A Few More Days of 365 Days of Training Adventures

Little Red

It’s been quiet the busy week so far.  Monday was a cold and wet day so I stayed inside with the Doodle Bug Puppies.  While working with teach them to walk on a leash, I tripped over a rug and fell.  So I was very sore but oh what sweet babies.  They are 6 weeks old now and have taken well to sitting with a lure and even offering a Sit from time to time.  They do a Down really well and are

starting to respond to Come even without playing the name game.  Tuesday I took it easy because I was so sore but Wednesday saw us working a full day.  

First pup of the day was a little Frenchie named Rogan, we were working on public access skills and learning to ignore things such as food dropping to the floor and Ms. Riley.  Other ladies sitting at a table near us who he just knew if he could get over to them, they would give him lots of loving.  He did amazing though as he always does, and within a few times of practicing each behavior he had it down.  It will take several more weeks, or months of practice before he is reliable at the behaviors but he is well on his way.  

Sadly I didn’t get any pictures of Rogan working.  

Later Riley went to work on learning to relax while out in public.  I have been letting her greet

Riley Tucking under a table while I have a coffee

strangers to get ready for the CGC test to help her learn to sit to greet them.  When I test my Service Dog client dogs for this, I practice the behavior with them and make sure they are able to sit for me...  AKA The magic treat lady.  When they learn to ignore me with the magic treat pouch, they can ignore anyone!!!  Well with my own dog, I am not able to do that with.  So we have done a few Therapy visits and then allowing her to greet kids because she so gentle and then we tell the kids what Service Dos do and that we should never distract them because of how important their jobs are.
Lately though she has decided that if someone is looking at her but does not move to pet her then she things it is acceptable to woof at them.  So we are no longer going to be greeting anyone and going to make sure that she understand that I am the only person she needs to be focused on.

We had a session with Ashlynn and her SD Lilly.  After doing several weeks of work with Lilly on just ignoring people and other dogs we have moved on to working on her Tricks titles where are going to be a walk in the park for her because she does so much for Ashlyn already.  As we were talking about something, I dropped my phone and Lilly calmly retrieved it for me from under Ashlynn’s chair.  She is such an amazing dog.  She helps Ashlynn with so many different things and it is so wonderful to see them work together.

After working with Lilly we did some more work on our own walking around the mall we went down to the Gear Head store to see if they had any dog boots in stock but they did not sadly.  Then we did

more walking around and worked on ignoring people.  Worked with walking beside a cart that I really wished I had been able to get a video of and finally as I sat down for yet another lovely dose of coffee, she got very comfy under my chair and passed out.

She is still very young and I like to give her time to nap or for us to go sit outside and her just relax in the sun, but with it being so cold we just took it easy on her.  She came home played like a crazy child with Yadi and then laid down and went back to sleep again.

While she was at home resting, I worked with one of my dogs that hopes to be a therapy dog.  She is a little nervous but we are working on it.

Today I went back out to work with the puppies I didn’t get any pictures of them today but I did get some videos I will post them soon.  I also worked with a couple of my Veteran Service dogs and a Therapy dog.  I will write up more about them tomorrow, so come back to hear about another day’s adventures.

Bark... bark... bark... I'm going to go hide...

There are days when my own issues get to me and get in the way of training.  It's all I can do something to hold it together, something causes me to cry and I can barely hold back the floodgates.   Yesterday one of those days.  Our training was mostly centered around the issues that we have been having at home.

We started off this morning with having a battle of wills for lack of a better word with Riley.  When I'm fixing everyones breakfast I put their bowls on the counter and put their food in the bowls then add the probiotic and then a hip and joint supplement for the Corgis.  Then everyone has to go to their places and then I put their food bowls down and they get to eat.  Well Ms Riley decided she didn't want to wait this morning and barked at me the whole time.  She jumped up and knocked her food bowl off.  But instead of letting her eat any of it off the floor, I told her to "Leave it" every time she went near it.  I gave Yadi his bowl and Marley her bowel, and I made Riley sit and wait while I cleaned all her food up off the floor.  I made her a new bowl and then go to her place and sit and wait before I put it down for her.

The Corgis playing 

Our biggest issues lately has been the Corgis and their herding instincts.  They rush out the back door and run straight to the gate and run our fence barking at the neighbor's dog Coco.  Since we have gotten Riley it has gotten worse not because she is joining in but it almost seems like they are protecting Riley from Coco, even though she is sweet as she can be.
So we have switched into management while trying to work individually on trying to get them to leave Coco alone.  Most of our fencing is covered in this green mesh because I didn't want the dogs chasing cars down the side of the fence that is on the street.  So I ordered more of it this morning to finish covering up the small area that they can see her.

They are only allowed to go out one at a time and let me tell you they are not happy about it.  They have pouted like crazy all day that they can't go out side together all day.  They are very bonded to each other and I don't think I really realized it until today.

Bacon Apple treats in bone molds ready for the oven

The other issue is Riley's counter surfing.  She has been stuck with me on leash because I don't trust her not to try and eat things she shouldn't.  Though this is part of her training anyway to help with her learning that she needs to stay right with me, it helps me know she is not getting on a table somewhere or sneaking off to pee while I'm working.  

I spent quite some time in the kitchen moving my plants out of the windowsill as it's getting colder, so overtime she put her feet up on my counters she got a 2 minute time out in the crate.  This didn't seem to phase her.  She would run right out of the crate and put her feet back up on the counters again.  So I guess she isn't even going to get any free time in the kitchen, she is going to have to stay on leash with me all the time.

We did however make lots of treats this morning for training this weekend.

Community Dogs make me so happy!

Yesterday was a very light day for me, I was feeling under the weather as it was cold and wet and the barometric pressure was up pretty high with the rain front moving though.  My head was aching, but I went to breakfast with the hubs which is something we try to do to do on his off days cause we really don't get much time together these days.  Then we went to visit mom at the Nursing home, which is always a stressful time in which I really wish I could have Riley with me, but I'm not sure how they look at that, since they are a state run nursing home and don't even allow therapy dogs to come in.  I'm not sure if they would allow service dogs.  I spent most of the time there writing yesterday's blog so that I could keep my mind occupied on something other than how stressed I was.

Later in the afternoon I had an appointment with Aspen one of my Therapy dogs in training.  Our main focus was her not forging ahead of her mom.  Leash walking can be such a source of frustration for us slow humans.  There are so many different ways to teach leash walking but one of my favorite ways is to teach your dog that if they pull on the leash you are not going to go anywhere with them.  I like this method of training with them because it teaches them that they can go where ever they want as long as they do not pull on you.  The walk itself becomes the reward for them staying with you but you have to make it a point to STOP every single time that they pull the leash tight.  I tell my students that you might practice for an hour and only get 20 feet and that is fine as long as you stopped every time your dog pulled the leash tight.

Also we have to reward them for paying attention to us while we are walking with them.  It is unnatural for our dogs to slow down to our pace and not explore while out on an adventure with us.  Apparently this is not something I have a video of working on so I need to fix this this next week while my hubby is off work and can make some videos with me.

After Aspen's appointment I took a group of Therapy Dogs in Training to visit our friends at one of our local nursing homes.  We have been going to visit these wonderful women and men for almost 3 years now and they love seeing us come in.  We have a set schedule of when we visit and we have pups that dress up and pups that do tricks and pups that just love to snuggle and make people smile.  

Scooby & Kevin

Lincoln & Ms. Joyce 

Scooby (grey Staffy) and Ms Lilly (yellow Lab) are both pulling double duty they are Service Dogs who like to go to the nursing home to give all the love they have stored up and are not able to give to people when they are on duty.

Lincoln is a Springer Spaniel who is going to be going to St Jude's to visit with the kids and help to cheer them up.

Of course Ms Riley is learning to sit politely for people to pet her since that will be part of her Canine Good Citizen Test.  Normally Ms Marley comes with me for Therapy Dog visits she is one of the ones that loves to dress up.

As we were leaving one of the ladies grabbed my arm and was so just so thankful that we had come and brought the babies to see them.  She said having to leave her baby behind was the worst part of having to go into the nursing home but she looked forward to our visits, and that helped me remember why I work as hard as I do.

Lilly & Ms Ashlynn

Riley getting some lovens

Ms Marley

Training Riley

Yesterday was a good, but frustrating day for training Riley.  She is so good at some things and so annoying at others, but that’s why we are training.  We started our day out at Starbucks for a coffee and some quiet downtime before my day of training started.

She settled into a spot between my chair and the window and laid down to watch the world go by as I did some light reading and enjoyed my coffee.  She got lots of stairs and smiles and one guy even asked if he could take her picture.  I didn’t mind because at least he asked.  She behaved herself very nicely I was super proud.  

One of the things best things I was happy to see was that traffic didn’t phase her in the least.  As we crossed two busy intersections she happily stayed right with me in our heel position, and stopped when I did.    

 She didn’t care to walk in the rain at all, however every puddle we came to she wanted to drink it dry.  So we had to do a lot of leave it practice with puddles.  I was like I know I’m giving you plenty of water what on earth is going on???  She can drink a whole bowl bone dry in 3 seconds flat.  Which makes our potty training that much harder.  I have to remember that I have only had her for 2 weeks and we are making progress.  I need to teach a target behavior to let me know she has to go potty so that she can tell me when she needs to go out in public.  

We went to Lowe’s later and worked with a new Therapy dog student named Sam.  Riley did some barking while Sam’s dad held her for me and I worked with holding on to Sam.  Normally I would have used Riley to show Sam’s dad how to do the behaviors with Sam, however Sam was pulling really bad, and Sam’s dad had stitches in his hand so I did the work with Sam and let his Dad watch.  When he settled down I let dad take him back and I took Riley and had her work on Cover (her laying behind me to prevent someone from walking up into my personal space.). 

Later in the day we went to meet with Ashlynn and

Lilly to work on helping Lilly work on ignoring other dogs.  I’d say we had a wonderfully successful session.  Several people walked by and Lilly ignored them.  A guy walked by with a big cart and said “Hi Lilly” and she just kept her eyes on Ashlynn, I was very proud of her.  She is 5 years old and I’ve been working with her off and on since she was 12 weeks old!

Then we worked on ignoring another dog with the little spit fire Eve, a young German Shepard Puppy.  She was working on learning to settle down and not show her frustration at being not a being able to just do what ever she wanted to do.  When she gets over being a pushy puppy she is going to be such a solid girl.

I ended the night training with Keira teaching her not to pay attention to kids moving around her.  So we were at the mall, and enlisted Ian to help us train.  He was just inside the playground practicing his ninja skills while we played “look at that” from a distance.  Even the mall Security Guards were enjoying watching us work and came by to tell us so.

All in all it was a very good training day!  Happy Training everyone!!!