hand it to me and she was finally able to do the full retrieve process.  Fantastic.

When it was quiet the clerk would talk to Emma and walk or stand within 5 to 10 feet of her while I clicked and treated for staying in a down.  Emma was fantastic and never once broke her down and was rolled on her hip with her head up and eyes bright.  I saw no high stress signs, though I could tell she was still a bit worried about the situation.

She worked for the entire contents of my treat pouch (1/4 of her kibble and 1/2 cup of cut up high value treats mixed) and finally got to say her hellos to the clerk before leaving.  We did work on her doing a paws up on the counter and letting the clerk touch her face (part of the paying for items task she'll be learning soon) and was heavily rewarded for that.  This is stage 2 of this training.  Stage 1 had simply been doing a paws up to peer over the counter and building up duration of about 15 seconds.  Stage 2 is doing that behavior for a shorter duration, but with a hand moving toward her.  Stage three will be taking an item and doing a paws up and then Stage 5 will be actually handing the item to the clerk.  We'll then reverse it and have her hand the item back and eventually teach her to return that item to her handler.  She's doing well, but I want a little less stress with the petting when paws up and will then add the next section to this lesson.

I was out of food and getting ready to leave when a final customer came in.  She got stuck watching the woman with the big purse walk toward her and didn't hear he me ask her to move toward me as I stepped away.  As a result she barked softly under her breath.  I said, "You're safe" and caught her attention and brought her away from the woman and praised her heavily for coming to me.  We then left.  I will try to have a tiny amount of treats left on me next time before leaving to prevent such a situation happening again.

The lesson at the smoke shop was the end of her day.  She was finished and needed time to process and play.  She played hard for about 30 minutes after we came home and then slept for the rest of the day and refused her remaining 1/4 cup of kibble that night.  That's okay, she got enough calories for the day and I knew she was pretty over did with the outing.  We'll keep to this level of low key outings until she is less exhausted by them when we return home.

Thursday

She loves playtime in the yard.
The price of taking Emma out for a public access run is a rough end to our week.  The up and willing student I had developed by praise, food rewards and attention whenever she came out from behind my recliner, was laying quietly in it as I passed and patted her head or simply came to see what everyone else was doing in the house (pay for check ins to increase desire and confidence) was gone.  Again I saw a small black face peer out with not what I would call fear, but worry, from behind my recliner whenever I looked for her.  I would spot her peering out at me and say something to her like, "You hiding?" or "Is it fun back there?" and praise when she'd rest her chin on the back of the arm of my recliner or scoot out for a bit of attention.

I could also feel tension in all of her muscles.  I spent about 40 minutes just holding her and rubbing her body in a gentle massage and never felt her muscles fully relax.  This was how she felt muscle wise and how she acted personality wise between the ages of 6 and 12 months while we worked on learning how to retrieve.  She's not nearly as bad as then, it's more like a shadow, but it upsets me because I feel like I am failing her somehow.

It will be a slow and careful process to build confidence and let her know she's making a lot of correct choices while training her public access skills.  I suspect it's age.  She's 16 months old and in the middle of the last freaky fear stage.  Things that didn't frighten her before do now and things that did before don't.  Things that she's good with one day she isn't the next and sometimes it may be days before she's okay with anything.  I'll go through it with Malcolm, like I did with Jack and I am not making any judgement calls until she's between the ages of 18 and 24 months when this stage of development, the last of her cranial growth and the last of her brain growth ends and she's an adult with better coping skills.  Jack was a freak at this age too and now, at 22 to 23 months of age he's rock solid.

I am not the only one whose seen this either.  Robin with Sherman had days and even weeks when Sherman was freaky.  She called me laughing one day when she had one such incident.  She had gone into the bathroom and flushed and Sherman acted like he'd never seen a toilet flush in his entire life and had a total freak out over it and ran in fear.  The next day the toilet was no longer the evil monster it had been.  Emma is doing that now.  It'll be a while before we see how she comes out the other side of this, but with patience, guidance and reassurance the world is not out to eat her, she should be okay.  If, at the end of this period of time I am still seeing the heavy stress reactions to her public outings I will have to make the call that she'll be an in home service dog for her handler because it would be unfair to ask her to work in an environment that puts her in heavy stress all the time.  Not all dogs can do public access, but even in the home she'll make a huge difference in her handler's life and improve his overall quality of life in a way none of the family would ever have imagined.  I am hoping though, that with a slow and progressive introduction to public access work she'll make the grade and become a fully working service dog in and out of the home.

Once again I had a dog who didn't want her first kibble of the day and needed reassurance and success to start taking kibble.  It took about three clicks before she could start her warm up exercises and then she was able to work for her food and find the confidence and success she needs to start her day.  Poor baby, it's like raising a teenage girl in the throws of puberty and PMS at the same time.  Her moods can be charted on a graph some days.

She also needs a lot more attention and affection than the other dogs.  A lot more.  Her world seems to crash if she isn't the center of attention at least 50 out of 60 minutes and it's exhausting.  I am teaching her to be okay with just being in the room like the other dogs, but it's been a slow process.  I give her pats and attention and talk to her and even cuddle off and on all through the day, but I cannot possibly give her the 100% attention she desires and it's not really healthy for her either.  She should be able to be okay just being and when I catch her doing that I praise and reward it.  It's improving but on days like this one, she reverts to the high need for reassurance and I have to increase the amount of emotional, physical and mental energy I devote to her to help her deal with her insecure days.  It's exhausting.

We worked on Swing Finish for her second and third round of the morning.  I had crated Malcolm and Jack was laying in the living room with Max in the corner of the kitchen I designated as his while I worked.  She was in the "loss of attention means I am wrong" mental mode.  I did several rapid fire clicks for looking into my face (direct eye contact is very uncomfortable for her and she wilts when eye contact is kept too long)  so I have settled on looking at my face as her version of eye contact to help with the issue.  She's highly pressure sensitive (body pressure makes her fold into herself and even leaning slightly forward toward her makes her worry she's wrong about something), so relieving the pressure in eye contact helps her to succeed.  She was taking the treats and tuning in when I pivoted 1/4 turn and waited for her to come around and seek my face again.  She didn't.  She slumped, dropping her head below her shoulders and sat with her back roached beside me.  I turned back, re-estabilished contact and did several more rapid fire click/treats and turned again.  Again she slumped and again I returned to make contact and repeated the process, only this time I turned 1/8th instead and she made a move to peer around to my face.  I clicked and heavily rewarded the effort.

We did that for the three minute session with improved movement and by the end she was able to get up and move to look in my face as I turned between 1/8th and 1/4 a turn.  After the break I worked it again and she could do the 1/4 turn, but she would get stuck and freeze at my side and not be able to make the turn.  I will have to take this very very very slowly with her with very very very small splits to build up her understanding of what I want and improve her confidence she's making the right choices.

I want her to enjoy this part of her training as much as she enjoys the other parts.  It took tiny tiny splits and lot of work to build her retrieve and I feared then she'd find it adversive instead of rewarding, but once she got it it's the one thing she LOVES to do the most.  It's like that with everything she learns.  We go through this process of her acting like I am torturing her and then suddenly she gets it and she loves doing the behavior - but I have to take tiny tiny steps to ensure she succeeds and finds joy in her behaviors and tasks. I never want to have her do something in her daily work that makes her that upset and stressed that she feels she needs to hide and shut down.  It just means a lot of patience on my part and a lot of breakdown on the behaviors to build the joy.

I talked extensively with a friend on Facebook about Emma's roller coaster moods and extremely soft behavior.  The amount of stress signs I see from her concerns me and I really don't want this to be a conflict but something she can enjoy.  She can be such a happy, bouncy and lovely girl, but increasing criteria can be so hard on her and I want to ease some of that.  I talk to a lot of people about how best to deal with her and how best to make the process of training positive for her.  She is teaching me a lot about dealing with such a soft dog and I am becoming a better trainer as a result because I want her to succeed.

Since pressure is an issue for her, I have decided to give her even more space from the dogs in the house.  I have 5 dogs 5 days a week and 3 of the five are highly confident and even bold dogs who want to join in everything and need to be redirected away.  The redirection to give Emma the space she needs to work is causing her problems as much as their being physically too close as she learns a new skill.  Once she knows a skill she could care less they are present, but it's the learning the skill that is a problem for her.  Cherie, a friend from school, had visited over my vacation and loaned me an x-pen so I could make a "play" or "training" area as needed or even block a dog in and not have to crate it when I left the house.  I had been unable to block off my kitchen or living room for training because of the distance between the walls; now I can do so with the x-pen.

I pulled it out and crated Malcolm (who would have knocked it over and made it a horrible item for the rest of her life) and set it up to block the kitchen with Jack and Max outside of the room.  The change was too much for Emma at first.  She couldn't take treats as she watched the dogs at the "gate" I had setup and was clearly worried as to why I had blocked her in with me.  I sat on the floor, never set the timer, and spent the next ten minutes playing, cuddling and working Level 1 behaviors with her until she ate 1/4 of her daily intake from her bowl.  Her confidence slowly increased as she realized it was "our" time alone and the other dogs couldn't interfere with us.  I think this will help once she recognizes that she's not in trouble and nothing bad will happen and lots of good will occur when we block the kitchen and work.

I repeated the process for dinner.  This time I left Malcolm out of the crate and waited a couple of minutes and saw he wasn't about to knock it down.  I had also blocked it better, which made it harder to knock down.  Malcolm made a mighty protest, but couldn't get in on Emma's time with me.  She was more confident this time with the setup and we worked without the timer again.  We just played and anything, and I mean anything, she did got her a kibble.  She finished her meal that way and was in great spirits when I finished and give her cuddles and a massage.  She's still very tense, but not pulling into herself like she had been the day prior.

Friday

I had to work a little extra hard to help Emma
start her day.  Meeting her emotional needs
improved her ability to work with me.


Emma is normally scheduled to go to the groomers on the first Friday of each month when I have a lecture to prepare for that evening.  I had checked lecture dates in late December and discovered the first lecture of the year was actually scheduled for the second week of the month due to the holidays. I had asked we change her grooming date for January only and therefore had to take Emma to the groomer on our last day together this week.

I also had a doctor's appointment again.  The day before I had seen my new doctor for the first time and was scheduled for a full blood panel in the morning about an hour after Emma was to be dropped off.  I asked Ronda to keep Jack at home for the day, since I would be leaving with Emma around Jack's drop off time and set my alarm for 5:30 AM.  I actually didn't crawl out of bed until 6 AM (I am a snooze alarm master) and sent the troops outside for their morning run.  I then took my shower and then sent Max and Malcolm into their respective rest points while I trained Emma.

I filmed our morning training.  Emma was having her hardest day of the week.  She refused several treats and was clearly not ready nor in the game for training.  Sue Ailsby said that if you spend five minutes getting the dog into the game it is time better spent than trying to force a training plan.  I totally agree, and as you can see in the attached video for this day, I did just that.  You can hear some frustration in my voice because I am tired, in pain and exhausted by the end of the week and have very little energy to give to Emma, who seems to need it the most every Friday.

The time was well spent and Emma did join in the game, though with some hesitation, for the last of her training.  She finished her breakfast and was able to ignore Malcolm screaming in his crate and Max at the gate to the kitchen.  I need to spend more time getting her IN THE GAME and worry less about what the game is for a while to rebuild up that desire to train.  I miss it and really want to see what I saw on Tuesday and Wednesday with her again - that was a dog who loved training and was really enjoying herself.

I packed up her and Max for the trip to the groomers.  She rode well and was quiet clear up to the groomers.  I clipped Max's lead on him and when I pulled him and her out I saw her standing and shaking like a leaf next to me.  I stopped and just reassured her she was safe, but she couldn't stop shaking and roaching her back.  Poor girl - she was having one of THOSE days.

Once she was able to move her own feet without my coaxing her we walked in.  She didn't lag or pull away, but she wasn't happy with going either.  Inside I told her groomer that she was having a fear day and would need lots more time, love and rewards to get through the day without building upon her fear reaction.  The groomer was shocked that Emma was afraid (normally Emma is happy to see the groomers) and looked over the counter to see her trying to drag me to the door to leave.  I explained we are in a fear period and at 16 months were facing the freaky "this didn't bother me before, but now it's too much" stage of life.  She got it.  She perfectly understood.  She came around and spoke softly to Emma who rushed to her and climbed into her arms and she gave her loads of hugs and kisses until Emma relaxed.

The groomer said she'd work with her to make this a good day and ensure we don't add onto her fears.  Good people.  Good groomer.  Emma is lucky to be going to The Puppy Pad and having such caring people look after her on grooming day.

Well, we are on our way to public access and task training and it's going well enough despite Emma's fear stage.  I look forward to see what type of moods Emma will give me next week and how far we can get on Tug, Retrieve and Nudge tasks.


Level 1
Zen Target Come Sit Down
Step Completed Completed Completed Completed Completed

Level 2
Zen Come Sit Down Target
Step Completed Completed Completed Completed Completed
Focus Lazy Leash Go To Mat Crate Distance
Step 3 Completed 2 Completed 2
Jump Relax Handling Tricks Communication
Step 1 3 Completed Completed Completed

Level 3
Zen Come Sit Down Target
Step 3 Completed 2 1 1
Focus Lazy Leash Go To Mat Crate Distance
Step 0 Completed 0 4 0
Jump Relax Handling Retrieve Communication
Step Completed 2 Completed Completed 1

Level 4
Zen Come Retrieve Target Relax
Step Completed 0 Completed 0 0
Focus Lazy Leash Go To Mat Crate Distance
Step 0 Completed 0 5 0
Handling Communication


Step Completed 0