Woke up to find Pyg's crate looking like this. Now, a normal dog might choose to keep toys or chewies in their stash of treasured items. But Pyg? Pyggy has chosen the following items (listed clockwise starting in the top left corner):
- Half a scented bath bomb
- Chewed up candy wrappers
- A dog food bowl
- A fork
- Some bird seed, and
- A coffee mug
I'm pretty impressed by the coffee mug, to be honest. I'm not entirely sure how he managed to get that in there. I literally fell over laughing when I saw it.
to crystal crys-tal [kris-tl], verb, -talled, -talling. To worry excessively over a minor ailment, typically pet-related.
Maisy, bored stiff at the vet clinic.
I am a terribly worrier. About everything, really, but things tend to intensify when it’s pet-related. It’s so bad that a good friend actually created a word to describe the condition.
To be honest, I think my vet might think I’m a hypochondriac-by-proxy. Not long ago, I took Maisy in for an appointment, convinced that she needed a dental. She didn’t; in fact, the vet was actually impressed with the condition of her mouth- and by how cooperative she was (good girl, Maisy!).
A few months ago, orange kitty was limping. I took him in, and the x-rays (of course I did x-rays) showed that he has some arthritis- shocking, I know, in an 11-year-old cat. I did the same thing with Maisy not long after- she’s had an intermittent limp for years. It goes away with chiropractic and massage, but I wanted x-rays to check things out. Thankfully, there was nothing.
I’ve spent money on urologists and ultrasounds. I’ve hired cardiologists to do echocardiograms. I know where the three closest animal emergency clinics are, and I’ve spent more money than I knew was possible on lab work.
Most of the time, I don’t feel bad about this. I love my pets, and I prefer to take care of issues when they’re still small. I was recently seriously embarrassed, though, when I scheduled a behavior consult for the cats. They were fighting all the time, and I felt bad that they were obviously so miserable. I took behavior logs and about a billion videos. And as it turns out… they were playing. I cannot even begin to describe how mortified I was. Here I was, making a complete fool out of myself to a woman I really admire. Thankfully, she was really nice about it, saying that she respected how much I care about my pets.
Maisy has begun to do a very peculiar thing this summer. She has begun to harass our neighbors.
Now, normally this would be cause for concern. No one wants to have a bad relationship with their neighbors, and I’ve heard enough crazy stories on the internet to be very, very careful to be a good doggy neighbor. In this case, however, the neighbors not only don’t mind, but they have been encouraging Maisy’s behavior.
It started like this: Maisy’s ball ended up in their yard. Whether it got there accidentally or whether Maisy put it there on purpose (she has a habit of entertaining herself), I’ll never know, but she has learned that being cute will usually get Those With Opposable Thumbs to do her bidding... so she got the neighbor’s attention.
The moment the neighbor made eye contact, she smiled and waggled her entire body. This, of course, drew the neighbor nearer, at which point that bright orange ball was noticed. “Oh, poor Maisy!” our neighbor undoubtedly exclaimed. “Your ball is in our yard!” And it was tossed back over the fence.
Well. Maisy’s no fool. She quickly realized she’d doubled her army of ball-throwers, and made a habit of grabbing the ball and pushing it between the picket slats any time she saw our neighbors. Of course, it didn’t hurt that 1. our neighbor’s garden is right next to the fence (making them readily accessible), and that 2. they have consistently thrown the ball every single time. Even after I told them they didn’t have to. Even after I explained that if they got tired of the game, they should simply quit throwing it. Their response? “But she’s so cute!”
Yeah, I know, neighbor. Maisy has trained me to do a thing or two, as well.
(Want to see Maisy's harassment in action? Check out the rather long video.)
Heeling is one of the hardest behaviors to teach and maintain, or at least that's the conclusion I've come to over the past year and a half that I've been interested in competition. I read about people needing to "retrain" heeling, and I've even done it myself- although I guess it's more accurate to say that I didn't really know what I was doing the first time around, so now I'm actually training it.
Since I've already admitted that I'm not very good at doing structured, formal training sessions, I do most of my training while on walks. For heeling, I've done a lot of Dawn Jecs' "Choose to Heel" method. Surprisingly enough, I couldn't dig up a good description of "Choose to Heel" on the internet. Basically, you click/treat every time the dog comes into heel position on her own. I've found this to be a powerful way of teaching heel because it creates a reinforcement zone so powerful that the dog just loves to be next to your left leg. (I also click/treat for eye contact, regardless of her position. I figure that attention is one of the best things she can give me, and reward that accordingly.)
I discovered how powerful this can be last weekend at the state park. We had Maisy off leash, and she was happily running around, enjoying herself. After awhile, she ended up in heel position, so I rewarded her. As soon as I did, she took off, got about six feet... and you could almost see a light bulb go off over her head. She slowed down, dropped back into heel position, and got another treat. She took off like a shot, and again, more deliberately this time, dropped into heel position. Another cookie. This time she didn't go as far away, and soon she was choosing to heel past all manner of interesting sights and sounds and smells!
She does this a lot on our regular walks. Heel position is just an awesome place to be, but when you're on a six foot leash, it's not like you have a whole lot of options. Heel position kind of becomes a default. But to have her choose to heel while off-leash, in a brand new environment? I was thrilled. Better yet- it's been easy. I haven't had to do much work. And if I don't have a clicker and treats, a smile and some verbal praise seems to work, too!
Maisy must have been a retriever in her past life, because she is obsessed with tennis balls. I wake up with them in my bed, I get them dropped in my lap constantly, and the first thing Maisy does, well, ever, is run to get her ball.
Recently, she's begun to do something absolutely hilarious with her ball, and though it really has nothing to do with training, I just had to share.
See, usually when we play ball, she'll chase it and bring it back for five to ten minutes, at which point she'll flop down on her belly to chew on the ball a bit before bringing it back to start the game again. For the past week, however, when she goes to flop down on her belly, she does so right in front of the couch. Of course, it often goes under the couch, at which point she goes nuts trying to get it out.
At first, I thought this was an accident. But when it began to happen again... and again... and again, I remarked to my husband that for such a smart dog, she sure was acting stupid.
Tonight, I realized that this is all part of some crazy game. Over and over again, she has flopped down by the couch, very purposely pushed it under, and then gone crazy trying to fish it out again with her too-short legs or by trying to shove her too-big body after it.
And this is one of the reasons I love my crazy dog: she always makes me laugh.
Did you notice the new initials after Maisy's name? She completed her APDT Level 2 Rally title today, and earned an Award of Excellence because all three legs were over 190. Good dog, Maisy! In addition, she picked up a third place and and second place.
We had some really lovely moments today. Both courses had jumps in them, and she did the jumps both times! I introduced her to jumps last summer, but didn't do much training with them. Then she had a back injury in the fall, so we really haven't been able to train much on jumps... needless to say, I was a bit worried about an NQ on that station. I needn't have worried; she just flew over those jumps.
She did well on the off-set figure 8 (AKA, the food bowls), too. Okay, "well" might be an overstatement, but we did them! It was actually kind of comical. I wish I'd gotten it on video, because she was looking at those food bowls so hard that I had to slow waaaaaay down to keep her with me. Still, she only sniffed one- and it was the last one, after she'd resisted the rest.
She had some really nice heeling moments, especially anything to the left, but she also did the fast forward from a sit! Twice! Since we've struggled so much with the fast pace, I was very proud of this!
Although she wasn't at her best today- and I'll talk about that in a future post, because this is a celebration post- she worked her tail off for me. One of the things I really love about Maisy is that she always gives me everything she's got. Sometimes, that isn't much, but she'll always give it anyway. She was stressed today, but even so, she turned in a solid performance, and I'm incredibly proud of her.
One thing Maisy has really done for me is turn me into a better dog owner and trainer. If Maisy were not reactive, I very likely would not have spent so much time learning about training, nor would I have developed some of the skills I have worked very hard to acquire. In this entry, I want to share some of the things I’ve done to become a better trainer, as well as some of the things I’ve changed at home to help Maisy feel better.
I think one of the biggest skills I’ve developed is in my ability to read dog body language. Like most owners, I was pretty oblivious to what my dog was telling me with her body. Now I can generally pick out the main components of what’s going on. Although I still struggle to read the body language of other dogs, especially the brief and subtle displays, I’ve gotten much better at reading Maisy’s body language.
I went to one dog-related seminar this year in March, when I spent two days with Pat Miller (who, incidentally, thinks Maisy is cute). It was a great seminar, and I learned a lot. We covered a variety of topics, including a general overview of operant and classical conditioning, dog body language, and a special afternoon session on Constructional Aggression Treatment.
I did a lot of reading, and currently belong to 42 dog-related yahoo groups. I also read the following books: The Culture Clash, by Jean Donaldson Bones Would Rain From the Sky, by Suzanne Clothier Getting in TTouch with Your Dog, by Linda Tellington-Jones Control Unleashed, by Leslie McDevitt The Hidden Life of Dogs, and The Social Life of Dogs, by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas Don’t Shoot the Dog! by Karen Pryor A Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs, by Caroline Knapp Click Your Way to Rally Obedience, by Pam Dennison Reaching the Animal Mind, by Karen Pryor Click to Calm, by Emma Parsons Through a Dog’s Ear, by Joshua Leeds and Susan Wagner Ring Wise: A Handling Manual for Competition Obedience, by Marie Sawford On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals, by Turid Rugaas Successful Obedience Handling, by Barbara S. Handler. (I’m working on a few more, but I probably won’t finish them by the end of the year.)
I also watched two dog training DVDs: The Language of Dogs, by Sarah Kalnajs and Crate Games, by Susan Garrett.
I volunteered as a trial steward at a UKC obedience trial in November, and I learned a lot. I watched everything closely, and took away some great tips which I have incorporated into my work with Maisy. I also learned that trials are only as stressful as you make them. The judges genuinely want each team to do well, and the other teams barely pay attention. This has gone a long way towards reducing my ring nerves, although I know there’s a lot of work left to do there.
I also made a lot of changes in Maisy’s life. One of the most important things I did was introduce treat dispensing toys for her meals. Maisy eats supper out of these every day. She has a Buster Cube, a Tricky Treat Ball, a Bob-A-Lot, and our favorite, the Tug a Jug!
These toys are vital to keeping us both sane. Maisy has a lot of energy, and being able to expend some mental energy during meal times really cuts down on her anxiety. I also improved Maisy’s diet by switching over to pre-made raw for breakfast, with high-quality, grain-free kibble for supper. She takes probiotics and fish oil daily.
Maisy switched to a holistic vet this fall, and has received regular chiropractic treatments. She’s also got her first massage today! I have never seen this dog so relaxed. This may sound like extravagance, but keeping her pain free is incredibly important when managing her anxiety.
Maisy and I have gone to a ton of classes, including CU-style classes, rally and advanced obedience. We have had a couple of private lessons, and even took a few tracking lessons this fall. It was really neat to watch Maisy use her innate abilities, and really taught me that I have to trust her as much as she has to trust me when we’re working together.
Finally, I would be completely remiss if I didn’t share what might be my favorite Maisy-related moment from 2009: the night in March when she got me out of a speeding ticket.
I was driving to a dog training class, and was apparently going a bit too fast. Okay, I was at least 15mph over the limit, so I knew when I saw those lights in my rear view mirror that I was going to get a ticket. The officer walked up to the passenger’s side window to ask for my license and proof of insurance.
I couldn’t find it. I apologized profusely, but the officer looked at me sternly. Then he noticed Maisy, who was sitting safely buckled in her seat, wagging her tail in large, loose circles, and with the biggest doggy smile possible. He did a double take, then smiled at her.
“You know what?” he said. “Don’t worry about it. Just slow down.”
I thanked him, and then, as I drove away, I thanked Maisy.
And I need to do that again today. Thank you, Maisy, for everything you have done, for everything you have taught me, for loving and trusting me, for simply being yourself. I could not ask for a better dog.
