12 Months: Training - Day 8

Jack just before I groomed him.

It's happening.  Jack is sitting or laying near me - still too close, but not with his nose in the middle of the working dog today.  I gave him treats for giving what space he did to Emma when she was working and had to keep from laughing when he would look at me for a long moment and then put his nose way up in the air as if to say, "See, I am not putting my nose in her face."  What a silly and sweet boy.

He's engaged in training now and trying very hard to figure out what I am asking of him.  He is In The Game.  It is wonderful to see.  A dog who joins you to train is a dog ready to learn.  I can see the wheels turning as he thinks through what I am asking and him offering me what he knows to get his rewards.  Wonderful.

One thing Jack is learning in my home is that he has a voice.  He can tell Max or Emma that he doesn't like them pushing his boundaries and not get in trouble for it.  He cannot be rude or snarky for no reason, but when he does tell them to get out of his space with appropriate language he is not corrected.  The result of this is, he's decided my home needs protection and today he spotted the kids waiting for the bus across the street and set off the alarm.

I came out and looked at him with a smile - it was clear it was his voice that started the whole house off.  He was wagging his tail and waiting for me to tell him he was wrong, but I just said, "Let's go look" and low and behold, yes there was scary evil children lined up across the street.

I watched them for a second and said, "Yep. Kids." and walked off.  A second later he looked out and barked again and I went to the window and looked and said, "Still kids." and walked off.  That seemed to solve the problem for him.  He had spotted something he hadn't seen before and it didn't alarm me.  A moment later he came to get me and took me to the window to show me that the school bus was eating children whole.  I gave him a pat on the head and told him he did good and walked him out to get a treat.

I will continue to give food and praise rewards for not barking at items outside the window at this time.

He also tried to engage Max in play.  He put his paw on Max's shoulder, but Max was not ready for the engagement and told him to stop with a grumble.  Jack took that well and went off to play with Emma.

Jack is settling well into the routine of training and play in my home and enjoys his days here.

Today's Lessons:

Zen

Jack is working on Level 1: Step 2 Zen.  Today I decided to jump ahead a bit to Level 2: Step 1 Zen.  I did this in a group setting.  With Jack added to the family Max and Emma have forgotten that dropped treats are not an invite to snatch them up and eat them and therefore any treat tossing I would normally do to get Jack reset from a down or a sit results in a mad race between the other two big dogs to get it and eat it.  Jack therefore is not leaving his position since getting the tossed treat is not, in his mind, an option.

Group Zen is something I do with all of my dog when I can.  I started it a long time ago with Attitude and Dieter and it worked to allow me to toss treats to one dog and not have the other two dogs go after it.

It starts with the "This is for" routine I talked about before in another blog post.  I line up the dogs and give treats in order and then reverse order and then random order.  Attitude and Dieter chose not go join this game today, so I was working with just Max, Emma and Jack.  Once I got them understanding a given treat was for a given dog I then tossed a treat at each dog's feet as I said their name.  Jack took to this very well and patiently waited for me to toss him a treat at his feet.

The next stage is to have the dogs crowd close to me and do Level 1: Step 1 Zen with them and after every dog removes their nose reward each dog individually with a different treat.  When they had that I put a treat on the floor between them and worked again with them leaving that treat and getting one each from me.  I then randomly place treats around their feet, outside of the spot between their front legs.  They are not allowed to eat the treat unless it is between their legs.  I even place a treat on each dogs foot and reward them for ignoring it.

Jack took to this very quickly and stopped trying to go between Emma's feet to get her treat and waited for his.  He was very pleased with this game and I was impressed with how fast he progressed.  We'll continue Group Zen with all three of them to impress on them respect for each other and who is designating who gets the treat.

Target

Jack is working on Level 1: Step 2 Target.  In this step Jack is asked to reach high and low to touch my hand.  Jack is doing very well with reaching low to touch my hand, but he's nervous about touching high at this point - mostly because the gesture is a bit scary for him.  Yesterday he would back up and move away when I put my hand out palm out and fingers up, but today I put my hand out palm out and facing the ground with my fingers facing either him or to the side.  He did much better with my hand in this new position and he would gently tap my fingers with his nose.  I slowly worked until he was dealing with my hand in any position and either my left or right hand when offered.

He is giving stronger nose touches with my right hand than with my left.  I had spent days showing him just my right hand when I realized I was putting him into a bad spot by not teaching him he could touch both hands.  I started today to only offer my left hand and slowly he got stronger touches on my left hand.

I offer my hand to his left and right and directly in front of him.  I offer my hand below and above his nose.  He's touching all of these spots and he's starting to reach out further each time I present my hand a bit further from his nose, but he will not take a step yet to touch my hand.  If he can't touch it by reaching out with his neck, then he will not touch it.  If he has to extend his neck he will not touch it.

I will continue working on touch until he's confident and throwing himself into the game of touch.  I am seeing tail wagging and interest in the game, but he's not fully grasped the concept yet.

Handling

Jack is working on Level 2: Step 1 Handling.  Yes, once again we are jumping forward on his training, but Jack is worried about some movements around him and starting handling now is important for him.  He steps back and moves away if I reach for his collar and he runs away if he's outside and doesn't want me to touch his collar.  I also need to clean his eyes and ears weekly and thus need him to work with me.

Today I cleaned his ears and worked on touching more spots on his body in a playful and fun way to engage him in play with me.  I will shortly begin clicking for contact and build his confidence up with human contact and hands reaching for him.

Retrieve

Jack is working on Level 3: Step 1 Retrieve.  Today I worked on this step while standing.  I offered the pencil to him and rewarded for nose and tooth contact.  Jack quickly moved to opening his mouth, but didn't take the pencil into his mouth.  Jack is interested in the game, but broke off when Max moved in and crowded us.  Group Zen and mat work with Max and Jack will help with this training issue.

Observations

I am very pleased with Jack's progress.  He's moving along nicely for training for only 8 days with me.  He's a very smart and interested young man and wants to please me and his owner, Ronda.

Jack will be going on a new field trip today with Ronda.  He will be attending her hair appointment.  I cleaned his ears, groomed him and brushed out his ears and did a bit of trimming on them a bit and put on the In Training placard I have so he could attend with her.  I will update everyone tomorrow on how Jack and the Hair Appointment went.

I have noted that Jack is really digging at his left ear and when I was cleaning them today I was getting a lot of reddish gunk out of them.  I bought cloths to clean his ears with again tomorrow and will see if I can't get them so they are not bothering him.


Level 1

	Zen	Target	Come	Sit	Down
Step	2	2	1	2	1

Level 2

	Zen	Come	Sit	Down	Target
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Tricks	Communication
Step	0	0	1	0	0

Level 3

	Zen	Come	Sit	Down	Target
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Retrieve	Communication
Step	0	0	0	1	0

Level 4

	Zen	Come	Retrieve	Target	Relax
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Handling	Communication
Step	0	0