Knightley and cupboards, loose leash, back to work

5 months 1 week 5 days old

So the pup still has a bad stomach, although it seems to be a little better. He is sure enjoying his rice and chicken meals.... they smell so good I wouldn't mind eating them!! I am using them for his training, and he will do just about anything to get his greedy maw on them, so that is useful.

We're doing more work on his cupboard closing skills. 

Paw there Mr Knightley!

Bullseye!

Yes!

Yes!!

Have some yummy chicken and rice
for being such a very good boy.

Big whack incoming!! This one closed
the door.

Our next challenge, which wasn't in the original levels, but is in the new books, is to teach Knightley to target my feet. This would be an especially useful first step if you had serious mobility problems and wanted to teach your dog to take off your socks in the future. So maybe later today we'll try doing the foot targeting. I don't anticipate much trouble, he has always enjoyed nose targeting on my hand and on wands and other objects. I actually enjoy teaching brand new things, now that he *gets* shaping watching him learn is just fascinating and really addictive. 

We've been doing more LLW practice, as is in the Training Level books by Sue Ailsby. Firstly I put him in a sit/down and then pulling gently on a flat/martingale collar until he moves into the pressure, then immediately c/t. Then the second exercise is slowly walking around with him on a leash inside, and change directions suddenly so that there is some pressure on the leash. When he moves into the pressure and the tightness stops, I quickly c/t and give him lots of praise. If I am giving him lots of leash space, then when I give the treat I drop it at my feet to encourage him to hang around me despite the relative freedom. He is a long way away from staying loose on his flat/martingale collar. 

Doing Loose Leash Walking (LLW) practice, so that if Knightley
feels any pressure on the leash he is to slow down  and turn
 into me.  Dogs, and indeed all animals, have the instinct to push 
   *into* the pressure in order to escape, which is why they tend
 to pull so much. To reverse that  instinct every time the dog actually
    moves *towards*  the pressure you must make it a pleasurable
experience, so that the dog will start doing it every time it feels the
 leash pressure. It does take a long time, but it is very much worth it.

We need to do a lot more practice with this, although he is pretty good at it inside. Take the treats away, go outside where there are lots of big parrots and exciting people and dogs, and what he has learnt flies out the window. So lots more practice inside until it's completely perfect, including keeping it lose around treats on the floor, then practice in the backyard, then back and forward in the street.... THEN we will start venturing afield. They say keeping a loose leash is perhaps the hardest thing to teach. I would have to agree. Teaching Knightley to close the kitchen cupboard door was so simple compared to keeping his leash loose on a flat collar. He's pretty good on his front buckle harness, but sigh. We'll get there!

We also do heel training inside the house, without the leash. This is a more formal heel, with his spine aligned at right angles to the direction I am facing. I keep up the clicking when he is in good alignment, and do things like put him in a wait, turn at right angles, and then ask him to heel and watch him turn the corner so he will sit at my left again. We also practice finishes, although it is 'just' the traditional behind finish, where the dog goes from in front of you, walks to your right side, still facing you, then goes behind you, heading for your left side.... and ends up in a sit at your left side. 

We haven't done much work on the swing finish (only a little pivot work), which is much more difficult. The dogs front paws move just a little to where they will be in their final position by your side, then the dog swings on the spot - the front paws almost glued to the spot and the back legs doing all the walking around for 180 degrees until the dog has turned all the way around, and then the dog sits. As I said, much harder!

My husband and I both go back to work this week. Hubby already went back this morning, I am not back until Thursday. He wasn't looking forward to it after our couple of weeks off over Christmas, could have done with a couple more weeks off I think. However, I am looking forward to it a lot. I am finally starting my paid position there in a couple of weeks. I have been a volunteer up until now, just working on getting my stamina for paid work up, and finally I am at that point where a small amount of paid work is possible for me. It has been more than three years since I have been well enough to commit to paid work, so this is a big step for me. They seem to like me so much there that they have chosen me for a paid contract position for a project that has come up with some government funding. I will stay as a volunteer for events and some extra hours that they may need me for, but it will be great to be actually working again. I look forward to a future where having a canine companion may help me do longer hours at places further out of the way. Not to mention the independence to actually shop on my own! Which I haven't done for over three years. 

I think those small things are what I miss the most. I truly hope Knightley brings me some of that independence I long for so very much. He is turning out to be such a lovely dog, and a smart one as well! Just thinking of him always brings a smile to my face. I think he has a good chance of making it as an assistance dog. But you never know how dogs will change over their lifetimes. Keep it slow and try not to expect too much, Lyssa!

Targeting breakthroughs, a BBQ and big storms

My clever boy... looking distinctly un-clever,
with his mouth full of leaves, or dirt, or
twigs.... or something even less savory......

4 months 2 days old

Knightley really impressed me a couple of days ago. Over the last week I have started training a "shake" as well as more paw targeting, and I've finally 'shaken' (get it?! terrible, I know) his expectation of doing all paw targeting from a down. Anyway, I'd been using a small tupperware lid for his paw target training (with enough height that treats could just fit under it to encourage him to start the pawing process), but once he had got the idea, had changed to a big white sticker for the "shake". The next day I thought to myself that we hadn't done anything 'new' for a while so decided for the next session I'd try to get him targeting my leg with his paw instead. At first I had the sticker half on my hand half on my leg, and he adapted immediately to pawing a vertical surface instead of horizontal. Then I took it off my hand completely and he kept on pawing the sticker on my leg on cue. What a clever dog! I moved it around on different places on my leg, and he followed it around with his paw, albeit slightly inaccurately. I was as proud as punch and felt like giving him the entire can of wet dog food I had been treating him with during our training session!

So, later in our afternoon I decided to push my luck a bit. He enjoys his nose targeting, but so far all we have done is touching my hand, and touching the end of a purpose made wand. As soon as he saw the sticker on my hand the second time, he tried to paw it. Quite a few times! Not getting a click/treat made him rather annoyed!! Anyway, I cued a hand touch, several times, had him running back and forward in front of me. At least he had stopped trying to paw the sticker. Then I did what I did before, put it half on my hand, half on my leg. He tried pawing again. Obviously we don't have it entirely under impulse control yet!! I pulled it off and did a few more nose targets. Then put it on half/half and immediately cued a touch. He got that, and received a joyful jackpot. Then it must have clicked. He pretty much got it right from then on, although he did eat the sticker a bit when I cued touch. I was able to ask for "paw" or "touch" and mostly get the right one, although occasionally he tried the other one first before getting it right. So much learnt for one day!! I was very very impressed and proud of my puppy.

I'm thrilled to have this photo of Knightley standing still,
I have so few photos of him actually standing because
he tends to move too much! Too bad his harness is pulling
him out of shape a bit, but it is thanks to my Dad I have this
photo at all. Knightley is growing up so fast!

Last weekend my husband and my parents and brother went to a nearby park for a BBQ.... and we took Knightley. It was a great opportunity for him to socialise some more, and I was hopeful that he might be able to at least get his paws wet in the lake. However, it was a rather windy day and the lake was full of dust and everyone had pretty much moved away from the lake into the trees to get some shelter. He did however demonstrate his ongoing barking problem, although it could have been worse I suppose. I had taken a freeze dried kangaroo bone with lots of meat on it for him, but he spent half his time getting filthy eating dirt and leaves. SIGH!

Knightley in his usual 'rug' position with his legs splayed
out either side. You might notice the squashed tennis ball
in front of him he managed to find on a little walk. He often
carries things with him for minutes on end, and seems to
really enjoy doing it. I hope that means he will be good
at retrieving stuff for me!

Since the BBQ his barking has been improving quite a bit, although he will still bark if he thinks it will help matters - although it never does he seems to live in hope! He no longer barks whilst my husband and I eat in the evening, and that was his worst time by far. I have worked hard at showing him that his barking is unacceptable. Perhaps I will do a blog entry on how I am tackling his barking. It is a four pronged approach combining a 'quiet' cue and treats and 'good quiet' praise for continued good behaviour, with depriving him of my company when he barks (negative punishment) which also interupts the barking, and also slowly conditioning him to my departures so that he doesn't bark when I leave the room but he can't follow which has been one of his major problems.

Also since the BBQ we have had some pretty severe thunderstorms. We often do get some bad ones during Summer - and it is just going into the beginning of Summer now. Whenever we have got even mild thunder since we got Knightley I have made sure that it is a time for fun and treats. The storm we had not last night but the previous was severe enough that we lost power twice, the gutters overflowed to the point we had flooding in the house, and there were several crashes that made *me* jump. Knightley got a little mopey as the night went on, but there was absolutely no shaking, no trying to hide or anything like that.

Frankly, there has only once been anything Knightley has been scared of, and that is the kids who live on our street. There was a group of about 8 of them, half on bikes, a couple on go-carts and the rest running... and they all came towards him at once to meet him. That is just about the only time I *ever* seen his tail between his legs, ears back slightly, and crouching a bit. He even tried to take shelter behind me. I told them to pat him one at a time, to talk quietly, and to stop running... and within a minute he was on his back grinning his doggy grin. This was less than a week ago though, so next time he meets kids I will make sure it isn't threatening so it will be 100% successful and he won't develop a thing about kids. Anyway, I was very happy to see him unafraid of a pretty severe storm, although I know it often develops later in life in dogs. Still, so long as I continue doing what I'm doing with him, he should be just fine with thunder and lightening. I mean, he has struck up a friendship with the postman, who rides his motorbike right up to Knightley and I, and then Knightley jumps up (a bit naughty but he gets off when I tell him to) to say hello to a helmeted funny dressed man on a hot piece of metal that roars into life without warning. All this without a skerrik of fear. I'm definitely proud of my puppy dog.

He's looking less and less like a puppy, speaking of 'puppy'. He's got quite a lot of his adult coat, and every time I brush him I get huge handfuls of his puppy coat coming out. He's definitely no longer that fluffball we had in those early weeks. His back is a full 65cm long (26 inches) from neck to tail, he's about 45cm tall (18 inches), and he is 60cm around his chest (24 inches). Despite that his neck hasn't grown much at a rather pitiful 34cm (13.5 inches), and he has a LOT more weight and bulk to put on - at a guess he is about 16.5kg (36lbs). He turned 18 weeks old today, has eight big adult teeth and has another two coming in. It is truly amazing how fast these dogs grow up - and he's been on a slow growth plan! Crazy.

Puppy class, Knightley's new best friend, a very very tired pup

Knightley and Riot,  two playful male pups, only two days
apart in age, about the same size and fluffiness. Let the
games begin.

12 weeks 3 days old

So today was Knightley's second puppy class, and he got to romp with his best friend again, Riot the Australian Shepherd. He played and played until he completely flopped onto the floor and couldn't move. We did some training too, but the part I love Knightley to have is the opportunity to play. There were two other dogs there today, both "jugs", jack russell x pug. Cute little dogs, and both a bit older than Knightley and Riot. It was perfect though - the two bigger dogs played together, and the two smaller dogs (despite the fact Knightley being a Golden Retriever will make him bigger than Riot significantly, I think the slow growth plan has kept him smallish so he's about Riot's size, just with much bigger paws!).

Knightley and Riot going for it at my feet. Last week
Riot always won, this week Knightley more than
held his own - helped by the fact Riot had spent the
morning with other dogs.

All the puppies together. One of the "jugs" getting in
on the rough and tumble Knightley and Riot act. 

He wasn't particularly impressive in terms of following cues, once again, but in that atmosphere I am not all that surprised. Still, it is a shame the instructor doesn't see him at anything like his best, but perhaps I need to let go of that mindset a bit. I think there was some improvement today,  in terms of being under threshold, as he was able to take food some more, although just having the dogs around was such a huge distraction. We visited the training place yesterday to try to get him more used to it so that he would be able to focus on us. I am not sure if it helped..... He would sometimes sit, sometimes down. Everything else was seriously hit and miss, and I don't like using cues when they are likely to be ignored. By the time the instructor got around to 'teaching' us touch (which we obviously know), he was so tired, he could barely be bothered to move his head, although even then he would still play with Riot.

We learnt 'watch' (in the training levels, but not something I have done yet), but I didn't like the way the instructor taught it. Some of the things he does I agree with, other things I think he must be really good at these beginner puppy classes with really young puppies, but probably hasn't read much of the doggy literature out there. For instance, he was asking for a good 5 seconds, or maybe even 8 or so seconds of eye contact before treating the pups. In my opinion that is crazy for a puppy. I would treat at even 1 or 2 seconds, and then the puppy would understand what it was doing right. Then you could start increasing it. Of course Knightley is not used to jumping up suddenly to such a high time expectation, I do things like that slowly with my clicker. He couldn't concentrate on the instructor for more than a second or two, kept on looking away, and yet he was given a treat for it. Not reinforcing what is wanted clearly, in my opinion.

Lying immovable on the cool floor, completely exhausted,
whilst we were meant to be practicing touch and watch.
He wouldn't move, not even for roast chicken. Poor puppy.

Anyway, we did our touch with some white tape on the end of a ruler, instead of having to teach the basics, like the rest of the class. He was really getting tired at that stage, but he did a few good touches - enough to show he could do it, before totally collapsing. It was the hottest day so far of spring, a little over 29c (about 85f), not hot by Canberra standards but it has been a rapid increase in temperature and that contributed to Knightley feeling completely exhausted by the time we got home.

Next week is our last week of puppy class, and it has been a great experience, mostly for the socialisation as we have learnt relatively little. It certainly gives us a quiet Sunday when he comes home! Five hours after getting home, he is still sleeping soundly, I had to even wake him up for his lunch!

I am planning to take him to another puppy class that accepts puppies only after 16 weeks old, and that is run by my vet. I think they are mostly socialisation and help with problems though, with little training. I guess we'll see. We'll have several weeks to practice our stuff before going to a new class. We'll also start to widen our socialisation experiences. My husband suggested a cafe, and if we can find the right one I think that would be a good idea. Knightley is a star wherever he goes, he can't be resisted!

My birthday, training continuing, floor sharks

11 weeks 2 days old

So, last week it was my birthday, my dreaded 30th birthday in fact. Ugghhh. Where on earth has time gone? I find it somewhat hard to believe I have lived 30 years, although some days I physically feel like I've lived 80! Well, at least I'm guessing a bit there obviously.

A closeup of Knightley asleep in his ex pen with
the new camera I got for my birthday!

I did have a nice birthday though. I spent the evening before with my immediate family, my parents, brother, husband and Knightley - at my parents house. We spent quite a few hours there and Knightley was actually very well behaved. He was so interested in exploring everything he didn't fall into his normal 'eat everything in sight' pattern. He was too excited and distracted to respond to his sit cue whilst in exploring mode, but he did some nice hand targets with an audience later.... which was good to see as it was a new place and had I leapt straight in and used the cue straight away (dogs are such poor generalisers, often when you take a previously learnt cue to a new place/room, it won't make sense to them at all and will fall upon deaf ears... the process of teaching the cue over and over again in many places with different levels of distraction is called proofing).

Knightley using my husbands foot as a very handy
chin rest.

I got an amazing digital slr camera from my husband, my brother and in laws for my birthday. It also does very good video, so I can make training videos of Knightley. I should really get one made before he goes much further. I am taking quite a few photos!! I was given a zoom lens as well as the stock lens, and the zoom is pretty awesome. Prepare for LOTS of Knightley closeups.


Since my birthday he has had his second parvo/everything else shot, for which he was fairly well behaved.... just wanted to wag and chew all over the vet - oh, and sneeze the kennel cough vaccine back onto him. Knightley wasn't too impressed about having a whole lot of fluid going up his nose, but he got a clean bill of health so I was happy. We have  started more public exposure after this second shot, as it should give him 99% coverage against parvo, and getting socialised is more important at this stage than wrapping him in cotton wool.

Playing tug with a stick with my mum about a week ago.

We've been doing small walks around the streets - still avoiding other dogs of course.. but getting him used to seeing new things and meeting people (he has a please pat me sign on his harness). He gets through everything with flying colours, every time. When he meets people, he does so with joy and no hesitation. Recovery from any fright with unusual objects he has never seen before is SO fast, it is great to see. In terms of his reactions to environmental stimuli, so far he is spot on for what I want. He is also obeying sit/down/touch with a lot of distractions around him (outside our local shops), so I am very pleased with that! He just turned 11 weeks old, and is going very well indeed. Zen is going quite well although he isn't generalising it yet, and our recall needs significantly more work - he has selective hearing on that one!! I started "on your mat" this morning, and it was the first strictly shaped behaviour I have done so far, and Knightley got kind of stressed about it - didn't get it for a while... but I think he has grasped the basics. Time to let him sleep on it. Other that that he is close to passing Sue Ailsby's Training Levels, Level 1 (old)! I have just put in an order, once again, for her new levels that she has published in two brand new books. I look forward to following that program to the letter, to train Knightley.

He has been quite the floor shark since we got him.... nippy nippy nippy. We all have holes in our clothes, as he looooves tug and nothing gives him greater pleasure than to use our clothes as his tug toys. My brother especially has a pair of lambswool slippers that he adores and that if they were left alone wouldn't survive for a second. I had tried quite a few different techniques with his nipping... which was becoming quite annoying, and certainly needed to be dealt with. It isn't perfect now - but I have greatly improved it by the tethering technique... which I will attempt to do an entry on alone because it worked so well for us.

He is growing up so fast, it is almost scary! He was 6.4kg when we got him, he was 8.5kg at the vets last weekend, and must be just about 10kg now. He is staying nicely lean, but still - wow.... I see most of the change in his face actually. It is becoming less babyish. I really hope he shapes up to be the dog I want and need him to be.