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.