Springtime and R's training

For now, it is springtime. Bears are roaming our forests, hummingbirds are buzzing high overhead, and the Pasqueflowers are opening up to the sunshine.

Shyla and I were out early, with me riding atop the crust of the snow in the sub-freezing temperatures of the very early morning. Amazingly, in sunny spots, the snow has already completely melted down to dirt. In the forest, however, there is still deep snow.

We saw the sun rise, and it cast a reddish light on Shyla.

And, we loved each other's company.

After our ride, I spent some time training the black cracker dog. This photo shows R's serene side.

The serenity flees when we start our training. R absolutely adores our training time. That's what positive training does - it creates dogs who view training time as one of the best times of the day.

We are working on a wave, with R's left paw. He had elbow dysplasia surgery as a puppy, and this movement is great for maintaining his range of motion and muscle strength around the weakened elbow. He has definitely learned this trick! However, it's tough to photograph it well because he always twists slightly away from me as he waves.

You'll notice that R's mouth is open in the photo above. The reason is that, in typical R cracker dog style, he's modified the trick to suit him. Presently, he barks every time he waves.

And sometimes he barks when he's not waving out of pure joy for life!

Barking in sync with waving should be an easy habit to break (it just started today). Tomorrow, I'll reward only the waves when he doesn't bark. For today, I just laughed along with him every time he barked. I love his enthusiasm!

I think that R will be back to running and romping pretty soon. I've been stretching his elbow through its range of motion a couple of times every day, and we're giving him regular glucosamine injections. We haven't seen him limp in a whole week. Good news!

Two steps forward - one step backward

Who knew that today would be rough day in town for Shyla?

I've been reading everything that I can get my hands on about fear in dogs, and a recurring theme is that "recovery" is never a straight line. There are regular set-backs, and we experienced one today after an amazing week.

Shyla was having a great day. Our morning snowbike ride and training went beautifully. She's learning to cover her face with a paw using clicker training, and today, she progressed to holding her paw in place over her nose for long enough that I could take a photo.

In clicker training, you need to find a way to initially trigger some semblance of the behavior that you're training. So, I started this trick by putting a small piece of masking tape on Shyla's nose. Of course, she swiped at it with her paw to try to get it off. After about three swipes that I clicked and rewarded, I removed the tape. Because Shyla is so experienced with clicker training, she kept swiping at her nose after the tape was gone to earn more rewards. I added a verbal cue, "cover", so that I could ask her to do it in the future.

Then, my next goal was to change the rapid swipe into a stationary position with her paw on her snout. So, in the next session, I progressed to clicking only the swipes when she moved slowly. Then, today, I clicked only the ones where she stopped and held her paw on her nose. I'd like her to have her paw higher up on her snout - so that will be our next goal.

In any case, Shyla is super smart, and had no trouble with complex training games at home and in the forest this morning. Yet, going to town threw her for a big loop. Many things spooked her that she's been okay with over the past week - like bikes, baby carriages, and even people. I've never taken photos of her when she's in her fearful mode because I'm so focused on helping her. But, believe me, you would not recognize her - she looks so much less confident than in the mountain photos that I show you.

I hope that it's just a brief regression. On days like today, I try to help her deal with her fear, using a variety of techniques that I've learned from my trainer. If I'm not successful within 20 minutes or so, I find a quiet nook where we can play a fun game that makes her happy, and then I quickly whisk her into the car on that good note.

When we got home, I let her burn off her nervous energy running with her brother, R.

They have so much fun on our evening jaunts together.

I'm so glad that both of them, but especially Shyla (due to her intermittent discomfort in civilization), love the mountains as much as I do.

Snow Day!

The calm after the storm prevailed, early this morning.

Trees drooped under the weight of the snow.

Because the trails weren't packed down very much, snow biking was slow and laborious. I enjoyed many breaks watching Shyla play in her first really deep snow.

Actually, she wasn't stuck in the deep snow in the photo above, although it might look that way. When I released her to play, she shot like a rocket through the powder.

She was fully submerged a few times, emerging as a hilarious "snowdog"!

But, she mainly stayed above the snow surface...

I've been in a phase of not teaching her new tricks but allowing her to consolidate her knowledge of the many tricks that I've taught her over the past month. One funny thing has evolved as we've practiced her tricks. She now waves to me whenever I wave to her (with no verbal cue)! It makes me laugh every single time!

Part of the reason why I've held off on teaching new tricks is that my pain has made me grumpy. And, in clicker training, being grumpy is not good. The whole underpinning of clicker training is that it's fun, and your dog never gets punished - not even verbally or by hearing you sigh in frustration. Your dog gets rewarded for doing good things and the only repercussion for making a wrong choice is that your dog doesn't get a click and treat.

Because Shyla is so sensitive, I see the difference in her when I'm grumpy. She seems to worry more about "making a mistake". So, I try to avoid training, especially teaching new behaviors. For the past two days, the pain has been easing for short periods so I started a new trick with Shyla today while I felt decent. The trick is that she covers her eyes with a paw. We made progress on it, and I'm hoping that I'll be showing you the trick sometime soon!

Shyla is so smart and trainable, as long as she's not in a stressful place like town. I'm trying something new to bring out her confidence when we're in town - I take short and frequent breaks in quiet spots to let her do her tricks, and I praise her lavishly for each one. I think it's helping a bit because she loves her tricks.

Tomorrow should be a very different day here in the mountains. The sun caused "snow bombs" to fall out of the trees this afternoon, creating a mystical aura in the forest and leaving bare branches.

It's our first major snowstorm yet we've already reached the springtime pattern of very rapid melting after the snow. What an odd year...

Training Tuesday

Thanks for your very thoughtful comments yesterday. I had no idea how many people had experienced similar feelings about a parent's death as I have. You helped me see how many people never stop grieving a beloved parent and that many of you have experienced a feeling of disquiet when your age approached the age of your parent's death.

Today is training update day. Shyla has had a stupendous week of training. We had a few fabulous trips into town, visiting shopping areas and the spooky park where the skateboards scared her so much last time she was there. She handled everything in stride during socialization this week although she was not tested by skateboards. She was tested by a hand-truck in the vet's lobby, and she declined to go anywhere near it. That was fine because she bounced back from her initial fear so quickly that the hand-truck fear didn't affect anything else about our outing.

We visited a pet supply shop that was the first shop that Shyla was ever willing to enter last fall. This week, she and I wandered the shop, doing obedience practice in some aisles, meeting nice people and dogs, and browsing their treat department. When I went to the register to pay, the owner of the shop said that she'd been watching us, and, if she hadn't seen Shyla last fall, she would've thought that Shyla was a perfectly well adjusted dog with very few fears. In celebration, she gave us a bag of home-baked treats to take home! It was wonderful to get that external validation that we are making big progress!

At home, we kept working on old tricks and new tricks. On one evening walk, it was just me and Shyla (the boys were running), and she did a prolonged off-leash heel despite many distractions. I was very proud of her because I consider off-leash heeling to be a critical part of staying safe during our hikes and bike rides. I'm still working on teaching her to heel next to my bike - that's more of a challenge but we'll get it eventually!

We practiced her "relax" cue in all sorts of places.

She now needs rarely needs guiding with my hands to get into position. I can stand up straight and say "relax", and she lies on her side. She is so smart!

We started working on her rolling from one side to the other. So, she starts out in a "relax" on her right side, then rolls over into the "relax" position on her left side. She still needs a lot of guidance in the form of hand movements from me. I hope that we can strengthen that behavior in the coming week.

We have expanded her retrieve so that she'll pick up and return a variety of objects. A piece of PVC pipe...

A screwdriver...

She didn't always look happy about holding the screwdriver!

And, a brush...

She still is leery of holding metal objects with her mouth so that's on our "to do" list. I also want to practice fun retrieving games outdoors. Now, when she's calm, she retrieves beautifully. But, after a few repeats, she gets so excited that she forgets to return the object to me and instead zooms in circles around me. I think that if I move away from her excitedly after she picks up the object, I may be able to shape a fast and fun retrieve, even when she's excited.

Shyla has started creating her own tricks, which is one of the most fun parts of clicker training - dogs are not afraid to try out new behaviors. As you know, I've taught her to "take a bow".

Separately, I've taught her to rest her chin on the ground.

To my surprise, she decided to combine the two tricks, taking a bow with her chin on the ground! I gave her a jackpot of treats to teach her that creativity is encouraged!

An even funnier one, which I didn't capture in a photo, was that she decided to "wave" while lying on her side in the "relax" position. The next time she does that one, I'm going to click to tell her that it's good, and then try to get her to do it again. It was SO funny!

Our last thing for the coming week is that I want to continue to teach Shyla that nail-clipping is not a bad thing (we had quite a struggle over nail-clipping last week). I'm using a Youtube video as my guide. Basically, I started by taking her to the spot where I always clip nails and having her lie down. Then, I held her paw in my hand numerous times, rewarding her with a click/treat each time if she didn't pull away. Over a 10 minute session, I worked up to holding her paw while spreading out her toes and touching a nail with the nail clipper, without any signs of stress from her. I hope that I'll be able to clip a nail without any resistance within the next week.

I am finding that Shyla is perhaps the most trainable dog who I've ever worked with. She loves to learn, loves to get praise, and loves to puzzle out what I'm trying to entice her to do. I think that, in terms of training specific behaviors (e.g., tricks), the sky is the limit. In terms of socialization, I'm not sure where the limit is (e.g., skateboards may never be okay) but we'll keep working at it so that Shyla can eventually handle most things in the everyday world without a hitch.

I'm having such fun with this beautiful dog!

Tricks and training

We've done lots and lots of training since my last update. I see our training in two parts: socialization and skills. Socialization involves going new places, seeing a variety of things, and meeting all sorts of people and dogs. Skills are things like "heel", "down", and tricks like taking a bow.

This week, we had a roller-coaster ride in terms of socialization. One outing was to attend an advanced dog-training class that meets in a different outdoor location every week. Last week, it was in a town park that Shyla has enjoyed in the past. So, I arrived at class full of confidence.

Unfortunately, the park was bustling with a lot of crazy activity, and a couple of things scared Shyla within the initial 5 minutes of class. The first scary thing was kids on scooters. The scooters were quiet but they zoomed in a way that scared Shyla. We walked away to observe them from a nearby hillside, and it seemed like Shyla was going to recover. However, to my chagrin, the scooters were followed by skateboards a few minutes later. We were still up on the hillside, pretty far away from the skateboards, but Shyla never recovered from the terror of the skateboards.

As class went on after those scary things, Shyla spent most of the time scanning 360° around herself and obsessing over anything even vaguely unfamiliar. It was a huge flat park (at least 200 acres of flat field) so she could see people doing recreational activities in every direction and then worry incessantly about them. In technical terms, except for a few respites during class, Shyla was "over threshold". In retrospect, I should have bailed out partway through class but my teacher and I kept thinking that Shyla was just about to recover.

In contrast, later in the week, we had an awesome socialization outing. We went to a busy shopping area, and Shyla was outgoing and relaxed. She even seemed to be getting used to the loud sounds of city buses, trucks, and push-carts loaded with boxes. Moreover, she went into a shop that was teeming with people, and she wagged at them as we weaved in and out of the people! We both had a fun day - and Shyla shined.

In the coming week, we plan to return to that scary park with our trainer at a quiet time of day to help Shyla relax there. We'll also visit a more urban setting - with traffic and city noises - with a focus on helping Shyla adapt to unexpected noises. Trying to socialize a teenage dog requires incredible patience - but I think that we're very gradually moving forward.

We've been continuing our clicker training of basic skills (our main focus was/is an off-leash heel but we work on the full repertoire regularly) and fun tricks. About 2 weeks ago, I taught Shyla to raise a paw off the ground. I've now shaped that into three different tricks: a handshake, a high five, and a wave. She adores waving and does it without me asking! I think it's very cute.

On Hug Hill...

 

At sunrise...

Another skill we've worked on is retrieving. Shyla has gone from being apathetic about retrieving to being over-the-moon happy about it! I've shaped it into two different games. In one game, she takes an object and holds it while sitting. She doesn't release it until I put my hand on it and say "out".

She held a rope toy...

A rubber stick...

In the more traditional form of a retrieve, I throw objects, and Shyla brings them back to me. She is great at this now (except if she gets too excited and starts zooming), including returning the object to my hand at the end of the retrieve.

Today, we played a modified retrieving game on Hug Hill. Usually, I throw the object away from both of us and then I send her to get it. Today, we did it differently, and Shyla had to think hard to figure out that it was just another form of a retrieve. I put the object between the two of us, and she started in a sit-stay. You can see from her face that she's thinking hard about what she's supposed to do.

I told her to "take it".

And then I asked her to "bring", which she was starting to do in the photo below.

I've purposely used fun toys for all retrieving games because Shyla seemed to actively dislike retrieving when I started teaching her - and the toys made her much more happy to play the game.

In the coming week, I plan to start teaching her to retrieve a variety of objects - like a piece of PVC pipe, handwarmers in a package, a hat, and all sorts of other random things. If she's okay with those things, we'll move toward the toughest things to retrieve - metal objects like keys. My goal is that Shyla will eventually pick up anything up off the ground if I ask her to. With my spinal problems, that can be a huge help to me.

While we were on Hug Hill earlier this week, she practiced her "relax" cue. She's known this one for a while... but, if we don't practice, she'll forget it.

Shyla will relax on either her left or right side. This week, I plan to teach her to lie on her back with her paws in the air, for a funny trick. I also plan to teach her a controlled roll, from the relax on her right side to relax on her left side. That should be fun!

I also hope to start teaching the "be shy" cue, which means that she covers her nose/eyes with a paw.

But, most of all, I hope to keep building her confidence this week. Working on tricks helps with building confidence and trust. We also have a couple of town outings planned... and I'm hoping that the happy and relaxed spirit that I know inhabits her body shines through.

Happy Saturday

A happy Saturday started with sunrise!

Shyla and I did some training games while we were bathed in the sunrise light. She "took a bow", worshiping the sun.

She LOVES our training. This next photo might look the same as the previous one, until you focus on her tail. These two photos were part of a rapid-fire series of photos that I took while she took her bow. The photos show that she wagged her tail during her entire long bow!

We had a great snowbike ride. At the end, I asked her to "wave to me", and she did. I know that it's not the best photo that I've ever taken but I love it anyway because it expresses how much fun Shya and I are having.

Positive training rocks, especially for a sensitive dog like Shyla. It builds her confidence and our bond.