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I am sad to announce that Chevy has been Career changed to a home companion/pet dog. After spending another week trying to get him engaged with shaping, responding to the clicker and his name I am left with the feeling that something is not clicking in Chevy's mind and he's simply not engaged with the humans around him. He needs someone with different skills in training dogs than I have.
I mentioned to his owners that I felt he may have some hearing impairment. My mother, myself and Ronda all noted that Chevy is not tracking sounds with his ears like the other dogs are and doesn't respond to certain pitches within the mid-range of sounds. He doesn't make eye contact, do check ins and shows little interest in what we are doing as we proceed through our day.
He is also extremely reactive to movement of any sort. He cannot be near you when you are sweeping with a broom, cannot control himself around cats and actually dislocated my trick shoulder when he saw a dog and drug me almost half a block trying to get to it. Chevy is not service dog material.
Chevy will be living with his loving family and enjoy a life as a pampered pet.
It is a pure joy to work with a dog who loves to play the game! Spirit is funny, playful and loves to work for both food and toys. She's an utter joy to work with.
I spent about two hours with her on Tuesday working on crate games (her handler bought her a brand new wire crate! How lucky is this dog?!) and we got up to offering to enter the crate, turn to look at me and watching as I closed the door for a second (no latch involved) and then open it and offer her to come out. She got up to 3 seconds with the door shut, both standing and laying down (I cued the down). At one point she offered to lay quietly in her crate while the door was open and rested with her chin on the edge of the open doorway for a good 30 seconds! Nice.
We worked on Sit, Down and Target while playing ball and even Sit/Stay with my walking around her left to right and right to left and up to 10 feet away from her before returning and stepping into heel position.
We worked on loose lead walking by having her find the sweet spot beside me without a leash on and worked on turning left and right in a controlled manner.
She enjoyed every single minute of our lesson. We played tug, threw the ball, mud wrestled when I sat on the floor with her and had lots of laughs.
Spirit is a pure joy to work with. I told her she was WAY more energy than I would ever desire to work with full time, but she sure was fun to borrow once a week!
Spirit still is dealing with sound sensitivity issues. She finds thunder, hail and large trucks frightening. She is also more confident in the home than out, but is slowly discovering all kinds of good can happen outside of the home. She is attending her Headstart class at Diamonds in the Ruff - Training for Dogs & Their People and I attend with her and her handler. She was too distracted by the other people and dogs to work on her lessons in class, but did very well with seeing all of the chaos and even fell asleep by the end of class.
Her next class is Saturday and I'll continue to attend classes with her and her handler.
I look forward to my lessons with Spirit.
Oh my, what is it about these tiny dogs that make me laugh so hard!
Coco had me laughing almost to the point of tears on Wednesday. It was raining cats and dogs (I saw it...trust me) on Wednesday, so we had an indoor lesson on basic obedience. I brought Malcolm, who threw Coco for a loop when he played with her squeaky hedgehog and was also getting treats.
We used Malcolm to build up the mechanics of luring a Sit, Down and Stand. Malcolm, Mr. I Can Do It, was lovely as a demo. Coco was funny as a tiny dog proving that theory and application are so different.
She was focused, working and in the moment with the treats in my hand, but her backend refused to dip to the floor, her front end couldn't get her back end to follow it down to the floor and she was going from trying for the treat to giving Malcolm the hairy eyeball and back to her treat time and again.
We never did lure a sit or a down, though I got really close to a lovely bow. We were laughing so hard we couldn't really solve the ratio of tiny dog and lure to get the full effect of the lesson, but her owner will work on down and sit with Coco so she has them for when going out and about.
We worked on Group Zen with Malcolm, since Coco was not happy Malcolm was granted treats for breathing (ask her, she's convinced that was why we were giving them to him) and she soon ignored him as she realized the game was fair and she got a treat each time she pulled away and waited patiently for me to deliver them into her mouth.
I would say, we spent 90% of our time laughing. Coco is working Level 1 in the Training Levels and we'll begin working on her resource guarding of toys and food to make her a better hostess when a visiting dog comes by.
We'll return to working in Riverfront Park once the weather is drier!
Minnie went on her first park walk at Manito Park. We met there by the duck pond. Malcolm and Jack came along for the walk.
Malcolm's brain fell out somewhere between my home and the park and would not return until tonight. Jack was lovely!
Minnie was excited and exploring when we wheeled up in my power chair. Her family was excited for the walk and reported her daily walks in her neighborhood were going great.
Minnie has some worry about strangers, but can ignore them and keep her confidence as long as they are not too close. Children are more of a problem for her, but she's not reactive to them, just more concerned. Traffic and bicycles don't bug her in the least.
She was upbeat with her ears in a great position, her tail loose and happy over her back (it's standard position) and her body tall (for a six inch dog). She enjoyed sniffing and walking with her people.
She walks well on the lead and pays very good attention to her owners. She did lots of check ins when something was a bit new and got loads of timely rewards for good behavior.
She was worried about Jack when she first met him, but in the end was not concerned by him and walked comfortably with him.
She and her owners have a great relationship now and I commented that I have seen, week by week, a growing confidence in her. This is her fifth week living in her new home and her bond and trust in her owners has clearly grown each week and their relationship has been steadily built on positive interactions and trust building exercises.
The truth of how much better she felt came out in then of our walk. As she left with owners I suddenly heard them laughing and there she was, on the end of her lead, having a rousing round of the rips and was zooming as fast as her tiny legs could carry her around them while her owner did a fabulous spin to give her the freedom to run her tiny hear out. She had pure joy on her face and played this game for a good 3 minutes before she happily trotted off with them laughing with her.
She even clothes-lined herself on her dad's legs and just stopped to look up at with a "why'd you do that?" look and then took off happily in the other direction. She wears a harness, so she was never harmed, but she clearly was surprised dad had stopped her happy run with mom.
There is nothing more enjoyable than a dog who finds it sense of humor and feels secure enough to do it in the middle of a public location!
I'll be seeing Minnie to work on house breaking issues, building recall and other skills she'll need for a long and happy life with the best parents a tiny could could ask for. I am so proud of this family for taking the time to build a relationship using positive methods with their newly adopted family member.
Buddy is still just as wiggly as ever. I watched as Buddy loaded off of the public transit van. He was doing great until he spotted me and then suddenly he jumped off the lift and wanted to get to me. Okay, time to work on impulse control some more.
His handler said she reviewed his medical records and realized he was 10 months and not 8 months like we thought. That's okay, he's doing great at 10 months and his outlook on life is fantastic.
I have to say his desire to work for people, his love for training and his focus is refreshing after working with reserved Mr. Chevy.
This is what Buddy needs to work on:
He has Sit and Down nicely, he's now building distance with Sit and will, on our next visit, start duration with Down. Right now, he is working on his handler moving 5 feet from him while he's sitting. She'll start with moving away when he's facing her and then to his left and his right. She is also working on walking around him left to right and right to left to help him understand he's to hold his position.
He's working on Zen with duration. He knows to get a treat he needs to move his nose away from the hand, but he doesn't know he's to wait until we click or say yes for the treat. He is to work up to 5 seconds with a closed hand and then 5 seconds with an open hand.
He's working on leash work. He tends to walk sideways watching his handler or pulls to go forward and hurry her up. He is working on learning where the sweet spot is beside her and walking in a controlled manner. I may need to spend time with him building up the behavior and then have it transfer to his handler.
He has a lovely recall, but he tends to not recall to his handler. We are working on Come to get him to answer her better when she calls.
Things to note:
He's very excitable and as a Lab he loves everyone. He's been allowed to socialize a lot and now should be taught he's only allowed to socialize when given permission. He's not to start contact with other people, but wait for permission or ignore them.
He's still barking at other dogs when he sees them (this has been a running theme with my SDiTs in the program) and needs a lot of LAT and redirection to get him to ignore other dogs.
He's highly excitable and needs a lot of reinforcement for calm behavior. I'll work on this with his handler to help her build up a calmer dog overall.
I love Buddy's attitude and joy in being out in the world. I look forward to our walk and work in Riverfront Park next week.
