I had a cup of coffee and chased the dogs away from the brown sugar.

Dogs love brown sugar. I never knew that. I think they also love mouse turds, but maybe just the mouse turds from mice that have been eating brown sugar. It was too early in the morning so I didn’t do an analysis. I chased the dogs away.

I’d been meaning to clean out that cupboard (like all the little places in my home, it’s easy to ignore until disaster strikes). I love having my decisions guided by mice. I feel so empowered.

I have to admit that I was sort of waiting for a reason to clean out that cupboard, beyond the fact that there was an unknown number of boxes of small plastic bags scattered around in there. Of course I never bake but want to, so there was quite a collection of flours and sugars and other assorted “powders” (baking powder and soda, cornstarch, salt, wheat germ probably dating to the Jurassic Age - when they didn’t put dates on containers. They had no idea what a date was, unless it grew on a tree).

Among the treasures I found TWO full bottles of “corn syrup” containing light corn syrup and (perish the thought!) high fructose corn syrup, which a recipe must have called for at some time in the past, before HFCS was poison. I recall buying them and then never made whatever it was. I don’t recall buying “them” twice.  I did also add the stuff to puppy formula - no wonder my puppies grew up insane. I’ll be donating the corn syrup to a food bank, whose clients (the “lucky” recipients of my generosity) will swill the stuff down with Kool-Ade and take over the world. We’ll all be so grateful.

The mice didn’t touch the Splenda (smart critters). They also ignored the little packets of white sugar. Do you think it’s the food coloring that’s added to brown sugar that attracts them? Could it be that there’s actually real molasses in the stuff? Hard to imagine. My theory is that, unlike humans, mice aren’t stupid enough to eat just plain empty calories. I could of course be wrong - are they like us - appearance is everything and the brown sugar looks good to them? Things to ponder over the coming winter.

That bag of brown sugar has been there for at least a year. Could it possibly be that the mice just haven’t visited us until now? Nah.

Everything is now in mouse-proof containers. Well, the 342 boxes of foil, plastic bags and wrap and wax paper are still on the countertop waiting for me to decide what to do with them. The 37 measuring cups are still in the dish drainer. The cupboard is full. I’m looking forward to frustrated mice packing their little mouse-sized bags and moving south for the winter - or north, I don’t really care which way they go. Will they leave?

I can now relax, since I’ve completed my fall cleaning. It might be a little rough negotiating around all those boxes of bags and wrap, but by spring we may have used them all and will again be able to use the counter for… um, what does anyone use counters for? Oh yes, to knead the bread. And to provide the mouse a playground.

These days, people live for 70 to 100 years. Dogs are alive for 8 to 14 years. These are, of course, averages of sorts. The difference in the numbers is so great that there’s no real correspondence. WHY would a human bring a dog home to share existence and love for 10 years (I’ll use that as median, ok?)? Gee, here’s this crazy, wild puppy, who we’ll manage with great sacrifice to raise to become a calm, faithful adult in two or three years; we’ll spend the remaining 8 (or even 14) years with this creature, sharing experiences, growing together, growing closer together, and when the dog is a teenager and we’re really tightly bonded, it is feeble, lame, sore, grumpy - aged. That’s if we’re lucky. In many cases the dog has experienced some years of chronic or even acute disease: cancer, heart problems, arthritis, etc. - and we’ve been taking care of a geriatric friend for years - who is a teenager! And then it dies.

If we were to have children and know that they’d die of old age in junior high school, how eager would we be to bring them forth into this world? I realize that dogs are not children (and thank God for that!), that dogs reach sexual maturity quite young and can have a multitude of offspring by the time they’re 7 or 8 years old. I realize that dogs and children are different. Really. But I’m talking about the commitment we feel, the LOVE we have for these dogs. The difference is even more painfully obvious if we are parents who have puppies that we raise with our children. We then have to deal with the compound loss - that of our beloved companion and the dawning of reality in our children.

Ah, but what would we do without them? Did you ever notice that dogs are habit forming? Once you have one, your life is missing something huge when you have none. And for most of us, that habit began in our childhood, with our family pet - even with our family pet who was our very best friend for all of our life and to whom we eventually had to wish farewell. And did we learn? Oh yes, we did learn. But what did we learn?

We learned that

• dogs love us no matter how “bad,” late, bumbling, forgetful, detached, distracted, inconsiderate and sloppy we may have been
• dogs have simple needs that we can fill easily
• dogs share with us an uncomplicated companionship that is nearly impossible to achieve with our human associates
• sharing our lives with dogs is worth the inevitable heartbreak

And funny thing is, these lessons hold true for us now, as they did when we were puppies and our dogs were teaching us about life.

So hug your dogs today. Their sojourn with us is short. Give them whatever you can - it will always be enough for them.

To Chili, Frenzy, Hogan and Moxie, all of whom left us in the last year.

From the moment we arrived, Genie was looking at me and asking me what I wanted her to do. She was lovely.

One “trick” I’ve taught her is to lie on a mat. This used to be standard fare in our puppy kindergarten classes here, and the technique is used by Leslie McDevitt in helping to calm dogs in new situations. Basically the dog is shaped to lie down on a mat and ultimately to relax on the mat. Genie’s not to the relax stage yet, but if there’s a mat in the vicinity, she’s on it, and she’s lying there waiting for cookies to rain on her. I took the mat to class and laid it on the floor immediately, giving her a familiar object to relate to. She used it as taught, and after I took it away (after perhaps 5 minutes), she continued to be focused on me.

Genie wasn’t the only good dog at class; it appeared that all of the puppies had settled in. None of them had gone the previous week, since class was snowed out. So Genie is up to date on classes there and won’t need a make-up. It’s a fun class with lots of activity, lots of informative hand-outs, and much positive energy.

Toward the end of class, about 50 minutes into it, all of the puppies suddenly acted like they were possessed. They could no longer listen, no longer focus on their handlers, and were trying to socialize with one another regardless of human pleadings. Genie was no exception. It’s amazing that these puppies could work for 50 minutes, so no surprise! Time to play tug, or go for a potty break, or just quit.

Our maximum training time at home is about 20 minutes - and it’s broken up with many tug or retrieve breaks. These short play sessions not only provide a natural break so we can switch from training one behavior to training a different one, but they allow the puppy’s brain to process what went before - a very important part of learning. I find it helpful during our class times to break off and tug with her, or leave for a 1-minute walkie outdoors. It’s good for both of us.

Yes, we have a new puppy. Genie is a petite thing, adopted through Australian Shepherd Rescue (ARPH) and transported to us from Georgia just before the New Year by our friend Karen Stinnett. She is blue merle in color, and about as adorable as any puppy can be - and we all know how adorable puppies are! She’s bright, outgoing, and a total delight to be with and to train.

Wanting to get it totally right with this gal, I enrolled her in puppy kindergarten taught by Linda Vance at Mountain View Dog Training (my own training facility) and at A Click Above LLC (ACA), a training center in Leesburg VA. Last night was the first class at ACA.

We’ve had Genie since December 30 - therefore 11 days. In that time I’ve fallen completely head-over-heels in love with this little star. I won’t bore you with a description of her shining assets, but know that she is wonderful. I’ve worked with her several times a day, every day since she arrived. She sits, downs, responds to her name, touches my hand, touches a target on the ground, lies down on a mat, spins, leaps in the air, walks on planks, sits on little tables, and sometimes even comes when she’s called. Brilliant. Now not all of this is on cue; as a clicker trainer, the progression is *get the behavior,* *mark and reward the behavior,* repeat umpty-seven times until that behavior is predictable and perfect in execution, and then *cue the behavior.* So the sit is the only behavior on cue - oh, and the leap in the air, since that’s a natural one for her.

So last night we’re in this totally new (for her) place with maybe 50 other dogs (or so it must have seemed to her - it was really more like 16 shared among three instructors). She was totally mind-blown. She leaped on the instructors (this is a behavior I’ve permitted, shame on me, but she’s sooooo cute!). She lunged to get to the other dogs. She couldn’t hear her name. When she finally would sit, she’d hear the click and then maybe eat her treat, and then turn around to see what the dog next to her was doing. During one period she would do as I asked and then get up and turn away as soon as I clicked - didn’t even care about receiving a treat. I experienced sadness, impatience, confusion, even a bit of overwhelmedness (like that word?), and embarrassment.

Not only was her behavior problematic for me, but her appearance as well. Here’s this tiny (she weighs 14 pounds at 3 months), light-boned, long-legged merle thing with a tail (!) who claims to be an Aussie. In class there is another three-month-old blue merle thing with hair out the wazoo, no tail, and bone so heavy he could be a baby Clydesdale (have you ever seen a blue merle Clydesdale?), weighing probably 25 pounds. He’s lovely - and it’s hard to imagine that they’re the same breed. Genie is *exactly* what I wanted when I was looking for a dog, but somehow in this environment I was a bit embarrassed for her, and even got a bit defensive. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?! I love this puppy, and who the heck cares what she is, since she’s so obviously perfect! I even felt a little disappointed in her. Shame on me.

Who hasn’t felt this way about their puppy (or adult dog) during an obedience class? Forget the part about Genie not meeting the Australian Shepherd breed standard for beauty - she’s still awesomely beautiful and truly is what I wanted. As an instructor I’ve heard the “but she does it at home” story so many times I hear the tune in my sleep, and have congratulated the trainers on the fact. After all, the dog does live at home, so that’s as it should be - who wants a banshee living with them? The first class for dogs and handler is always crazy. But my pride was getting in the way and I found I had to keep stopping myself from acting out the impatience I was feeling. Poor puppy never before had to work for a whole hour. So we stopped “working” and played with a toy for a bit, went out for a potty break, snuggled a bit (with her wriggling to get away to go meet the other dogs), and eased off the pressure on both Genie and me.

This was quite eye opening for me. I have reassured hundreds of people in my classes on the first night, but forgot how it feels to be a first-nighter. I know what to do when the dog is just not with me - and it’s not to feel embarrassed and pressured, and not to insist repeatedly that the poor creature perform a behavior it’s not equipped mentally to perform at that moment. But we humans are so into accomplishing what we’re told to do and forget that our four-legged partner doesn’t understand what’s so all-fired important about sitting (or lying down, or paying attention to mama) in a strange place with other dogs all around, when they should be performing their genetically programmed duty of meeting all of these dogs, assessing friend or foe and furthering important relationships. We humans carry the baggage - the dogs don’t. The dog doesn’t feel embarrassed when her human spills treats on the floor (in fact, that’s party time for the dog!), or clicks at the wrong time, or forgets to pick up the handouts on the way out of the training center. The dog just doesn’t care. The dog just *is*. We should learn from them.

So now Genie and I will be missing our next class since I’ll be on vacation. That means that in two weeks when we return it will be like the first time for her. Again. Hopefully I’ll be better prepared for the experience. She will have more exercise on that day (yesterday she was crated in the car almost all day and didn’t have her usual play sessions) and I’ll be taking even better treats than the meatballs and cheese we had last night. I’ll also train in different locations between now and then. And I will remember that she is a baby - this is an important time for her to see the world, and meet dogs and people. Perfect obedience performance is for later. Now we just approximate it. And she’s perfect.

Just because I haven’t written in her blog, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t worked with the dog. I just haven’t shared. We’re not where I want to be, considering it’s been a year, but then there’s life that gets in the way. So it did, and does.

If I look at Joon’s Checklist, we’ve made progress. One thing I’ve learned when working with dogs, especially difficult dogs, is that it’s insanity to do anything but evaluate their progress over the long term. It can be quite frustrating to see improvement when you look at a week, or even a month, but given 3 or 6 months it’s far more obvious that the mountains are moving; the only way to move one of these canine mountains is slowly and deliberately. So over the past year we’ve made huge progress.

Down to details (’fess-up time): Joon is still not housebroken. I don’t think she has a clue. Any success we have is totally a result of our being watchful, and any failures we have are because she has access to the house and we’re not watching. So be it. We’ll keep working on that.

She tugs and retrieves, though she’d still rather chase her ball than do anything else (except chase sheep or a dog with the ball). She brings it back and will futz around getting it close to my feet, but she’s all ready for the chase. So that’s another work in progress.

She comes when called, lies down when told to, and stays in the context of agility. Still working on that. And she owns many of the behaviors in the pre-agility list, though not all.

She’s hugely reactive to dogs running, and if we never compete in agility this will be the reason why. She’s just determined to run with them and get them under control. Ha!

She jumps quite well though turning in combination with a jump is difficult. She can do 4-5 agility obstacles (jumps and tunnels) in a sequence quite well, understands pinwheels, is learning front crosses, has wonderful distance but doesn’t particularly like to work close. Her teeter is very nice. A-frame and dogwalk are absolutely works in progress - very slow progress. She’s so fast she has no patience for those pieces of equipment since they slow down her forward motion. And she’s all about moving. Fast. She understands her bottom position and I’m just back-chaining the obstacles. Unfortunately, I need a human training partner to get this done, and it’s hard to organize that.

She’s been herding. She’s very driven, but will try to leave when pressure on her to behave becomes overwhelming. She’s able to handle more pressure as she learns. Her fondest desire is to bring one of those babies down. I see visions of lamb chops percolating in her brain. Wink Mason has been most patient with her - and me. Bless him.

For 2008:
1. Back to Joon’s list to check off the areas that are still lacking.
2. More herding.
3. Work on behavior around performing (agility) dogs.
4. Teach dogwalk and A-frame.

There is no reason to use harsh methods to train our dogs. All creatures, from the lowly ant to us lofty human beings, learn their best lessons when permitted to figure out what works best in a given situation. Pulling, jerking, manipulating, “scruffing,” ear-pinching, shocking, and other tough-guy methods actually are successful with our very forgiving dogs, but at great cost: They damage the relationship between dog and trainer, and in some cases can cause serious injury to the dog. And if we lofty human beings think about what we’re doing to our dogs with these methods, we might realize we are probably also causing injury to our tender psyches as well.

Clicker training is used to teach a dog new behaviors. Once the dog has learned a behavior solidly (meaning the dog will respond instantly to the verbal or “hand” cue, anywhere and at any time) the clicker is weaned off for that behavior. Many clicker trainers don’t use a clicker at all after the dog is “trained” - though some of us love the game so much we continue to teach our dogs new behaviors for their entire lives. Sometimes we bring the clicker out, too, to brush up on old behaviors that may have gotten rusty (not used in a long time, or perhaps some behaviors that break down for one reason or another). But it is a tool that isn’t needed except when teaching new behaviors.

In teaching a dog new behaviors, in my opinion, there is no method that works as well as clicker training. I love the attitude my dogs have with this method. I love the fact that whenever they hear a clicker touch a coin in my pocket, they rush to see what the game will be. I love the fact that I don’t have to force my dogs to do anything, and don’t have to manipulate their bodies into positions they can get into themselves (I mean, really - why should we be shoving our dogs into a “sit” position?). I love the look in their eyes when they “get it” - because they have figured out what I want and the click is coming - and, of course, whatever wonderful thing that follows the click is coming too!

There are also no rules about continuing to clicker train. Your dog actually gets smarter when started off with clicker training, since she exercises her brain in the process. Brains, like all muscles, grow stronger with exercise. That means that if you decide later to teach your dog something using another method, she’ll catch on at least as quickly as she would have without the clicker experience - and probably faster, because she will have learned to learn.

The trial was a blast, but I’m writing about the fun we had on Saturday afternoon after the trial. I wanted to go to the beach, but there apparently are no easily accessed beaches in Hampton - or if there are we didn’t find them. So we settled for a park. Looked up parks on our handy-dandy GPS (thank you, Pam) and the closest one was the Air Power Park and Museum (which our dogs dubbed the “Rocket Park”). The museum itself was closed, but the park had a lovely four-foot chain link fence around it, and there was no one there to tell us not to enter (no signs stating that either). So in we went, to a wonderland of rocket ships and airplanes - and a large field containing them. Out with the frisbees and ball, and, well, we could have been anywhere as far as the dogs were concerned. Karen considered it a great photo op, so here you are. Not often do you find dogs and rockets together. And just in case you were wondering, we cleaned up after our dogs and closed the gate after us when we left.

All of these photos are compliments of and copyright Karen Stinnett.

Recently, in doing Canine Freestyle, I discovered a need for it. And now, while working on conditioning my couch potato Aussie Frenzy, it becomes even more important. I dawdled with it from time to time over the last several months somewhat and found that any manipulation of her body to “help” her into a stand just made her all goosey and silly (which she can be at any time, but even more so when I try moving and placing her). My heart wasn’t really in it until now, when I decided that I really want her to do this, so I set out yesterday to teach her how to stand.

Clicker in hand and treats in pocket, we proceeded to our outdoor training area (only required because there are 8 dogs in the house, and new behaviors are very hard to teach in the face of 8 dogs offering diverse behaviors and leaping up to grab the cookie when it’s offered).

We played a bit with some agility equipment, worked on training another behavior (backing onto an 8″ table - now THAT’s challenging! But I’ll save that for another time), and then began with the stand training.

I asked Frenzy to sit, which she did. Then inserted my toe under her belly and put a little pressure against her stifle. She scooted back in her sit. Tried again, with the same results. (I wish she’d hold her sit so solidly on the table at agility trials!) Tried basically the same thing from in front: put toe between her front legs so it touched her belly. She stood. I clicked and treated. Asked her to sit again, and she complied. Stuck my foot in there again. She scooted back. Again and again.

Becoming perplexed (and a bit impatient), I stood next to her seated body, and with cookie in hand, tucked it under her chin and back toward her neck. She ducked her head and twisted her neck to get the cookie but held her sit. Tried again, and she lay down, bending and twisting her neck. This happened a few times, so my next method was to sit on a low table next to her and put the cookie under her chin with one hand and to apply my other hand to her middle to help her up. She squirmed away with her rear half, still trying to steal the cookie.

OK, time to rethink this. I consider myself a positive trainer. I adhere to the principles of operant conditioning. But sometimes I lose sight of what exactly I am doing.

The first step in conditioning a behavior is to get the behavior to happen so you can mark and reward it.

• frequently you have to break the behavior down into pieces so you and the dog can build on those pieces.
• methods of getting the behavior to happen include free shaping, modeling and luring.

I’d tried modeling and luring, so what remained was free shaping.

Free shaping is rewarding the dog for doing something she does naturally (like, well, standing from a sit or down). This method can be time consuming and can try one’s patience in the beginning, until you finally learn that the behavior will ultimately happen and you just have to be there to mark it. It’s very difficult for us humans to be patient!

The dog has no idea what you want, but a clicker-savvy dog will offer many behaviors until you finally click and treat one of them. Of course, you can, in the course of your day-to-day life, click and treat the dog every time you observe her performing your desired behavior. That’s cool, but again, with a pack of dogs in the house it’s not especially practical. But free shaping in an environment conducive to training (and thus learning) can work very well.

So I took a deep breath, said to myself, “self, you’re an idiot,” and proceeded to change my horses yet again.

I stood there with clicker in hand and waited for Frenzy to stand from a sit or a down. I first had to wait for one of those things to happen, which is easy - she always offers either a sit or a down when I’m standing there with a clicker in my hand. And she did lie down. I clicked and treated that, rewarding her in the down position, which she maintained. I waited. She rolled over. I ignored it. She lay down again, watching me. She scooted back (her Michael Jackson Moondance move). I ignored it (with a chuckle). She lay there and looked at me. Tried rolling over again, sitting, lying down, scooting back, sniffing the ground … and finally stood up. Click and TREAT! I waited and she lay down again. She tried a scoot (it’s her fave), then looked at me and thought, wheels turning in her baby blues. She stood up. This went on several more times until she was lying down and waiting for about a three count (she can count, ya know) and then standing. After about 7-8 repetitions, I called it a session. I was also out of cookies.

That took all of 5 minutes. Does she know the stand? Nope. But she is on her way to learning it, and in a total non-confrontational, no-hands-on manner, with me offering nothing but good stuff (or withholding it) instead of becoming frustrated, perplexed and anxious - causing the same emotions in my dog.

Let’s see, first of all I caught a cold - had no voice, a head full of stuff, and then it segued into an ear infection, and now I can’t hear. It’s been cold. Or hot. Or raining. There was a bunch of holidays in there too, disrupting any semblance of a “normal” life around here. Though with 10 dogs I’d sure like to know what’s normal. OK, normal for us. Meaning crazy. And then, just to be sure she could just live a slothful life, Joon came in season. So no running in the agility area - might make things a tad distracting for the paying students, ya know - and no training up in the barn - for the same reason.

We do play ball in the dog yard, either with other ball-crazy dogs or alone. We play the Two-Balls game (stop it!!) to encourage retrieving. You know the drill: throw one ball, dog runs off to get it, wanders back and tries to play keep-away, but off goes the second ball, dog drops ball #1 and races off to get the second one. Human grabs ball #1 and the game proceeds. Tires dog out really quickly, but the true purpose of the exercise is to teach the dog to bring the ball back - and the second ball/chase is the reward. Over time, anticipation of the second throw causes the dog to drop the ball before the second one is sent away - and with encouragement perhaps to bring the ball closer to the human. Joon has progressed to bringing the ball to my feet, drops it, and is ready to go. The game can then be played with one ball from this point, but two’s funner.

We also combine this game with sits and downs. She brings the ball, has to sit (or down). Gets released to chase the ball. Exercises in self-control.

But we’re coming back. She’s almost out of season. I really don’t have to hear to train her. Breathing helps, of course, but for now that’s working. Of course, the next interruption will be in a month or so, when the sweet gurl gets spayed.

But stay tuned…