July Day Two -- Stay With Me

We originally were not too concerned with Sia's sit stay. Her down stay worked well for most things and sitting is not a position Sia natuarally settles into. But, because she is struggling a little bit maintaining her sit during a greeting, it's time to focus on her sit stay.

Sia usually wants to slide into a down. Now we're going to set our criteria a little higher and not accept this.

Moving in closer and leaning towards her, perhaps with a hand signal as a reminder helps her to get back into position.

This puts just enough pressure on her socially that she settles back into her sit (this works when she is starting to break her stay too).

But all this stay stuff can be a little tedius and maybe even a little stressful so we, of course, want to break up the sessions with a little play. I'm sure I sound like a broken record on this one but the importance of play in training is pretty high.

This also gave me a chance to see more changes in Sia. I could really tell how aware she was if her teeth touched my skin. She would quickly drop the tug if she felt my skin in her mouth or if I said ouch. I love a dog who is so respectful.

Respectful and sensitive. The poor girl doesn't understand it when a dog is intimidated by her.

The sad thing is that she tries to engage them in play by talking to them. This, of course, makes matters worse. Hopefully, if I keep interrupting this behavior, she'll figure out another way to win them over.

Thankfully the labs will always play with her. Good old Sinbad...

They'll even do downs with us when we are practicing our fast downs with distractions. Silly labs, if I had a wider angle lense you would have seen two more labs who went into a down when I said "Sia, down." It's so nice to have supportive friends...

July 2012 Visit -- Day One

Sia's back! She's the one trying to get as low as she can as she reintegrates into the group. Silly girl, you were just here.

She even dove underneath  the old girl, Percy, who is visiting right now. Percy is a service dog (close to retirement).

Sia was super tired today. She kept falling asleep sitting up and finally decided to lay her head down.

Her nap was short lived though...

There were too many fun things to do, friends to visit with, and, of course, work to do.

We worked for a short while on her sit stays, hoping to build it up some so she can maintain her sits for greetings longer. But today was not the day to work on sit stays. I should have known better. The girl needs fast, exciting things to do on her first day back.

So a little bit of play with Sinbad so we can get her nice and distracted. Sinbad was happy to oblige.

A little bit of Sia's own unique style of agility...

And let's check that recall. Perfect! So fast Sinbad has not even started to move towards me (even though "come" is not his recall word he's knows well enough that there is a big pay off in the end). But Sia clearly beats him to it.

Working on her fast downs throughout play help her to be more responsive and it helps tone down the play if things are getting too rough.

A little side note: Healey and Sia are underneath my desk playing as I type this. I think Sia is finally wearing her down. Looks like Sinbad was missing his playmate because he just coaxed her away with a little game of tug.

Always a touch distracted on her first day back, we went through the whole "It's a bird, it's a plane..." routine. Yes, Sia, it is a bird. Yes, it's a plane. In all seriousness though, she seems far less distracted than usual. I love it when it all starts to come together in their brains.

As sleepy as she was today I thought she would kennel really easy. Not so...maybe just excited to be back and fighting the sleep. We worked a little bit on kenneling but I imagine that will all come together later this week as the excitement of being here wears off a bit.

One thing is for sure, it's great to have her back. I just love that Sia girl!

June Day Nine -- That Time Again

Sia has matured so much. It's so fun to watch all the changes in her. She still has a little ways to go before she is fully mature. It's important to keep that in mind when she is acting perfect one minute and naughty the next.

She's doing great with her socialization outings. We spend a little bit of time when we first arrive letting Sia take everything in. She likes to peak her head out of the kennel in my car and check out her surroundings. Once she is leashed up and ready to go, I spend a little bit of time getting her attention and rewarding her for eye contact so she is nice and checked in with me before we begin.

Today Sia went with me to a Veterinary Hospital so I could pick up some medications for my cat. It's really good for dogs to visit the vets when they are not going in for an appointment. This cuts down on the anxiety quite a bit (otherwise they only go in when they need to get poked or other less comfortable things happen). With all the smells in a vet hospital, they are well aware of where they are. But just going in to get love from all the staff that work there, now that's a trip anyone would like to take. Lots of compliments on her nice behavior and her greetings were beautiful!

Sia will probably always be a little distracted but each day I see improvements.

And she gets huge pats on the back when she has an opportunity to give into distractions and she choose to follow through with you instead. This seems to be a much more frequent occurrence these days!

And if she's being naughty, don't hesitate to use your time-outs. We've done so much work with making the collar grab a positive thing, I barely have to touch it to lead her to her time-out location. And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure I had to put her in a time-out at all this week.

Sia is also learning to relax a bit more. She is not nearly as anxious if she is separated from people. This will go a long way towards helping her be a nice, well adjusted dog.

We kept her well exercised this week.

We wore her out as usual.

And she knows her favorite toys and friends will always be waiting here for her.

June Day Eight -- It's Your Job, Sia

Lots more socializing today. We don't stay long so as not to overwhelm her (also called "flooding" where some think it's helpful to expose dogs to so much of something that they just get use to it -- not an effective method for most dogs). Just having her around the carts and hustle and bustle in the parking lot is enough.

Working around different distractions (like food) help her to become more responsive to you.

And we go to a variety of places. It's easy to get stuck in a rut but it's important to go to new places. From Winco to New Seasons there are a lot of different sounds, people, animals, etc. to experience in the parking lots.

I thought perhaps I would put in a late garden so we went to the garden shop as well to look for veggie starts. There were great opportunities here. A child asked to greet her and even tried to hand her a ball. Nice distractions and a beautiful greeting. Such a good girl! No veggies for us though. We instead took advantage of the training opportunities.

So she's doing really well with her Gentle Leader on but what happens when she's on her flat collar? She actually does really well on her flat collar. I was pleased that it took a lot to set this picture up because she wanted to stick with me when the leash was on. Still didn't get the effect that I wanted but I'll try to use my words to describe it. Pulling can be a very reinforcing behavior. When someone pulls back on a leash or collar, the dogs natural tendency is to pull forward in opposition. This can really rev a dog up which can be very rewarding for the dog and very frustrating for the person at the other end of the leash. So, she's impulsive and can get distracted, which is normal for her breed, temperament and age. So how do you wean off the head halter?

You can start out in low to moderate distracting environments by putting her head halter on and clipping her leash to her flat collar. It still gives her the impression that she is using the Gentle Leader but you don't have the same control over her head. This is handy too, if you realize you are in an environment where the distractions are too high (you can quickly switch her back to her head halter). You may need to back up some of your training (i.e. reward more frequently, use a higher value treat, get a little farther away from the distraction, etc.) but you should find that you can move through it more quickly than you have in the past (yea for the wonderful foundation you have laid!).

As she gets better, transition to putting the head halter in your pocket so you have it just in case. Keep your leash nice and loose (note the "J" in the leash). Remember that she needs to be the one doing the work. It's her job and she needs to be responsible for her own behavior. If you find that you are having to physically restrain her, back up on your training a bit. Try to avoid the pulling and restraining as that will encourage that pulling behavior. And, if it's a really distracting environment, until she's a bit older with a little more self-control, it's probably best to have her head halter on.

Also remember to keep your leash short enough that it is still loose but she's not able to move ahead and self reward (i.e. sniff things, pick things up, check things out, forge ahead, etc.).

Sia wants you to know it wasn't all work today. She had lots of play time too.

And it was a super good day because Healey actually played with her. Ahhhh...persistence pays off.

June Day Seven -- Out on the Town

Most of our training happened out and about today. Sia is doing really well with her greetings right now (again, minus the kiss she likes to sneak in). I'm always happy to hear from people who have helped me with her greetings in the past because they can see how much she has changed over time.

A pet supply store is a great place to go so you can practice letting her get distracted and then calling her to come. Practicing this a lot will get her really sharp and coming off of any distraction. This can be very useful when she's so distracted that she might pull on the leash. The recall is such an exciting thing for her, it helps her to learn that you can be just as exciting as other things that are happening in her environment.

I took her to several new places and was quite pleased at how well she did. She was easy to manage despite all the distractions. On occasion she would be a little nervous about someone who looked a little different but staying calm and not feeding into it helps her to know that everything is ok. Such a big difference in her!

And here was the biggie...while I was checking out at the cashier, she went down and rolled over on her hip in a totally relaxed position all on her own without any cues from me. This allowed me to just step on the leash and complete my transaction. I was very, very pleased with this behavior. There were people with dogs coming into the store and she acted like it was nothing. I love when things start to come together!

And to top off all our really nice outings today, we got numerous compliments on her behavior including some people who said "I thought Dobermans were always vicious but she sure isn't." It's nice to show a realistic view of the breed as opposed to a stereotype.

We did more work at home but it had to be fit in between naps.

It wears a girl out to be out on the town so much.