Sometimes I could just kick myself -
Grrr - Sometimes I could just kick myself. Today for instance, I messed up with the big guy. It all started when I woke up. It happens every day - I don't know why it happens but it does - often before the sun has even shown itself..... I should have stayed in bed, but last night I promised Kristin I would get up and make the coffee. Plus I had a walking date with a good friend. So I woke up. It happens.
I went about my normal morning routine at first - brushed my teeth, then brushed my hair, filled the cats water bowl while Schmadios sat next to it and chatted at me, fell over trying to get my socks on, made a decision about whether or not to wear my watch - took about 5 minutes. Chewie moved in to curl up with Kristin while I got dressed. Then I went downstairs to make coffee. The boys jumped up to head downstairs for their morning out and breakfast. They snorted, and mumbled little happy woofs, and rubbed their snouts against my leg, and took long stretches. Gromit and I play red light green light down the stairs - he has to stop when I say red light. If I forget to play it he starts the game by running down and suddenly stopping about the fourth stair down. Chewie just barrels down the stairs doing his song barking - I am pretty sure he is telling Gromit and I to hurry up and get downstairs, our breakfast is waiting in the bucket. I let them out, made coffee, empty the dishwasher and - fed the boys - how could I forget, Chewie's barking and head bobbing with me as I moved from the dishwasher to the cupboard, back to the dishwasher - up and down went his little gorilla face....with every pause he would remind me with a quick sharp woof - "hey, breakfast now?" I fed them and poured myself a cup of coffee .
My friend's dog arrived with my friend in tow. Now her dog, Emme, pracitcally raised Gromit and Chewie. Any dog manners they have were surely learned from Emme. Emme came in the house and our pups tussled about for a few seconds. I grabbed a coffee and a Chewie but that left Gromit to sit and watch people walking in front of the house. Kristin promised to play some games with him. Away we went, me, Chewie, my coffee and my guilt - I couldn't look back.
When we returned home, Gromit came running out of the piano studio with a great big rawhide. I knew he had fun while I was gone, but he needed some outside time - so I leashed him up and filled my pockets with treats. Away we went.
Now when Gromit first came to us, he hated to walk on a leash - he dragged behind us and would sit down. I can't remember if he cried or not, but I couldn't believe that this goofus of a puppy, that had crazed zoomies, would not want to walk on a leash? It didn't last long because he figured out that going for a walk could be fun - but it took some coaxing, some modeling by other more mature dogs and one day we had a leash walking puppy. We went from that to galut - he quadrupled in size and became a leash walking pulling and barking - huge white dog. In one of our classes the instructor called him a giant breed - huh? Gromit would walk with me on his leash and wait until a person was just comfortable enough to pass us and then leap up and bark in their face, literally eye to eye with the poor person. Some folks might find this a funny story, but as the dog's officianado, well, it was a bit frightening. How could I help Gromit be welcome in the world - he really was going to have to work on his manners - really!! It only took a possible incident for me to start working with him, but when he lept up into a poor jogger's faces and she screamed, jumped and then apologized - our regimen of training classes increased by one.
Our focus went from training for an intellectual sport dog to training for focus and control - poor, poor Gromit LOL! Gromit and I went to every class we could on reactive dogs, leash agressive dogs, focus in motion classes. I learned a lot about shaping behavior, got a lot of training opinions and perspectives and finally stepped back and talked with our agility instructor and decided to focus on one method. We worked with the Feisty Fido method after a consultation with Patricia McConnell's consultants. Made a huge difference for us. I worked a ton on simple things like the name game - where you reward a dog for turning towards you anytime you say his name. Then they actually want to look at you. Then once we had that we started to add stimulus but get the same results. I worked on determining what his threshold was for tolerating extra stuff going on and decreasing that threshold. Gromit has made a lot of progress. My promise to him is to keep him out of situations that cause him to think he needs to react and to respect his threshold.
And this is precisely why I am kicking myself. I decided today to take Gromit down to the river where I could let him off leash and stretch his legs a bit. To get there though, we had to walk down past a peice of sidewalk where there are no places to arc out. And in addition, I realized as we were close to the river that the rowing club was at shift change. There were rowers, bikers and runners coming and going in this tight space. Gromit was doing fine. He managed all of this just fine. We turned a corner to make our final descent and there was a bike that I hadn't anticipated. I broke one of the cardinal rules of reactive dog training - and Feisty Fido - I REACTED - I yanked on his leash and he immediately started barking and lunging. I pulled him back and grabbed his skin and he immediately sat down. Little barks still coming out of his mouth even though he was looking right at me - I felt terrible. I competely set him up.
The good news is we finished the rest of the walk just fine. Gromit didn't hold it against me nor did he get all charged up. Once we were past the rowing club I could let him off his leash and he stayed very close but stretch his legs and sniffed all the smells left in this very loamy gourge. We had two unexpected visitors on our walk and he greeted them all kindly when off his leash. He did chase a couple of squirrels and stepped in the mighty Mississippi. When we got home he was hot, tired and very happy. I was happy and warm, and kicking myself. How can I possibly ask my dog to have more focus and control than I have? Alas....
I went about my normal morning routine at first - brushed my teeth, then brushed my hair, filled the cats water bowl while Schmadios sat next to it and chatted at me, fell over trying to get my socks on, made a decision about whether or not to wear my watch - took about 5 minutes. Chewie moved in to curl up with Kristin while I got dressed. Then I went downstairs to make coffee. The boys jumped up to head downstairs for their morning out and breakfast. They snorted, and mumbled little happy woofs, and rubbed their snouts against my leg, and took long stretches. Gromit and I play red light green light down the stairs - he has to stop when I say red light. If I forget to play it he starts the game by running down and suddenly stopping about the fourth stair down. Chewie just barrels down the stairs doing his song barking - I am pretty sure he is telling Gromit and I to hurry up and get downstairs, our breakfast is waiting in the bucket. I let them out, made coffee, empty the dishwasher and - fed the boys - how could I forget, Chewie's barking and head bobbing with me as I moved from the dishwasher to the cupboard, back to the dishwasher - up and down went his little gorilla face....with every pause he would remind me with a quick sharp woof - "hey, breakfast now?" I fed them and poured myself a cup of coffee .
My friend's dog arrived with my friend in tow. Now her dog, Emme, pracitcally raised Gromit and Chewie. Any dog manners they have were surely learned from Emme. Emme came in the house and our pups tussled about for a few seconds. I grabbed a coffee and a Chewie but that left Gromit to sit and watch people walking in front of the house. Kristin promised to play some games with him. Away we went, me, Chewie, my coffee and my guilt - I couldn't look back.
When we returned home, Gromit came running out of the piano studio with a great big rawhide. I knew he had fun while I was gone, but he needed some outside time - so I leashed him up and filled my pockets with treats. Away we went.
Now when Gromit first came to us, he hated to walk on a leash - he dragged behind us and would sit down. I can't remember if he cried or not, but I couldn't believe that this goofus of a puppy, that had crazed zoomies, would not want to walk on a leash? It didn't last long because he figured out that going for a walk could be fun - but it took some coaxing, some modeling by other more mature dogs and one day we had a leash walking puppy. We went from that to galut - he quadrupled in size and became a leash walking pulling and barking - huge white dog. In one of our classes the instructor called him a giant breed - huh? Gromit would walk with me on his leash and wait until a person was just comfortable enough to pass us and then leap up and bark in their face, literally eye to eye with the poor person. Some folks might find this a funny story, but as the dog's officianado, well, it was a bit frightening. How could I help Gromit be welcome in the world - he really was going to have to work on his manners - really!! It only took a possible incident for me to start working with him, but when he lept up into a poor jogger's faces and she screamed, jumped and then apologized - our regimen of training classes increased by one.
Our focus went from training for an intellectual sport dog to training for focus and control - poor, poor Gromit LOL! Gromit and I went to every class we could on reactive dogs, leash agressive dogs, focus in motion classes. I learned a lot about shaping behavior, got a lot of training opinions and perspectives and finally stepped back and talked with our agility instructor and decided to focus on one method. We worked with the Feisty Fido method after a consultation with Patricia McConnell's consultants. Made a huge difference for us. I worked a ton on simple things like the name game - where you reward a dog for turning towards you anytime you say his name. Then they actually want to look at you. Then once we had that we started to add stimulus but get the same results. I worked on determining what his threshold was for tolerating extra stuff going on and decreasing that threshold. Gromit has made a lot of progress. My promise to him is to keep him out of situations that cause him to think he needs to react and to respect his threshold.
And this is precisely why I am kicking myself. I decided today to take Gromit down to the river where I could let him off leash and stretch his legs a bit. To get there though, we had to walk down past a peice of sidewalk where there are no places to arc out. And in addition, I realized as we were close to the river that the rowing club was at shift change. There were rowers, bikers and runners coming and going in this tight space. Gromit was doing fine. He managed all of this just fine. We turned a corner to make our final descent and there was a bike that I hadn't anticipated. I broke one of the cardinal rules of reactive dog training - and Feisty Fido - I REACTED - I yanked on his leash and he immediately started barking and lunging. I pulled him back and grabbed his skin and he immediately sat down. Little barks still coming out of his mouth even though he was looking right at me - I felt terrible. I competely set him up.
The good news is we finished the rest of the walk just fine. Gromit didn't hold it against me nor did he get all charged up. Once we were past the rowing club I could let him off his leash and he stayed very close but stretch his legs and sniffed all the smells left in this very loamy gourge. We had two unexpected visitors on our walk and he greeted them all kindly when off his leash. He did chase a couple of squirrels and stepped in the mighty Mississippi. When we got home he was hot, tired and very happy. I was happy and warm, and kicking myself. How can I possibly ask my dog to have more focus and control than I have? Alas....
Bailey is a lot like Gromit (which is why I'm very careful at class with her, heh) so I understand the handler impulse frustration. I've also learned that dogs are very resilient. So yes, learn from it, but as you're trying to do... save it as a lesson learned and move on!
ReplyDeleteIf what you describe used to happen all the time, then you've already done an excellent job with him!
Oops, meant to say that she's a lot like Gromit around dogs--not people/bicycles, etc.
ReplyDelete