BZ Dogs

Dog Blog Post #184: I bought a book this weekend, Keeping A Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie & Charles E. Roth - A total impulse buy, as I spend little time in "nature" these days (sigh) and have zero time to actually keep a journal.

(The book suggests 45 minutes a day. Or maybe that was an outing. Doesn't matter, either way, as I don't have that kind of time!)

So why am I mentioning it here?

Because (a) it's a gorgeous book, and if you are into that sort of thing you should take a look at it and (b) it triggered a twinge of inspiration that might actually be appropriate here.

That is, the following sentence did, "... nature journaling is the regular recording of observations, perceptions, and feelings about the natural world around you." (pg. 5)

Isn't that what a dog blog is? A "[somewhat] regular recording of observations, perceptions, and feelings about the [dogs] around you"?

And so now I'm wondering if I could take a few minutes (definitely not 45, but since I photograph instead of drawing I could probably cut that down to 10-15) and simply observe my dogs being, well, dogs.

Maybe write about it occasionally.

Here.

Perhaps under the heading Canine Journal?

We'll see. Like I said, it is so far just a twinge of inspiration.

In the section on "Getting Focused" (pg. 25) I found some more good ideas (I took the liberty of substituting "dog blog" for "journal" or "nature journal"... hopefully that doesn't step on any legal toes!):

• "Think about what you want to achieve with your own [dog blog], and how it may relate to other personal goals you have."
• "Remind yourself that you are keeping the [dog blog] to learn to observe, record, and fully appreciate [...] You are doing this for yourself, and your own enjoyment."

Zachary as a puppy

Dog Blog Post #144: This post is in response to Magnus’ mom’s Puppy Class question in her blog post The Issue of Puppy Class. Tenses of her questions have been converted to present tense to apply to Henry’s current class.

Do you do a puppy class? Yes! Beau did puppy class in a large group setting with a positive but more traditional approach (owners marching around the building in circles while the instructor called out sit, heel, sit, heel, about turn!…) while Zachary had the same class/instructor Henry has now with much smaller sizes, clicker-training, individual attention, and no marching (for which I am forever grateful, Wendy!)

What benefits do you feel it provides for your 4legged puppy?

• Socialization with “trainable” people and puppies under an instructors watchful eye. I can’t overstate that one!!!
• Opportunities to show holes in training – it’s easy to either focus too heavily on the disaster areas and miss out on things that should be taught, or focus too heavily on the successful areas and sweep problem spots under the rug.
• Opportunities to try out shiny new behavior in a hopefully supportive but definitely more challenging environment.

What benefit do you find for yourself as handler? A chance to get fresh ideas and fresh perspectives. It’s also useful to listen to the other owners and take a few moments to assess their puppies. For example, hearing others bemoan their puppies housebreaking skills (or lack thereof) made me feel all warm and glowy about Henry, while seeing how calmly the 10 week old lab lay by his owners made me realize I still have a long way to go on that front.

What would you recommend in looking for a new puppy class? If possible, I’d try to attend a class to see if I agree with the instructor and their approach. At best, this would be one of the previous sessions classes, before the session my puppy would be enrolled in. If not, then I would like to talk to the instructor and see if their philosophy is not incompatible with mine. Possible questions include:

• Is this a positive (non-punitive) class? Food is required, clicker-training a plus but not mandatory, so long as the instructor doesn’t mind if I discretely use one.
• Is there play time? That’s a large part of why I go, so the answer had better be yes. A puppy needs to meet a variety of its own kind, and at that age it’s hard to do that outside a class setting.
• How is play time handled? A free-for-all, where all puppies are released to mug-and-be-mugged at will can’t possibly be good. Wendy has 8 puppies and made three groups of them, mostly by temperament and boldness, it seemed. I image that as the weeks progress, there is a good chance we will get down to two groups. Last time, with Zachary, she cycled the bolder (but not mugging) puppies into the area with the less bold puppies. Zachary fell into the bolder-not-mugging category, and he (on leash, to level the playing field) learned he had to be calmer and quieter if he was going to find a play companion. The shyer, smaller dogs saw that not all bigger dogs are bullies.
• How many puppies in the class? I don’t actually know what a good number would be. Like kids in a classroom, the more you get relative to the number of instructors, the greater the potential for chaos and result in a lack of learning. But you also have more puppies to mix-and-match playmates with, should the instructor choose to.
• What do you cover? In addition to the usual sit/down/come, a puppy instructor should go over, or at least encourage questions about, home-life (house-training, mouthing, jumping, … etc.)

Are you pro puppy class or do you feel you can provide similar lessons at home? I am pro puppy class, and think it is virtually impossible to provide similar lessons at home. However, if you have raised a puppy before and are familiar/comfortable with puppy growth stages, have trainable friends willing to help work on greeting skills, know some puppy-tolerant adult dogs to remind puppy that manners are important, and feel you will be able to face those teenage years without a shoulder to cry on, then you can probably do quite a bit yourself, with the glaring except of puppy play time.

If you do, how? The hardest part (other than finding appropriate doggie friends) is probably finding people who will help your efforts to socialize instead of hindering them. At least in puppy class the instructor tells everyone what to do, and everyone has a vested interest in being a good socializer. The General Public just wants to pet the puppy, play with the puppy, get the puppy wound up!

So, in summary, a Good Puppy Class is a Very Good Thing, but good luck finding one!

Puppy - 6.5 weeks

Dog Blog Post #123: Zachary is an Easy Dog. I'd love to take credit for how wonderfully he has turned out, but I can't. Not really. He just came that way.

It's nice working with an Easy Dog.

Scratch that.

It's stupendous (joyous, invigorating, and just plain fun) working with an Easy Dog.

What makes Zachary an Easy Dog? Well, for starters, he thinks I walk on water, that the world revolves around me, and he lives to try to please me.

Really, need I say more?

They say you don't get the dog you want, you get the dog you need.

If that's the case, then the cosmic forces must have thought I needed a Whole Lot O' Dog when they handed me Beau.

Beau was not an Easy Dog - at least not at first. He definitely did not think I walked on water. He knew the world did not revolve around me, and my needs (let alone my wants) were carefully weighed against his before he made any decisions.

He was not a dominate dog, despite what some of the (worst) trainers thought. He never tried to impose his will on others or make them do anything at all. He just considered everyone to be pretty much equal, and equals should politely and respectfully discuss the merits of any action before a course is decided.

Equals can also choose to ignore other equals, especially if they are blabbering nonsensically (as I was prone to doing, at least for the first year or two.)

I learned a lot about dogs (and life) from Beau.

Beau could not be dominated (he'd blow you off) or intimidated (he'd laugh at you.) Unlike most dogs, he also couldn't be bribed by food or toys or anything else that anyone could think of.

Nope, working with Beau required forming a relationship - a true partnership - and most trainers just couldn't seem to wrap their minds around that idea. They were too stuck on the idea of "us vs. them".

Beau didn't do "us vs. them".

He would happily wag his tail, beg a belly rub, then bolt off to go smell the dirt, leaving those sort of trainers holding, well, nothing at all.

( It was next to impossible to be more interesting than dirt if you hadn't already worked out that whole partnership thing. )

Being Beau's partner wasn't actually hard, it just required understanding his needs and wants, communicating your needs and wants, and then working out between you the order that things were going to be done in.

So long as Beau felt you were working with him, he would move mountains for you.

At Rally shows he did pretty much everything I asked in exchange for a chance to sniff to his hearts content when it was all over. There were times when he had to wait several hours before my end of the bargain was fulfilled, but he never complained.

We had a deal, he know it, and he trusted me to hold up my end.

I never let him down.

While an Easy Dog may be fun and joyous, working with Beau was hugely rewarding. And while he handed out his friendship to any and all (that whole Obsessive Compulsive Friendliness Disorder thing) he gave out his respect very judiciously, and I was honored to have earned it.

All he really wanted was to be understood. Was that so much to ask?

Handler Dan understood Beau. He taught the conformation handling class, and held the high honor of being the only person who ever held Beau's leash who didn't have it yanked from his hand (yours truly included.)

Handler Dan never raised his voice, never offered any food, never did anything with the tiny little show leash except loosely hold the end of it, and yet Beau did anything that man asked.

To this day I don't really know why, except to think that somehow, in the blink of an eye, Handler Dan and Beau somehow formed a partnership of equals, and Beau shone like a star for him.

( sigh )

I'm hoping One-of-Ten is an Easy Dog.

I'm hoping that the cosmic forces are satisfied I learned what needed learning from Beau and they will smile on me again, but only time will tell.

Either way, I will work hard to apply what I have learned. After all, when you're being taught by the best, you'd be a fool to not pay attention.

Zachary at 6.5 weeks

A few years ago, when a good friend of my was commenting on how much energy her large-breed had, I suggested she get another dog. Beau was a Single Dog from puppy hood until 4.5 years, and the addition of Zachary as a puppy at that time had really done a lot to calm the big dog down (or maybe he had sudden onset maturity. Hard to say.)

My friend replied that she would like to, but her hubby felt that the dogs would bond more with each other than with him - or the new dog would bond more with the old dog than with him (it's been a while.) But the upshot was that he would somehow be left out of the loop.

As our breeds, dogs, and families are very different, I shrugged and said perhaps and left it at that, but in my heart I knew that two was better than one and that our relationship (the dogs and I) was not adversely effected.

Now, having gone from two dogs back down to one (at least for a few weeks here) I can see that I was both right and wrong.

I believe I can say with 100% certainty that the addition of Zachary to the family did not have a negative impact on Beau, or his relationship with the two-legged family members.

Period.

My big dog remained my big dog, and while he definitely enjoyed the canine companionship, I'm doubt that he would have shown much (if any) change (ie: mourning or sense of loss) should Zachary have been taken first.

With Zachary, the story is more complex.

I freely admit that there were parts of Zachary's education and entertainment that we left fully to Beau. The big dog took on Bite Inhibition (those poor ears) and Wearing Out without a single complaint. Zachary clearly looked to Beau for companionship, guidance, and leadership in all things "doggie" - although it's interesting to note that Beau often seemed to lead from behind.

And Zachary was clearly distressed and confused when his friend and mentor vanished from his life, although he seems to have put that behind him now.

But there is more.

I've come to realize that there are a few things about Zachary that I don't know that I did know about Beau.

For example, I never knew that Zachary doesn't look you in the eyes "just because" - at least not directly. He'll do it if we are training it, and yes, that took a lot of work, but I guess I always thought that was because he didn't know what I wanted, not because he didn't want to do it.

Beau would stare at me with soft eyes, seemly because he just wanted to connect with me (and sometimes because he wanted a cookie from the cookie jar!)

I could get lost in those eyes, and often felt that they were windows to an old soul.

I also didn't realize that Zachary didn't see us as creatures that could be played with. He would play tug and fetch just fine - games done from a distance - but anything done up close or "in your face" clearly made him uncomfortable.

That's really not too surprising, as he and Beau played hours of bitey-face and we were happy to leave that to them. But when I saw that Zachary was missing that kind of interaction and tried to supply it, he was clearly uncomfortable.

Beau and I used to play like that Before Zachary - things like keep away, paw games, gentle shoulder shoving,... etc.

Thankfully, at least that has been easy to fix.

A few weeks ago I couldn't get a puppy fast enough. I felt Zachary needed companionship right away, and seeing him look so lost made a hard time even harder. Now, I'm glad we've had these few weeks to get to know one another a little better, and I'm going to make an effort to continue these one-on-one sessions with Zachary, and make sure I have them with little One-of-Ten as well.

Just two more weeks.

I can hardly wait!

There are things on my weekly training to-do list that I fear.

Sometimes, that fear is based on reality, as anything requiring Zachary to "Do Nothing" is iffy at best. I don't call him "Ten Seconds" Zachary for nothing!

Sometimes, that fear is based on past realities, which I know no longer hold true but that I still foolishly cling to. For example, there was a time when Beau was nearly impossible to shape. He's much better now, and I know that, yet that old twinge of uncertainty still remains - will he be better this time?

I don't really see Fear of Failure during training as my goals are oriented around keeping my boys busy and learning, and it's almost impossible to fail at that! I probably have a Fear of Failure when it comes to competing (the few times I've done so) and that no doubt plays into my ring nerves, but that's a post for another day.

But none of those explain the Odd Occurrance of last night.

Nope, to figure that one out required a bit of googling until I hit on this strange beast: Fear of Success.

Huh?

According to eHow.com symptoms include:

1. Procrastination
2. Talk ideas to death instead of doing them
3. Never quite finish a project
4. Read every book on the topic but do not implement or execute the required actions
5. You have already succeeded once, you are an expert, you know what to do, how to do it and you have excelled in the (near or far) past. Still you hesitate to put in the next set of actions.

... or from Suite 101

1. "Partying" the night before the big presentation
2. Procastination
3. All talk, no action
4. Negative, pessimistic thoughts and behaviors

Keeping that in mind, we go back to last night...

There I was, standing in the middle of the Kitchen, staring at the Weekly Worksheet for this week, when my eyes settled on Training Levels 4 - Watch: 10', 30 seconds.

(sigh)

I believe it has been on the list for at least a month, and I have yet to do anything at all with it. Right above that gem was the 2 minute Training Levels 4 - Sit-Stay, another winner, as Zachary remains at 30 seconds with no signs of budging, unless slumping to a down counts. I believe that one has been on and off the list since March.

Yes, that March, now six months past.


(ugh)

Feeling in a list-clearing mood, I thought I'd give ye ol' Watch a try to see just how bad it was. First up: Beau. I didn't really expect any problems there, and I didn't get any. He passed without issue, and I kicked myself for not having set up the camera.

Next up: "Ten Seconds" Zachary. Being a glutton for punishment, I put him in a sit stay, walked 10' away, then turned and looked at him...

... and he looked at me...
... and he looked at me...
... and he looked at me.

Darned if Snug Bug didn't sit there, practically unblinking, for the entire 30 seconds. It was one of the easiest passes I've had, for a skill we haven't touched since he labored through the previous level. Now I was really p*ssed for not having set up the camera!

But wait, there's more.

While I was working with Beau, I decided to give Training Levels Four - Finish a try. (I know, it's not on this weeks list, but hubby has a Mound O' Stuff in our regular "classroom" so I had to improvise.)

Training Level Four - Finish is supposed to be a swing finish (to the left) on voice cues only. I realize that now, because I just looked it up. However, last night I was thinking it was a finish to the right (behind my back).

Beau knows a right finish using a hand signal, but I've never done it on just a vocal cue. Ever. But last night, for grins and giggles, I put him in front of me and said "Finish".

Darned if the Big Dog didn't trot right around me, sit right beside me, and look up at me adoringly.

Had Level Four Finish been a right finish, I could have passed him on the spot.

So, what does this all mean?

1. Procrastination: This stuff should have been taught, tested, and crossed off months ago but I just didn't do it
   
2. All [lists], no action: How long have these things been sitting on my Weekly Worksheets, awaiting attention???
3. Never quite finish (pardon the pun): Really, Level Four should have been signed, sealed, and delivered back in June, but instead I've started on Level Five
4. Negative, pessimistic thoughts and behaviors: I didn't do it because I just knew they would fail.

Quick, someone distract me with a new Training Challenge before I run off to create more lists to help me figure out how to stop making lists and just get down to training!!!

I spent most of this week in and around one of my favorite cities - Carmel, California - and I left still believing that it is, paws down, the most dog-friendly place I have ever been.

Practically everywhere you go, you'll find folks with their well-behaved dogs. The dogs are good as they walk past one another, as they greet one another, as they stand waiting for their owners to eat, drink, and be merry. The dogs on the streets are leashed, of course, but there are plenty of "shop dogs" just hanging out in "their" shops watching the world go by. The doors are always open, people (and other dogs) flow in and out, and everyone seems to get along.

Water bowls dot the sidewalk, there are poo-bag stations on practically every corner, and I didn't see a single person walk away from their civic duty.

Alas, my boys did not get to go.

First off, they are both intact. I don't mean that as an excuse, but simply pointing out a sad fact of life that there are dogs out there - otherwise very good dogs (like the Therapy Dog we met in line at the groomers the other day) - who seem to take offense to intact boys' existence.

Secondly, Beau would not be able to contain his desire to meet everyone boisterously, greet every dog thoroughly, and sign every social signpost with a flourish. Yes, I take full responsibility for his failings. Yes, I have tried to fix them (you have no idea how much I've tried!) But that's just the way it is.

Third (and the nail in the coffin) - our plans included a day the Monterey Bay Aquarium and a day a Point Lobos, neither of which allows dogs.

On my last night there, as I walked down the sidewalks, missing my boys terribly with every friendly dog I met (which seemed to be every dog there) I was thinking that Good Dogs get to go so many interesting places and have so many opportunities...

... and at the same time I was wondering if they are Good Dogs because they get to go so many interesting places and have so many opportunities?