Blog12weeks

STITCH

the weBlog of a Service Dog, competition dog, pet and friend In Training

12 WEEKS OLD!

Retrieving Eye contact	Twelve weeks old. The first day we start calculating her age in months. A milestone. And to celebrate, we go out the screen room and work on retrieving. I have three dumbells, wood, leather, and metal. My plan is to do a bit of gripping with each of them, then take each and shape her to touch it in various parts of the room. We start with the wooden one, the one we've worked with previously. Her grip is surprisingly good. No chewing, and only minor mouthing. I tease her with it a bit, then toss it off to one side about 4' away from me. Her towel from yesterday is still on the floor. This causes some confusion. She climbs on it, lies down, and waits a moment. Then she tries Sit and Stare, which doesn't work either. Then she starts touching the dumbell. I toss the treats all around the room, and she's running right back to target the db. I start clicking only for bumping it, moving it around the floor. Around the 15th bump, she picks it up. Oh my! A few false starts where I have to go back to clicking the bump, and I can afford to wait to click only when she picks it up. The holding gets solider and solider. The first time, it takes her 11 clicks to get the db from the other side of the room to where I can touch it - she picks it up, turns toward me, gets the click, drops it, chases down the treat, runs back to pick it up again. When she's only taking 5 clicks to bring it into range, I switch to the leather db. She does even better with the leather. I start with it in hand. She sniffs it, then starts gripping it as if it's the wooden one but tastes better. I toss it across the room, and she brings it back in 4 clicks. We do that x7, then switch to the metal one. I don't do the metal one in hand, just toss it and start shaping. This is more difficult. It takes her 25 clicks to pick it up. At one point it's a bit too close to her towel and she lies on the towel nudging it and trying to pick it up. The third time I can reach it, she's brought it back in 3 clicks, and she does that twice more before we stop. Wow! We have 10 more kibbles to work eye contact. Happy three month birthday, little girl!
Heavy distraction Eye contact Go To Mat Retrieve	I'm desperate to work on retrieving again but superstitiously don't want to do anything to disturb the memory of this WONDERFUL lunch. So I take a tennis ball out to the screen room. It froze last night and the fishpond pump is floating and making a very strange noise. She's very distracted, and I think she might decide to be frightened of it in a minute. I make some noises and get a glance, click that, make more noises, rapidfire some clicks for looking in my direction, then start waiting for Eye Contact. She forgets all about the pump noise and gets into the Game. We spend a couple of minutes on the towel. She knows it's a mat now. I roll the ball away from me, she runs after it and bunts it with her nose. I click that, and she rolls it all over the floor. She's having a great time, but I'm getting bored, so I put a pen down. She targets the pen twice, and the third time picks it up. Holy cow. Within five clicks of me putting it down, she has brought it back to me. I toss it again. It takes two clicks to get it back. Then I put the leather dumbell down again, and she 2-clicks that back to me again and again. Once she sits with it in her mouth and I take it from her. Holy cow. Then I put out a small Flexi lead. She can't figure out how to pick this up (I'm sure she could if it was supposed to be on the couch!) but knocks it around a lot. Then we work on the pen again a bit, and we quit. Holy cow.
Pictures in my head	I have two dreams about her. One is of her as a service dog, picking up everything we come across. The second is of her as a bumblebee, her tail going around like the propeller of a helicopter, as, head down, she buzzes through life.
Up on a grooming table Show stacking Down and comfort-able on the table Introduc-tion to clippers Walking around nude	I want to totally change the subject. I'm so excited about retrieving I think I'm going to push her too hard. We go to the dog room. I put her on the grooming table. This is a pretty scary event, she crouches down and hangs on to the table. I start feeding her one kibble at a time. After 20, I lure her into a stand, keep feeding, and start placing her feet, holding her tail, and stretching her up in a show stack. She remembers not to move her feet and does very well with this, so we start working a bit on more dynamic show stacking. This is a bit harder, she's still a bit unsure of the table and would like to stay right in the middle of it, thanks, but she manages to start swinging from right to left with her front paws while leaving her back paws stacked. Then I ask her to lie down. Can't do it. OK, I pick her up, fold up her legs, and put her back on the table in a down. Start feeding her again. Oh, hey, this feels safer than standing up! She can do this! When her tail starts wagging as she waits for each piece of kibble, I lure a stand again. That's easy. Then a down. That's easy too! Of course she could do it before, silly. She just didn't feel like it at the time... Since she's feeling pretty good about the whole experience, I turn on the clippers (2-speed, on low) and start petting her with them as we finish up her breakfast. No trouble at all. She glances back at the clippers once or twice, then shrugs and gets on with breakfast. When we run out of kibble, I get a spoonful of peanut butter and spread it on one corner of the table. When she's well engaged in it, I start shaving her butt again, and down her back legs. No problem whatsoever until we run out of peanut butter, then she starts whining, but still not fussing about the clippers. I wait until she quiet for a moment, turn the clippers off, pick her up, have a snuggle, and put her down. I've done a very bad job of clipping, but a very good job of her first real grooming. Having a naked rear end is considerable more traumatic than having it shaved. It's several minutes before she realizes she can walk with no hair on her back legs. Scuba jumps up and polishes the table.
Relaxing in strange places	I have to drive Ron out to the field so I take Stitch. Ron drives out and I cuddle her. When we get there, we go for a walk on lead, run around and giggle a bit, then she sits in my lap while I drive back to the yard. Not entirely comfortable, but much more relaxed this time. It's nice to see something that needs to be more clearly explained, and then see the puppy believing the explanation.
Working two dogs at once	The three of us invent a great game for lunch. Scuba, as I've said before, has a poor understanding of Sit (MY version means planting the butt and leaving it and the feet in the same place for as long as necessary. HER version means planting her butt until she gets tired of it and lies down, or thinks it might be better to offer me something else). So I put Stitch's towel across the room on my left, and Scuba on a Sit-Stay on my right. Then we play 300-peck stays, only in this case it's 300-kibble stays. When both are in position, I toss a kibble at Stitch. If Scuba remains in position, I take a kibble from her bucket and give it to her. If Stitch is back in position, 2 kibbles. If Scuba's still in position, 2 kibbles. If Stitch is back in position, 3 kibbles. If Scuba's still in position, 3 kibbles. And so on. I toss or give the kibbles one at a time, so giving 3 takes three times longer than giving one, thus we increase the stay time by one kibble each round. Once, after chasing a kibble which bounces too close to Scuba, Stitch forgets what makes the kibble happen, sits beside Scuba and offers Sit and Stare. I feed Scuba one kibble at a time until Stitch runs back to her towel and lies down, then we go on with the game. The most interesting part of this whole meal was that it's Scuba who restarts the count EVERY TIME.
Retrieving	Woo hoo! At supper I finally let myself go back to retrieving. She runs to and picks up the wooden dumbell, leather dumbell, metal dumbell, pen, and 1/3 cup metal measuring cup. Interesting - tonight the metal dumbell is just another dumbell, but the pen takes her some time to figure out. Once she works out that she can pick it up by hooking the right-side canines under it and then toss it back to hold it behind ALL the canines, she's comfortable with it. Tonight I can afford to let her drop the articles a few times to be sure I'm clicking her for a solid hold and not for flinging or dropping. She sticks with it, picking each item up again if she drops it before I click. What a great day!
Retrieving	For lunch I provide an old toothbrush, a tiny hairbrush, a clicker, a metal harness ring, a nylon collar, a big felt pen, a regular pen, and the three different dumbells. I put them out one at a time and resolve to click five times for looking at each one, then see if I can get her to pick them up. I start with the three dumbells, she runs out and picks up each one and brings it at least halfway back to me. When each one is close enough for me to pick up, I toss it back out. The second time it comes back, I switch to the next item. I don't get to the five-count on anything before she's picked it up and started it back toward me, and none take more than seven clicks to get back the first time and three the second time. Except the harness ring. This is the smallest item, and the flattest. It takes 18 clicks to get her to pick it up the first time. Even then, her pickups are tentative and shallow. She frequently forgets what we were doing and tries lying down or going to her towel. And she whines a bit. I end the ring session with ten rapidfire clicks for noticing it or approaching it, then go back to the dumbells for one more round.


For Pete's sake, CLICK! Am I supposed to walk around with this stupid thing in my mouth all DAY?

Relaxing on the grooming table

Clippers and shaving

We have an early supper. I catch her when she's passing-out tired, asleep in the living room. We go to the dog room where I've put a piece of rubber-backed carpet on the grooming table. We spend 20 kibbles relaxing on the grooming table and doing puppy pushups - Sit, Down, Sit, Down, turn around, Down, Sit, Down. We have a little snuggle and a lick. Then we spned 15 on show stacking and 5 on hand Zen.

Then I ask her to lie down, and turn the clippers on. I lay the clippers on the table in front of her and feed her. The carpet does a good job of

Ron's sitting in his big chair watching TV. She just snatched an entire hamburger patty off his plate. She really IS a Portuguese Water Dog! Fortunately for her training, Scuba then stole it from HER. Now she's mad, prowling and growling.

ahem. The carpet does a good job of cushioning the sound and vibration of the clipper running and she can even rest her throat on the clipper to reach the kibbles. Then I hold one back leg and shave it, a bit at a time. In between her toes tickles, but she tries hard to sit still, and I do the tidying with scissors. Roll her onto the other hip and do the other foot, one kibble at a time. At one point I sit back and look at this 12 wo puppy lying calming on my grooming table, a handful of kibble 8" away on the table, while I shave her toes. Awesome.

Her muzzle's tougher. We have to work first on lying down and letting me hold her head. When I can do that, I scissor the goober-hair out of the inside corners of her eyes and along the top of her muzzle. Then I start petting her muzzle with the sides of the clipper. Finally I can shave her chin, give her kibble, shave one side, kibble, shave the other side, kibble, tidy up, kibble. And still she's lying calmly on the table. Unbelievable.

I wasn't necessarily going to show her, but she's looking pretty good...
Meeting the dryer	There are 12 kibbles left, so I turn on the dryer and spend 4 telling her the noise is no big deal. 3 trying to keep one safety hand on her, one feeding hand in front of her, and one hand just tapping her back with the air from the dryer. She glances back at it each time, but doesn't have an opinion, so the remaining 5 I blow her jacket back and give her kibbles one at a time without holding her. Oh my goodness!

Barriers	I've got a low barrier between the kitchen and the bathroom. This gives us lots of opportunity to practise something for each dog. For Stitch, not to jump up on barriers. It doesn't get you through the barrier, and I don't come back across until you're Sitting and Staring. She's got this down pat as a default. For Scuba, more reinforcement of the IDEA of barrier - a low table, a leash stretched across, an imaginary line - no matter what it is, you can't cross it.
Very distracted Retrieving Unwell?	Poor showing at breakfast. We start with Eye Contact, she can't give me more than 2 seconds without glancing at my right hand. I switch the clicker to my right and the kibble to my left, and we manage to get up to 4 seconds before she starts whining and moves immediately to yelping at me. I get 10 Eye Contact for 1 second rapidfire, and we move on. I toss out each of the three dumbells and she brings each of them back on two clicks immediately. On the second throw of the metal one, she brings it back, sits, and holds it while I sit thinking about what to do about my jaw on the floor. Finally my brain returns and I click, but I could just as easily have reached out and touched it. Woohoo! The other objects - toothbrush, clicker, pen, felt pen, small Flexilead, collar - she doesn't do as well on. With the dumbells I could toss them and she'd run out to pick them up, so I could afford to wait to click her turning towards me with the db in her mouth. With the other objects I can't afford that. If I don't click her initial approach, she turns away and lies down. She had to get up to pee twice during the night and I think either she's tired or she's not feeling well. She seems sluggish and mildly disinterested (though to outward appearance she seems to be well into working the click. I just get a feeling of general minor unwellness). If I give her 10X for the approach, she's able to go on from there to pick up the object and eventually get it back to me. The harness ring is last, I'm not expecting much at all, but today she treats it like everything else - 10X for the approach, then she picks it up and starts bringing it back. And we leave it at that.
Big distraction	I have popcorn for breakfast (sue me). She's ditzy about this too. After a month of default Sit and Stare, she tries to jump up and grab the bag. When that doesn't work, she jumps up trying to intercept every piece I offer to Scuba. It takes her 8 reps before she figures out that the only way to get it is Sit and Stare. She definitely doesn't have both oars in the water this morning!
YAHOO TRAINING LEVELS LIST		There's a lovely group of people solidifying their dogs' training by working through my Training Levels. If you'd like to join them, click on the words on the left.
House-training going well	Having no wish to spend the day rowing in a circle, I take the rest of the day off. We've accomplished a lot in the last few days, we deserve it. While I'm not training, it occurs to me that it's been several days since we had an accident, and I'm leaving her loose with Scuba in the puppy part of the house while I'm outside doing chores.
Inviting me to play with a toy Soliciting petting	This morning as I sit at the computer, Stitch comes running in from outside with a medium-sized fuzzy toy in her mouth. She puts paws up on my leg and shoves the toy in my hand, accompanied by immense growling. Another milestone. We've played tug with toys a lot, but I have to have the toy first and offer it to her. This is the first time she's asked ME to play with HER toy. Another milestone. She's starting to realize that being petted may be better than wrapping her mouth around my hand. And I can't pet and be bitten at the same time. So she's beginning to approach me offering her back or hips rather than her mouth. My baby's growing up!
Retrieving Strange situations Down Get Lost game	Interesting breakfast. She's back up to snuff, ready and eager to work and totally in the game. She retrieves everything immediately, several objects get back to me with just one click. The harness ring is no trouble at all. This morning I've added the nail clippers to my pile of retrievables. She runs right out to it, I click but she picks it up anyway and brings it halfway back before she bothers dropping it and coming to get her kibble. Then I try with the tennis ball, thinking I'll click for pushing it around, but she picks it up right away as well. When did my baby get so big? Then the tennis ball rolls under a chair. She's uncomfortable being under the chair and can't organize herself to pick up the ball under there. I click her a lot just for being under there. At one point she stands out from under the chair and actually puts her mouth on the chair leg rather than go under and get the ball, so we quit on the ball. Then we do some work on Down. We've pretty much eliminated the downing when I'm asking for Sit, and it takes her 6 clicks to start offering down. By 10, she's either responding to the Down cue or I'm getting very good at predicting it. To end the session, we try the Get Lost game again. I stand up to click 10X for Eye Contact before getting into the game. At 6, she startles and runs around me, to give me Sit and Stare at the back of my head. Oi. OK, she's got the moving-around part, but is having some trouble with the find-my-eyes part. If I say her name, or do nothing for a while, she'll try several positions, then glance up, see my eyes, and give me eyelock, but it's like Oh, hi! What are you doing up there? Like she's given up trying to figure out what part of running around me is going to make the click and has decided to go with Sit and Stare instead. Half the fun of clicker training is looking into their brains, and this is definitely a response I've never seen before. I'm doing Contact X 10, then turn from Contact and wait. She's coming right around and finding Contact again about 60% of the time. It's the 40% that's so interesting. Still, much better than last week. I think I'll leave this another few days and let it percolate.
Changing her world view - retrieving dog dish, toy pretending it's a Mat I realize we have no communi-cation about house-training	Lunch is silly time. I put out each of her dumbells and a few other objects, which she brings back right away (don't think that she's actually retrieving yet, she runs to the object, picks it up, turns back toward me with it, and then either drops it or gets clicked for holding it and THEN drops it. Then she has to pick it up again and bring it a little closer, then she gets clicked for holding it again. Most of these objects now are coming back to me regularly with only a click halfway back and another click when she arrives). Then I put out her stainless steel puppy dish - about 8" in diameter and 1.5" tall. She clearly asks if I'm insane. This is a DISH. It's for EATING OUT OF. It takes 18 clicks for targeting it before she thinks to pick it up, and 30 before she gets it most of the way back to me. A difficult concept. We finish the retrieving portion of our program with the pen and collar. Then I put a large stuffed dog, known as Leroy, on her towel and see if I can get her to Go To Mat on Leroy. Another difficult concept. All her normal objects are turning into working objects. Very strange. And Leroy is lying on her towel, so how is SHE supposed to lie there? 20 clicks before she sits on the towel beside Leroy. Two more and she's lying down. Another 10 to glue the idea into her head, and I move Leroy to the other side of the room withOUT the towel. With much apparent relief she flops down on the towel, but I'm neither looking in that direction nor clicking her for it. She gets up, prowls around, and finally arrives at Leroy's nose. C/T C/T and she starts running back to Leroy. She walks around Leroy, she bumps his ears with her nose, finally she steps completely OVER Leroy. She gets clicked for all of these and then starts JUMPING over Leroy's back from one side to the other. Too bad we're not working on jumping! Finally she lies down beside Leroy, and we click that X10. Then I move Leroy again, and she's on him like a dirty shirt. He's barely hit the ground when she lands in a Down beside him. Leroy has become Leroy The Miracle Dispenser. At one point during all this she spies the tennis ball under the chair and tries targeting it a couple of times. Then we come back in the house, she wanders around for a minute, then pees on the floor. ARGH! YOU BAD PUPPY! WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH... oh, I've shut the door to the dog room so she can't get outside. Duh. NEXT week I'll try to remember to hang a bell on the door and teach her to ring it to get the door to open. That's a lie. Such is the state of my housekeeping that Song's bell is still hanging on the doorknob. Song, who died at age of 10 years nearly 5 months ago. However, next week I'll hope to get around to teaching Stitch to use it.
Stitch tries to establish house-training communi-cation	We spend 4 X 10 minutes in the afternoon taking blueburs out of her coat. These are the tiniest, stickiest burs I've ever known. I patrol the yard twice a week for the plants, but the dogs always seem to be able to find more. At any rate, she has one bout of interminable whining/fussing/yapping. I try to wait it out but it doesn't stop, so I put her down and she goes outside to pee. Then she comes back and wants up again so we go back to work. She's much better at this skin/hair/body manipulation than Scuba was as a pup. Am I a better trainer, am I paying attention to this because Scuba wasn't good at it, or is this just a dog with different priorities? I dunno. I'm grateful for it, though. 40 minutes of de-burring a puppy with no training and no patience would have been total hell.
Retrieving	Another milestone. To add to our pile of retrieving items, I take to the screen room tonight a book of matches, car keys, a small rolled-up elastic bandage, and a wrapped roll of dimes. Also the dish with her supper, Leroy, and a leash and collar so we can go out and check on llamas when we're done. On the way out, I drop the leash and collar. Rather than go back in the house to get Scuba to pick them up, I sit down and click Stitch to bring them to me. Her first real Service Dog service! Then she retrieves everything else. It's a flurry of retrieving. If anything hits the floor within 5' of me, she picks it up and works it back to me. If it lands further than 5' out, she needs a few beginning clicks to build up her security to go that far away to get it. Surely, if it's that far away, I wouldn't be interested in it anyway? Wow, what a day. What a week.
Eye contact	We spend all of breakfast on Eye Contact. The rest of Level Two seems doable but we're having trouble getting past 5 seconds of Contact without a hand glance or whining. Be the time breakfast is over, she's more convinced that this is the right thing to do. She spends a lot of the first part of the session wandering off to see if something else might be easier than 1 second of Contact, so we spend a lot of kibble on merely finding my eyes. And how many BILLIONS of people have I told NOT to start turning until the dog is VERY VERY good at simple Contact? My forehead is getting sore with all these DUHs.

A week of milestones. We've come a long way, baby.

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