Mike’s Doghouse

We didn’t go. Lorna has a cold again and I’m still tired from my trip out of town this weekend.

We have to go to class 30 minutes early next week, though.

I’m exhausted. I’m glad I don’t have to drive home alone. Well, except for Mike, but he can’t talk to me or go into the Hot Spot for drinks. Lorna was almost as tired as I was, though!

Tonight we worked on FOCUS, SIT, sustained SIT, and Loose Leash Walking. We also started on DOWN.

Mike does great with the first three and we are working on the leash stuff. He does great at home but add in any distraction and out it goes! He is getting DOWN but not so good I am adding the word yet. I can do the hand signal (point down to the floor near his feet) and he will do it if he knows the treat is there. The teacher suggested to us that we switch the treat to the other hand once the dog is going down relatively well. Point with one hand, wait for the down, the click and give the treat with the other hand. She and I discussed Mike’s over-willingness (for lack of another word) to do a task. Like, he will do a SIT and then not get up, even when released. It was the SIT that got him the treat so by george, he is going to SIT. At class, he will get up and walk away when I toss a treat onto the floor and say his release word (free). But at home, nope, not gonna do it.

Tonight in class, we did a few DOWNs then he went into a down without me giving the signal. I didn’t treat for it because I didn’t ask for it. I knew this was Mike planning ahead. This is actually a good thing for a Service Dog as it shows he can think around a task and come up with a different way to do it. The best example of this is from an article I read a while back. This woman trained her dog to take the drink bottle from her, take it to the kitchen, put it into the recycling bin, and return to her. She then had the dog go to the kitchen and bring her a new drink. The dog one day dropped the empty bottle into the bin and stood there for a moment. He then got a new drink and brought it to her. This was him thinking around the task and realizing what was next. This actually cost him a reward since he only returned to her once but, of course, she praised him highly for his thinking. This was the same dog that, earlier in its training, brought her a cassette box one day. She figured he’d found it on the floor somewhere. She took it from him, gave him his reward, and she went back to work. Less than a minute later, he’s back with another one. Not wanting to discourage him, but wondering where the second one had come from, she rewarded him again. When he came to her with the third, she figured out what he was doing. The snot was going to the cabinet and taking out a cassette, shutting the door, and bringing it to her. He knew he got a treat for it the first time so, he went and got more. She doesn’t know if the first one was on the floor legitimately or not. Regardless, he figured out what worked for him!

Joella has a small mouth and only brought me one thing at a time, like, my shoes. She’d go get one then go get the other. Mike, who has a huge mouth, will likely try to bring both at once. That is unless he figures out that means only one reward.

Okay, back to tonight’s class. We started working on DOWN and Mike’s getting good at it. He and I need to work on it more, though, and we need to work on him not jumping up on people. I never had this problem with Joella since she dislikes standing up on her back legs. Mike, however, can dance that way. I need to get someone to help me with this, though. Maybe Lorna and I can work together one or two nights a week. It is a big issue with Sam, too.

Mike and I (along with Lorna and Sam) went to our second Basic Manners class today. Technically, I guess you could say it was the first class since the dogs didn’t attend the original first class but we’ll not confuse me further and just call this one the second.

Anyway, it really felt as if a lot of what we are covering was already done in Puppy Class. Gail, the instructor for that class, stopped by to pet Mike and I mentioned this to her. She said to use this as an opportunity to get SIT and FOCUS really strong in Mike and that the next class or so will start in with new things.

We worked on SIT, FOCUS, and Loose Leash Walking today. It is hard for me to do the leash work because we are confined to a small space and I must turn around a lot. Mike is great loose leash walking in such a small space but as soon as class was over and we headed toward the door? Oy. We eventually got to the truck (after stopping many many times) and got him loaded. Mike knows SIT really well although he is trying to get away with not doing it. Part of that is my fault since I am giving him second (and even 3rd!) tries to do it. I need to get back to Say It Once.

We tried out a new harness today, another front connecting one called the Sense-ation harness produced by Softouch Concepts. This one was the original design produced before Gentle Leaders’ Easy Walking Harness. We tried this one because the design is supposed to be a little better with narrow chested breeds (such as young Mike) in that it doesn’t cut into their armpits as bad as the Easy Walker did. Mike liked it and I think I will order one. He certainly pulled less while it was on! Sam had on one of Joella’s old harnesses that has a metal ring in the front. He did so well with it that Lorna got one of the Easy Walker’s for him to try out this week. Since he is much wider at the chest, the strap shouldn’t bother him.

Everyone says how cute and handsome Mike is. He is growing taller each day! I need to get some pictures of Mike, Sam, and Joella sitting together. Easy enough since they all know WAIT. Ha.

Yesterday, Mike went with me to Waffle House again. He didn’t go in, but stayed out in the truck. The objective was to get him out of the house and to show off his ears to the folks there. He chewed the two cell phone chargers in the truck, though. My fault. When I came out and showed him off to everyone, we then went over to the grass where he peed and peed and peed! Outside! Away from home!

Today he went with Lorna and me as we ran errands. The first thing he did was pull the stuffed Rottweiler out from the pocket in the back of the driver’s seat. I put all his toys there whenever we get back home. He stayed in the truck while we went in and spent major bucks on shoes (that God I only need them once every two years or so!). He didn’t pee both times we took him out but he also didn’t destroy anything in the truck. We gave him a chewy so perhaps that helped.

We stopped at a convenient store and got him some water. He drank a LOT (it was a pleasant, spring-like day). From there, we went to Tolliver’s Crossing, an Irish pub in Asheville. We sat outside with Mike. He did relatively well. He settled down eventually, watching everything and everyone. The hardest part was picking up all the cigarette butts before he found them (and dumpster diving for them when he did). We took his new travel bowl with us and put scraps in it for later. He wasn’t wearing his cape, which was good. Mike likes to get up on his back legs and wrap his front legs around the arm of the person petting him. He does jump up too much, something we are working on. Mike is much more interested in people than Jo ever was. He will go to them, not wait for them to come to him.

When we left, Lorna took him for a short walk to a bit of grass under a pitiful tree. Mike watered it well! Back at the truck, Mike got his scraps and some more water. Next up was Earth Fare where Lorna went in and Mike and I rested in the truck. He went nuts when a woman approached her car parked next to us. No barking, but he managed to his upper body and one leg out the window. The woman had a dog in her car. It never barked at Mike and he never barked at the it. When that car left, another pulled up, this time with TWO dogs. Mike never barked. Stuck his head out the window and sniffed, but no barking.

Joella is not dog aggressive. I’d never ever call her that. However, she is dog excited. Rotties are talkers and when she sees another dog when we are out, she talks about it. This talking sounds an awful lot like she wants to eat the other dog, but she doesn’t. It’s just her talking. She’s never shown aggression when the two dogs meet. She’s never met a dog she wouldn’t play with.

Mike won’t be that dog excited. He knows they are there but isn’t interested. He wants people. All of them he sees. He wants to touch them, by touched by them in return, and hear how cute he is.

All in all, it was a good day out. We all came home exhausted (and Lorna and little buzzed from the two Twisted Thistle beers she had at Tolliver’s). Mike’s not done much but play a little then go into the big crate to crash for a while. Then come out and repeat. Mike’s gotten better at walking on the leash and we were impressed with him calming down relatively quickly. He rarely laid down, but he did sit or stand in one place. It was good for him to experience another place.

Per Elena’s suggestion, I’m going to teach Mike the concept of SPOT. I decided to not use the word PLACE since it sounds so much like WAIT and STAY. We’ve not started working on this yet.

The following is all mind wandering thoughts as I work through this new command/cue/whatever.

To teach something using operant conditioning (aka positive reinforcement aka clicker training), I need to first break it down into little steps.

I want Mike to go to his SPOT, sit or lay there, and stay there until I release him. That’s three steps. He already knows SIT fairly well and he knows WAIT pretty much, too. So I need to break down going to his SPOT so I’ll break that part down further.

He needs to know what and where the SPOT is and he needs to know to go there.

To know what and where, he’d need to either link that to a particular place, thing, or area. Beside my chair? A bed in the corner? A towel on the floor? He already has his crate so a bed in the corner would be redundant. He knows “go in your box” means to go into his crate. Shoot, does box and spot sound too much alike? Vocal tone will be important here. Beside my chair is not necessary since that’s what HEEL is for (as well as several other tasks/commands he’ll learn later). So I’m thinking I’ll go with the towel or similar thing on the floor. This would be something we take with us and he’d always have the same SPOT no matter where we are.

I tried to teach Joella this but decided she was so big that a mat for her would just be too large in the public setting. But as I learned more, I realized it needn’t be that big. Just big enough for her butt print, or Mike’s butt print in this case. We’ll start with a large towel and work down to something manageable as we go along.

At meal time, the dogs know BACK UP means to go further away from the feeding area. We used to have dog blankets in there that they had to sit on. Jake, our Dalmatian, would back up, sit, back up, sit until her butt touched the first itty bitty piece of the blanket and there she would stay. The dogs we currently have aren’t as good about this I think because there’s no longer a dog blanket for them to use as a marker. But I digress.

Mike gets fed last (as the current bottom dog in our pack) over by the back door. I think a towel there would be the best place. We’ll be getting him a raised feeder soon and that will help him with knowing where to be.

I’ll take him to it, tap the blanket, and tell him to SIT. Once he is sitting and staying there reliably, I’ll add the cue word, SPOT. I’ll start adding distance and tell him “SPOT”. The idea is to tell him SPOT and he go there on his own.

Proofing the command/cue will be him doing it away from the kitchen. Will he go there in the living room? Will he go there the next time we are out and about?

As I’ve said in a previous post, Mike will eventually have a long list of tasks, commands, and cues (yeah, there’s a difference) under his belt, er, collar. For now, though, we are working on the basics of good manners every dog should know.

This Tuesday we go to our first Basic Manners dog training class. Lorna and Sam will be going, too. We went last week without the dogs to meet the instructor and get our first homework assignment. We were to come up with a list of things things we wanted to teach or encourage and things we wanted to stop or discourage. (I talked more about the first class already) I started Mike’s list a few days ago.

Stuff to Teach/Encourage:

loose leash walking
off
down
come
drop it

Stuff to Stop/Discourage:

Stick eating
jumping up
calmer pre-meal behavior

We didn’t make it to the dog park in Asheville the other day but we did go to downtown Weaverville to eat outside at one of our favorite restaurants, Blue Mountain Pizza. We took Mike and Joella. Jo did very well, as always. Mike on the other hand, well, walking on the leash is going to be a top priority. I don’t walk fast anyway but it took a very long time for me to get from the truck to the tables on the porch. Each time Mike pulled or lunged, we came to a stop. I didn’t say anything, just stopped. If he didn’t turn to look at me or at least ease on the leash, I twitched it to make him move toward me. When he did, I said YES and that he was a good boy and we took a step. Sigh. Rinse, repeat. On our way back, with him having sat and watched the world go by and lost some of his excitement, he and I actually go to where we could go about four steps before we had to come to a stop. But this time, it wasn’t that he was lunging with excitement. No, the crazy pup was chasing leaves, seed puffs, and whatever else was blowing in the wind! It was funny as heck but still, when he pulled, we stopped.

As for the others, most of it he is slowly getting, except for OFF. We realized he hadn’t a clue what that meant. Since he is in the crate at night, and we keep the gate up to the bedroom, he doesn’t get up on the bed that often. He does get up on the recliner, though, and that is where we will work with teaching him OFF. It is difficult for me to teach him DOWN so I can only work on that on good days. Up on the bed, he is just too excited for me to work with him. COME he is getting good at. I am really impressed! I can say “Mike, Come” and he will…if he hears me. We also use “Mikey Mikey Mikey Mikey” (saying it very excitedly) and he will race from where ever he was.

As for what to discourage, oy, the boy has got to stop eating sticks! And bark! And walnut shells! And dirt! And styrofoam! And anything else he can find outside! It’s why he’s not out playing more. If we let him out unsupervised, he eats nothing but that stuff until his poop looks like particle board material. Even when we are watching him, he still eats quite a bit before we get the stick or whatever away from him. We call this process (pulling stuff out of his mouth, often quite far back in his mouth) Dumpster Diving. Jumping up is becoming a problem. He is bigger now (way bigger) and has the weight behind him to do damage. We’ve discouraged it, of course. It’s just time to get all serious about it now. And meal times is getting downright dangerous. He sits when we put his bowl down and waits until released. But prior to that? He’s a maddog. Starting in the morning, we will be working with that. I will get up and hold him back during the entire process, keeping him in a SIT STAY until Lorna puts his food down. Mike eats last which means each of the other four bowls going down involves a lot of “back off Mike” “stop Mike” “Mike it’s not yours” etc etc. He used to have this cute jump in the air and pivot so he is facing the opposite direction thing going when Lorna came toward him with his bowl. Not so cute now that he is over 40lbs and way way taller.

Oh, and as a side note, the medication for his urge incontinence seems to be working. Now we are just backing up and working on house training as if we’d not done anything before. He’s not drawing pictures, but he still gives no notice he has to go. We started using the timer again today and I’ll continue it tomorrow. We will also be using the new crate more. It is big enough he can move around and he likes it in there. He still insists on sleeping in the smaller crate in the bedroom. Anyway, here’s hoping the house training actually starts to take!

Like we learned in class last night, there are three stages to training. I can’t remember the first two (and I’m too lazy to get up and find the notes) but the third is the “proofing”. This is answering “will Mike do this behavior outside the normal area”.

Today I had to take the truck back to the transmission place for its 14 day check up and to have them check on a problem with it. The repair place had a “no pets allowed” sign on the door so Mike and I stayed outside. This was good for him because he was exposed to a lot of different things. We were just a few feet away from a busy side road and just beyond it was a major 6 lane highway. Cars and trucks and motorcycles were whizzing passed us. There were people coming and going from the repair place, there were employees doing their thing, and then there was Mike.

He did fairly well. We worked on SIT and WAIT/STAY. He got better at it the longer we were there. It was cool to watch him process all the stimulus in addition to me asking him to sit and stay there. The longer we were there, the better he got. He was excited when he saw the truck come to park near us. He was really weirded out earlier when some guy got in it and drove it away!

I had to push down on Mike’s butt a lot. Probably, in the beginning, I was putting him in a sit over half of the times I asked him to sit. That percentage changed and was much lower by the time the truck was repaired and we could go. I didn’t have the clicker with me nor did I have treats. I think it would have gone better if I had grabbed my bag when I got Mike out of the truck. We’ll have to try it again somewhere else.

Lorna has tomorrow off and we will be taking him and Sam to the dog park. We’ll also be taking my chair to see how much of it (getting into and out of the enclosed spaces) I can do on my own. If all goes well, it will be a place Mike and I will go often.

Lorna and I went to the first class for the Basic Manners at A Good Dog’s Life dog training. Lorna will be taking Sam and I will be taking Mike. The first class was w/out the dogs. We discussed a lot of stuff we’d already covered in the puppy class but I think me and Mike are the only ones in this class that had taken their puppy class. Mike will be the youngest there, I think, at 6 mos (cannot believe he is that old already!). Sam will not be the oldest, though. In the class Lorna started to do earlier, I think he would have been the oldest by far at only 3 yrs. The teacher for this class will not be Gail (the Puppy Class instructor) but Susan Wilson. They have very different teaching styles. Lorna “got” what Susan was saying but didn’t really follow Gail. It is what works for each of us, just the same as the dog.

We have homework as usual. Most of it Mike and I already know or do so I will just work on distractions. This is when you have the dog do what it knows outside of the normal place it knows it. So since Mike and I train inside the house, we will be going outside some and, perhaps, going somewhere else such as Home Depot again. The idea is for the dog to do what you want him to do no matter where you are and no matter what is going on around you. If a dog will do a sit without reservation while in the middle of a busy pet store or hardware store, then chances are that dog is truly trained. This is especially important for Service Dogs. The safety and health of the handler is at stake, not just being embarrassed at misbehaving Fido.

Part of our homework is to list what behaviors we do not want or want to stop and what behaviors we do want or want to continue. I’ll post my list here when I get around to making it.

Phew! We finished!

And we start the Basic Manners I class in a few weeks.

Lorna went with us to see the other puppies. It was enlightening for her to understand why I am so tired at the end of a class. And it also got her to see what class for her and Sam will be like.

It was sad to realize we’d most likely never see these other pups again, to see how they turn out. I wish them all well and health as they grow and live and love.

…was canceled due to possible bad road conditions. We got a decent snow Tuesday/Wednesday and while the roads were clear, there was the threat of ice forming after it got dark. And with it being the last class, the instructor felt it would be nice if all the dogs could be there so we’re doing it next week.

We are to work on getting the pups out to new places and new things. I may be getting My Truck back today so hopefully Mike and I (and Joella) can go somewhere. Mike’s not been to the dog park yet.

Meanwhile, Mike is doing good. He SITS and WAITS until released when we put his food down. He sits and waits when we take his leash on and off. He’s not grasped DOWN yet, though. He is good with his RECALL although I’ve not worked that much with him on it. Same with STAY.