Yesterday a friend from my distant past suddenly appeared in my office doorway just as I was getting ready to go home. She cried. I cried. Then I thought--what am I going to do?? I can't let her into the house! So we arranged it that I left her in the puppy pen, then brought the Ts out. My fearless defenders barely noticed there was anyone there. *sigh* Timber did come over to bash her knees with his jolly ball, and Taenzer mostly ignored her while she did her thing with the ball. I did manage to get both of them to hold still (at different times) so she could pet them, but then they were off again. At least it's a good way to introduce people to them. We talked for a couple of hours, and Taenzer went top speed the whole time, which impressed my friend. We traded blog addresses--hers is about how she got her black belt in Tae Kwon Do: http://taekwondomom.blogspot.com/
Today another friend brought in one of her dogs for me to puppy-sit while she went to a meeting. He's a little smooth-haired terrier mix--well, not little little; I imagine he weighs 30 pounds or so. At any rate, she left a treatbag of dried beef lung. So I would read a little of my friend's blogg, then when Simon started to get restless, I'd break up a chunk of beef lung into tiny pieces and start working with him.
He's VERY smart. I was really sorry I didn't have a clicker with me; I bet he'd catch on to clicker training in nothing flat. He knows how to sit, so we started with "cookie zen"--"you must give up the cookie to get the cookie." In other words, nibbling, nosing, or pawing won't get the treat, but sitting quietly will. It's an exercise in self-control (he learns that being calm and restrained will get him what he wants), trust (he learns to trust that if he sits quietly and waits, I'll give him what he wants), and good manners (nobody likes a pushy, grabby dog!). Took him about 3 reps to figure it out. He did continue to do some nosing over the course of the hour, but gave up quicker and quicker. If you did four reps, he'd stop nosing on the 2nd. I don't know how many sets we did, but it wouldn't take long for him to completely get the idea and start using it as part of his everyday behavior.
I also started working on down with him. I let my hand, with cookie, dangle just above the floor. He had to lower from the elbows a bit to nose my hand, and I treated for that a couple of times. Then his elbows started hitting the floor, and by the end of the hour, he was following my hand down into a nice Sphynx down and holding it about 5 or 6 seconds. Of course at this point I didn't name it, but I feel like he got a good head start on learning the hand signal for down and a vague idea of the "stay" concept.
Since I didn't have a clicker, I was using a verbal marker ("Yes!"), which isn't as accurate, but he's very bright. You could teach that guy all kinds of things if you had the inclination. He was anxious at first about his mom going away, but got distracted by the beef lung, so I think we both wound up having a good time. I do enjoy seeing the lightbulb go on!
When she came to claim him, I told his mom that he'd better not have any dinner tonight since we'd used up all of the beef lung!
Oh! Annie ate an entire can of Fancy Feast last night and another over the course of today. I'm cautiously hoping, with fingers crossed, that we're out of the woods, at least for now.
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1 comment:
Oh, that's good news about Annie!
You are so good with dogs. Where did you learn about how to train them?
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