Back to town for Shyla

Yesterday morning, we were on the trails just after sunrise, catching some of the gorgeous light of the dawn of a new day.

We lingered in the area where the sunrise views are the best. It's rare for us to be out that early - so summertime sunrises are something to be treasured.

After sunrise, because I was going to take Shyla into town for a training class, we biked/ran extra far, with the hope that it would "take the edge off" Shyla's tensions in town through exercise. During our ride, Shyla found some wet areas to cool off, as you can see!

Then, we headed home, to get ready for training class. Here was Shyla's thought on the trip to town.

During class, Shyla seemed much better than she's been over the past couple of weeks. Our class consisted of walking politely around shopping areas in town and even going into some shops. We did specific skill training in the midst of it all (e.g., heel, wait, sit-stay). The other people and dogs in the class were SO nice to Shyla that it made her very comfortable with the potentially scary situations.

After class, I needed to do a couple of errands at dog-friendly places. I tried to make them as fast as possible, to keep the stress down for Shyla. Shyla went into the stores with me because it's too hot to leave her in the car in the summer. By the end of it all, Shyla was definitely tired but she was still acting reasonably confident.

Then, when we arrived home, Shyla started having diarrhea. And, it has continued. Poor girl - she must have been stressed out on the inside even though she seemed pretty good on the outside when we were in town.

Despite that, I still put yesterday's class in the success column. She wasn't skittish for most of the time, and she wanted to meet new people. Both of those are good things.

I have a hypothesis that the sudden onset of heat in town (3000' lower in elevation than our home) was the factor that made town much scarier for Shyla. I think that Shyla was barely staying below her stress threshold in town when the weather was nice and cool. Then, one more stressor, the shocking heat hit (it really is shocking, like a furnace blast, when you come down from the mountains into town). I think that the heat is why Shyla now cannot handle bustle of town as well.

In the training world, this is referred to as "stacking stressors". For example, when in the safety of our home, Shyla can now meet almost anyone with little fear. However, when she has the stress of being in town, she hesitates to meet some people out of fear. Thus, "stacking" the stress of town and the stress of meeting a stranger together can be too much for her while either one alone would be okay. Another example is that, if there's loud construction noise nearby when we're in town, Shyla suddenly becomes afraid of certain objects that look odd to her, like statues, due to "stacking" scary noise and unusual objects.

I'm learning so much from Shyla, and I'll keep letting her (and my trainer) be my teachers. For a while, I'll try to make her town visits be on cooler days or to spots where she can swim, hoping to bring back all of that hard-won confidence that she had before summer hit so hard.

Up here in the mountains, summer isn't hot, and the flowers are absolutely glorious. Maybe Shyla is onto something - we should be hermits who never leave our slice of mountain paradise!

The Duo and Shyla

I love the days when I get the Duo together for our evening hike.

Shyla and R are fabulous friends. They play and play and play. However, as I mentioned before, sometimes Shyla is too rambunctious for R's taste. I've realized that all the dogs who R has lived with before have been very gentle during play, and he's been the rambunctious one. I'm not sure that he's ever met a dog who plays as wildly as Shyla.

He hasn't set ground rules about playing intensity for Shyla yet. So, I interrupt them, and have them doing a little obedience practice whenever R starts acting reticent about play. Interestingly, R did set the rules about a tennis ball that he was holding. When Shyla tried to take it from him, I heard a low rumble of a growl from R, and Shyla quickly retreated to the other side of the room, leaving R to enjoy his tennis ball. That tells me that R will set the rules about things that are important to him, and Shyla will follow them.

Shyla has become extraordinarily competitive about recalls when we practice them during our hikes. I always start the Duo in a sit-stay, and then I go a distance away to call them. Until recently, R won almost every recall race to me. Now, Shyla has become obsessed with getting to me first, and she's usually successful.

This was just after I'd called them. Shyla was a little faster out of the blocks.

Shyla kept her lead, and looked kind of surprised about it!

But then, R turned on the turbo chargers as they went around a curve to follow the packed trail to me. Both dogs are in this photo. R is directly behind Shyla. You can barely see his black paw.

I'm not sure how this happened after they'd been neck-and-neck just a few strides earlier... but Shyla made it to me first.

We think that the reason for Shyla's success is that she's young and naive. Today, I did a quick calculation that R has probably practiced at least 10,000 recalls in his life. So, it's not quite as exciting for him as it is for Shyla!

We will keep practicing recalls for our dogs' entire lifetimes. Because recalls are so important to their safety, the dogs always get an amazing jackpot of treats for a fast and enthusiastic recall. For other behaviors - like sit, stay, down, and other basics - we fade the treats with time. Both dogs only occasionally get rewarded with treats for those behaviors. But they always get praise!

I want to lay out a few March training goals for Shyla. I want to teach her to cover her eyes with a paw, to rest her snout on my knee when I'm sitting, and to "shake" (as if she's getting water off of herself). I also plan to continue socialization training with 2-4 trips to new places each week. I won't make any specific goals for that part of Shyla's training. It's up to her how fast or slow it goes.

Our last two socialization training sessions have gone, for the most part, extremely well - after she had such a dramatic setback post-spaying a few weeks ago. I'm certain that there will be more backward steps in our future because that's how this process goes, according to people more experienced than me. But it doesn't matter in the big picture - I love this girl for who she is, no matter whether she acts fearful or outgoing.

As I've thought about her, I've realized that simple things in life require tremendous courage from Shyla. Even on the days that I perceive that she's fearful, she has the courage to walk next to me through the crazy human world. I've started thinking of her as "Courageous Shyla", no matter how her training is going.

Waiting...

We've reached the magic date. I bet you're wondering what I mean. The sun rose exactly between the two peaks that sit to our east today - February 1. I'm hoping to get a photo just one minute earlier tomorrow so that you can see the peaks and the sun!

Of course, Shyla and I were out on the trails to see the sunrise. We play all sorts of games to start the day in the rosy glow of sunrise. In one of our games, she's decided that "taking a bow" should include resting your chin on the ground whenever possible. She adores these games! See her tail in the photo below - it wags continuously while she does her tricks.

I decided to add a dash of red to today's photos by having Shyla wear my neck warmer. It's fleece and very warm. In the freezing wind, like we had today, she seemed to love it.

When we returned home, I started my vigil, waiting for R's test results as I worked on my computer. I'm told that the results of one test have arrived at my vet's office but not the results of the second test. For some reason, they are waiting for both results before discussing them with us. There's still a chance that we'll hear something tonight but it's getting less likely by the minute.

I mentioned yesterday that sometimes Shyla's playing seems too intense for R, and we wish that he'd tell her to calm down in dog language. We're basing our expectation that he'll lay down the law with Shyla on all the other pairs of dogs that we've had. For example, K was very good at telling her younger brother R to "chill out" with the most subtle curling of her lip. She was clearly the boss, and R followed her rules very carefully. He never made faces like this one at K!

Until R clearly establishes himself as the "boss" with Shyla, we interrupt their playing when R seems overwhelmed, and I ask them to do some obedience during the interruption. It takes the edge off Shyla's intensity and gives R the break that he needs.

Hopefully, we'll have good news to report tomorrow - but there's also a chance that we won't know the test results until Monday.

Brother and Sister

I'm overjoyed to finally be able to let the two dogs take off-leash "walks" together. I waited a long time after Shyla fractured her ulna before I allowed them to romp together because they can be so wild.

I've found that Shyla loves to prop her front legs on things so that she can see further. This type of pose has never been natural for R.

As Shyla stood there serenely, surveying the meadow below her, R suddenly decided to jump the huge downed tree. As his younger sibling, Shyla wanted to follow suit but her upright position made it hard. You can see the consternation on her face.

I love seeing the two of them together, with R so clearly as the older and wiser brother.

Shyla often looks to him...

And sometimes they simply sit companionably together, although Shyla still seems to keep an eye on R.

On this afternoon, R sampled the scents wafting toward them on the westerly wind. Already, I can see that Shyla tends to focus more on me while R is more independent, constantly scanning his surroundings for scents and sights.

R can still be the goofy one, thank goodness. I love that side of him.

It's been wonderful to finally see the this Labraduo romp together. I'm enjoying watching both of them change. Shyla is gaining confidence while R is morphing from K's mischievous younger brother to Shyla's guiding older brother.

Training pupdate

Both Shyla and I have been having fun with training, strengthening some cues that Shyla knows well and starting a new one. Today, we played "find it", where I hid a stash of treats while Shyla was in a sit-stay and then released her to go find the stash. She sprinted toward the treats.

We also practiced "take a bow", a fun trick for photos. You'll notice that, in my photos, Shyla is always taking a bow while perched on a boulder. Because she's on a boulder, Shyla doesn't scoot over to take a bow right at my feet. Ultimately, I want her to simply "take a bow" where ever she is, without needing props to prevent her from coming to me before doing it.

We've also been practicing lots of recalls because Shyla is allowed to run again. I'm really happy with her enthusiasm. Look at that face as she sprinted to me at warp speed!

I don't have any photos of our new training game. I'm teaching Shyla to fetch. I know - that sounds odd - because most Labs naturally love to fetch. Shyla is my first Lab (of seven) who isn't inherently enthusiastic about retrieving. So, I'm teaching her a "formal retrieve" using my clicker and treats. The technique that we're using is much like the one shown in this video.

I started by teaching her to take an object from my hand and hold it in her mouth with the verbal cue "take it". Then, I gradually required her to hold it for longer until I clicked to tell her that she'd done the right thing. Next, after she took the object from my hand, I walked backward in an excited way, and she ran toward me with the object in her mouth. We're still working on having her hold the object until I ask her to put it my hand. As of today, she has about a 50% success rate for putting it in my hand (she drops at my feet in the other 50% of her retrieves).

The best part of it is that Shyla loves it! When I first tried a retrieving game with her back in September, she was apathetic. Seriously, she seemed like she didn't like being asked to retrieve. With our this fun training method, she's super enthusiastic. That's what positive training does!

We had another big success this week. We did a socialization session with our trainer, taking Shyla to a nearby mall. It's an outdoor mall so Shyla was exposed to walking people, rumbling buses, cruising cars, rattling shopping carts, loud children, and lots of other odd noises. I was dubious about whether she could handle it but I took my trainer's experienced advice that Shyla was ready for it.

Of course, we didn't just walk around the mall like normal people - we did our BAT training, letting Shyla get good looks at things that scared her (like a UPS guy pushing a huge cart of boxes) and then rewarding her by letting her briefly retreat from those things. This method really works because Shyla knows that she has a choice - we're not going to force her to face anything that she finds too scary. Moreover, she's naturally curious so she almost always wants to go back and look at the scary thing again after her brief break.

I was so proud of her. In general, she was curious and happy with bright eyes and happy body language at the mall. A few times, like when a bus made a loud sound at the same moment as a 3-year-old boy asked to pet her, we saw the fearful Shyla. But, we quickly walked her away from the hub-bub, played a few fun games, and she recovered very fast. Her fast recovery from fear is a good indicator that she's going to navigate our world with little fear someday.

If you'd asked me, back when I first met her in late August, if she'd walk around a mall relatively happily within a year, I would have been dubious. This courageous girl sure has exceeded my expectations!

Life takes so many unexpected twists and turns. I've learned more about dog behavior and training from Shyla than from any of my previous dogs. And, our concerted training effort has built quite a bond between us.