Shyla's Winter Training Plans

In the winter, our agility course is swamped by snow. It never melts until April so I am thinking about my training goals for Shyla this winter. I love training her, and she loves it too. That's the main reason why I plan to continue some training this winter.

I've been mulling over the socialization issue and discussing it with experts. At one point in the fall, I posted about an incredible trip to town when she was afraid of no one and excited to try new things - it seemed as if she'd been "transformed". Unfortunately, it didn't last - within 2 weeks after that, we'd had a string of trips to town during which various little things spooked her. She's still leaps and bounds ahead of where she was a year ago but I've decided to modify my approach.

Over the first year that she lived with us, I tried to take Shyla to town multiple times per week - in an attempt to overcome her lack of socialization as a puppy. It worked to a huge extent. Remember that, on the first occasion that I tried to take her into town, she collapsed onto a sidewalk, paralyzed by fear, and lost control of her bladder. Now, her signs of fear are far more subtle, and I know them well so I can help her when the fear starts to creep up on her.

She can get spooked by the most mundane things - and she remembers the places where she was scared with great precision. If she gets scared on one street corner in town, she will cower past that corner for a long time thereafter. So, I've learned to stay away from the "spooky" spots for months afterwards - and then she seems to forget.

After much thought, I've decided that I'm going to accept Shyla's socialization where it is right now - with the knowledge that she'll probably continue to slowly improve just from everyday life experiences. She's generally a very happy dog. She's a mountain dog at heart - but all of our hard work has made her capable of going to town when needed without it being traumatic. I'm happy with that situation. After all, I don't love going to town either!

So, for the winter, I'm planning to work on Shyla's greetings when we see people on our mountain trails. She still sometimes gets scared of people on the trails - and I simply encourage her to "go around" those people without greeting them. However, the opposite extreme happens too - she decides that someone seems very sweet and she jumps on them! To deal with that, I've been trying to closely supervise her interactions with people who she appears to like, requiring "four on the floor" for her to be petted. I think we're making some progress. It's a tricky issue because I don't want to discourage Shyla from being outgoing, given her history, but I think it's doable.

For the winter, I want to teach her some more tricks plus a few things that will be useful in agility. The next photo shows a trick that I taught her last winter, and she adores doing it! I don't even have to ask her to do it... she just "offers" it.

This is another trick from last winter - taking and holding an object.

So, what shall we do this winter? Hmm...

We'll definitely keep practicing recalls every single day. They are so important around the wildlife in our world. We'll also keep working on her "stay". She now will "stay" with me out of sight for extended periods (without any people to distract her). I plan to add more distractions to her extended stays.

This winter, I've already starting teaching her two new tricks: balancing a treat on her nose and spinning. She's not ready to show either of them for a camera yet!

I'm also thinking of teaching her to heel on either side, and to switch sides either in front of me or behind me, depending on which I ask for. That's something that will help us when we play on our home agility course. She already knows how to heel on one side but the rest of it will be new.

Do you have any suggestions for other fun tricks?

It looks like Shyla is getting tired just thinking about all this training. But, the truth is that she loves it as much as I do!

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!

Coping with fear

It seems that Shyla has hit a serious fear period, and I'm not sure why. She had a couple of skittish visits to town, in places that she seemed to have "mastered" in recent months. At first, I thought that her fear was just a fluke and would pass easily. After all, she was still doing wonderfully at home, with our training and with life in general.

Then, I took her to one of her very favorite places, my physical therapy clinic, thinking that it would be a fun way for her to ease back into the outside world. She was not her usual outgoing self there, either. She exhibited great caution as she approached her long-term human friends there. Usually, she greets them with huge enthusiasm. At the clinic, she wouldn't even consider approaching strangers (usually, she's the "clinic mascot" who makes all the patients laugh and relax), and she visibly startled at the slightest noise in the clinic.

I'll admit that I hate seeing her regress like this. However, she's taught me some important lessons over the past nine months. The biggest one is that trying to "push through the fear" is not the right strategy. My personality is one that confronts tough things, and keeps confronting them until I conquer them. In the past, I've transferred that strategy to our dogs. It worked okay with our dogs, even if it was a tough-love approach, until I met K. K's fears were minor compared to Shyla's but confronting them was absolutely the wrong strategy. With the help of our great trainer, I learned about how to teach K to try new things by rewarding her for any sign of confidence.

With Shyla, the same lesson, that pushing her to confront scary things is a bad idea, has been cemented into place. Fortunately, training methods for fearful and reactive dogs have evolved hugely since the days when I was training K to cope with her fears. Everything needs to be at Shyla's pace, and she always is given a choice as to whether to approach something scary or not. So, even though I don't understand the reasons for Shyla's current setback, I do know that she needs to go slowly right now.

We're taking a little break from town training and letting Shyla live in the comfort of her home and our trails without the stress of town training for a little while. We skipped our training class today to enjoy the mountains and the wildflowers.

At home (that includes everywhere except town), she is happy to greet strangers, to learn how to do scary agility obstacles like the teeter-totter, to remain sound asleep while we vacuum right next to her, and even snooze on the deck while the Runner uses a chain saw to drop huge trees by the house. It's amazing how calm and confident she is at home.

I guess that you could say that we're taking the time to smell the flowers while Shyla chills out before our next visit to town!

What an amazing girl she is... I am grateful beyond belief that she's come into my life. I'm learning so much from her - about the importance of being patient in the face of adversity. That's a good lesson for me to apply to myself - I am not always so kind to myself!

Thank goodness that we both love nature so very much, providing us with refuge from the bustling insanity of the human world.

P.S. I found evidence today that Milton is still here (albeit limping). There may be some conflict underway, between limping Milton and the stronger new male bear. More soon....

Ups and Downs

It is truly summer here. Every imaginable flower is blooming. The air is warm, and unfortunately, the wind is blowing.

Fires are breaking out. The good news is that I don't have photos of any fires because they aren't close to us.

And, it's really hot when we go down 3,000' to visit town for socialization training. Shyla and I had a socialization session today with our wonderful trainer (in an air conditioned shopping area). Unfortunately, Shyla had one of her worst days, in terms of fear, in many months.

I'm taking it as just that - a bad day. Back at the beginning, when I thought that perhaps I could "cure" all her fears, I put too much pressure on both of us. Now, I just call it a "bad day" and move on. Part of why I do this is to prevent me from pressuring Shyla. By accepting that she may always have some fears that affect her deeply, I can help her more effectively than if I'm working feverishly to try to "cure" her fears in short order.

In Shyla's world, a "bad" day in town means that she doesn't want to go near most people, she startles at every noise, she freezes when she sees something that she wasn't exposed to as a puppy (e.g., a shopping cart), and she makes quick darting movements as she tries to keep track of every single tiny thing in her environment. It must be exhausting to be Shyla on days like today.

Fortunately, she doesn't have bad days in her home or the mountains. She always seems relaxed and happy.

In fact, after our bike ride this morning (and before our visit to town), she mastered the agility teeter-totter! It "teetered" through its whole range of motion, and she happily kept walking as it swung. It was a huge training hurdle and she cleared it! (I'll get some photos of our real agility training soon - for now, here's my girl clearing a log).

Life is such a winding path, and I remind myself of that as Shyla goes through her ups and downs. I should never expect training to be a straight line from here to our goal.

But, as long as Shyla is happy with her family and her world, life is good!

Shyla's Socialization

I have been continuing to work on socialization with Shyla multiple times per week. I do some of the training alone, some of it as part of a group class, and some during one-on-one lessons with our trainer. As always, I have no photos of Shyla during our in-town training, so I'll pepper this with photos from our outings in the mountains at home.

Although we still have up days and down days, Shyla is generally moving in a good direction. Until a month ago, her demeanor in town changed only gradually. To sum up where she was a month ago, everything on Earth still seemed foreign to her but she was gradually learning to cope with the alien planet that she'd landed on. However, she still seemed scared the majority of the time. At that time, she got diarrhea after every trip to town, telling me about the very high level of stress that town placed on her.

Then, about a month ago, she changed. It looks to me and the trainer as if Shyla no longer views the majority of our world as foreign. She walks along on sidewalks in town like a happy dog, observing the world but usually not bug-eyed and on the verge of a meltdown like she was before. She tries to meet most people, as long as they don't do certain scary behaviors like squatting down and looking her in the eyes. She no longer gets diarrhea after trips to town.

Because her demeanor is generally happy in town, I now can identify the exact things that still scare her. Prior to this, Shyla was constantly scared to some degree in town - so identifying the "triggers" was very hard. Now, she'll walk along happily until a sight or sound spooks her, and she immediately looks less confident or even spooks (i.e., darts backwards with her ears pinned back and her body low to the ground).

Apparently, Shyla's current state is a step in the rehabilitation of a dog who missed her puppy socialization that my trainer sees frequently. The dog finally (8 months later, in Shyla's case) accepts the world for what it is and knows what is normal. So, the dog functions beautifully until "abnormal" things occur - and then the "spook" is quite obvious.

The bottom line is that this change in Shyla is expected and good. Now, we can work on the specific things that Shyla is still afraid of - like men talking on cell phones, women with gravelly voices, construction equipment, skateboards, people squatting down to look in her eyes, etc. She now truly trusts me - so she'll literally look at me when she gets scared. I back her away from the scary thing, until she is at a distance that is comfortable for her, and then we watch the scary thing from a distance, using the principles of BAT (Behavioral Adjustment Training).

I never dreamed that this journey would take so long - and that the evolution would still be underway 8 months after Shyla joined our family. When Shyla first arrived, I thought that if I worked super hard, we could "solve" her fears very rapidly. I believe that an important step in the process was that I accepted that Shyla would have good days and bad days, and that she may or may not ever be really comfortable in the human world (but I love her regardless). When I adopted that attitude, I took the pressure off of both Shyla and me.

I'm still not sure of the final outcome in terms of whether Shyla will ever be totally comfortable in town. But, I do know that Shyla can navigate the human world without much fear if I guide her.

I also know that the journey has been incredibly rewarding. My trainer observed that Shyla's bond to me is much stronger than a "normal" dog's bond would be just 8 months after arriving in a new home. I feel very lucky in that regard, for my bond to her is just as strong. She is a gift.

Confidence!

On the homefront, we've resumed our adventures in our forest. Shyla and I try to make it out in time for sunrise, but it's getting harder each day with sunrise racing earlier.

I've been noticing a change in Shyla, a contentment and trust that has surely been slowly evolving, but has really shined through recently. For example, she knows that she "owns" this boulder, the one that she chose for sunrises months ago. She settles in and even doses, letting down her guard in a wonderful way.

Moreover, Shyla now has the confidence to defy me sometimes. When we are training, she'll sometimes grab a stick and insist on a game of fetch instead of our normal training. Our trainer says that this is a wonderful development in an under-confident dog. It's a stage that she often sees as a fearful dog loses her fear. Thus, for now, I should let Shyla take the lead so her confidence keeps growing. It's a great sign she sometimes acts like a teenager who just wants to play rather than work!

I captured this photo of Shyla in the wind this morning, almost by accident. I think that, in an abstract way, it shows the sparkle of the confidence that she exudes these days.

Her brother R has always had that confidence but he's recently been demanding (loudly) that I spend training time with him. Here, he is finishing a "spin", a trick that he is quite proud that his sister doesn't know yet!

Let's raise our glasses to confidence! At times since I met Shyla, I never thought that she would behave with the self-assurance and happy-go-lucky attitude that she has these days. And, R always had it - but he's glad to get a chance to show it off!

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.

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.

A good day for Shyla

I'm in the midst of one of those weeks... I feel like a speck in the big universe. Thank goodness that it's a beautiful universe.

I have a medical appointment almost every day, making me feel as if life is sprinting out of control.

But, one bright light was how well Shyla handled our in-town training after my MRI today. She was very outgoing, wanting to meet all sorts of people. When she gets into moods like today's, she can leap into social situations that are over her head. I try to restrain her but I'm not always successful. Everyone wants to pet her when she's as cute and flirtatious as she was today. Then, in the midst of happily meeting people, Shyla appeared to suddenly realize that she is usually scared in those situations and shrunk away from the man who was patting her- but she bounced right back.

Her amazing courage today was a lesson to me that I have little day-to-day control over Shyla's fearfulness. I can do my best to set up our training sessions in-town so that they are most likely to be successful... but my strategies will work some days and not others. I did almost the same route and routine with her last week but she didn't enjoy it at all then. Today was a different day.

I keep patiently working on our basic training at home and in the forest.

I'm sure that our basic training is helping to build Shyla's confidence over the long-term. But, I'm taking my "new attitude" to heart. Today was a good day of training but that doesn't mean that we've conquered the fear. It simply means that it was a good day for Shyla.