(VICT) Re: Retrieve
- From: "Tamara Smith-Kinney" <tamara.8024@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <vi-clicker-trainers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:40:59 -0700
Rox,
Laveau's house manners sound a lot like Mitzi's, especially in her younger
days. She had to learn to do her dirty deeds quietly when I wasn't close
enough to know what she was doing. She's a stealthy little booger! I
didn't punish her, or course, but I got a little grim about picking the
garbage off the floor. Yuck! As a result, she mostly stuck to strewing the
recycling about and saved the kitchen garbage for special occasions -- like
conference calls or long chats with friends. /smile/
Now that we live with a sighted person, she finds it very amusing to get
herself busted in the act of being bad. For the most part, she's only bad
when she's not getting enough attention. In her book, "enough attention"
means all of it. /grin/ She's actually doing pretty well dealing with the
time and attention I've been giving the other dog in the house. Sweet dog,
horribly abusive background. So I'm doing a lot of calming work with her to
keep her anxiety level down -- even if that means biting the heads off of
the friends her dad rescued her from. Their version of dropping by to "keep
Daisy company" was entirely unacceptable! I have trained them to behave
when I'm around, and I simply don't allow them around the dog unsupervised
by either me or Daisy's dad. She still shows some elevated anxiety when
they've been around her, but she doesn't turn into an out of control monster
anymore. Whew!
Anyway, that means I haven't been giving Mitzi the level of attention she's
used to, while I spend a lot of time loving on Daisy and doing so much
positive reinforcement with the dog I make myself sick. /smile/ I'm
finally redressing the balance and have found a way to reach the local dog
park without tempting death, so that's helping. I can play with only her,
have pleasant working walks to a happy place, and let her be with
well-socialized dogs. Daisy has a long way to go in learning how to play
nicely with other dogs, even though she and Mitzi seem to genuinely like
each other. I've taught Daisy how to play nicely with people, although she
really doesn't get it yet. She does try. /smile/ My introduction to c/t
for her has turned into competition obedience. /lol/ At least it's
progressed from competition treat-grabbing through competition treat
mugging. Funny dogs. There has been an awful lot of power play going on
between them. Power eating, power snuggling, power barking... You do not
want to wake up in the morning to a poodle and a coonhound standing on the
edge of your bed trying to out-bark each other over whatever may or may not
be outside your bedroom window. I let them do that for the first week or
so, on the theory that any cooperative activity for the two of them was a
good thing. Then we started working on "Quiet!" Now we can go through a
whole day without barking at all. Which makes me jumpy. /lol/ I can also
now let either or both of the dogs out without having to break up any
barking frenzies. Whoo'da thunk? They're even quiet during neighborhood
bark fests, which can get quite raucous. I've spent so much time getting
our dogs to be quiet that I felt super-irritated about those other dogs'
barking. /smile/ Now that my girls stay quiet all on their own -- with at
most a single bark from one or the other -- I can feel smug listening to all
those other dogs setting each other off like mad.
I loved your story about Laveau and the parking lot. Geaux Laveaux, indeed!
Mitzi has shown me that she can do just fine crossing a parking lot,
although we've only done it in bright sunlight. Scares the snot out of me
to think of doing it when I can't even pretend to myself I can see. We
happen to have moved into an area sans sidewalks, at least close by, so I'm
having to learn to really trust my dog just to get around the mobile home
park. Turns out she's very clever about staying to the side of the road and
in finding safe routes through a number of tricky spots on our way up to the
corner store. In fact, I'm so impressed I can hardly stand it. It still
takes an awful lot of willpower to close my eyes and let her guide. I can't
come up with the willpower not to interfere without my eyes closed, but I'm
getting there, and we're back to making progress in our work together. With
the rainy season -- or monsoon season, as Karyn calls it -- coming on, I
won't have all that nasty sunlight to use to mess with my own head while I
try to teach myself to be a decent guide dog handler. I'm sure Mitzi will
be very relieved!
Cheers,
Tami Smith-Kinney
-----Original Message-----
From: vi-clicker-trainers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:vi-clicker-trainers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of The Pawpower
Pack
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 4:00 PM
To: vi-clicker-trainers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: (VICT) Re: Retrieve
For Laveau, I think she was very strongly punished in her previous home for
touching things. She has horrible house manners; getting into trash, taking
food from shelves in the sink etc. She doesn't do this when working. She
has learned, in her previous home, that getting caught is the bad thing not
that doing these behaviors are not desirable. Because I am deafblind and
haven't quite figured out a way to deal with this situation; I am managing
her very strictly in the house for now and if that is what I have to do for
the rest of her life I can live with that and she can to. This carries over
to retrieve because I think she associates the *don't touch* that she got
punished for in the house with anything I offer her. She will do a play
retrieve and will fetch the object but will not bring it to hand; she will
drop on the floor; lot of good that does me huh? lol
She will touch the object but as far as I can tell she is not mouthing it.
I don't have a bunch of sighted people around who want to come watch me work
with the dog so a sighted training buddy is not an option for me. Also with
my hearing loss it is very probable that I'll miss it when they tell me that
she's mouthing the object anyway.
I can usually tell the difference between nose and mouthing though so it's
just a matter of getting her to mouth the darned thing. I thought about
putting a little cream cheese on the object to encourage mouthing, but I
don't know.
These are just my thoughts for now.
Rox and the "Kitchen Bitches"
Bristol (retired), Mill'E SD, and Laveau SDIT
" A teacher can only lead you to the threshold of your own mind." -- Kahlil
Gibran
pawpower@xxxxxxx
windows messenger: Brisomania@xxxxxxxxxxx
AIM: brissysgirl
Other related posts:
