Seminar

The trainer was Steve Austin. (Name sound familiar? Maybe you’re thinking of the bionic man from the 80′s TV show!) Steve trains detector dogs and their handlers (among other things). These dogs are looking for things like drugs, plant material (for quarantine) and pest animals. Steve also does private training and has a state-of-the-art boarding facility over East.

There is a program running on Macquarie Island where they are trying to decimate introduced rabbits in order to prevent the extinction of Albatross and other rare species. They’re looking for rabbit detector dog handlers: http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=13013! Steve has been training up the dogs.

There were a few ‘take home’ bits for me from the seminar. Steve mentioned a couple of times that he wasn’t giving us anything totally new to us, and that these were his way of doing things, some of which some of us might not agree with. True on both counts, but I came away with some new ways of thinking of old concepts (which is why you go to seminars, right?) and some inspiration.

One thing Steve said was that if the dog isn’t dying to join you in a training session, if that training isn’t the bestest, funnest thing for the dog, you are doing something wrong. This is exactly the same as the old “you should be the most interesting thing to your dog” concept, but said a little differently. It made a lot more sense to me, and slid in beside the “motivation” jigsaw piece that has just dropped into place for me in the past couple of weeks. Somehow, the reality of training as creating a really fun game has solidified for me. Not sure why that hasn’t happened before now, but it sure is a big piece of the puzzle!

I also loved Steve’s description of how to break training a task into steps, and how and when to increase criteria, and how to use variable rewards (really good effort gets the good stuff, mediocre performance gets a piece of boring kibble). I’m hoping his book will arrive in the mail soon, along with the painfully slow-to-arrive Crate Games DVD.

The seminar was a full day followed by half day of practical problem solving with dogs. We had a few people with problems that are obviously big for them, but everyone else would die for dogs that well trained and motivated.

I took Amika along on the half day, but not so she could be part of the problem solving (I already know where I’m going, I didn’t want to throw her into that intense of a situation, and I wasn’t happy with the way Steve man-handled). It gave me an extra opportunity to train. I got her out, did crate in the car stuff, went for a walk and a sniff before it got busy. I was glad to have my home made dog vest to put on her, modeled below.

Amika shows off her vest

After the seminar was done and most people had left, I drove to the far end of the oval and got the soft crate out, along with the mat. The remaining people were mostly socialising down by the club house. I did basic stuff with going to mat, crate and GMAB with sniffing. Amika was understandably a little on edge because of all the activity in the distance and change of routine, but did really well.

A clicker aside

Which reminds me of something else that was posted on a forum. Apparently ‘African Giant Pouch Rats’ make good land mine detectors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eAGtAYW6mA. There are a bunch of these up on youtube, but they are all clicker trained to find TNT, and are light enough that they don’t set off the mines.

So there you go, clicker training can save human lives (in case you didn’t already know)! I think the way they’re training the little guys is very cool.

Fun and games

Despite another full on week of work, and the depression that’s been taking hold due to ‘doing too much’, I did lots of playing this week. Instead of leaving the dog bag and the mat in the car, they now live on the back porch. This means they are always easy to get to.

We played an off-switch game in the back yard instead of at training for a change. In a much less distracting environment, Amika really got into tug toy interspersed with go-to-mat. Another seminar take-home was to stop playing before the dog has had enough, and I’ve been keeping games short and motivational.

One day when dinner time rolled around, I was trying to think how to get Amika’s dinner into her without just throwing a bowl under her nose. I thought about hiding food around the yard. Then I thought of tracking the food. It was a race against the clock- and the chicken! I laid a track with food drops (spoon full of dinner) and left the mostly empty container at the end. This is decidedly NOT how to train a dog to track, but since she already knows the concept, it worked great.

Chook on patrol

She waited inside the back door (in confusion!) and then I came and got her, put on her tracking harness and line and took her to the first bit of food at the start and gave the cue “on track”. She followed my scent and almost missed the first few drops (using nose, not eyes!) but really got into the swing by the end. Again, this was a very short track, so motivational. I’m thinking I’ll do this again (with her dinner in the yard) but with food in articles, so she can get me to open them for her. This might do wonders fro her article indication if I quickly move to trading an empty article for food.

Another game is one I heard about ‘out there’ in cyberland. There is a toy you can buy that is like a cat toy on a fishing pole, but bigger and tougher. I went to the horse store and bought a cheap lunge whip, and tied a rag on the end. Amika LOVES this game of chase. During the week, I used it to reward heeling, and have worked on giving food or continue playing as rewards for her dropping it when asked.

So it has been an interesting week in dogland. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this fun stuff happening and get a more engaged got as a result!

The main reason I didn’t get the degree of calm attention was a state of mind thing. As ever, we seem to be doing synchronised physiology. We have hayfever. Of course, in dogs this means itchy skin, but just like us they get fuzzy headed. As I’ve mentioned before, I think the antihistamines make her a bit dopey too (but at least she isn’t itchy).

Class part 1

I had trouble getting out the door (what did I say about fuzzy headed?) so we weren’t early. At least those extra two trips back into the house meant we had water and the big blanked to go over the crate in the car. I got her out with the usual choral whining, but she sat and stayed sitting while I clipped her up. She even turned back to me in a reasonable time once out (had to sniff grass first). Pretty good for a fuzz brain.

I’ve found that the best thing to do when we arrive is to take her on a sniffing expidition. She’s so excited just to be there and the sniffing helps her settle into that environment. I don’t let her tow me, and she was really good at moving with me tonight on the way out there. I didn’t need to do the ‘stop and wait for dog to notice owner’ routine. So she IS aware of me at some level. She also turns back to me when I call a fair amount of the time (this is a work in progress).

Having sniffed our way away from the area the other dogs were going to use, and seeing that some of the jitters were gone, I started asking for stuff. Earlier in the day, I showed Amika a new game in the back yard. We’d heel a short distance, then I’d say “turn!” in the same high voice I use for “run!” and use my body language to show her which way I was going to go. She thought that was a pretty good game. I tried it out (now on lead) and she ‘got it’ and came with me. So that one will work nicely for moving away from triggers once there is some more groundwork. I left it at that for tonight, as I had lots of other things to think of and work on.

While working up the back, I tried some BAT work (behavioural adjustment training) just a couple of times. Yes, I can see how this would work now. Basically, I walked Amika towards the dogs in the class, stopping before she would react. After seeing a lip lick or -something- calm, we turned and moved away as per the “turn!” but I didn’t use the cue or make it too exciting. Then we were back to doing other stuff for a bit at that slightly bigger distance.

Now, just sitting here writing this I’ve had a ‘duh!’ moment. The biggest excitement this evening was when our trainer came over to talk to us. “Oh boy, it’s my friend!!!!” says the dog. Ya know, using BAT with approaching the trainer as reward may be a really good thing. In this first instance, I -sort of- rewarded calmer behaviour, but there was a big distance and a conversation that needed having. So I allowed some pulling between asking for reinstatement of brain (stop, ask for eye contact, get it grudgingly after some seconds, go forward). To do BAT with this, I think I’d need to use a barrier so there isn’t so much ground to cover.

Amika the Star

It turns out my ISP had eaten an e-mail, and that class was learning about using mats CU style tonight. Could Amika demo? Oh, wow, my reactive dog class is using CU!! So the other dogs went back in cars for a bit while I managed Amika back down the oval to the car, collected mat (I’d been wondering how we were going to get past the other dogs to collect it) and moved towards the people. Oh, she was thrilled. A bunch of people looking at HER! Fortunately, they weren’t all clustered together, so she wasn’t sure who to apply her charms to first. That seemed to difuse the tension a bit.

I had her mat, which she did manage to notice after I squeaked and waggled it and bounced around a bit. “Oh, yeah, mat, calming down right now might be good.” And there in front of several people, she got on the mat, I clicked and she laid down to eat treats. She stayed there to eat treats. She stayed there while waiting for more treats. I released her to sniff and picked up the mat. Then when she noticed me again, I put the mat down and on she got for more treats. Then she stayed there while I backed up a few steps and then geve her another treat etc. I was really amazed at how good she was at being on the mat in such an aroused state with an audience.

Part 2

The demo over, the other people headed for cars to retrieve their mat and dog, and I headed up the oval again. We’ve got a second instructor / helper (they’re all volunteers btw) who came to help with Amika and greetings. After the first one, where Amika has trouble keeping her feet on the ground, she becomes a lot less aroused and more polite. She can also shift her focus off the person to other things.

The second half of class for Amika was being on the mat, interspersed with tugging (off switch),  sniffing and going over to say ‘hi’. She was really good with that. She was even able to stay on the mat while our person walked away and then came back! We also did a fair amount of LAT for the other dogs. We weren’t able to get true relaxation on the mat with all of the prior arousal and continuing activity. She did “tummy scratch” which is to roll on her side, but could only ‘not look’ briefly. I’m thinking now that it would be really good for me to choose to move another 20m out and specifically work on passive attention / relaxation for several minutes as a ‘break’.

Long skinny oval.

When I thought it was time to quit, I realised we had a dog we’d have to squeeze past. First, I made sure we didn’t do a direct approach, but came in on a tangent. Second, we got onto the dirt road at the edge of the oval, other side of trees. This made it fairly clear where we were going. Amika was pulling, and I accepted that mostly, just keeping a very short lead. Periodically, I stopped to get eye contact. I also body blocked by walking into her, pushing her shoulder with my thigh (she was on my left as we passed the dog on our right). I didn’t bother with food, and despite getting some barks from the dog (whose owner was moving him further away) Amika did not have a big reaction. I think a big part of it is that she knew that we were not going TO the other dog, but heading back to the car.

Putting Amika in the pressured situation wasn’t my first choice, but I was extremely pleased how well she did. She didn’t go berserk, and took treats as soon as we were past and calmed down rapidly. I let her have a drink, put her in the crate with treats and praise and covered her up.

As I was going to say goodbye to the others, I did some crate training. Amika has been barking a lot when I leave her in the car. She’s always had a tendency to have a tantrum about being left. At the moment, she waits a bit, then barks for a while and eventually (I guess) gives up. This doesn’t do her any good, so I’d like to get her out of the habit.

I left her in the covered crate, closing the car door, and walked off a few paces. I then returned, opened the door and gave more treats. Repeated that several times, increasing duration between visits. There was no barking. Then I went and said goodbye, but remembered I had some books to return. Went back to car. She was barking, but I think hearing one of the other dogs barking may have started that. I went and got the books (no treats) and left again, briefly. Since she was quiet I repeated the exercise (treat and leave) several times, again with more duration.

After returning stuff to the library and more chatting, I went back to a quiet car and gave Amika more treats before heading home. Nice finish to the night. I am just so happy with how she is doing and how well the class went (they commented on the dogs being less reactive while learning to be on mats). If the two new students practice mats at home, hopefull they’ll be able to get into some relaxation and games too.

The biggie for tonight- no lungeing (pulling, yes) and one or two wuffs, but no agitated barking. Yay.

Reactive dog class 5: 22/9/09

After having a good rant about how we should be our dog’s advocates and stand up for ourselves, I got ‘done’. I’m relieved to read tonight in “Bones Would Rain from the Sky” by Suzanne Clothier that following authority despite misgivings is a thoroughly human trait. If a ‘teacher’ is asked to give a ‘student’ (really an actor!) electric shocks by a scientific researcher 60-85% will zap the heck out of the student as per instruction. This is from some studies that are cited in the book.

So there I was, doing my own thing as I had planned. I had brought Amika’s mat along and was determined to do stuff with her outside of class if needed. So we were moving closer and further and stopping on the mat for treats. But when our instructor said “alright, in you come” I obligingly went right into the pen with Amika- barking and lunging as I knew she would at that proximity. There are three ‘runs’ made of wire fencing. They are side-by-side with a walk space between each. I unclipped her and watched her run the fence barking at the dog two runs over. A mere7 or 8 paces away.

Here is what I saw: over-excitement that did not abate, quickly rising body temperature as a result which quickly tired her out so that barking and speed reduced. A ball was tossed in her direction a few times, as were treats. People moved outside and chatted to her. She responde to movement and briefly redirected her arousal onto the ball (pick it up and shake). It took several minutes after the dog left the other run and walked away for her to calm enough to notice the dropped food. She consumed it in an intense, must sniff the grass sort of way.

I was upset. I knew what would happen, and I let it happen anyway. Once I was there, I considered saying “nope, we’re out of here” but then thought- no, I’ll give this idea a proper go. I had difficulty not crying then and there. Once Amika had somewhat regained cognitive ability, I took her back to the car for much needed drink and break. And tried to calm down myself.

The trainer came back from working with another dog. She said she had seen good stuff- progress. I hate it when I cry, but I did. But I was able to say that I wasn’t happy with how it had gone and why. Is seems that my perception of “stress” is different to the trainer’s. What she saw was a dog that calmed down, was able to play a bit and was not unduly stressed. We agreed to disagree. And I give full, top points to our trainer here- to have someone blubbing at you and saying “I think you are wrong about this” and say “that’s OK” shows a lot more maturity than you get from the average person. I am so very grateful for that!

I went home feeling rather foolish (after the big words on a forum about how I should act, and then doing just what I said I shouldn’t do!) and guilty for putting my dog in a situation where she was set up for failure. But I did get over it relatively quickly. Amika was a little high but was apparently recovered from the stress hormones within a day. She was nowhere near that extreme she had when she was flooded.

The Show 28-30/9/09

( Happy 3rd Birthday Amika – 28/9/09 )

She saw the inside of the pavillion (shed) when I set up a few days prior, and even went nose to nose with a hand reared lamb. Lots of barking and wanting to run up to everything and everyone. She was either in the crate in the van, in the pen where I was setting up stuff or on lead in between. A couple of the helper kids wanted to meet her, and one even took her outside on lead for a pee. Given she was on the front attach harness and the kid had handled calves, it was all good. And Amkika was very well behaved, if a bit excited.

The lamb was funny- from the crate she barked as if it were a dog. So I picked it up and let her sniff its butt through the wire. “Huh? Smells interesting.” Then the manager (Dad to the lamb) said, turn its face to her, so I did. Sniff- bark, bark, bark! So I took pitty on the lamb’s eardrums, took it away and let it totter after Dad to see if he was handing out bottles of milk. It didn’t seem too upset.

Another encounter, which probably gives insight into my evil side, was as we were leaving. Past the pen of lambs, whom she sniffed at and barked at, towards the door and the van. But before the door is a stall. In the stall is Norton. At this time, he was laying down quietly chewing his cud, as 3 ton Brahman bulls often do. Amika hadn’t noticed him, so I veered in that direction and pointed hime out “who’s that?” Initially, she followed the nose to the sweetish, fermenting grass scent, and then her eyes caught up. First a pull forwards, then a startled stop, and then backing up a few steps while barking. Yep, I’m just mean, I laughed. I didn’t stick around, as I didn’t want to upset the big boy’s digestion, and I didn’t want Amkia to keep barking. I figure the best thing to do in such stressful, mind blowing situations is for me to just act as if “yeah, whatever, no big deal” and keep moving steadily and calmly.

Given that we’d be out for 9 hours each of the three days we were displaying birds, I arranged to keep Amika in a little cubby run at the back of the pavillion, out of sight of the public. I took along a frozen stuffed kong and a meaty bone on each of the first two days. The third day, I asked my Mom to drive to our place and let her out for a while. (I do not trust my fencing or my neighbours with Amika’s safety, and I don’t trust Amika with the safety of Chook or the free range ginnea pigs.) This was a compromise- it was too much to ask Mom to drive out each day, too much to ask if she could stay at their house and I just wasn’t going to board her. It was hard on her to be left locked up with all sorts of stuff going on (she could hear and smell it all around). But she was safe, and her bladder wasn’t going to explode. It was a bit stressful, and she barked a fair bit, but all in all handled it very well.

Thinking about arousal

The Show did give me pause for reflection. In one context, I am greatly upset by my dog’s agitation. In another situation, I am OK with it- to the point of setting her up for a surprise! This is a distinction that I make on that “gut instinct” level. So in reflecting, I am using my intelect to pose questions to my ‘gut’ to find out how and why these situations differ.

All that I can verbalise at this point is that it is in the quality of her response. Are we jumping out of the plane for fun, knowing that we have a parachute strapped on, or are we being thrown – for all we know – to our death? The physiological response is very, very similar. The emotional experience is far, far different.

From what I can tell, with the big, wide world and people, Amika is just under-socialised. New stuff is just exciting, and she’s an excitable dog. With dogs, she was given a very bad Conditioned Emotional Response (CER). While I am counter-conditioning to restore a happy CER, I don’t want her to jump out of that plane with another dog. This seems to be why my instincts are screaming at me to keep her beyond that point at which she shows signs of arousal. It IS working – the quality of her response is not as frantic now, but cc/ds requires that she experience her ‘triggers’ at a distance that doesn’t call up aroused responses and old habits. We want to practice new ways of being around those old dogs.

Class 6: 6/10/09

We missed a week due to the Show. None of us needed or wanted more activity in our day! The following week, I still hadn’t quite recovered, but was determined to get my dog out of the house and do some good work with her.

We did more with the mat, playing GMAB and then open bar just for being on the mat. Played a bit of LAT. At one point, another dog was coming towards us, and she barked, but I just moved on and it was OK. I found that Amika was able to focus a little better on walking -with- me on lead which was nice.

I was happy with what we did, and I finished on a good note. I also quit a bit early rather than pressing on.

Class 7: 13/10/09

Interesting night. Happy excitement on arrival. Hard to get out of the crate (I don’t open the door until she is sitting and relatively quiet). Not much was happening when we arrived, so I just got out the mat, walked out across the oval and did CU stuff with the mat.

She hadn’t had a lot of exercise, so I made sure we moved fairly briskly, I asked for and got attention, which was rewarded with treats and a suggestion to go back to sniffing (Premak principle). I lowered my crieria and clicked (hey, I actually got the clicker out) for her just getting on the mat. As soon as I did, though, she would lay down (because that’s what dogs do on mats, as far as she knows).

There was a dog working on obedience stuff at the end of the long, narrow oval. Amika was OK with that until it headed in our direction and was moving around in an animated way on a long line. I just moved away. I also didn’t realise, at one point, that I was moving towards a dog walking along the track on the edge of the property (there are trees and it is darker under there as the sun goes down). Barking and lungeing were brief and not particularly intense. Amika’s walking -with- me was really good at times, and she offered heeling some of the time too.

Class started late and we had arrived a little early. As I arrived back at the car we had a visit from our trainer, who unfortunately got jumped all over. I have got to figure out a better way of managing Amika for this. We had a new student / dog and a regular with her dog who was going to work with her. I wanted to work on my own again. I put Amika in the car as class got under way, as they started at our end of the oval and were going to do paralell walking. Very soon, they moved off and I got Amika out again.

At this point, I thought I’d go back on the oval for a bit. But first, another drink for the dog, a bit more mat work and then… But then I realised that there were two gleaming brown eyes looking at me. Attentive but relaxed. Happy. “What do I do for the next treat?”. The anxious component was missing. Gone. It was an amazing 10 or so minutes in which we played mat, go sniff, look at that dog over there and even tug on the rope like mad and then drop it on command. An actual off switch game where you rev the dog up with play and then have a break, then play again.

For this blissful span of time, I had a dog who was happy to work with me. She was minimally concerned with the dogs on the oval, and we were just doing our thing (including looking at the dogs). This was quality time. I showered her with praise and played and gave her lots of treats. And I quit on a high note. I didn’t push it and make us go closer. She happily jumped into her crate and hoovered kibble.

Unfortunately, she did end up barking from the car for a while. I just had to chat with the people, and the blanket that blocked her view slid off the crate some time after I left. Not sure how that happened, but I was disappointed hearing her on the way back to the car. I need to get a bigger blanket so it won’t slip so easily. Oh well. -sigh-

Long drive: 15/10/09

Given the impending rent inspection and that I wanted to do something with the dog, I dragged her out to Bunbury. I had a meeting to go to, and figured we’d get some walks in. Which we did. We also need to practice that bit where the dog gets to stay in the car, no matter how she complains. It was a non-stop 2 hour trip each way.

There was a short pee break and drink with a quick sniff around when we arrived. Then I was gone for an hour or more. We then did a longer exploration of the little waterside park. There were very few people around, which was nice. We went for the longest walk after meeting part 2, just before hitting the road again.

Amika is getting fairly good about giving eye contact, though she still pulls with the excitement of all those smells. The front attach harness is pretty good. She got in a few small barks and bounces about a person some distance away, but figured out pretty quickly that they weren’t on offer and went back to sniffing all the fascinating smells.

The usual stuff: 15/10/09

Finally up to today. I realise that I need to get Amika back out into the world again. For more than a year, I kept her away from triggers. This was to reduce stress – hers and mine. In that time, I extricated myself from the burnout (depression and anxiety) that hit shortly before I came home with an 8 week old pup. She was my tipping point, my straw, and I am very grateful for that, because it was she who made me realize that I needed to deal. And I did. Now I just have to make it up to her.

So this morning Amika came along for errands. She’s done this many times before, just not as much lately. We do like the new van- it fits the big crate so a dog can stretch out if she needs to, and it stays cooler than the station wagon did. She had a bit to say about some of the people and things she saw, but no mad barking.

She was concerned a little by the guys installing shade sails on the frames at the shopping centre car park, but figured out they were OK. We took a short turn about the little park next to the library, which she found quite exciting. She saw some more people who didn’t pay her much attention. At the pet shop, she was so excited I left her in the car twice before she was quiet enough to be let out for a short walk around the edge of the car park (which we’ve done a couple of times, explaining the excitement).

This afternoon, we all (including my partner) went to our usual off leash spot. As usual, I get her to reorient when coming out of the car, and then practice some heeling. The difference today is that I did it without the lead, and she did really nicely. So I made it a really short session and then repeated it a bit later.

It was a warm day, so there was less flat out running. It was really nice for a while as the people sat in the shade and the dog came to join us with a stick to chew on. My partner commented on it – how calm and content she was. This lasted until she jumed up and went to the edge of the creek a metre away, looking intent and tense. There were people over there. They were walking together, and they could potentially greet a dog.

I was very pleased with Amika’s recalls today, and this instance was the best of them: despite seeing potential greet-ees, she came to me and got rewarded with lots of treats and praise. Unfortunately, she remained hypervigilant after that. I tried getting her to lie down and settle, and to some degree she calmed, but the anxiety component was still there. Interesting. She also did some very nice walking on lead on the way back to the car.

My, what a long post I’ve written..!

An interesting observation from one of the tracking instructors is that Amika’s anxiety goes up when she looses the scent- the longer it takes to reacquire the track, the more excited she is. This accounts for the rocket take-off when she gets it again. It’s the zoomies on the track! I have been working at keeping her closer to the actual track but learning handling skills is challenging on such a fast moving dog. She has slowed down quite a bit though- perhaps because overall anxiety is lower?

A few things that are also going on are better manners when having visitors and when visiting my parents. For visitors, if they are dog tollerant, we leave the crate door open. She mostly stays in there when people come in through the (off limits) front room.  The visitors are instructed to ignore the dog and she does calm much quicker than she used to. At my parents’ she goes straight into the back yard to burn it off and when she is calm and can do the door routine, she comes in and gets ignored for a bit. She still has trouble sleeping there, so is often overtired when we leave.

A big chunk of this improvement is probably due to my anxiety levels dropping and me having more tolerance. That means that I can ignore behaviour that I would usually react to by shouting, grabbing the dog and shoving her somewhere else. Life in general has been happier though I keep letting myself do too much stuff at a time, thus wearing myself out.

I have undergone a ‘burnout relapse’ over the past few weeks, but that is to be expected. I’ve taken time off from training and other stuff and concentrated on doing stuff that I am motivated to do. Yes, Amika was bored, but at least she hasn’t been shouted at when I was trying to train her. The good thing is I’m no longer beating myself up about not training her when I’m in that sort of space because I know boredom is preferrable to abuse!

After getting some clothing on, I went out and found only one of the dogs- the other must have gone over a fence. I was able to make friends with the frightened little dude and bring him in to the bathroom. He was rottie coloured black and tan with a white chest. Too small for a rott, maybe a staffy cross. Of about 15 cavies, none could be seen, and chook was a bit shaken for a few minutes. Later on, Dion found one dead young cavy, and the others have started to reapear. But they are spooked.

I left the dog in the bathroom, took Amika out for the first pee of the morning on lead and then crated her. She was fairly hyped because she could smell somebody. Given that I would have to wait for business hours to call the ranger, I decided to set up some training.

I put Amika’s mat in the kitchen, just inside the doorway from her crate in the hall. The other end of the kitchen opens into the laundry and bathroom. The bathroom door is in view from the kitchen. I loaded my treat pouch and donned a clicker. The poor dog in the bathroom alternated between gloomy silence, sniffing under the door, leaping at the walls, howling pitifully and yipping / barking to be let free. But wasn’t nearly as loud as Amika’s barking.

The first exercise I did was coming out of the crate. We’ve been working on this, so she did pretty good. I had to wait out whining a few times, but mostly she was able to calm herself by lying down. So the first step to coming out was a down, then a stay while I opened the crate door. When called “here” she comes to front. From there I started the “look at that” game (“LAT” the cue being “who’s'at?”).

Once Amika had LAT going, I lured her to her mat and she went into a down as she usually does. I was able to get her doing LAT rapid fire. At some point the dog in the bathroom made a noise or moved and Amika jumped up and started barking, which caused me to put her back in her crate and end the session. This happened I think three times, each time she’d have a barking session in the crate and I’d come back when she was quiet and ready to work again.

I gradually moved the mat to half way along the kitchen, then tried getting Amika to face the bathroom and it didn’t work so good. A break and I moved the mat to a diagonal position, started her facing away and then turned her gradually. She was doing brilliant LAT’s and also looking to me when I said her name.

I gave her another break, then did some more rounds with a new game. The game was a little bit on/off switch, mostly mat targeting. I moved the mat further away again. I called her off her mat to front, then cued “place” (go to mat) and treated. I started by rewarding a sit, down, sit routine then go back to mat. Then I got the front without rewarding and sent back to mat.  After the ‘being away from mat’ thing, she was ‘higher’ and I would spend some time rewarding stuff on the mat: LAT, head down, relax, looking to me.

Another thing I brought in from the relaxation protocol (RP) we have been doing was to drop the lead, step away and then return and reward. I used this to go grab more treats, which she went through at a great rate. She knows the RP stuff and I think that actually helped focus her.

The next step in the calling off game was to take her towards the bathroom door. At first I got a sit and then took her back to mat for treats and ‘down time’. Each time I’d say “ready?” which isn’t a cue I have ever used, but she got it by the end. Then we’d walk towards the door. I gave her some breaks in this game, a couple times for reacting / non response and a couple of times just for a rest. The reactions were not particularly intense.

At the end, I was able to walk her up to the door and cue her to “sniff” and she was able to sniff the other dog through the gap under the door for a couple of seconds before I called her and headed back for the mat. She got the pattern of it and the final rep there was no leash tension at all.

That was a couple of hours worth of training- fairly intense. But she did very well, and the other dog was none the worse for wear. The ranger / kennel guy came and took the poor sweet boy away while Amika was in the office. She hardly barked at all. Amika is now full of treats and flaked out here in the office, having thoroughly examined the house and yard.

We took Amika out on the long line and harness after I spoke to the trainer. Let her have a sniff and stretch her legs. Put her back in the car (blanket was over the box, of course) and set up the mat. I also grabbed my treat pouch that had lots of extra nice goodies. We went through that and two auxilary pouches of natures’ gift kibble (yummy stuff, but not quite as good as sprat and hotdog).

We set up under a tree and the trainer came over and we had the greeting thing.  Dion liked the way she tossed treats at Amika to distract and calm her. We chatted for a bit, refined our plan, and she went off to get her dog. Amika was anxious when she left, but did OK once she was at distance. She didn’t seem to really take the other dog in until she was much closer.

Her reactions were similar to what she has had, but less intense because the other dog left as soon as she started. I rewarded LAT, eye contact and look away plus did some open bar/ close bar. We did 3 things with sniff / drink breaks in between:

1. Other dog approached from different angles. Trainer put down a “hat” (traffic cone) at this reaction point and retreated.
2. Other dog walked from cone to cone (perimeter) and came in towards us at each cone. I was supposed to put my hand up to stop her progress but didn’t do that great. The idea was to get the other dog to go while Amika was acting calm. Not so good on this one, but at the same time, Amika wasn’t going berserk and was able to lie down and offer behaviour after each reaction.
3. The trainer put a head halter on Amika (yet another style, she has two already) and walked her. Got her to heel pretty well, despite that she was hot and full of adrenaline. Walked her in circle fashion closer to the other dog. Got MUCH closer in this way. No treats used, just come with me and keep the lead short, turn away if any reaction begins to happen.

I think it was a productive session. One of the biggies, says the trainer, is that Amika is a pushy subordinate who feels she has to be in charge because the people don’t know what the heck they are doing. Those are not the trainer’s words, though! So rules are good and I need to be more observant of when she is pushing the line. That is, when she is mugging me, ignoring me etc.

Our other homework is to start doing mini-walks again. As soon as she shows signs of anxiety, turn around and come home. This is even if we only get to the mailbox. In addition to trying the head halter we have been loaned (a Canny Collar) I will work on getting heel position to “on cue” stage. This is because I really don’t like the idea of just using the aversive of the collar.

The next step is to get Amika into the same setup with different dogs. There is another accredited trainer who has a property nearby where she has offered just that. The suggestion was, when I mentioned new places increasing anxiety, to go up to explore the property briefly and go home without a training session or seeing the other dogs to start. Once she is relaxed about the new place, then do a training session with the new dogs.

Musing: tracking is a known, enjoyable and focused activity. If new places are set up as tracking practice, perhaps that will make me seem more “in charge”. Must try this at our spot, the old spot at whiteman and a new one at whiteman first. See how that goes. It’ll be a bit of hassle, what with going to lay the track and coming home again for it to age, but may very well be worth it.

Another thing Dion suggests is have people greetings in our back yard, rather than letting Amika yell at them in the crate. His thought is that at least she can run off the excitement and we avoid the crate tantrum. My thought is she needs to be under control and calming herself when greeting them. A good compromise may be to put her outside while the guests are arriving. Once they know the rules and she has run around outside with excitement, I can go ask her for calm behaviour and put her on lead if she wants to greet them.

Anyway, LOTS of stuff to think about.

We went out this moring and I worked on getting us into the pattern for Monday’s training appoinment. I put the blanket over the box when we arrived and took her out for some attention work. She is getting better at walking “with” me but I’m impatient about it at the moment. Must lower criteria for duration of attention after coming out of the car.

I put her back in the car while I set up the mat and the pup (about 70m away). We did a few RP type reps then a lot of LAT with lots of treats for a single rep. Once we were done, I got her to walk back to the car with me, with attention. She did good with high rate of reinforcement. While she was in the crate I put away the stuff. She is OK with the blanket on the crate and the wait, which is good.

Got her out and did a little running around. Mostly let her go sniff. At one point she was about to wrap the line around a tree and I called her from 20m away. She came bounding over and I gave a jackpot. Very little pulling, just letting her run and sniff around for fun. It was a good session and I was pleased to get the new pattern in place.

I had put the box with the “puppy” about 50m away before getting her out. Once she was set up on the mat, I did a couple of easy RP steps, then I sprinted away 20m and came back. She didn’t move. A couple more easy ones, and I walked out to the box and came back. An easy, then to the box and took out the toy pup and left it sitting in the sun. She still didn’t move.

We then tried LAT. I’m not sure what we were looking at, there had been a few kids on bikes earlier. Maybe it was birds and the box and the pup. Anyway, we played LAT with “Amika” as an eye contact cue. She didin’t get that one every time, it needs practice. I’m hoping we’re good enough to work with the real dog on Monday. I’m panicking about that.

After a bit of LAT, I got up and did an easy RP task, then went 10m out and back, then went all the way out. I got the pup moving about, stopping and going in a circle around me before putting it away in the box. Back to Amika, who was still on the mat. The last rep was me going out, getting the box and taking it back to the car (which is to the side on the way back) and then continuing back to her with her water bowl. It is a warm morning, and she appreciated H2O as a reward.

We finished up with some running and pulling, and headed home. Amika’s recall is terrible, but at least I can practice some scooter cues when we’re doing this stuff. I’ll work on recall later.