CGC Class -- Week Three

Ok, guys, the Kanedog and I are still here, I promise!


We skipped his second CGC class session (two weeks ago now) because his soft tissue issue came up yet again. This is a recurring issue for us it seems, since it's been popping up off and on since May. I don't think I've been tough enough on him with crate rest. Right around the third day, we both start getting crazy and I figure that maybe I don't have to enforce the leashed potty breaks and off he zooms around the yard and I can only laugh and laugh as he jumps and twirls and does the butt-tuck boogie and acts like a complete doofus. And then he gets back inside, I put him in his crate, and the next potty break, he's limping again.


We'll try it again and this time I'm really going to buckle down.


Last week, his class went very well. In fact, he did spectacular. I need to stop thinking of him as a doofus puppy with a few bricks short of a full load, because he's not. Well, ok, he definitely isn't the smartest dog in the world by any stretch, but he's got enough smarts to know what to do and when, and if he doesn't, he is so eager to please that it makes up for his mental abilities. He seems to understand when I want him to work and hen he can goof off now, whether that's because of the energy he feels from me or just because he's put two-and-two together on the class location, I'm not sure. But either way, I'm still amazed at the focus he gives me.


I was floored when he recalled to me across the room, through a line of dogs on either side. You could have knocked me over with a feather. The lines started out at a distance of 5 feet, then moved closer to 3 feet, and then, finally they were only 2 feet away. He was the only dog who recalled to their owner every time, without hesitation and at speed. Except for once, when he caught sight of another owner giving her dog a treat for a good SitStay and he briefly debated going over to her to see if she'd give him a treat too. But I kept recalling him and he eventually decided he'd have better luck with me and recalled without ever completely making it over to the other owner. He got lots and lots of praise and extra noms for working through that extra distraction.


The only hiccup during the class was when the instructor brought out a ball to show the goldendoodle owner how they could use things other than treats for a reward. Kane has always been a toy-driven dog; honestly, I'm surprised he's not aggressive about them. But he has a special love for balls.


And sure enough, the ball came out, Kane saw it, and I was dead to him. No amount of poking him in the butt, waving a hand in his face, rubbing a piece of steak on his nose, nothing got his attention and re-focused it back to me. I'd warned the instructor that while he was a food hound and would happily work for it, he was head over heels for balls. I simply cease to exist for Kane when there's a ball in his presence unless I'm holding it. I'm debating whether I should work on that or not. I want to try flyball with him eventually, so I'm not sure I will.

The instructor spent some time on leash corrections while she talked about loose leash walking. This was very interesting to me as she described how to do a leash correction properly and made certain we knew that leash corrections didn't work for every dog or trainer. She hasn't used leash corrections in over 20 years. But she demonstrated the difference between dogs using the Samoyed, who is very independent and stubborn, versus Kane, who is softer and more easygoing.

It took four corrections for the Samoyed to get over her stubbornness and leave the chunk of steak on the floor and not touch it. It took one for Kane to not touch the steak, and actually the second time she tossed the steak on the floor, he actually backed away from it.

I almost cried watching him do that. It brought back very bad memories of my previous abusive, dominance methods. He  looked so cowed and scared, avoidance behaviors out the wazoo, ears back, lip licking, the works. I wanted to run over, pick my puppers up, and reassure him. If only I could still pick up his 50 lb fat ass. ;-)

The instructor pulled me aside after class and asked me about my reaction to it. I explained to her Kane's past with my abusive dominance methods and how seeing it reminded me of that. She comforted me and said it was the reason she explained that leash corrections weren't for every dog, and that it was a similar history with her dogs which caused her to stop using them. Back when she had first started training, it was very crank-and-yank. When positive methods started being introduced, she saw the difference in the happiness of her dogs and how much more they enjoyed training. She said I definitely don't have to use leash corrections with Kane if I didn't want to; that even though they're more effective in stopping a behavior, for some dogs, they're overkill and Kane may be one of them.


That was last week. I've been working on his heeling with the "you're in line with my leg, so you get treats shoveled in your mouth" method and things have been going well. I think we're almost ready to start proofing it to places other than the backyard. Maybe on his walk today, we'll try it.

CGC Class -- Week One

A few days ago, I signed Kane up for a CGC class run through the doggy daycare he used to go to. I was going to wait until he was 2-3 years old and had finished maturing, but after Ellie and with my renewed purpose towards Kane, I decided now was as good a time as ever. Many of my friends are aware that I was just a little (or maybe a lot) nervous about how well he would do. He's never been in a formal class setting; everything he knows, I've taught him myself, and I wasn't sure how well he'd do with other dogs in such prolonged contact with him. He's reactive towards other dogs, in a friendly manner, and I was so sure his brain would liquefy right out of his head and I'd be one of THOSE owners with one of THOSE dogs.

But it went remarkably well overall, and I'm super-proud of my puppers. I'm exhausted so I'll copy-and-paste the rest of this.

There were two other dogs in the class: a lab/golden retriever mix and a samoyed. The lab mix was hyperactive, easily excited, and mouthy as all get out; he'd actually bruised his owner from his mouthing. The samoyed was better than the lab mix, but still easily excited and prone to the zoomies and she loved to BARKBARKBARK, especially when her owner wasn't doing what she wanted, lol.

Compared to those two, Kane was a saint, LOL. I'm a lot more confident in Kane's ability to pass the test now; I'm amazed at how well Kane did overall, considering this was his first class setting.

There was one incident at the beginning that has given me a lot to think about, though. I had agreed with the Samoyed Owner to allow our dogs to greet, also under the instructor's direction and supervision. The Samoyed was friendly, exuberantly so, and after doing a polite mutual sniff of genitalia and butts, she shoved her face right up into Kane's to sniff. Kane, however, did not appreciate that and stiffened and growled a warning.

I immediately redirected Kane, the Samoyed Owner did the same with her dog, and everything was cool. The instructor liked that we were both quick on the draw so to speak, but the incident had riled Kane up a bit and he was losing whatever focus he'd initially had (which wasn't much since this happened within the first 5 minutes of Kane's first class EVER). The instructor saw this and asked to take Kane.

He was having none of it. He wasn't shrieking or lunging back towards me, but he kept trying to pull towards me (I was only ~4-5 feet away during this entire episode). The instructor did a couple of leash corrections (not even hard enough to be termed a "pop") and he flattened his ears and plopped his butt down into a sit and licked his lips at her. Noticing this, she immediately stopped the leash corrections, reassured Kane with a couple soothing strokes to his ears, and then gave him a few "easy" commands to follow. He warmed back up to her a little, enough to happily respond to her clucks and follow her around for a bit, but it was obvious he still wanted to be with me instead. He was panting harder than he should have been, focused entirely on me except for when she clucked or waved food at him, and he always sat with his back to her.

After she got him settled to where he wasn't panting as hard or pulling towards me (although he still had his back to her), she asked me if I'd realized that even though he was a physically strong dog, he was mentally very soft. I said yes, I had, and explained to her why I thought he was that way, going into vague detail about my prior "training methods". And boy was that humiliating to say in front of everyone, even if the trainer reassured me that everyone makes mistakes and I'd obviously learned from them. She said that I was probably right about those methods causing his softness to some degree, but also thought that he was probably soft to begin with and those methods had simply exacerbated it even more. She trains mostly positive, using food as the primary motivator, but she does use leash corrections sometimes. That being said, however, she advised me to use leash corrections as a last resort, since Kane was so easily motivated by food and his ball, and the corrections might hurt his ability to focus. She also reassured me about Kane growling at the samoyed; that likely happened because this was Kane's first time in a class setting and he was a little worked up about everything, though she made a point to keep him from getting close to the other dogs after that.

I'm still worried about the growling. Kane is 19 months in two weeks; he's approaching adulthood as a bull-doggy and growing out of his puppy friendliness with everyone and everything. I'm 100% sure he'll be friendly to people for the rest of his life, but this is the second time he's growled at a rude dog in as many months (the first time was ~3 months ago when a lab also got in his face). Maturity is a prime time for his dog tolerance to change and I think that's what's happening. Any opinions?

After that it was smooth sailing!

I really can't get over at how focused he was. Once he realized he was there to train (despite the new setting and other dogs), he was 100% focused except for when the other dogs did something crazy. Like the Samoyed getting the zoomies, jerking her leash out of her owner's hand, and zooming around the room to do some impromptu agility obstacles while BARKBARKBARKing at how awesome everything and everyone was. Or like when the lab mix also short-circuited and decided that his owner wanted to be mauled and humped and tangled up in the leash.

Did I mention Kane was practically a saint compared to them? LOL.

Things I need to work on with Kane:

1) Heeling. I still haven't taught Kane heeling. The trainer was AMAZED at how well Kane did when I told her he didn't know how to heel, AFTER she told us to loose-leash/heel walk around the ring. And he did do a good job, although there were the occasional moments when he switched sides on me or decided he'd had enough of what I was asking him to do and he sat in front of me. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to teach him that when he's on just the flat collar, he has to heel; when he's in the harness too, he can do whatever he wants. Right now, he's the opposite; I have to work to get him to walk nicely on his flat but he automatically does great in a harness. Too bad you can't use a harness on the test. :( We're miles ahead of the lab mix who still pulls on the Gentle Leader his owner has him in.

2) Not auto-greeting in the friendly stranger and friendly stranger w/ a dog tests. He seems to think that if I talk to the person, it's okay for him to greet them (and their dog). Looking back, I reinforced that without being aware of it, so that'll be something new for the both of us.

But that's IT. Everything else went so smoothly!

Some good news ...

I emailed all of the representatives involved with HB 4717 currently and received an actual, non-automated reply from one of them: Rep. Hugh Crawford from the 38th district.

Dear Ms. ***** & Kane,

Thank you for contacting my office with your concerns about HB 4714. As the Chairman of the Regulatory Reform Committee I do not plan on taking up this legislation at this time. Your e-mail has been filed for reference purposes. Thank you again for contacting me, I appreciate you taking the time.

Sincerely,

Hugh D. Crawford

State Representative

38th District

So, that is one representative down.

Have a video of Kane to lighten the mood of this blog right now. I've called this game (creatively) "Get the ball". This gives him a run-through of some of his commands and teaches him impulse control, which is important for every dog, regardless of whether you want them to know more than a couple basic commands.

Day Three: Out and About

Today was Ellie's first day on the town. :-)

I left Kane at home because I didn't want to deal with him on a leash and Ellie in my arms. He still has a tendency to pull to other dogs and I was planning to make the rounds at all the local pet stores (where I am referred to as "the owner of Kane—you know Kane, that pit bull I told you about who is so friendly and polite?").

Our first stop was at Wood's Marathon. This is an old-style, full service gas station and garage, where the attendants (all gruff old men or young hunky dudes) come out and clean your windows for you while you pump your gas. They're very dog-friendly, allowing dogs on leash inside the small room where they have the register and the pop coolers, and they have a big old container full of milkbones they hand out freely and slightly excessively. :-)

Kane is very popular there, even with the owner who was bitten by a pit bull when he was a kid and has slowly graduated from giving me the treats to give to Kane, to giving Kane the treats out of his own hand. There's a younger guy, maybe a few years older than me, who apparently had pits while he lived in Texas and absolutely adores Kane; he's constantly offering me money to buy Kane off my hands, joking around, knowing I'll never sell Kane for any amount of money in the world. I have to watch him when he has the container of milbones because when I haven't he's given Kane almost half the container! Luckily, Kane has a fast metabolism and has maintained his svelte figure. ;-)

As you can imagine, the sight of a fluffy girly puppy had all the big tough men melting to pieces around Ellie.

Day Two: Oh god, what was I thinking?

Repeat after me:

This is only the second day. It will get better. This is only the second day. It will get better.

Last night was an eye-opener. Ellie was passed out from 9pm to 4am. At 4:10am, I woke up to her crying. Kane was awake as well, bleary and red-eyed and with a very long-suffering expression on his face. I managed to crawl off the couch to let her out of her crate, so she could go potty on her pee pads, as per my plan of the previous day. I picked her up and set her right down on them to prevent any late-night exploring or playing.

And waited. And waited. And waited.

Ellie stared at me with a "now what?" look. I stared back at her with a somewhat bemused, "don't you know?" look. And around the time we both started falling asleep waiting for her to pee, I grumbled, picked her up, and managed to shuffle zombie-like to the back door and let her outside. She piddled the second her wee little paws touched grass. I carried her back and put her in her crate, muttering under my breath about something I can't remember but was definitely grumpy and probably not repeatable. She went back to sleep after about 5 minutes of whining. I managed to shove Kane back over to get my spot back on the couch and fell back asleep as well.

And then 6:23 rolled around and I woke up to Ellie howling. Loud enough and desperately enough for Kane to be concerned, even. It was too soon for her to be let out again, so I moved around on the couch and talked to Kane a bit to let Ellie know someone was still in the room with her. After ten minutes she settled back down.

Only to do the same thing at 7:45. When she woke up again an hour later, I sighed and decided it was about time for me to get up anyways. I let her and Kane outside and fed them both when they got back in. Ellie's been doing very well on her Purina One and Eukanuba mix, with no bad poops, so I'm hopeful she'll do well when I finally switch over to Eukanuba. After that, she walked into her crate, plopped down, and passed out again, and Kane and I took the opportunity to catch up on more sleep.

Her personality has already started to come out more today. She's more independent outside, less likely to be directly underfoot, and boy does she watch Kane like a hawk! She's mimicking some of his behaviors (so I'll have a couple of grass grazers, I imagine, lol) and is starting to chase after him as he does his zoomies and tries to get her to play with him. God, she's so cute with her little wiggle-butt running and jumping around. I really can't wait to get my camera charger back so I can take some video.

She had her first exposure to a riding lawn mower today when the neighbors decided to mow their backyard. She was very inquisitive and tried to run over to investigate it; good thing I had her leashed. :-) When she did get spooked (the neighbor had to gun the engine once or twice to get out of a swampy area), she recovered quickly and soon she ignored the mower entirely. Belly rubs helped. She'll do anything for belly rubs!

I've begun to train her in earnest today after seeing her more relaxed. I play with her paws, stretching the toes, poking my finger between them. I look in her ears, rub them a little, and peel her lips back to look at her teeth. She was a little fidgety at first, but protip—give her a belly rub and she doesn't care! She's very smart and a quick learner, too. After holding her dish up once to make her sit before I put it down, she did it every time after that. She had her first exposure to the clicker as well. Click/treat, click/treat. I'm not sure if she's really catching on with that, but she was a little distracted and wanted to play more than anything so I stopped after only 4 or 5 clicks. I'll try again tomorrow, this time making her work for her morning food.

And I know you guys are going to hate me, but … I'm pretty sure she's already house-trained. *ducks the rotten tomatoes* She refuses to pee or poo on anything but grass. Not even her pee pads. I took her outside around 5 after her nap, and then fed her and played with her when she came back inside. Knowing she would have to potty soon, and determined to stick to the plan of her using the pee pads at some point, I put her in her expen and watched TV as I puttered around online. I was going to wait her out. Sooner or later she would have to go. Sure enough, she started to get fidgety, then fussed a bit. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, ready to jump in all ninja-like with my "go outside! go outside!" as soon as she squatted and then effusive praise.

Instead she continued to cry and then went and flopped down in her crate with a grumbling growl of frustration. False alarm then, I guessed. But no, she was out and pacing within a few minutes. I watched and waited again. Nothing. I knew she had to potty; she knew she had to go potty. And still nothing.

It was about this time, I made a post in dogsintraining on LJ: "GUYZ WAT DO I DOOO?" As usual everyone had great suggestions, but it wasn't until silverblaidd said, "dude, ur bein stoopidz" that I woke up and stopped trying to force her to un-housetrain herself so I could housetrain her over again. I scooped Ellie up, 2 and a half hours after she should have had to go potty, and took her outside. Where she piddled as soon as her wee paws touched the grass. No accidents today.

Kane was an excitement pee'er and a bit of a dirty dog, so I think that's what threw me off with Ellie. If Kane had to go and I didn't make it home in time, he went in his crate, no sweat. Even if he did make it until I got home, the second I approached the crate to let him out, he started peeing because he was so excited to see me, lol.

So …

My puppy house-trained herself on the second day home, and I feel useless.