Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Check In

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I recently finished reading, “Bonding with Your Dog: A Trainer’s Secrets for Building a Better Relationship” by Victoria Schade.

I’ve been feeling like Delilah and I are not bonded, hence her tendency to ignore me on off-leash hikes.  As with any thought I have, it could of course be wrong.  But I’m going with it for the sake of this post.

This book was suggested to me by Pamela, at Something Wagging in one of my comments a while back.  I downloaded the book on my Kindle and then took my time reading it.

Why?  Well two reasons really.

1) When I read a training book, I want to take notes.  I want to highlight areas of interest and I find that I don’t do that with my Kindle.

My bad.

Yes I know it’s easily rectified with the highlighting option on the Kindle, but then there’s the pesky matter of trying to find it.

2) Most dog training books I’ve read give LOTS of stories, emphasizing the lesson.

I want the lesson.

Quick and dirty.  Give me the story later.  I’m trying to bond with my dog here. :-0

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good book, BUT I got so caught up in the stories that I sometimes forgot the lesson.

Ok, maybe it’s just me and my menopausal mind.

ANYHOOO, I’m not going to give you all her tips here (that would spoil the book for you) but I will say one of her suggestions was talking to your dog while walking.  After reading the book I realized, I already do that and quite frequently.

I also realized I could be sending Delilah mixed messages.

Delilah’s command for returning to me is HERE.   Sampson’s is COME.  Don’t ask me why because I couldn’t tell you if I had to.

Since I talk to them while we’re walking I noticed I say Come on, Over Here,  and This Way when we’re walking.  So how is Delilah supposed to know when I say Here that it means, get your butt back pronto?

As humans we are capable of understanding how words are used in different contexts, but dogs aren’t.  They haven’t as yet developed that skill….notice my use of the word yet.  (I have high hopes for my dogs.)

I started working on a new command with Delilah.  When we’re walking and I see her turn and look at me, or she starts running toward me I sing (and yes, it really sounds like I’m singing) Check In.  As soon as she reaches me I give her a treat and tell her good check in.

Once she’s checked in, I can very easily (and sometimes do) give her another command, or play a quick game of kibble catch.

For Delilah the only thing Check In means is she is getting a treat.  That’s it.

So many times with our dogs we will call them to us, and clip a leash on them or something else that in their eyes equates to my fun is done.  Why would a dog like Delilah want to return to someone who’s putting the kibash on her fun?

Yeah, I don’t know either.

Oh, you just want to give me a treat? Sure I’ll take it.

Negative Punishment

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I’ve become determined to work with Delilah on her down stays.

It’s not an easy  task.

Since she likes to be in the bathroom with me I figure it’s win-win.  She gets to be in the bathroom with me and I get to work on her downs.  The trouble with this is, she doesn’t always stay in the down.

I thought well maybe the floor (being ceramic and all) is too cold and she’s uncomfortable, so I took the bathroom rug and threw it down.  She still got up.

Listen to your readers.

A couple of posts ago Jan said, “Some of the best advice I ever got was not to try to treat my kids or my dogs the same way. They are all different entities, with different needs and all of them have let me know what kind of attention they want from me.

It was hard to do but I finally learned not to reward bad behavior by giving that kid or dog more attention. Praise the good one and the other will want to copy that behavior.”

This comment really got me thinking.  When I’m in the bathroom and I put Delilah into a down stay and she gets up.  What do I do?  I go back and put her in a down stay again.

I asked myself, “What does this teach her?”

I answered, “It teaches her that when she doesn’t do as I ask, I reward her with more attention.”

Jodi Stone, you are a bad dog trainer!

Look, I don’t want to scare you or force you to burn your retinas out with bleach so try not to visualize this too much.  Today I got out of the shower, dried myself off and applied my lotion.

While I was waiting for my lotion to dry, I decided to blow dry my hair.  Since I have short, fine hair I throw a little product in there, bend over and blow it upside down.

As I’m bent over in this upside down position with my hair dryer in my hands, who comes shoving her way through my legs.

Yup.

First I laughed, because I’m dumb and can’t help myself but then I took the rug and put it on the floor and said, “Down.”

She sat on the rug.

I didn’t battle with her at all, I took her by the collar, led her out into the bedroom and shut her out of the bathroom.

Seeing as this is DELILAH we are writing about, I need to make sure there is nothing lying about that she will decide to chew up or I will need to make sure the bedroom door is shut before I banish her.

Negative Punishment.

“Negative punishment reduces behaviors by taking away or withholding something good or something the dog will work for.”

I’ve been using this technique for a couple of weeks in a number of different ways.

When she does not sit while I am preparing her meals, I stop what I am doing and wait.  My motto is “Nothing moves in the kitchen if you’re moving.”

When we are eating dinner and she is supposed to be in a down on her place and she gets up, she goes in her crate.

Last night we were watching TV and eating our dinner, it was a pretty intense show and we were both fixated on the TV.  I caught movement and realized she’d gotten up and gone over to inspect her bowl.

FAIL.

In the crate she went.

Get excited about this.

Let your mind soar as you think of the possibilities.

Dog doesn’t respond to recall = Dog stays on leash.

Child doesn’t clean room = Child doesn’t go to birthday party.

Husband doesn’t mow lawn = Wife doesn’t,,,,,,,,,,,

buy beer.

Where did you think I was going with that?

Book Update:  I haven’t updated you about my book in a while.  Truthfully, I wrote a really exciting part of the book and then I didn’t know what to do next, so I put it down for a while.  But I’ve picked it back up and my book now has 25,051 words.

Follow-Up Friday

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For those new to the blog, my follow-up Friday provides me with an opportunity to update or revise a post from the previous week.

You know sometimes you post about something and you need an update but it doesn’t warrant a whole blog.  Or sometimes someone made a comment that really resonated with you.  Yup, Follow-Up Friday baby! :-)

Lab Adoption Event – Author’s Note

I did request an update from my friend, asking how many applications were received because of this event, but so far I haven’t heard back from her.

I will be seeing her tomorrow though and hopefully will be able to extract the information from her.  (Doesn’t that sound evil?)

It Takes A Blogville To Raise Delilah, It’s Been A Great Monday, The Post Where Delilah Amazes Me – Author’s Note

This three posts had a similar theme, so I decided to lump them all together.

Yes I threw it out there asking for suggestions for help with Delilah and you responded, I thank you and appreciate each and every comment.

I also realized I was missing a prime opportunity to work on her stays.  Every morning while I’m getting ready for work the dogs come in the bathroom.  Sampson will normally just lie down on the floor, but Delilah is constantly underfoot.

I started placing her in a down and telling her to stay.  It’s a great way to work on her stay since I am usually not more than 3 to 5 feet away from her.  Since the best way to perfect a stay (from what I’ve read) is to do it in baby steps, I think this is helping her.

I did enroll Delilah in the obedience class I mentioned and I signed up for their newsletter so as soon as they schedule the nosework class I can sign her up for that too.

In the meantime, they have stayed out of daycare this week and may stay out for a while.

I have been walking them every day and I feel she is doing pretty good on the walks. I will continue to bring her to drop in agility class when my schedule allows.

Last night she amazed me in a good way and this morning she was……Delilah.  Running and dancing all over the place as I tried to prepare her breakfast.

I’m not worried about it, we shall get there.  She has already come so very far and I am 100% positive she can go the rest of the way.

I’d like to end with one of my favorite quotes.  Wiki answers attributes the quote to John Lennon.

“Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

But this is.

The end of the blogpost I mean.

We hope you rocked your week.

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