Things continue to be very much up and down (and up, and down and up, and down and down and up...) around here. Some training goes really well, some crashes and burns.
We've started talking about puppy imprinting, and I totally love that stuff. It's so empowering to feel like "next time I'll do it right!" And also, puppies are cute. We haven't played with any yet, but I'm promised that it's coming soon.
We've also taken the next steps in clicker training, trying to get the dog to put its front feet on a target. I volunteered to be a guinea pig for class yesterday and in the first round, I must confess, I rocked the house. I was so pleased to have impressed our teacher in front of everyone, and Joker even seemed to carry his head a bit higher. When it came time for us to do a second demo, all was going quite well, until Joker decided to do a little repeat performance of the weekend's pee on the box incident. Everyone laughed, and I was mostly amused, and partly humiliated, but then as things progressed I got more humiliated and less amused, and as is true of most things lately, I ended up in tears. Luckily that part wasn't in front of the whole class.
Anyway, lesson learned...that little fucker was gearing up to pee on a box AGAIN today and I caught him before it started. I hope that nipped the whole thing in the bud. He is doing totally awesomely with the clicker still, and I think I even made a breakthrough with Sugar in that area too.
Sugar is showing some increased fear responses when we're outdoors, especially in the kennel area with all the barking dogs. It seems to be getting worse, not better, which is disheartening. I am hoping to talk to a trainer about it tomorrow. I think I'm doing everything right...ignoring her when she acts scared and praising her when she feigns bravery...but I'm sure I'll find out I'm totally wrong about that.
I created a virtual tour on flickr for anyone who's curious about the campus:
Check it out. It's hard to get a really good idea of what things look like until you get here though.
I guess that's plenty for now. I have two tests in the next two days, so I gotta get some studying in.
2 comments:
Adrienne dear, Throwing chicken at a dog does WHAT? That was a joke, right? Otherwise I will have to spend some time fussing about things like "What kind of place is this?"..."I knew Texans were, um, different." and "When she gets home will she be permanently changed? Forever warped?"
People. guard your chickens!
No, seriously. We were throwing chicken. Not whole chickens. pieces of chicken. Trying to convince my roommate's dog that good things (like chicken rain) happen when other dogs are around.
Post a Comment