14 Months: Training - Days 215 - 218

Emma at 14 weeks of age.

Tuesday

Emma came into my life when she was 14 weeks old.  She was a bit shell shocked and frightened the first night.  She didn't know me or my son and she certainly didn't know the dogs in the house.  She was starting a journey she didn't understand and it took the first few days she was with me before she even felt safe enough to take food from my hand.

Emma is still shy and easily withdraws when stressed.  She's required gentle care and confidence building to get her where she is.  The last time I started to see a bit of shyness manifest into minor fear reactions I didn't take heed of her gentle nature and special need for care and accidentally pushed her too far to fast and she shutdown on me.  It was at the top of her fear period and we spent months rebuilding from that point - I was not about to let that happen to her again.

When I saw those beginning signs again last week, recognized I was part of the problem with my frustration levels too high and her triggering off of my holding my breath, I took the end of the week off and just gave her the attention and affection she needed to recover her confidence.  So, when she arrived excited and happy to return to my home I was happy for the effort I put in keeping her mood up.

We had a great start on our morning with training for Left and Right and working mat behaviors with the other dogs.  She ate well and was in a happy and confident mood.  It was fantastic to see.  When I let her and Jack out to play and run off some energy I wasn't expecting our day to end with a visit to the vet.

She went racing at 110 miles an hour along the length of the property, went to run around the end of my house like she's done a thousand times and lost her footing.  I didn't see her, but I heard her hit.  I was standing on my porch when I heard the impact followed by a scream.  It wasn't a yowl, howl or yelp, but a scream of pain.

By the time I came down the ramp Jack was slowly escorting her around the front of the house and she was hobbling with the leg she'd injured previously and looking like her world had ended.  I felt sick.

I rubbed her leg out and asked her to walk.  She put her foot down, but didn't bear weight on it and then she limped away.  My sick went to fear she'd re-injured her leg.  I called the vet and confirmed they wanted her in that night and packed her up after a call to her owner.

It turns out it wasn't a tear, break or dislocation, but a serious strain.  When I got her home, on medication for the strain, I massaged out her back and hip.  She was clearly swollen from the ribs to the knee.  Poor baby.

But the strain also meant she was to be restricted on her activity.  I had to leash relieve her and not let her run through the yard for the rest of the week.  I feared that with just getting her confidence built up we'd loose it again with forced inactivity.

What I didn't expect was her having forgotten all of her leash relieving skills.  She refused to potty on leash the rest of that day and ended up peeing on (yes, on) my power chair during the night.  Emma is one of those female dogs who raises her leg to pee on things - I've seen her do it on my fence and on plants when she's marking behind the boy dogs.  I keep telling people she's been at a disadvantage being the only girl dog in the family since April - she started lifting her leg during the summer after Attitude died.

I know it was her by two factors - the pee hit higher than Dieter can ever imagine to aim and was lower than Max aims - Malcolm is not peeing on things yet and is crated at night.  There was more pee than Dieter produces and the wrong color and less than Max produces.

Wednesday

Emma at 5 months of age.

She held out on peeing on leash until noon.  After that she did both jobs without hesitation.  She was convinced she'd wear me down and let her off lead, but learned I am more than willing to take her out every 30 minutes until she pees and/or poops.

As the day progressed she became more excitable, which is a fallback to restricted activity.  She tried a few times to start a game in the house, but quickly stopped when I said her name and came to me for a massage instead.

We worked on her Left and Right skills again and mat behavior with the other dogs.  She's enjoying this type of training and getting very good at it.  I had to do some research to find a better way to train the behavior, but she's getting it slowly.

I did a lot of emotional support with her to keep her mood up.  I didn't want this injury to set her back emotionally and massages and reassurance she was doing good by being quiet helped her.  She was in a good mood most of the day, though she was getting more and more wound up without being able to release her energy.  She's a high energy dog, though she can and does settle nicely in the house, she needs time to just run off the energy she builds up to be in balance.

One thing that has been a consistent problem with her is her jumping.  She gets excited about anything and she's bouncing off the walls like she's eaten a pound of sugar.  Touching her personnel leash from her home sends her into spasms of excitement.  Each time I seem to defuse it we loose ground and she is back at zero with her leash.  This week I was using her leash to take her out and simply would pick it up and sit and watch TV until she was past jumping, past spasms of excitement and past vibrating in place trying to keep her butt on the floor.  The first time it took fifteen minutes.

We spent a majority of the day on calm getting her leash on, calm going to the door, calm going out the door, calm going to the grass to pee, calm coming into the house and calm once off leash in the house.  It's a hard lesson she's been working on all her life.  A high pitched voice, directly looking in her eye, or even a new person sends her into bouts of jumping and barking with excitement.  It's a major issue for Emma.

I was very tired by the end of the day waiting for Emma to calm enough to take her outside and potty her, running Malcolm out every 20 to 40 minutes when he asked out and taking Jack out.  I was also in extreme pain by dinner time for the dogs and Emma was more than ready to rough house if I took my concentration off of her and Malcolm.  It's busy here during the week.

Thursday

Emma at 9 months of age.

Emma moved from 15 minutes to 10 minutes before she could calm enough to be taken out the first time in the morning.  No pee in the house, since she was once again emptying her bladder before bed, but she was even easier to hype up than the day before.  Poor girl is full of energy and no outlet.

We worked again on Left and Right - the beginning of her being directed to pick up something for her handler when he cues her.  She understood the lesson better this time, but was so excited about training her head looked like it was on a swivel.  I spent more time waiting for her to look at me than I did getting her to indicate the hand I wanted her too.

She was willing to engage the training and not showing fear signs, so I was managing to keep her mood up with the regular massages and lots of reassurance she was okay.  She was playful, her head up, her tail up and her body tall.  It was good to see that confident girl back after the week of slinking around my house just before this one.

Walter came over to do my floors in the afternoon.  Emma has learned that Walter will not pay attention to her until she's sitting and she immediately planted beside him vibrating like a toy when I told him we were working on the next level of calm.  Max greets Walter by turning sideways and leaning on him with his head down, but not so over the threshold of excitement he is out of control - it's a good greeting.  Emma needs to learn to greet in a nice soft body and then leave the guest alone - so I asked Walter to ignore her until she was calm.  I love my son, he did just that.

Poor Emma nearly exploded moving and sitting beside him vibrating in place for almost 30 minutes before she gave up and went into her normal calm behavior in the house.  He then gave her attention and when she wound into the ceiling again, he withdrew attention until she calmed.  This time it took only 5 minutes.  Much better.

She is okay with the vacuum and steamer, but also checked in with me off and on when she was a bit worried about it.  With a pat on the ribs and reassurance she was safe she went and watched Walter do the floors.

I had to go to a job interview in the afternoon and Walter watched the dogs.  I had informed him of her injuring herself and the need to take her out on lead.  What I forgot to do was inform Ronda, who knew of the interview, that Walter would be there and the dogs would not be crated when she arrived to get Jack.  She let herself in and accidentally let Emma loose.  Thankfully she did not set her recovery back, both Walter and Ronda rounded her up after a couple of round around the house.

Friday

Emma at 13 months of age.

Emma was in a fantastic mood on Friday.  She was down to 5 minutes before calming enough to be leashed and walking out of house and was walking nicely by my side and promptly doing her business.  Nice job.

She was ready for her "think on this" lesson for the weekend, so I introduced to her the idea of taking her bowl in her mouth.  We started with a bit of target and waited for her to offer mouthing it.  I didn't care if she took it and held it, I just wanted her to think that she could maybe pick up her bowl herself.  I'll revisit the idea during next week and see if I can't get her to pick up and hand me her bowl when she's done eating.

By the end of the day were were down to 2 minutes before calming enough to leash her and walking without launching out of the door.  I went out the gate with her to check the mail and she immediately put her nose to the ground.  I just shorted the leash so her nose couldn't reach and waited for her to bring her attention back to me before taking her back in the yard.  It worked and I will suggest that to her owner, who struggles on Monday's when delivering her to the house with her sniffing and lack of focus.  Her owner struggles with this weekly and I had to think of how to explain to her what to do without frustrating both her and the dog.  I think this will work best for both.

Near the end of the day she was pinging off of my bladder when I touched her leash.  We had gotten so good with the leash and she escalated.  I wasn't surprised, so I just wrapped her leash over my neck and wore it for the last hour and half she was with me.  When I saw the caretaker pull up outside I just clipped it on her and walked her out.

That was when she lost it.  The caretaker is fantastic about waiting quietly at the base of the ramp for Emma and giving me time to work her calmly to her.  Emma on the other hand, due to the shadows and it being nearly dark, was in bark and escalate mode and it took a bit to calm her down.  I did a lot of laps with her before she got to the caretaker and I could pass her off.

I need to think of a better way of explaining calm greeting behaviors with people with Emma.  Off to research some more!

Emma is progressing nicely but I want to take it slowly when doing her final public access training.  Until now she's been on more of a socialization run when out in public, but now she's ready to begin working in public and practicing her skills as she has them.  This needs to be taken slow with her because of her soft nature and tenancy to become fearful and shutdown when she's uncertain of her role.  I need to define her role clearly and build her confidence and lower her excitability when working in public to build her into a solid public access dog.

Next week will be pet friendly only locations so our expectations can be lower without her appearing untrained when learning her role as a public access dog working with a wheelchair.  I want to start with one or two outings a week and work up to daily outings by the time she graduates.  This slow build up to more outings and longer periods out in public should give her the foundation introduction to public access work will keep her from becoming overwhelmed and allow her to process and learn instead of being flooded.

We'll finish up polishing her basic skills in public and her retrieve skills before adding many more tasks.  Once she can take direction by body or eye movement and she can do a full wheelchair retrieve I'll build on it to give her a wide range of retrieve skills and then build her other basic task skills for helping her handler.  This is an exciting time for Emma.


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

10 Months, 2 Weeks: Training - Day 146

It's been a long haul to get back to daily focused training since Emma injured her knee.  She was already showing signs of training stress and burnout before the injury, but afterwards she just fell apart for a while.  Slinking, sulking, urinating and hiding became the fare for the day as she became more anxious and stressed by lack of play and exercise outside and limited play inside (she was unable to play with Jack in the house because of her knee).  For her, with her in a growth period that is normally hard on young dogs and tends to send them into tailspins anyway, it was best to stop forcing a training session on her and let her relax and work out her stress in the only method available to her - chewing.

After the recovery from the injury she still couldn't take stress well and it was a slow and plodding progress to bring the joy to learning again.  I don't want a dog who trains because I want too, but because they want too.  She didn't want too.  She wasn't In The Game and so I spent precious time getting her back into the game and consulting with friends who also train using not only the Levels method, but simply Positive Re-Enforcement to find what makes Emma tick.

Emma is not Jack.  Emma is not Max.  Emma is not Attitude or Dieter either.  Emma is unique to herself and what worked for the others, their ability to handle stress and one on one focus was much different than her.  Emma is a soft dog.  Jack is a soft dog also, but in so many different ways than Emma is.  Jack has confidence in himself and the people around him, but he's still working out his environment some days and needs extra help there.  Emma is soft with people, but the environment doesn't seem to affect her.

It's like watching Dieter and Attitude for the years they shared a life together - Attitude loved people and saw no strangers.  Attitude loved dogs and saw no strangers.  Attitude was afraid of floor changes, wet pavement, rain pattering on the roof, loud sounds, thunder, wind and much everything in her environment.  It sent her into a tailspin and rushing into my or another persons arms shivering with fear - but the moment she met a person or another dog she was all wiggles and soft body happy and couldn't believe she hadn't known they were her friends before they met.

Dieter is afraid of strangers.  Dieter is worried about new dogs.  Dieter is not afraid of floor changes, wet pavement, rain pattering on the roof, loud sounds, thunder, wind or much in his environment.  He was her polar opposite and what scared one didn't the other.  They found great strength in that and did well as a pair as a result.  Dieter took his cues from Attitude about other dogs and people, she off him about the world in general.

It is easy to make Jack shrink into himself if he thinks your mad.  It took a lot of work to keep him from thinking my raising my voice to call Max or another dog was NOT yelling at him and he's learned that.  Max loves hearty rib thumps and it took months to convince Jack, by starting light and giving ever increasing pressure, that a good rib thump was this GSD Mom's way of saying "I love you" and have him lean into it and wag his tail.  Jack is older and thus has more confidence than Emma and what shuts her down simply slows him - but both are considered soft dogs.

Emma, unlike Jack, will go into her own personal shell the moment she thinks she's wrong.  She shrinks and sulks and pees and hides if she thinks she's wrong and it doesn't take much to make her think that.  I have had one very very soft GSD who all I had to do was frown to send her skulking for cover. She was the easiest dog to correct because I never had to raise my voice or touch or do anything but frown.  I had to be careful that I smiled as she came to me, which was easy because she made me smile and when I was playing with her to not frown or she'd be gone in a heart beat.  Emma is more sensitive than that!

Leaning!  LEANING over Emma makes her feel she's in trouble, even if all I am doing is putting her food dish down.  She is an expert at reading facial expressions and anything outside of a happy, soft gaze makes her start to worry she is in trouble, even if all I am doing is reading a book on my iPad!  Changes in my body posture sets her off.  Emma has been trained using only positive re-enforcement, but she's such a soft natured dog that it takes very little to make her worry about her world.  What to do with such a personality?

Well, first stop and give her lots of positive, low pressure experience with lots of facial expressions, body postures, voice changes and anything else that may make her worried.  Praise her or ask her if she's being silly when hiding behind my recliner.  Play frown games with her where she's wound up in a frenzy of excitement and flash a frown while playing her favorite grabby games.  Lean over her when giving her loving, gentle, non-threatening praise or affection.  But stop training anything that adds stress and starts to associate negative feelings with something that should be fun.  Basically, change her emotional response to frowns or neutral facial expressions and changes in body position so she's not worried, but engaged with the person she's working with.

So, I did.  I stopped and talked and thought and worked with her in a variety of ways to make her feel confident and safe, no matter which way my mouth was turned or my eyebrows where set.  On Friday I sat on the floor and groomed her while she relaxed and slept in my lap and on Sunday after her bath I carefully groomed her while she was in my lap and chatted to her the entire time using a variety of voice changes.  Mom and I both saw improved confidence while we worked on the patio, even if I was gazing off in the distance with a frown while I tried to remember where I put something - she no longer slunk away or wilted when she saw me frown.  Leaning no longer meant training, but kisses on the nose or gentle strokes on the face and reading didn't mean I forgot her, but she could curl against me and relax.  Having something in her mouth, which she was convinced meant trouble, was greeted with a happier voice than before (I sound like a chipmunk somedays) and a bigger smile that I try hard to push into my eyes to reassure her she's okay to be chewing on a ball or stick or bone.

And chewing is where all this fell apart for both of us.  Emma is a destructive chewer, which can be handled by monitoring her when she has toys or giving her toys that are hers and not another dogs to ruin.  Except she's not just a destructive chewer, I suspect she has a bit of Pica also.  She EATS everything she can find.  Lily bulbs (long day after inducing vomit), brick-a-brac from the grass, dirt pile and gravel area of my old driveway, stuffed toys, bits of paper, leaves; it doesn't matter, she'll eat a portion of whatever she's chewing on.

All of the toys in my home are my personal dogs toys.  The toys I purchased for Emma she's already destroyed.  Max enjoys playing with Stuffies and I used to let them lay about for his pleasure.  I cannot do that.  Most of Max's stuffies were Attitude's old toys from her puppyhood.

I had at one point 2 stuffless toys - a fox and a skunk.  I cannot watch Emma 100% of the time and in the short periods I was occupied with something else she managed to rip them in two and at one point I lost track of half of the fox.  It showed up the following day in Emma's poop.  She must of slurped it down like a string of Spaghetti because it was intact when it came out.  Two other toys, her own, she chewed into pieces ranging from the size of my thumbnail to smaller than my pinky nail and ate over half of the toy.  She is at risk of impacting her bowels if she's allowed to play with stuffed toys.

She was, for a short time allowed ropes, but when she found one and rendered it to pieces smaller than a pin head and ate half of that, I discontinued them in the fare of toys available.  No cloth, stuffed or rope toys for Emma in my home.  I am not made of money, cannot replace all of the toys she'd destroy and am not emotionally ready to see Attitude's toys destroyed.

Then she got a hold of a puppy Kong and broke it into 20 separate pieces I could find.  To say that Emma's poop is colorful if I am not careful is an understatement.  That means I must monitor what toys she plays with closely.  She cannot have Kongs unsupervised unless they are black or blue, red Kongs are still too soft for her careful destructive work on the openings.  She cannot have Max's Chuck It balls which have holes for the same reason - she has tried and started to break pieces off of them.  She cannot have a regular tennis ball because she eats them.  She must be monitor with the rubber orange with a blue stripe Chuck It balls because she works the seams and begins to tear them apart.

This leaves her being monitored with Chuck It balls, red Kong toys and the occasional tennis ball.  She has the freedom to chew on bones and sticks.  She loves sticks.  I must carefully walk my yard every morning when I let her out because I have small white mushrooms growing in my backyard I must pluck out before she eats them.  I found her one day eating the giant white mushroom that snuck under my fence from next door and tore the thing out to protect her from poisoning herself.

What happened is this:  Every time I turned my back on her she put SOMETHING in her mouth in my yard.  A plant or some find in the grass and ATE it.  In the house I had to finally put up and take away from Max his stuffed toys (he hasn't had them for 3 months now) so Emma wouldn't get them and destroy them.  This means Max only gets them on the weekends if I remember to pull one or two out.  The result was my disheartened sigh of, "What are you eating now?"  I think she may believe that's her name.  Emma is convinced anytime she hands me something she's in trouble, which she isn't, but I am trying very hard to keep a puppy with puppy Pica from poisoning herself!

I set this up - retrieve is very very very stressful for her because I have said, "NOW what are you eating?" so many times she's convinced she needs to sneak off to eat her prize.  I am now to a point that most everything in my yard is safe for her and I can joyfully stay, "What ya got?" instead.  I am repairing a history of frustration with a dog who can't seem to not eat everything she shouldn't when playing.

So, after talking for a long time with a friend and fellow trainer I started shaping her retrieve and today she was fully involved in the game with the pen until she picked it up, handed it to me and suddenly shrunk into herself.  I had her do some easy behaviors (sit, down, target, shake) and then reshaped the pen.  She recovered fine and picked it up a second time and seemed prouder and more confident.

Later I worked with a new item.  This time a washcloth and darn it she's learned her mat behavior too well and was targeting it as a mat!  Good for her.  After I convinced her with clicks for nose targets on the floor she started the process of picking it up and we ended there.  On the next round with the washcloth I helped her think of the final outcome by having her take it from my hand, low to the ground and hand it up.  Again, the "oh no, in trouble again" behavior started and we went back to easy behaviors.  We ended with her taking it from my hand and giving it to me in with more confidence.

This will be a slower process, but I want her to ENJOY the most important aspect of her career and find joy in helping.  To do this I need her to know that picking up items and handing them to people makes them happy!

I also got to talk to Robin again today and we compared some of Emma's behaviors with soft natured dogs that Robin has trained and believe I am on a nice balanced approach to resolving this part of her training.  She's responding well in all other training behaviors, just retrieve is our problem child now and with patience I'll get that resolved.

For now, we'll continue to play the "What ya got?" games with items I know I can give back and build her confidence.

The video attached (poorly framed, sorry!) is Emma and I working our 5th session for the day.  I started shaping, but she is tired in the video and so I gave her a bit of a headsup on what I was asking.  You can see her confidence is increasing by her not shutting down when she hands me the pen, but she's still showing some signs she's confused and not sure what I am asking.  These signs are the paw up and the nearly inanimate way she's behaving.  During the day I had tethered Jack and crated Max so she had less pressure on her when I trained her, but in this video Max (who figured out I wanted him away from us when I train this behavior) is laying quietly in the background.  She is working for Cherios today because she likes them and they are a new treat she's never had before.

There are a handful of superstitious behaviors shown.  She's laying on and next too the pen because her most recent training success was mat work.  She is raising her paw when she hands me the pen because of how my hand is held and her uncertainty of what I am asking of her.  She's laying down when I put the pen down and thinks she needs to be in a down position to start a retrieve.  All of this can be worked through, right now, feeling secure that taking and giving a pen or other object to me is okay is what I am asking and once she realizes that each time she does this she has succeeded she'll gain confidence.

Another factor in this video is she is tired.  It's close to our bedtime and the first video I took she dropped out of frame and I realized I quickly needed to make another.  As a result, I needed to gently encourage her to participate when what she really wanted to do was digest her dinner.  I am keeping my voice very soft and slightly animated because big overtures when she gives me a pen, an expression of my joy she succeeded, sends her for a tailspin right now.  I saw with the softer, quieter communication her tail waving and her willing to do ONE MORE TIME because I asked.  She's a trooper - she just needs gentle handling when working her to build her confidence and let her know she's on the right track and making her humans happy.


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	2	2	1	1
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Tricks	Communication
Step	1	1	1	Completed	1

Level 3

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

Level 4

	Zen	Come	Retrieve	Target	Relax
Step	0	0	1	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Handling	Communication
Step	0	0

8 Months, 2 Weeks: Training - Day 104

Emma injured her left rear leg today.

I am not sure what Emma did to injure herself, but she's injured her back leg.  She's not bearing weight on it most of the time and hobbling along.  This was a sudden thing from my point of view.  All day today she was moving fine, playing well with Jack and racing around my yard like a goof ball when it was outside time.  She was walking just fine when we trained on my ramp and when my son Walter arrived - but sometime between 5 PM and 6:15 PM when we saw her hopping along she injured her leg.

She's not crying in pain and actually doesn't act like it is bothering her, but the fact she's not putting weight on it means she's hurting - just not like Dieter was with his back.  I called Emma's owner and left a message stating I would need to take her to the vet tomorrow.  Emma, of course, didn't let us know she was hurt until after the vet office was closed!

I checked her knee and hip and find nothing out of place.  I feel no heat or swelling in the leg.  I can move it without her complaining.  She simply is NOT walking on it a majority of the time.  I am concerned by the way she's hanging it when she rests that it may be a ligament injury.  Here's hoping it's a strain and she simply needs to be keep quiet for a bit.

I have restricted her movement.  The moment we realized she was injured I stopped letting her outside without being on lead.  She is taken down to the yard and given a chance to potty or poop and then taken back in, where she is self regulating and resting in my home.  She is simply too young and not in enough pain to actually not race around my yard like an idiot with an injury and I don't want her to further injure that leg.

So, the second training session I had planned for her was cancelled and I just fed her her dinner.  I had not trained her this morning because I had reports for my other job I had to write up and thus planned on training her with her lunch and dinner. I got half of what I planned to work on for her homework done, but her injury required stopping any movement training at this time and I'll go to the Levels to her training tomorrow.

Today's Lesson:

Loose Leash Walking

I took Emma outside to the ramp and worked up and down it on lead today.  I walked with her in loose leash while she watched me.  She did fantastic.  She was focused, in the game with me and ravenous when we did the training.  She loves Liverwurst and I had mashed some on her kibble to raise it's value for her training outside.  It worked like a charm!

She is doing very well with this training and I believe she'll be able to do it on the weekend with her owners.  Since she injured her leg I didn't do the walking loose lead to a goal, which would have been my son Walter, but instead stopped training and put her on the "injured dog list" in my home.

I'll know more about the leg injury and what she can and can't do while she recovers tomorrow.

8 Months, 2 Weeks: Training - Day 103

Emma is able to watch me and walk at the same time now.

This is Wednesday's blog post.  Max had class Wednesday night and I simply didn't have it in me to write up the blog posts regarding training Emma and Jack during the day.  My days have been so full, I have also been unable to write up as the day goes along, which I prefer, so I can send them out before I head off to bed.  Thus, this is Wednesday's blog post.

Emma enjoys having Jack back and the two have raced around the yard and played hard for the entire week that he's been back at my home.  She's also doing very well with focusing with Jack present when I train her.  This week has been so busy with Dieter's back injury and raised beds being made and servers still needing my attention I haven't done as much in the mornings with Emma as I would like.  Instead, I have used her lunch and dinner for her training.

It's been a great week and so far Emma is doing fantastic on her homework for her class.


Today's Lessons:

Loose Leash Walking

As I have mentioned before Emma is taking a loose leash walking class and am doing her homework for the week while she is with me so she is successful during the next class with her handlers.  One of the homework items is working on walking while watching me.  I have been working her in the house to build up this concept and will take it outside by Thursday to add more distraction to the lesson. I have also been working without the chair, mainly because it is harder to work with the chair in the house.

Emma is doing fantastic. We worked off lead in the house and she stayed right by my side watching me as we walked up and down the floor and did turns and pivots.  She's focused and even though she glances at Jack or Max when she has to press past them in the muddle of dog that mills around when I do this training, she is keeping nearly 90% eye contact on me and walking in a straight line.

With this high success I will be taking Emma outside on Thursday to work on her lessons some more.

8 Months, 2 Weeks: Training - Day 102

Not long ago Emma was just learning how to walk with me
and now she's learning how to walk with a wheelchair!

So, Dieter is a bit better today, but still requires a lot of my attention and time.  He didn't eat his dinner last night, a clear sign he was well over threshold on pain, since he would eat dirt if I put it in his bowl normally.  The pain killer I gave him also knocked him out and he slept mostly after I administered it.  This morning he went out and peed, but started to cry again - a clear sign he's still suffering and we are still a day away from him being able to take Prednisone to relieve the swelling in his back.

My Mom called at 6:30 AM and announced she was on her way over to work on building more raised beds for my yard.  I had purchased, in April, the material for them and last week my brother and mom built the first of the new raised beds for the yard.  Today Mom came over and we built 4 more.  This took up my morning and I decided to just feed Jack and Emma their breakfast and train them with their lunch instead.

I had Emma, Max and Dieter (who did eat) their breakfast before Jack and my Mom arrived and was setting up the yard with Emma and Max out when my Mom arrived.  We had the first box mostly built by the time Jack arrived and so I took him in and fed him.  It was then I brought Dieter out to go to the bathroom again and he refused to do so, but curled up instead by my Mom and simply shook.  I had given him his morning medication, but it wasn't helping him much yet.

At 10:30 AM, when we had the "kits" cut and ready to go to build the next three I brought him out again so he could go.  He cried and again refused to go to the bathroom.  I carried him in feeling my heart sink.  He's in so much pain and there is nothing I can do for him.  It really hurts the heart to witness.

I gave Dieter a second dose of muscle relaxant and went out and finished building beds with Mom, which took me to 12:30 PM.  By this time I was totally exhausted and in pain myself.  Both Mom and I had taken some over the counter medication just to finish the job.  Mom had left, Dieter was crying in his crate and I was so stiff and sore I could barely move.  I got Dieter out and carried him into the yard, where he finally went to the bathroom and then let him walk himself in to the bed I made for him under my desk.

This will be a long week.

Today's Lessons:

Loose Leash Walking

Today I worked with Emma on keeping in the zone and turning with me again.  Once again we were in the house and off lead and she is totally in the game.  I was marveling that this is the same dog who have zero clue what I was asking not long ago and now is 100% in tune with the lesson.  She even did a 360 degree pivot with me while on my left side and I was turning into her.  Her butt is not in full alignment, but that comes with practice and fine turning, but she's got the idea.

I want to work more on her learning to bring her butt around and into alignment with me and then apply it to pivoting when I am using my swivel chair.  I am hoping that tomorrow I can get Max and Jack contained enough to work on the full pivot with the swivel chair and then apply it to the power chair.  She's almost there and once we have that I will tighten up her turns by taking her out and working next to walls or fences to improve her turns when working with a wheelchair.

I also need to work with her on sitting and laying in alignment with me when I am standing and sitting - especially with the wheelchair.  A low foot print between her and the chair is important so she's not causing problems when working in public.  It is a matter of breaking the parts into smaller slices and building on her understanding of what I am asking.

At 8 months of age, Emma is doing very well.  She's walking with my power chair on both the left and right sides, and she's comfortable with the idea of doing so.  She's learned to walk with attention to the chair so she is safe and she's learning how to turn and work beside the chair without taking up extra space when in public.  I am very pleased with her progress.

8 Months, 2 Weeks: Training - Day 101

Emma enjoys visiting with my son Walter when he visits.

Ever had one of those days that doesn't go your way?  I had one yesterday.  Dieter ruptured a disc in his back over the weekend and is in terrible pain.  He's a high need dog who requires I carry him out to potty and back into his crate so he can rest.  The entire time he's yelping in pain or whimpering with sporadic yelps and sharp cries.  Off and on he's unstable on his feet and stumble when walking, which makes him cry even harder.  Since he wasn't on pain medication for his back, I spent part of the morning calling the vet and trying to find out what he can take that won't interfere with his upcoming treatment of Prednisone and allow him to at least breath without crying.

He spent the morning whimpering in the crate and too fearful to leave it with the bouncing Labradoodle outside of it.  At one point I offered for him to come out and go outside to the bathroom and after he exited he promptly turned and re-entered the crate.  I do have to say, at least he likes his crate.

When I dropped him of Saturday for evaluation for his pain and learned he'd ruptured a disc in his back, I had told the vet tech taking him back that he crated well and I meant it.  He enjoys sleeping in his crate at night and when such events as this happen he is content to lay in the crate and sleep without much complaint.  The fact I can set him on the floor just before it and he can step into it, thus lowering his pain levels when entering, and cue him to go in without his fleeing or refusing entry makes our lives easier.  It also made his stay at the vet while Emma was in class so much easier on him.

When I picked him up they commented that he did indeed crate well and he was amazing.  They normally have dogs who cry, protest and call for lawyers when crated, but Dieter just curled up and relaxed while he waited for his evaluation.

By mid-day they called to inform me that they had found and set aside a medication for Dieter, which meant I would simply feed Emma her lunch and not train with it.  I had to run to get Dieter's medication and then get it into him so that he wouldn't give up because of pain.  He was headed that way, shutting down because anything he did caused extreme pain.

He ended the night refusing to eat and sleeping the day away.  He wouldn't even move to use the bathroom when I carried him outside and needed to carry him back in.  He slept the night out in the office in his bed under my desk.

Today's Lessons:

Loose Leash Walking

Emma is taking Loose Leash Walking at a class and has homework for that class.  Since I couldn't focus enough to really look at the homework for the week, I instead worked on building up her ability to turn with me while I am walking so I can then transfer the skill to the power chair when it turns.  I used Level 2: Step 2 Lazy Leash to begin this process.  I worked on walking her up and down the floor and rewarding her for being in position beside me.  She was not on a leash when I did this.  I then worked on clicking any movement of her rear end as she turned with me when she was on my left and I was turning into her.  She is not a tight on that turn as Max is currently, but she is learning the process and is getting a much tighter turn with me when I turn.

While Emma is taking this class I will focus on her homework, as best I can with an injured dog, and won't be worrying about updating her Levels progress or observations during her blogs.  Once she's completed the class I will return to the normal blog format.

Emma is doing very well with her loose leash walking and once the class is over I'll evaluate where she is in regards to the Levels and update accordingly.

8 Months, 1 Week: Training - Day 100

Next week I'll film Emma and I working with the power chair
and show how she's doing with it.

Has it really been 100 days?  Wow!  Emma has come so far from the bouncy puppy who was worried about being dropped off at my home that first day and today.  She is overjoyed to arrive at my house and settles right in like she never spent the weekend away.  She is able to communicate with me and even is starting her service dog skills!  What a difference 100 days of training can make in a dog!

I should, technically  be on day 101 with her, but Ms. Emma decided on Thursday to raid one of my raised beds and eat a lily bulb - which is poisonous to dogs, and had to have her stomach emptied for her safety.  As per vet instruction I used hydrogen proxide to make her vomit and then kept an eye on her for the day and didn't feed her until evening.  I decided she'd be better off watched than trained, so I didn't do any training.

Friday I decided to use that extra day with her to work on walking in the real world with the power chair.  On that day my goal was not loose lead walking, but learning safety with the power chair.  I did nick a toe with the wheels once, but she did a simple "hey" like she was startled more than anything and she started really watching the wheels.  There was no harm done to her toes, but she learned if she didn't monitor where her feet were I could end up running over them.

On Saturday I had to take Dieter to vet and leave him while I took Emma to class.  I was so worried about transferring her and getting Dieter from the vet I forgot to give out the homework sheet for the weekend.  I will have to hand that over on Monday and the family can then practice that homework next weekend with the other homework they'll have from class.

Emma was a star going through the door while attached to the wheelchair and walked nicely beside it to our spot.  She did great settling next to it, though she's still learning to lay in alignment with the chair and not facing it.  She even put her head on her feet within 3 minutes of arriving and at one point took a short nap!

She did fantastic in all of the exercises, is transferring her loose leash to both wheels and walking, and was a dream to work on the sidewalk since I had taken the "magic" out of being outside with the chair the day before.

Emma is even starting to turn properly with the chair!  Time to take her other places and work on turning "into" her on both the left and right side (her on the left or right) so she stays in alignment and teaching her to lie next to the chair, stop next to the chair and sit next to the chair in alignment.

Emma is over the hurdle of learning to walk beside a chair, now she is in the fine tuning phase!

Nice work, little dog.

8 Months, 1 Week: Training - Day 99

Emma is now walking nice beside my chair.  Pictures soon!

Emma is staying with me for an extra night, so this Friday I decided to take the time to really work on her skills with the wheelchair.  Since Dieter, whose been suffering from pain for about a week or so, was in a lot of pain during the day, I spent most of the day taking care of him and planned on a single training session with Emma which would help her better understand how to work around my power chair.

I would like to explain about Good Stress and Bad Stress.  Bad Stress can easily be defined as stress that happens when the dog is frightened and unable to escape a situation.  Max has faced "bad stress" when a person in public has decided they must reach for his head or move quickly into his face and don't pay attention to his early messages telling them that what they are doing is making him very uncomfortable.  When someone does this and continues to push into his space it is my job to give him an out and I have taught him to look to me and look for a cue as to what I want him to do to free himself from such rude people.  Still, the moment when a stranger is reaching for his face is stressful and not in a positive way.

Good Stress on the other hand happens when learning a new task, meeting a person the dog likes and even when out for a pleasant walk.  Max enjoys his job and he generally feels a level of stress with the job, but it is not negative stress he's feeling.  Emma, who enjoys training, also experiences stress and therefore when I plan a big event for her I lower the stress she experiences during the day by lowering how much training I do.

My event for the day was a huge one and I knew it was best to not do any training prior to taking her out for it.  It was talking a real life walk with the power chair and Jack and Max and Ronda, Jack's owner, and working on learning to pay attention to the power chair and not get run over.

Emma is at the stage in learning to walk on a lead that where her head is pointing her body goes.  IT's a normal progress in learning to walk with humans and not get stepped on, or in this case wheeled over, and is something basic awareness training helps resolve.

I loaded the power chair up in my van and took her and Max to Ronda's house.  I placed both dogs in Ronda's yard while I unloaded the chair and then Ronda and I let Jack and Emma burn off some energy in play before taking off for our walk.  This was Emma's third visit at Ronda's this week and she's grown very comfortable with all of the dogs and playing in her yard.

Emma was placed on my right side and Max on my left, both on wheelchair leads, when we left.  Max, an old hat with the power chair, did not need my constant supervision and so I was able to 100% focus on Emma while Ronda kept an eye on traffic.  We used side streets with minimal traffic (a total of 5 cars over 45 minutes passed us) and knew on this route which houses had dogs that would bark at us.

When we passed the barking dog houses Ronda would place herself and Jack between Emma and the fence to help Emma deal with the distraction.  Emma was very distracted and drifting constantly toward the wheels of the chair.  I would stop and her head would snap around and she'd see how close she was to the chair and would then drift back out.  Over time she wasn't so excitable about the walk, was walking in a straight line and keeping track of my chair.

She did bark at the first set of dogs, but soon learned to check in with me and get a reward for her quiet behavior.  She did bark at a man exiting his property and I know now I need to take even higher value treats than I have been using to keep her attention when something like this happens.

She did extremely well and Ronda and I plan on more trips like this while I work up her and Max walking together with my chair so we can head over to Ronda's on the chair and then go for a walk from there.

Emma is not ready to walk beside a wheelchair next to heavy traffic.  We are just beginning her traffic training and I'll have to work on her to build up her calm and relaxed behavior around more and more traffic over the summer.  The nice thing is she handled what cars passed us without reaction on our walk.

It was a pleasant day in which she got a nice walk and lots of positive play with Jack at his home.

8 Months, 1 Week: Training - Day 98

Emma learned to lift her back feet to get into the box.

With my assessment of Emma's progress with loose leash walking and where we need to go in regards to working with a wheelchair I decided this morning to sit down and think of what would be the best approach to bring her bottom in and build up her ability to stay in alignment with me and the chair.

I decided that the best approach was to finish teaching her how to pivot into position beside me and think about where her rear end is located at.  This means I'll be doing a lot of hind-end awareness training, starting with getting her to think about using her back feet to change her position without moving her front feet.

I have done some of that awareness in the past with shaping her to back up and into a box, but there is much more I can do to make her aware of her back feet.  I can walk her through a ladder where she has to think about lifting her back feet to make her next step or shape her to back up a flight of stairs.  I can work on her doing a hand stand (which she's physically capable of) or going over jumps of increasing heights.  I can walk her on a board just off of the ground or have her target a spot on the floor with her back feet.  All of these will teach her that she has back feet and that she can use them to earn rewards when training.

But that is only part of it.  Knowing she has back feet and knowing they can move in different directions (forward, backward and sideways for example) is another.  I taught Max to pivot to my side by clicking for any movement with his back feet toward my goal.  My mistake with him was I only clicked for one direction in the beginning and he learned it so well he became a one-way Conway when pivoting.  For my purposes, this is okay, but for the purpose of training Emma, I want her to swing into position on both sides of me.  Having learned my mistake with Max, I will click for any sideways movement in either direction for a bit to convince her both directions will pay and then work her to finally swinging into position from the front position to either side of me.

Thus, we'll end our week working on swing positioning.

Today's Lessons:

Loose Leash Walking

Emma is taking Loose Leash Walking as a class and the goal is to teach her how to walk properly in the zone beside her handler.  Her handler is wheelchair bound, so my goal during the week is to build up her wheelchair skills so when she goes to class with him she can work beside his chair and not risk being run over by the wheels when he turns.

Part of that is building up her focus and alignment with the chair.  To build up her alignment I have taken her back into the house and begun working on teaching her that the rewards happen only when she's beside my swivel chair when facing the same direction as me and not at an angle to me with her back end.  This means I need to teach her she had a butt.

Today I began to shape her pivot position without a book.  Previously I had shaped a backup and taught her to move all four feet, thus getting out "unstuck" when working while I was sitting.  Today, when I started to click for foot movement Emma backed up several steps and kept offering the behavior.  Amazing how much she put together since our last lesson on foot movement.  It was nice to see her offer that behavior when she was uncertain what I wanted.

We worked in three session per meal today and with each session her busy "is it this?" movements became more purposeful as she realized I was clicking for sideways movement, either left or right, and she started to think about her back feet as the goal for our lesson.  She did a full pivot by accident once and got heavily rewarded for it.

I did get a lot of head twists and shoulder shifts and sits and other behaviors as she worked out what I was clicking for.  She was clearly working out what part of her body was being clicked and would try eliminating each part until she got to her back feet.  Wonderful work and clear interest in learning this new skill.

Once she has a good, on cue, pivot in the house in more than one room I will take it outside and redo it on the porch and then in the street with the power chair.  Once she has that we'll work on her stopping and staying in alignment with the chair.  With the pivot on cue, if she is out of alignment I can cue her into alignment and then click and reward until it becomes second nature.

Another goal for this is her turning with the chair without getting out alignment with the chair, thus keeping her foot print in public low as possible.

Observations

Emma is a thinking dog.  Today I saw the evidence when I started to click for behavior and she tried as many behaviors in her tool box as she thought might work and didn't get stuck, but kept offering a new one until she got the click.  This is fantastic because it means she's in the game and learning.

She will soon be working beside my power chair properly and I can add the next step, which is teaching her that traffic will not kill her when she's working beside the chair, and I can then take her on walks and expand her world and her ability to work with distractions.

Emma is progressing nicely.

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	2	2	1	1
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Tricks	Communication
Step	1	1	1	Completed	1

Level 3

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

Level 4

	Zen	Come	Retrieve	Target	Relax
Step	0	0	1	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Handling	Communication
Step	0	0

8 Months, 1 Week: Training - Day 97

Even though Emma loves people, this picture shows
a bit of stress when first approaching to greet my son.  I will
work on lowering her stress when greeting people.

Welcome to Tuesday!  Emma was excited to see the morning start and bound out of the crate with the pure joy of living.  At least the barking and bounding between the crate and the front door has become minimal, but I need to work on her exiting her crate calmly, not like a small black bullet.

Yesterday I had planned on working Emma outside with the wheelchair, but the sky opened up and we had small rivers running down the street as the rain poured.  This morning, even though it was a bit cool, I decided to take advantage of whatever good weather we headed out.  Emma is no longer afraid of my power chair and is starting to see it as a fabulous opportunity to go out and explore outside of the yard.

This change in her view of my power chair is very positive.  Though she felt nothing about it when it spent the first weeks of her life parked in the corner, she accepted it as another piece of furniture.  When, after getting solid enough leash manners built up to begin working her with the chair, I pulled it out, the chair frightened her.  It made a funny noise and moved about with me sitting in it.

Over a period of time I worked with Max and other dogs around the chair while Emma watched from a distance and then would park it and invite her to visit me and give her treats when she did.  This helped, but the final step was to simply pull her in my lap and hold her until she relaxed in my arms and the took her for a ride around the house with the chair.  That simple action seemed to take the scary mystery out of the chair and since Emma has made outstanding progress with the chair.

Now that I have her working in straight lines and gentle curves with the chair I can again work toward making proper tight turns and staying in alignment with the chair when we stop.  I have to think through the best way to teach her to keep her bum in position, since she is doing the same thing Max does, which is turn to face me.  We'll get there, one step at a time.  I am just in the process of prioritizing which part of her wheelchair skills need the work next.

Today's Lessons:

Loose Leash Walking

Yesterday Emma and I reviewed the Loose Leash Walking homework and found it was a combination of Zen and Lazy Leash.  In the morning Emma and I reviewed Lazy Leash skills in the house, but by mid-day the server crash I have been dealing with took of the rest of my time and I simply fed her her lunch and used her class as her next focused training period.  How appropriate the final class of Finishing School dealt with loose leash skills and Zen combined, which allowed focused and interesting ways of working the two skills together.

This morning I brought out the power chair and Emma and I went out to the street in front of my home.  Technically, Emma has practiced her skills in three or more locations (my home, her owners home, Diamonds in the Ruff and the street before my home) and met that requirement of her homework.

Today I was testing where Emma is in her skill set.  When focused Emma can and does keep the leash loose and stays right at my side, whether I am walking or using the wheelchair.  When she looses focus, which can be often, she starts to weave and rubber neck and even stop and stare.  Emma needs help keeping focus on her job, this can be accomplished by exposing her to more walks and working actively on keeping her focused and in position using a high rate of re-enforcement and then slowly extending time between rewards.

When she stops she shifts her butt out and away from me, whether I am walking or in the wheelchair.  This can be corrected by only rewarding her when she's in alignment with me or the chair.  To do this I am currently cuing her back into position and then giving her the reward once she's in alignment.

She follows the chair on a right hand turn (a turn away from her) with the chair just fine, but when I turn the chair into her she turns sideways to the chair and creates a wide foot print between the chair and herself.  This will be corrected by first teaching her to pivot and then working along side a wall and finally away from a wall to teach her to keep herself in alignment with the chair.

She is not doing check ins when walking and tends to weave toward the chair and risks her feet being run over.  I am working on her doing check ins and staying in alignment when walking by doing short distances and rewarding heavily for staying in alignment.

She's spot on with loose leash walking in low level distractions.  She's 50% reliable in mid level distractions, which means we need to work on this level until she's settled and able to start working on harder distractions, like approaching friends, family and/or dogs.  She's not ready to ignore and keep her mind when a squirrel or cat or other super high distraction - we are working there and will be able to eventually have her attend Take It On The Road, but she's not there yet.

I will continue to work on her skills with the wheelchair and keeping her focus - which is the biggest part of our problem right now.  She needs more distraction training to build her ability to focus when presented with a distraction.

Observations

Since Emma is easily distracted right now, which is due mostly to her age and not having the skills to fall back onto to deal with distractions.  To do this I'll have to take her places where she just learns to watch and stay calm.  Teaching her to be calm when something exciting happens.  She's able to do it, I just need to give her the skills for it.

I will be building a training plan to accomplish this and work on it over the summer.  I don't expect an immediate response, but a quick one.  With the proper plan and good timing Emma will quickly get the picture and be able, hopefully, by the end of summer to visit River Front Park on a non-event day and go to other parks in town and learn to walk calm and in working mode beside me.

Once I have built up one area of her ability to work in a distracting location I will ask the family to work her in a similar location to help her understand that it isn't just me, but anyone she is with that she needs to remain calm and focused with.

I will keep everyone updated as I work on this part of her training to build her ability to work in more distracting locations.

Emma has had 1 outing this week with her Finishing School and will have a second with Loose Leash Walking.  She is right on track for her public access training.

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	2	2	1	1
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Tricks	Communication
Step	1	1	1	Completed	1

Level 3

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

Level 4

	Zen	Come	Retrieve	Target	Relax
Step	0	0	1	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Handling	Communication
Step	0	0

8 Months, 1 Week: Training - Day 96

Emma adores my son Walter.

Emma was groomed on Friday and her new cut is a perfect balance between cute and utility.  Her feet are trimmed up like a Poodle's feet and her coat is short and velvet like.  Her beard is trimmed up making her lips easy to see and less likely to pick up every tiny little thing she sticks it in and make it stiff and sticky.  Her ears are up short, keeping them from gathering debris when playing or working and her eyes are exposed, making it easy to tell where she is looking.  Her tail is feathering nicely and with her coat changing from the puppy coat to the adult coat it will soon settle and remain full and under control.  Overall, the cut shows off her remarkable shape and athleticism and allows for her to work without being difficult to groom and keep clean for working in public.  Great job!

Emma has been under going some remarkable growths over the weeks I haven't mentioned.  She now willingly enters her crate at night for bed, even if she's in the doorway to my bedroom when I open the crate and call her and cue her to go into it.  She sleeps through the night quietly and no longer whines in the morning when my alarm goes off.  She also willingly enters into Jack's crate and though she's still throwing a bit of a fit when I shut the door, she is generally quiet and calm in the crate for the times I must leave her behind to run an errand or attend a meeting or appointment.  Her crate behaviors are getting better day after day and I am seeing her enjoying her crate now instead of seeing it as a prison.

During the week Dieter sleeps with her at night in the crate.  She is able to share a crate with him without the two of them having an issue.  She is even polite to him and gives him the space he needs to sleep comfortably.  Dieter is no longer stressed by not being in his crate at night and the house seems to have settled into a nice bedtime routine.

In the yard Emma is able to watch the neighborhood without barking or reacting to events outside of my fence.  She enjoys playing with other dogs and exploring the yard.  The only problem is, she's a puppy and as such everything that can go into her mouth does.  I have planned my yard to be pet safe, but Emma is pushing the boundaries on even that.  She has been shredding the old corn stalks from last year and bounding into my raised beds and leaving foot prints or digging the soil up.  She transplanted several of my beans and peas doing so.

I will have my son remove the old corn stalks from the yard to stop the "find and shred" habit she's developing and my mother and I put up a plastic garden fence around my raised beds to stop random Labradoodle raids - thus allowing me to finally plant my garden!  We are in the process of adding more raised beds, but they will be in my direct line of sight when I am in the yard with the dogs and just resting and I can then train her raised bed Zen.

This week we'll be working on Loose Leash skills, since Emma is taking a Loose Leash class.  Doing the class homework during the week will make her class a success.  One of the things I will be working on is her working beside my power chair more than my walking with her, though I will train for both.  Emma's primary handler is wheelchair bound and teaching her proper wheelchair skills is vital, but she will off and on need to walk properly with someone who is not in a wheelchair, so teaching her to work with a person who is walking is also important.

Today's Lessons:

Loose Leash Walking

C, Emma's owner, was kind enough to bring me Emma's homework.  I sat and read through and realized that her homework is right in align with what she's already learned.  She'll be working Level 2: Step 1 Lazy Leash in three different locations (can anyone say Comeafters!) and Level 2: Step 5 Zen!  How appropriate that Emma has already learned these before taking the class so she could expand her understanding instead of starting to learn the concept.

So, to approach this in a more practical way and still keep it within the Levels training program.  I decided to work on Level 2: Step 2 Lazy Leash in the house and then on the ramp outside my house for her morning lesson.  I worked by doing different paces and adding stops and rewarding for only staying beside me when I stopped.  I have not added in full Zen behaviors just yet, but will begin clicking and rewarding any Zen behavior as we build up full Lazy Leash behaviors both walking and working with the power chair.

Finishing School

Emma did her last class of Finishing School.  Apparently, this class was designed to test my endurance.  We spent the class working on Zen with food items (a chew the dogs were given for completing the class and their treat pouches and a biscuit  on chairs which we walked around and asked for sits and loose leash walking while they focused on us and not the goodies at nose height.  Emma was amazing in all cases and only put her lips on one biscuit once during all of the different ways we worked around the chairs.

We did circles, figure eights and zig zags around the chairs with all of the dogs working fairly closely together.  Emma's problems were not the food items on the chairs, but the people and other dogs.  As we came around by Stacy Emma would loose her focus and want to go sniff or greet her.  As we neared the Boarder Collie or the German Shepherd on either side she would drift off and try to greet or sniff them.  I was doing well to speed up re-enforcement as we found these trouble spots, but as I tired and my pain levels shot up, I lost my focus and thus so did Ms. Emma.

When we moved to new areas of the room Emma glued her nose to the ground.  All of this behavior gave me a lot of information.  Emma was a bit stressed and used sniffing to alleviate it and she was also very curious about all of the new smells and couldn't focus on our task.  She is easily distracted at this point and needs more work on focus while walking and not exploring everything and rubber necking when walking.

Overall, this last class gave me lots of great information.  The final part of the class we did greetings with other dogs and Emma is ready for that part of the CGC.  The greeting requires she does a sit and I speak to a stranger and shake their hands.  She flew through this with Carol, who had no dog, and two students who did have dogs.  She's doing good walking loose lead and ignoring items on "shelves", but not people and dogs near her and she needs clicked for her head being up and not her nose down when walking.

Homework

• Work on the assigned homework for the Loose Leash Walking class.
• Continue Hide-N-Seek training
• when Emma finds the person, have her lead them back to B so he can give her a treat and reward the behavior.

Observations

Emma has learned so much in the short time we've been working.  She looks for and picks up her toys or bones in the house because I very clearly defined what was okay to chew on when in the house.  She's learning the same thing in the yard now, but it's a work in progress.

For the most part she's walking on a loose lead, except when she's greeting me or her owner - then her mind vacates and she can't calm down.  She also looses her mind when first greeting people visiting the house - this means a bit of timely clicker work on proper greetings with high value treats to improve her behavior in these situations.

She also spends a lot of time bouncing off of me and guests with her feet.  Again, timely clicker work and high value treats should teach her to keep her feet down and greet people calmly.  Most of this is a form of self control and as a young and boisterous dog, she's gaining it, but will learn faster if I explain clearly what I want and not correct the behavior after the fact.

The marvel about clicker training is a behavior issue or adding a new behavior can be quickly addressed if done correctly.  I have some work to do, but hope to have it resolved in short order.  I will keep everyone updated on my progress here and then add homework for her owners to transfer the lessons to a new location.

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	2	2	1	1
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Tricks	Communication
Step	1	1	1	Completed	1

Level 3

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

Level 4

	Zen	Come	Retrieve	Target	Relax
Step	0	0	1	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Handling	Communication
Step	0	0