Kia Starts Training

Kia loves to learn things. She is so darn smart! I honestly have to think of things to do with her every day, every hour, sometimes minute to minute, to keep her enriched and her mind occupied. Because Kia is so smart she is like a really super smart human child where a lot of the time the child is bored because the usual things don't always inspire and stimulate their brains, and we all know what happens when children who need a challenge are not challenged enough, usually it manifests as the child finding their own ways to challenge their selves much to their parents displeasure <smile>.

Some of the behaviors Kia does when she needs more mental/physical enrichment:

Barks at me to let me know she is frustrated
Can't decide if she wants to be in or outside.
Barks at the other dogs in the house to get them to play
Goes over threshold when playing a game of tug or other game with her human or other dog.

None if this means she is a "bad puppy", and the truth is she is an awesome puppy, she is just a wicked smart lil girl who requires mental and physical exercise to reach her full potential. And yes she does have an off switch, but she needs some help to get there.

Kia is a terrier, she has been bred to be a working dog and she wants and needs to work. She has some impulse control deficits that require the humans in her life to get creative and work around, and I am positive with the right adopter she will flourish and be an awesome companion!

You know the dog Eddie on Frasier show? I read that Moose (aka Eddie) as a puppy was impossible! He was hyper and destructive, then he got a spot on the show Frasier and all the training he had to do to be Eddie gave him a wonderful outlet to use his high intelligence and to feed his working dog brain.

Kia is not an Eddie, BUT she is highly intelligent, and active. So yes she can be challenging. The cool thing is she is super duper fun to work with and she LOVES to train!

These videos are in order of the very first training session we played around with. I simply was reinforcing her to go to a mat in the bathroom and in short order she wasn't just going and standing on the mat, she was sitting on the mat and giving me eye contact. This took her about 5 minutes to figure out.

In this first video I was working on shaping her to go to the mat and stand or sit on it. She wasn't sure what I was wanting yet so she gives a little bark to tell me she was frustrated or confused.

In this video you can see how shaping is working. I quietly wait for her to go stand all fours on the mat and when she does I say "yip" (her bridge word), then I toss her a treat.

This next video she gives me a sit on the mat for the first time and I was so excited! She got a jack pot for that and this will reinforce her to want to try that move again.

Here she does give the sit again. And now we go for eye contact with the sit.

And this was our last try before ending the training. I could tell she was getting tired, and training like this really is a mind work out for her.

You can see how she wants to work. She is very intent on giving me eye contact and sitting on the mat.

Kia still wanting to train even after the other dogs were let in the bathroom.

Still sitting there and she and I are now working on a "that's all" cue so she knows when we are done.

She was still trying so hard to get me to continue our session. Birdie smells the treats that I had up on the bathroom sink.

She had gotten off the mat and then was headed back in case I didn't know what a good girl she was being.

This is a close up of the first pic, she is adorable and can't you just see the intelligence in those eyes?

Kia is an amazing dog! She is all of 12-14 weeks old and is ready for college! Since this first training session she is learning to sit for her meals, sit to come in the house, sit to get a treat, sit after she goes potty and comes for her treat. She has a few other things she is learning too and you will have to keep watch to see her in action.

Annie And I Have A Plan Part 4 Annie's Progress!

When my husband picked Annie up this morning to give her some loves he said to her, "Annie you are feeling so much lighter!". 

It is true that Annie has done a fantastic job of losing 1 lb in just three weeks. Well... she had a little help from her foster parents with food portioning, and lots of fun walks and hikes almost every day, but she hasn't complained at all and has really become a fan of all the veggies/fruit and quality protein sources she is getting. We even noticed that her harness needs to be adjusted in today when we were out on our walk.

Along with less Annie has come a more frisky Annie! She can jump into laps easier, do even faster rattie runs, leap across small streams, and she can run up the stairs in the house like the breeze. There is no walk that tires her out and we are planning a longer hike in the very near future. Annie is a typical terrier, ready for anything with a bit of terrier tude thrown in. But we can save that for a later post. :)

These videos were taken three weeks ago when we had just begun working on recall while on leash out on our walks. These first two show how Annie was clearly more interested in the environment than in coming back to see what foster mom was calling her for. Terriers are hard wired to hunt and when they are in hunt/prey drive mode or just sniffing for critters recall can be a bit tough for them. Plus Annie hadn't realized yet that foster mom has really good treats! No worries...she figures it out quickly.

Notice how I call her name once and when she doesn't respond I don't continue calling her name over and over. I have learned through many sources that once we start down that road of calling a dog's name over and over trying to get a response that it "poisons the name or cue word". To the dog it is similar to parents lecturing their child over and over about the same thing, the child will tune out and the words stop having any meaning. I have come to understand this is the same with dogs, if I were to call "Annie-Annie-Annie ANNIE!!!!!", trying to get a response, this is not the best way for me to set up my relationship with her, as she would learn to just tune me out and recall is so important, we want our dogs to be happy to come to us when we call their name

In this video I tried to call her name when she was in the process of turning to look at me so that she would be able to see I had a little pay check for her if she would come to me when I called her name. Her pay check is a high value treat, some really smelly homemade salmon treats. That got her attention!

Because we were just starting our recall work I tried to time my calling, "Annie!" with when she was not so interested in something in the environment. I wanted to set her up for success, catch her attention so when she heard her name she would look back and see foster mom always has something yummy to offer her. She nailed it!

I noticed in watching this video that Annie was giving me a head check as we were walking. This is great! She was starting to anticipate that I might be calling her so she was keeping a bit of her attention on me as well as environment. This is just one way we work on recall. There are many other recall games we do around the house formally and informally.

09-25-14 Annie's very first day in foster care, 3 weeks ago. She was at 13 lbs.

Someone said little Annie looked like a small Llama :)

Annie after losing 1 lb, her neck and chest has thinned out and she is getting a waist! She has always been a doll baby, but now she is looking more like her young 2 1/2 year old self.

And from the other side...looking good sweetheart! She is developing some nice muscle in her back legs too.

Looking down on this sweet girl, her little waist is starting to curve in. Such a good girlie....

Continuing Working Off Leash With Tim... A Ripple Effect Part 2

Here are the rest of the videos of the dogs walking off leash and Liza is now in the videos too! In case you didn't catch the first post you can find it here Continuing Working Off Leash With Tim... A Ripple Effect Part 1

Here Dave is working on rewarding Tim for being at his side rather than the usual running up front then checking back in. He is starting to get really good at it and will walk at Dave's side or a bit behind him on a regular basis now!

Here is Skip and Jenny walking next to me, I am trying to record and reward at the same time :) Nice to know I have their attention.

 And wow Liza is in the video! This is the ripple effect of this work we are doing with Tim, Liza is staying close to us and not scouting out in front like she has done for the last 3 years that we have had her. She is really into this fun training we are doing. Liza says "if there is food involved I will gladly change my behavior!"

 Normally we don't really stop our walk to deliver the rewards but everyone decided mom is preoccupied with recording so maybe it is a good time to see if they can get a treat for being super cute.... it worked! What the heck, if the dogs want to be focused on us when we are on these walks rather than heading out into the woods away from us, I am really good with that and it should be rewarded I think.

And look what we are achieving! 44 seconds of the dogs all walking behind Dave and in front of me. This feels like the safest way for us to do off leash walking and we will continue with our rewarding until this behavior will just be second nature for everyone. 

I wanted to mention a few things in closing about this subject of off leash walking. In the past when we would work with training our dogs, before we had ratties, we would spend a lot of time saying "keep back, stay back, get back etc..." Not sure if you can notice from the videos but we aren't saying anything to the dogs. What we know now and wish we knew years ago, is dogs don't understand our conversation, confusing cues that were never even taught. They don't learn to stay where you want them because you say words to them and then get more stern each time you say it.

Dave and I daydream about going back to our past dogs and starting over with what we know now about force free training. We didn't know any better. I still believe we were loving doggies parents, but I now know we must have been awfully confusing to our dogs and they did get stern "talking-to's" which looking back did little to get the behaviors we were wanting and did nothing to deepen our relationship with our dogs.

I want to thank two New Rattitude team members for sharing with us their journey, passion, and love of force free training. Please visit their wonderful blogs here http://rescuedratties.blogspot.com/ and here http://cattierattie.blogspot.com/. I am a convert of this fun, gentle, and common sense way of having a working/training relationship with our dogs. And it works!

And a quick tip. If you decide to work off leash with your dog, please be safe with them. Where we practice this work is on state land where there are 99.99999% no other people or dogs to distract our dogs. Also with small dogs please be aware of wildlife that lives in the wild places and if your dog is wandering off, or his/her prey drive is too strong to be safe, then please use a long line or leash and keep them close to you. Talking, whistling, wearing bells, can help to warn wild life of your presence. Don't walk off leash with your dogs where it is not allowed. And always carry a leash for every dog that you can grab right away and use if needed. Some dogs might never be trustworthy to be off leash, that is perfectly fine.

This post is in honor of our dear friend Maya who was a great companion and hiking partner. She has been waiting for us at Rainbow Bridge for about 6 years now and we know someday we will meet again. Love you and miss you Maya.....

Maya at Chiwaukum Creek Trail, Eastern WA

Maya at Goat Lake, WA