Training

Went to my one on one evaluation today with Michael Clay. I have to say, though I had my reservations as I was talking on the phone and emailing him, I loved meeting him in person. We drove 1 hour out from Toronto to make our 12 PM appointment, and had a great 3 hour session outdoors with Michael. By the end of the session, I had a better idea of what I was doing wrong, how to approach my relationship going forward with pupper, and a rough outline of a working plan for the next month or so.

Michael didn't want to give me a formalized plan because like Robin, he recognized my lemming tendencies when it comes to dog care. But for the sake of my learning, I need to commit the few key changes I'm going to make in the coming weeks onto paper. Though this is against the organic and thinking-based approached that Michael wants me to take, listening, processing, and writing down has been my approach to learning in academia, and makes me feel more confident and committed in dog care as well.

Key problem: Lack of a solid relationship
Main recommendation: consistent, fair approach

So here are the few key things we worked on today.


1. Proper greeting technique

In the past 2 months that I've had her, our experiences with strangers on the road and with my family members have reinforced the concept that jumping excitedly will get Pupper what she wants. The technique that Michael showed me today involved walking up calmly and confidently to the person, and being ready to manage the leash length so that pupper cannot land her jump even if she tried. From that distance, pupper needs to sit and appear calm before allowed to approach again. I practiced this with Michael and my sister, and came home to do more practicing with Shu (Amaretto's favourite prey, he's 5, squeaks, jumps, and makes sudden flaily movements), Jue, my dad, and a visiting aunt. In one quick evening we were able to really change the way she behaves on meetings. I plan to repeat this exercise tomorrow with variations of movement. Today we had the children walk close to pupper, turn around and run away before I walked up with pupper to greet. Tomorrow, I think I will let the children walk straight up. I'll also try to invite lots of friends over reading week to practice this technique. After pupper feels solid on meetings in the home, I want to slowly move this out to the real world starting with my drive way and familiar people, going to empty fields with familiar people, etc.

2. Reactivity

Michael has a fenced outdoor exercise area for his boarding kennel. He asked his staff to select loud dogs that are not reactive and let them out so puppy could approach the fence. She barked when she first made eye contact with them, but when she went up to explore, she stopped barking. Then, she would be fine if they stayed in sight, but would bark again when they peeked out somewhere new. The goal is to make seeing dogs a non-event, so we hung out for a while talking outside the kennel. Eventually, pupper stopped barking even when the dogs peeked out. Pupper was also able to interact with a dog belonging to Michael's family, and Michael's latest training prospect, Carmspack Badger.

Badger was just let out of the house and didn't give time for pupper to build a reaction. She did not bark at him until he was able to put ALOT of distance between them again when he went to retrieve something. But she stopped very shortly. Badger is just WOW. I thought pupper was big...but she's a TINY TINY baby next to Badger. Badger was well-behaved enough to completely ignore pupper, and give pupper an AMAZING socialization experience. I think through meeting with Badger, Michael recommended that I not let Pupper run with other dogs until I develop a more solid bond. She appears to prefer interacting with other dogs to interacting with me. So I guess this is all still part of the original problem of a lack of a solid relationship.

While in Toronto, I'll be avoiding streets and places with possible dog interactions, as it'll help reinforce pupper's reactivity unless I can handle it well. But when I return to Kingston, I can recreate the same controlled environment with the field outside of the dog park, and give pupper the same exposure. I plan to take her there and just hang out with some audit readings so she can acclimatize herself to dogs without approaching them, and learn that seeing dogs is a non-issue.

3. Relationship Building

Relationship building is where I will be placing my emphasis in the coming months. Up until now, using my incredibly nerdy and faculty-appropriate analogy, I supply too much love and attention, since her demand for attention is fixed, this oversupply drives down the price of my affection. She isn't SEEKING me out, and I try too hard to engage her.

I'll be doing a couple of things in the coming weeks:


-Ignoring her until she comes to me, and then only lightly acknowledging her
-Let her go offleash in my back yard, and wait until she wanders to my left side, mark and reward
-Take her to big field with long line, do my thing and reward when she decides to come closer to me. Reward should be mix of praise, play, and food.
-Crate her when not actively interacting with me. I'm still not sure how to incorporate this 100% into my schedule, since I have a tight schedule to meet during the school week. I also live in an apartment, which means that I can't crate her and let her scream when it's not part of her scheduled routine. I'm thinking some crate games are in order. Please pass along suggestions!

4. General Handling

Improving my handling skills was part of my original goal of coming to see Michael.
He demonstrated techniques for:
-proper leash holding so I don't vertically fracture my arm in a fall (thumb through loop)
-distributing weight to anchor against pupper's movements so that she doesn't make any gains on pulling
-fading out food lures better on commands she already knows WELL
-adding context for commands she already knows (moving down instead of asking for a down while I'm standing still)
-knowing when to stop interactions to avoid overstimulating her
-DO NOT pause for leg biting, do not react at all, keep moving. 
-If pupper resists movement, just go without cooing or encouraging her.

Michael is sending me a formal report of the evaluation within the week, but these rough notes should be enough of a guide for me until then. In addition to the things he listed, I would like to finish reading purely positive training so I can develop correct intuition and responses to pupper's emerging behaviors.

I am very glad I was able to meet with Michael today to confirm that I'm not sending Amaretto down a path of destruction and frustration for both, and receive hands-on tips on how to manage and handle Pupper. In the coming weeks and months, my management of her environment will be key to our success. The current plan is to come back and see Michael again in a month or so, and continue our work then.

For next session, I want to ask Michael for more time for me to rehearse the behavior in front of him. From this session I found that the things I remember and perform best are actions I've rehearsed with him.

I know that was a bear of a post, but it was really more to archive and summarize my reflections on the training session before I forget all of it completely.

I am optimistic for the future, and will remember to remain patient, fair and consistent in my interaction with Pupper.


-