Training Frustrations

A reminder that everyone gets frustrated with their dog's training.  Below are highlights for me to remember but check out the article (Whole Dog Journal) for full details.

To get past the frustration in the heat of the moment

1.  Relax and remember to breathe. 
Pause, take deep breathes, relax and fix your body posture.
2.  Pay attention to your dog's behavior. 
Your dog will probably sense when your stress levels are rising.  Yawning, lip licking, sniffing the ground, and averting their gaze are behaviors dogs use with each other to reduce stress and defuse potential conflict.
3.  It's okay to stop. 
You don't always have to keep going to "end it with success" because your dog is still going to learn.  If it's just not going well, stop.  But avoid continually having sessions where the dog shuts down before you end the session.
4.  Remember how forgiving and patient your dog is of you.

To avoid/lessen frustration

1.  Take notes.
Baby steps!  Take notes and you have proof your dog is getting better.
2.  The magic of management.
Prevent your dog from doing what you don't want him to do.
3.  It's not personal - but you do need to own it.
Dogs aren't trying to be vindictive.  It's more likely that you are giving him mixed signals and confusing him.

Don't walk your dog with the leash attached to the collar

Last night, I couldn't sleep and stayed up late watching training videos from Kikopup.  I found a blog post she made earlier in the summer about how walking dogs with the leash attached to the collar is bad for their health.  Not only are there potential neck injuries if your dog pulls, but it also affects their ears, eyes and is connected to hypothyroidism, among other issues.

If your dog is perfectly trained and never pulls?  That's awesome but there's always the chance something might happen one day where you need to pull your dog aside for safety reasons.  Would you rather have the leash be attached to a harness or the collar?  That's enough reason for me to not walk my dog with the leash attached to the collar!

Clyde might have some separation anxiety but I'm not entirely sure.  I feel a little stupid if it is separation anxiety.  It was probably my fault I didn't try to prevent it from the start.  Since I can work from home, he was almost never alone when we first got him.  It didn't even occur to me that it might happen because I've never had a dog with separation anxiety!

Why I think it might be separation anxiety?  Well for one, he will bark/whine when separated - either another room, or the crate.  I'll leave him with delicious stuffed toys, chews, treats, etc.  He won't touch them if I leave.  And he will bark for awhile after I leave him.  The one thing I haven't tried is leaving him loose in the house when we leave.

Anyway, he is pretty good about being in the crate when we're in the same room.  When we first got him, the timing wasn't the best, work-wise.  He had to be stuck in the crate a few times before really getting used to the crate, but he was never crated and alone for more than a few hours.  At first, I was using a plastic crate that we borrowed from the shelter but wound up buying a metal wire crate.  I kind of felt like he disliked not being able to see out as well in the plastic crate.  It really does seem like he likes the metal crate a bit more.

So last week, Clyde came with me to Missoula for the week.  Thankfully, my roommate was very understanding and didn't mind having my barky dog around.  I still took random times off to take care of him.  The second day of this, I decided to give the doggie daycare a call to see if he could go there.  Apparently for new clients, they have a 4-5 week waitlist but hurray, because I already take Zoe there, we didn't have to wait.  I was able to bring Clyde in the next day and also get a free half day.  He wound up doing pretty decently his first day.  The following morning, I put him there again for about 5 hours and they said he did really well.  So, yay, at least we can do daycare for him.  Hopefully he stays dog-friendly.

Last night, I wound up buying Nicole Wilde's book, Don't Leave Me!, which is supposed to be a step-by-step guide to treat separation anxiety.  I think I can say that Clyde doesn't have true separation anxiety.  It's more like "isolation distress" where he doesn't like to be left alone but is okay with someone else around.  One possible solution might be having a second dog, which I do.  I am not entirely sure whether Clyde would be just fine un-crated, with Zoe around.  He might be.  I still want him crate trained.

 Clyde chewing a deer leg that's been in my freezer for the last 3 years, yikes!

Back Door Scratching

So one of the first bad habits of Clyde that I noticed was that he would scratch at the back door to be let in.  How do we address that?  Well, ignoring it of course.  The problem is - I can't have the back door destroyed in the process of teaching him he can't scratch the door to be let in.  On Day Two of Clyde, I had an epiphany.  Dog booties!  Thankfully, Zoe's old set of booties (that she never got used to or learned to like) actually fit Clyde's feet.  Mostly.  And he doesn't seem to care that much that he's got them on.  So I put them to the test.

Whenever I let him outside, I'd put the booties on first and let him do his thing.  Then I'd come inside and sit and wait.  He would start up his scratching but now it was just thump, thump from his paws banging because the scratching wasn't scratching anymore.  :D  And man, the first few times?  He is persistent.  I mean, persistent. 

Thump, thump, thump, thump... THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.  Pause.  THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP!

Yeah, battle of the wills.  After several fruitless thumping sessions (lasting 10-15+ minutes), he finally began to make the connection that sitting nicely by the door would get it open.  He's mostly pretty good about that now so I don't need to put the booties on him.

Every now and then, when he's been waiting too long, I catch him giving a half-hearted paw at the door.  I don't know what would happen if I actually left him there for longer.  He'd probably revert back to scratching.

Pre-Agility class

Yesterday was Clyde's first class in Agility.  There were four other dogs in the class.  Two yellow labs, one aussie and one ACD/boxer mix.  Clyde did well enough, though he's definitely not quite as energized simply for treats the way he is for tennis balls.  We went through a lot of basic obstacles - getting up on a table, raised board, wobble board, walking over bars, etc.  At the end of class she let each dog try everything out off-leash.  Yeah, watching the herding dogs do everything?  So different.  Kind of made me wish I had a herding breed...  But that's okay, Clyde is still going to be awesome.  I have high hopes for him.  I just need to figure out how to get him motivated enough to be excited for it.  I think the answer is going to lie in tennis balls but I am not sure yet how to harness that energy.

Tennis balls.  His intensity and concentration when you have a tennis ball out is amazing.  But so much so that he can be entirely distracted.  If he even sees a ball, all he can think about for the next 5 minutes is how to get the ball, even if you've hidden it away.  Hello, front brain, where are you???

Starting loose leash walking with Clyde

When Clyde and I first left the animal shelter, he nearly pulled my arm off walking on the leash.  They were probably all looking at me, wondering whether I could even handle this dog.  The guy gave me a head halter, which we tested out for about 2 seconds, as he showed me how to put it on.  Clyde was not a fan of course.  I took it off of him after that.  I managed to get him out the door and into my car without being dragged around too much.  :P

I think I have more patience than when I first got Zoë (the best dog EVAR).  I tried the method of stopping when he pulls and moving forward only when he lets the leash go slack and/or comes back to my side.  Luckily, he's either quicker on the uptake, or I just, well, have more patience!  We were walking pretty decently Day 1.  Day 2, we only walked briefly on the leash (he was perfect) and on Day 3, he was good!  Clyde was walking perfectly (on-leash) by my left side and Zoë was walking (off-leash) on my right side.  We were heading back to the house when all of a sudden, I heard a lady start screaming and hollering.  After a few moments, I realized she was trying to call back her two off-leash dogs, who were headed our way.

Her yelling was so disturbing that I lost my focus on the dogs and they followed suit.  Clyde was very distracted by her yelling (he wasn't looking at her but kept flicking his ears around--he was nervous) and walked in a circle around me, tangling me on the leash.  Zoë was off sniffing the grass.  Finally, she grabbed her dogs, I called Zoë back, untangled Clyde and got us all back walking nicely, side-by-side.  Was she frantically calling for them because she saw he was a doberman?  Or does she do that every time her dogs try to run towards other dogs?  I don't know.  I would say, if you are that frantic about your off-leash dogs running towards other people/dogs, then please don't walk them off-leash and/or train better recalls.  Geesh.

A Training Update for Milo

Things I've Started On:
Sit
Down
Spin
Twirl
Roll Over
Touch
Focus (aka Watch Me, no verbal yet)
Leave It (no verbal yet)
offleash Heel (to the left, indoors and outdoors with little distraction, no verbal yet)
Go Potty
Walking nicely on leash

What he's got down verbally (mostly):
Sit
Down
Spin
Touch
Go Potty

And various other things that I just can't think of at the moment because I DO it as a normal routine.

Milo

For would be adopters:

Milo was abandoned at a truck stop in Idaho. A rescue group over there grabbed him out of the kill shelter and he made his way over to me for fostering. :) Milo is approximately 10 months old. He is probably a border collie mix (maybe with pit bull terrier?) and currently is about 25lbs but will fill out a bit more. I think he'll be a perfectly-sized dog -- not too big, not too small. He gets along with other dogs and my two cats. He is probably too playful for cats who aren't used to dogs though. He's not aggressive towards them but sometimes he'll try to get them to play.

He came to me untrained and unhousebroken. He's definitely a very smart dog. I've had him less than two weeks. He's got the housebreaking thing down pretty decently now, he can sit, lie down, touch and has the beginnings of spin and roll over. And of course, he knows his name. :) He's got surprisingly good tolerance for his training sessions being so young (I get a little carried away sometimes;). He is definitely very eager to please and listens to you when he realizes you're talking to him. I say this because sometimes he is bouncing around too quickly to realize you're asking him to do something (or rather, not do something;). This boy has lots of energy is always ready to GO! On the other hand, if everyone else is being pretty mellow and lazy, he seems to know this and follows suit. :)

Right now, Milo appears to be a velcro dog. No matter what, he always gets up and follows me around (oftentimes even in the middle of eating meals or playing with my dog). I think part of that might be he's still feeling insecure and worried I'll ditch him somewhere, so he may grow out of this. He definitely loves people though and I'm pretty sure he'll grow into a first class lap dog. If you don't like snuggly dogs that want to follow you everywhere, he probably won't be a match for you. He would make an excellent agility dog, as well as a running/hiking companion. If you don't have an active lifestyle and don't want to do much training, he might drive you crazy. Milo will really thrive on a good combination of training and exercise. If you have another dog he can wrestle/run around with, all the better!

This guy is really smart and willing to work, so honestly - I want him to go to a home that will really work with him and let him shine!  He probably shouldn't be in a home with younger children who also require a lot of time. I love dogs but I know this much is true - when it comes down to it, your children are much more important. For those with young children, I recommend adopting an older dog. Your stress levels will be much lower. I'm not trying to lecture or discourage anyone from having dogs. It just makes a lot more sense to get a dog that fits your lifestyle and if you've got young kids, you probably don't have enough time for a young puppy unless you live to be stressed out 24/7!

Edit - This guy was adopted out to a nice couple in Missoula, MT.  :)