What an amazing dog I have!

6 months 4 weeks 2 days old

I am so very impressed with this gorgeous dog. The visit to the show went ahead despite some very humid/occasionally drizzly weather. It didn't seem to affect the crowds much, there were still a lot of people there! So, this is how the day went.

We got there and were able to park in disabled parking nice and close to the entrance, but it involved walking through 'sideshow alley' to get in, which was full of very loud amusement rides, blaring music, people on microphones trying to sell tickets to various rides and games and so on.... intimidating for some people when they are just coming in, let alone a 7 month old puppy. We could have walked around and gone to another entrance, but we decided to see how Knightley would go. I hadn't fed him the previous night and morning so as to reduce the likelihood of him leaving little presents throughout the show for me to pick up, and to also give me the opportunity to give him heaps of treats throughout the day to help him overcome whatever scary and strange things he may come across. I had got a bunch of stir fry beef from our wonderful local butcher and had slightly cooked it (didn't want to handle raw beef all day). I wanted a very high value treat for whatever we were dealing with was particularly strange or stressful. I also took several handfuls of his old Canidae kibble I still use a bit for training and the like.

The first thing we came across as we went through the gates was a ride with little cars swinging around pretty quickly. Not too crazy but not too sedate. I stopped quite a way back and just let Knightley look at it. He looked pretty relaxed, considering he had never seen brightly coloured flying spinning cars, but I fed him a few pieces of beef to reinforce that loud fast moving things = good. Things were going well, so we took a couple of steps closer, stopped and l fed him a piece of beef. He was quite relaxed still, looking around himself with interest, watching the people go past him into the show... so I started walking towards the ride, keeping up constant praise and giving him a piece of beef every several steps. He was fine! We kept on going until we were past that ride and fully inside the amusement part of the show. I kept up the constant praise with beef, but was slowly winding the beef back as he was doing ok. I watched his body language very carefully, just in case we needed to try to find a less chaotic place, but his tail was up  (even wagging some of the time!), ears were forward not pinned back, his gait was free and easy and he wasn't crouching at all and his eyes were interested, bright, curious... not rolled to the side as a scared dogs eyes are. He looked very good. He just walked steadily beside me.

We did have a couple of issues in this rather crowded section with people patting him without reading the RATHER VISIBLE sign on his new vest, but they were pretty much gone before I could say anything. However later in our time there, there was more patting which I addressed - I will obviously need to come up with a default response to that because I didn't really know what to say to ward them off.

Knightley with the handle attached to his vest looking all
official. What a lovely looking dog he is if I say so myself.

As we had planned we headed for the arena which was much quieter and I was able to sit down.. There were horses in the arena getting presented with ribbons and Knightley watched them curiously but he was ok with them from a distance. However, with the various livestock that had been in the arena there were a lot of flies around and Knightley really hates flies - he can't stop himself from snapping at them, and I'm going to have to try to desensitise Knightley to them because Australia has a lot of flies and getting agitated from snapping at them is no good for an assistance dog.... I'm just not sure how to go about it because you can't just magic up flies when you want them! So as Knightley couldn't settle down there we decided to keep moving. However, because of the problems we had been having with him getting random pats by people, we decided to attach the handle to his harness so I could just hold it very loosely (he isn't allowed to take any of my weight until he is 18 months old) and we hoped it would make him look more 'official' as Australia doesn't have many assistance dogs and the harness handle makes him look a bit more like a guide dog and would make people think twice.

Knightley sitting happily beside me. He was extremely good
at his sit stays, I was so very impressed considering all the
distractions. 

We moved into again a more crowded part, moving through food stalls and lots of stalls selling things and Knightley was doing amazingly well, I just couldn't believe it. He walked patiently and happily by my side, even helping me through the crowd by going for gaps when they appeared.

There was a collection of fire fighting equipment - a modern truck, some older vintage trucks and cars and a smashed up car with those car cutting and separating hydraulics. There was a fireman there in uniform so I asked if I could introduce Knightley to him, as assistance dogs need to be great with people in uniform. You never know when you may be sick or could hurt yourself when you are out somewhere with your dog and need the care of paramedics. Also a working dog is more likely to come across policemen and women so it helps if they are happy with being around them. Some dogs take a particular dislike to people in uniform so I just need to make sure that Knightley's interactions with people in uniform are positive. Later in the day he got to say hello to a policeman, and he was very friendly with him.

We headed into the art exhibition - last year I had two paintings in it - where my dad has won a 1st prize and a 2nd prize. I allowed Knightley to meet the coordinator of the exhibition who was a dog lover and Knightley rolled over for a tummy rub (must stop him doing that!). He was a little more excited in the exhibition for some reason, maybe because it was quieter, was inside and was carpeted. We moved on through a bunch of stalls, bought a few things and Knightley remained so amazingly good. It was like being with a rockstar... so many people pointed at him or commented how cute he was, or said something about 'assistance dog in training'. Knightley didn't even try to get pats - I think there were just so many people he wouldn't have known where to start! Every half an hour or so I allowed him to meet someone - only at my invitation though.

Knightley just before he had his snooze. He spent most of the
day panting, but we gave him water every 20 minutes or so
to keep him as hydrated as possible, and the beef I was giving
him also helped keep him hydrated.

We then went into the cake/flower pavilion which also had some food stalls  - we bought some awesome spices and had some of these rather tasty honey puffs we found at a local festival recently and were pleased to see again.  We sat at a table and I had Knightley go underneath and rest. I took his halter off while he snoozed for a while under the table. I was impressed at how he was able to settle down - I think it was partly because all the noise and crowds had taken quite a bit of his focus and he needed some time out. We stayed there for maybe 20 minutes and he was asleep or half asleep most of the time. When we got moving he was definitely more perky.

There was a lot food on the ground as we walked around, and while I have been doing a fair bit of food zen training, it obviously wasn't enough because he did manage to sneak a bite of a potato chip/fry on the ground, and I had to be on the look out for food from then on. Sometimes he responded well to my leave it cue but if there was half a bucket of chips on the ground around us I had to tighten the leash to prevent him him from scoffing them all up. It was too much to expect him to do perfect zen in a place like that, it was too big a test for him at this stage. Still, he did quite well, but there is a long way to go before he could be professional in a place like that. It will be interesting to see how he behaves there next year, assuming we go.

One of the main reasons I wanted to take him to the show was to get him to see some animals as I had read a story somewhere of a fully trained service dog going nuts at a horse in the course of its job. I really don't want Knightley to run into a police horse or something (or even just one of the cows we have near here as Canberra is scattered with grazing land) and have Knightley freak out. So we headed towards some cows, and I didn't really anticipate that much trouble with them. At first Knightley was ok and then one moved and turned its head towards us and Knightley started barking, so I turned him around quick smart and we retreated. I tried several times more, giving him pieces of beef with every couple of steps he didn't bark, but we really didn't make any headway. The cows we had been approaching were in a shed, so I decided to try with some outside instead. I tried the same technique, slow approach with treats every couple of steps, then about turn when he barked.... but it just wasn't working. So I tried a more BAT technique (behavioural adjustment training) by simply pushing him into actual stress by approaching until he is just about to barking and then turning around and walking the other way, relieving the stress. Then doing it again and getting just a bit closer. It didn't seem to be working though, we couldn't get much closer and we were getting barks. So instead I moved ahead of him and called him to me. That worked a lot better. He would come to me, then dance back and look like he wanted to bark but then come back to me. We did that for a while until he was quite a bit closer, and then went back to the shed. My husband helped there by calling Knightley to him. We got close to the entrance of the shed, much closer than before... and decided to leave it there. We are hoping to go away for a weekend down to a farm which will give us more of a chance to meet animals. This was a good first step though and was good experience for me doing trial and error training.

Knightley looking completely gorgeous but very
tired at the end of the day. I was so so proud of
him for all he did.

By this time Knightley was starting to get tired so we started to head back to the entrance, but stopped to buy a couple of show bags of chocolate (Knightley also had some treats bought for him!). He was rapidly losing his remaining energy at this point and kept on lying down whenever we stopped, and wouldn't get up despite encouragement. My husband had to pull on the handle of the vest to get him to stand. Once he was standing he was happy enough to keep going, but once he got settled he was reluctant to move. We walked back through the amusement park part of the show to get out, and while walking past I talked my husband into playing a lucky number game where getting a lucky number got you a choice of a rather large stuffed animal. He completely failed on the first card with four numbers, but on the second card he won. There was this cute huge dog he could have chosen, but instead chose this 4 foot tall banana with dreadlocks and an evil grin (will try to get a photo of it later). Couldn't believe it when it was MY idea for him to play the lucky number game.... the banana was ridiculous!!!!

We got back to the carpark and got home and both Knightley and I were absolutely exhausted from our day. We collapsed into our respective beds and slept the rest of the afternoon away. Now it's the following day and Knightley seems completely recovered but I've finally come down with some sort of virus after a few days of a sore throat. Nevermind, yesterday was worth it!

Preparation for halter, socialisation work, crate and stays

6 months 2 weeks 3 days old

As our Comfort Trainer halter is currently winging its way towards us from the US, I thought I might get a headstart on the counter conditioning. This is very much necessary with a halter, so that the dog can happily wear it with little to no effect to its personality and creativity, and without it bothering the dog physically. A lot of people buy a halter for their dog and put it on immediately, impressed when the halter causes the dog to become slow, withdrawn and in the worst cases, depressed. The main cause for this psychological effect is the noseband of the halter - where it sits just below the eyes. When a dog is displaying its overt dominance to another, it sometimes will hold the other dogs muzzle in its mouth, putting pressure in many of the same places a halter puts it. It is hard wired into a dog that this pressure = dominance, which is why you see the psychological effects to halters. Some dogs won't be too bothered. These are the emotionally robust and physically insensitive dogs, however even then they certainly aren't going to like it.

In order to have a dog wear a halter with a little inhibiting effect, you have to do a lot of counter conditioning, and that is something I can do before the halter actually gets here. I plaited three strands of twine into a width of thick string that will be very similar to the width of the noseband of the Comfort Trainer. I then settled down for a clicker session. I held the plaited string out to Knightley, and if he ignored it, he got a click/treat (c/t). I formed a large loop of the string and slowly started moving it towards Knightley's head and muzzle. After every c/t I would withdraw the string as well. This is using the ideas of a technique called Behaviour Adjustment Training (BAT), which is a very geeky dog training technique that involves negative reinforcement (a feeling of pleasurable relief from stress, eg walking away from something stressful as a reward). By with drawing the string as well as c/ting, this let Knightley know that if he behaved nicely, the string (which he didn't much like) would eventually go away. Slowly I increased the time the string stuck around, and also started touching it to Knightley's muzzle and the rest of his head and chest, c/ting if he remained calm. I had to use my zen cue (Leave it!) a couple of times as he thought eating the string would be a good idea lol.

Knightley getting used to having a loop of string around his
muzzle. He did great in his first session of counter conditioning
in preparation for his Comfort Trainer halter. If he is well behaved
the string goes away, and over time I increase the amount of time
and also add a little more pressure. With simply great results.

Eventually I placed the string across the top of Knightley's muzzle, below his eyes - where the halter noseband will sit. I didn't have it in a loop at that stage, I just wanted the feel of the string across the halter to be brief and to link it to food and praise and a quick withdrawal before he tried scratching at it. I kept up a stream of encouragement and praise whenever I put the string across his nose. He was doing well, by and large not trying to bite it (must have been so tempting for my playful puppy), so I put it back into a large loop. I put a kibble in my hand, and put the loop in front of it, so that if Knightley wanted the kibble, he would have to put his muzzle through the loop. He seemed happy to do this, and I didn't try to force him to stay with his muzzle in the loop longer, or to tighten it or anything. We did this several more times until any reluctance had disappeared. I then started c/ting for putting the string under his muzzle, just holding it there for a second before a c/t. At this stage I thought to myself - ok, he's happy with a loose loop around the whole muzzle, he is happy with some pressure on the top of his muzzle and with pressure on the bottom. He knows it isn't going to hurt him, he knows it isn't for eating, and he knows if he is quiet and well behaved the string goes away. After this mental recap, I figured Knightley was ready for the next stage. Forming the loop again, I lured Knightley's muzzle into it the same way, but this time I tightened it a little as he was eating his kibble. Before he could get upset, I released it. We did this again and again, and I was able to holding the loop with gentle pressure for a couple of seconds without Knightley making a fuss - enough to take a photo at least, which wasn't easy let me tell you!!! We left it there for the evening, and I was very very happy with that progress. Slow is fast when it comes to counter conditioning - which is what they call this process.

After writing about my socialisation and public access training plans in my last blog post I felt pretty inspired, so today Knightley and I took a walk up to our local shops. He did great! I focused on a couple of different things:

• Not pulling towards people in order to say hello (if he pulled, we backed up until he was in heel position and was under threshold again)

• Not picking up any leaves, garbage or food from the ground (he did pick up some plastic covered with leaves at one stage, but when I told him 'leave it' he dropped it. Good boy!)

• Staying calm - or at least calming down when asked (we sat down on a bench a couple of times and I had him go into a down - he relaxed nicely, I would like to practice having him calm when people pat him, but there is a lot of work to do there)

• Obeying basic cues (we ran through the basics, especially focusing on our eye contact cue ... he found it difficult with all the distractions but we were able to get up to about 8 seconds with no problems - we can do 30 seconds at home though!)

• Being neither seen nor heard (the ideal for an assistance dog is that no one ever notices that it's there, so we focused on heeling nicely, being quiet and being invisible - I did notice several people startle when they realised there was a fairly large panting dog just lying there)

So far so good! There is a lot more work to be done of course, and I am looking forward to having both the halter and the vest, so that people will leave him alone in public. That will make a lot of difference to our training.

I decided a couple of days ago to do something about Knightley's 'crate' behaviour. He is very eager to obey if, and generally only if, I have some nice food. If he knows I don't have any food, he certainly isn't eager to get in the crate, and when he does get in, it is very slowly and sometimes he doesn't even go into a down once he is in - and that is absolutely *required* as part of the behaviour. So, I decided to teach the behaviour again, from scratch. I didn't actually teach 'crate' very well, it was my earlier days with Knightley, and I have learnt so much since then. We are putting a new cue to it - 'box' - and I have shaped it from the beginning. It is looking like it will be a faster version of the cue, and Knightley is always going into a down at the end of the behaviour chain. I think this is one of the very best things about clicker training (and something that more 'traditional methods' completely fails at!), that if you don't like a behaviour that you have trained, that you can train it again completely from scratch and get it better the next time around.

The last big thing we worked on yesterday - apart from loose leash, which is a given! - is our stays. We are getting really really close to properly passing Level 2 now. The Manners Minder (MM) is definitely helping. Knightley gets a bit bored in a sit stay and used to slide down into a down... so I put the MM on top of something so the chute was more at his mouth level and it wouldn't tempt him to go into a down when the treat came out, but would instead *keep* him in a sit. It worked very well, and I slowly walked around the room with Knightley in a stay, at first giving a treat at 10 seconds, then 15, then 20, then 25 - which took us to 1 minute 5 seconds. I then returned to him and gave him a big chunk of dried liver. Then we tried again, starting at 15, then 25, then 30 and returned to him. I then did some shorter sit stays, about 10 seconds. It's important to sometimes make it easy, not always just hard hard hard, or the dog will give up. We then started again, 15 seconds, then 25, then 35, then 40... which added up to a whole lot more than 1 minute, although of course he was getting reinforcement. He did almost break in that last one, his butt did come off the floor, but I quickly said 'sit!!!' in a deep authoritative voice and he sat back down.... and I hit the treat button twice in a row on the MM and praised him gently as we were at a distance from each other and effusive praise can make a dog break. We did another set of times, and got up to 45 seconds with no treat in between, which is our longest sit without him sliding down... but if you look at the amount of time between me giving the stay cue and returning to him, many of those times it was well over a minute. So I was very happy with our progress. We worked on our down stay in much the same way, and then later in the day did it without the MM. We got up to 50 seconds at the required 6m (20 feet).

So Level 2 is getting so very close to being done.....! I am going to try making a video of some of the things in Level 2 - there are too many things to get them all in, but we'll have a go. 

Level 2 Homework: 10 reasons why a dog may not obey a command

6 months 1 week 2 days old

This is part of Sue Ailsby's Training Levels. As part of each level you need to do homework, and for Level 2, you need to list 10 reasons why a dog might not obey a command. I've thought about this before and I knew finding 10 things would not be easy. This first couple come to you quickly, but after that..... Well, we'll see!

I have written comments after the reasons in italics, which spell out clearly what I can learn as a trainer from each reason.

1. You may not have your dogs attention when you give the cue

This is especially the case in high distraction environments, where your dog just won't hear you unless you focus him first. However it is applicable everywhere. It is worth saying your dog's name first and maybe doing a few seconds eye contact so you both reconnect before asking for what you want.

2. The connection between behaviour and cue may not have been made yet during training

It can take many repetitions of the cue word and hand signal whilst the dog does the behaviour to have the dog remember it. Some dogs learn cues quickly, others need a lot of repetition. If your dog is consistently not responding to a cue, consider this possibility.

3. You may have upped distractions too quickly in training so that a cue your dog could normally respond to becomes background noise

When teaching a cue, you go through a stage called proofing, where you expose the dog to more and more distractions as you continue to ask for the cue. It should be a gradual increase in distraction level - if you increased the level too quickly the dog will just become completely oblivious to you.

4. Your dog could be sick or just tired out and feel unable to respond

Sickness, heat, being thirsty or hungry, exhausted.... all these things will cause a dog to potentially 'misbehave' . You and your dog are a partnership, be aware of how it is feeling and its needs, and don't work it if it isn't feeling up to it. If it isn't responding to the most basic of cues, that in itself can tell you something about the dogs wellbeing.

5. Your training session may have gone too long and your dog may have lost interest

All dogs have a finite attention span. For puppies it is very short, sometimes only a couple of minutes. For a fully mature working breed it can be about an hour without a break. You should make sure that your dog isn't worked past the point that it still wants more. Once training becomes a chore it becomes either ineffective or actually can do harm to previous training.

6. If you are still at the stage you are training with treats, the treats may not be of high value enough for a difficult cue
                                                                                                                                                                 

When learning cues, treats are always used for reinforcement... but for some more difficult behaviours, more interesting treats must be used. If you are outside in a high distraction area trying to train loose leash and kibble just isn't cutting it, try exchanging it for real meat. Change the treat for every individual situation as necessary.

7. If you have faded treats for the particular cue, you may have done it too early while the cue was half learnt, or done it too suddenly leaving the dog unsure

When you stop using treats with a particular cue, it needs to be done slowly and systematically, not just suddenly cutting the treats off. The dog could become uninterested in working for you, or just confused because it isn't being rewarded for something it is usually - so thinks it is getting it wrong.

8. You yourself may not be feeling well, or may not be in the mood to train and your dog might be reacting to your lack of enthusiasm

Our dogs pick up on our moods and our wellbeing extremely sensitively. If you don't feel like training, don't train. If it's just a random 'sit' that your dog isn't responding to in the course of the day, remember that you being not yourself could have a great deal to do with it.

9. The dog might substitute another 'new' behaviour for the older cue you asked for, because you had been working a lot on the new behaviour and it is used to giving it so doesn't really think -

This happens quite often with a dog who knows sit and then learns down and starts thinking sit means down too and forgets about sit because of the shiny new down.  It is important when concentrating on a new cue that you don't train it to the exclusion of everything else. Continue to train your old behaviours as well as new, so that your dog doesn't start getting confused.

10. The dog could be actively 'rocking the boat', being cheeky, trying to get away with things it knows are pretty naughty

This is especially applicable during adolescence, as the perfect puppy disappears and the evil teenager from hell appears in its place. During training and during the day at any time, you must always act as leader in your house - not boss, but leader. I operate on a Nothing In Life Is Free (NILIF) policy, so that anything good that Knightley wants he has to do something to get it, even filling the water bowl he has to go in a nice polite sit stay until I have finished. This is about respect, which transfers into our training.

EXTRA ONES!!! WHEEE!!! (after racking my brains for days, I have more than 10!!!)

11. The dog could be scared - of the environment, the handler, other dogs... anything.

Some dogs have serious fear problems, and when the fear and shyness takes over, cues become a low priority. There are good techniques in clicker and positive training which can build confidence, like Look At That (from the book Control Unleashed) and BAT (Behaviour Adjustment Training, which I have mentioned before in another post). A good resource for dealing with a fearful dog is http://fearfuldogs.com/

12.  The dog might not be getting out for enough exercise, which can turn them into tightly wound springs - unable to concentrate on the task at hand

All dogs need exercise, as well as the mental stimulation of getting outside. An adult dog needs one good significant walk each day, and a smaller walk too. You can substitute something like time at a dog park for one of those walks, but dogs must get out - for both the exercise and the stimulation of sights and smells. If they don't get this, don't expect an obedient dog

...... and I think that will do. I've actually learnt from doing this, which was of course was rather the point! I am sure the more I thought about it, the more I could come up with, but this is certainly a good chunk of the the main ones. I will think more next time when Knightley doesn't do what I say.

Heeling work, relax, stays and counter conditioning

Taking a small break from munching on a bone, still damp from
loose leash training outside. This morning there actually was
some improvement!!! I think there may be a steady dog inside
Knightley who will be able to walk nicely on his normal flat
collar. It's just going to take some more work.

Knightley and I have both come in wet from the rain (what a strange Australian summer it is!!) and I have given him some nice juicy bones to keep his teeth nice and clean, and to let a dog be a dog. I'm listening to him get really into it, it sounds like he's having fun.

I'm still struggling with my health a bit more than normal, which is why this post has taken several days to write, but Knightley and I are able to train reasonably normally. I'm doing a lot of heeling work offleash inside and in the backyard, getting him used to being beside me at all times. He is absolutely great inside and really knows where he is meant to be, but does get distracted outside.

Eventually, in addition to the 'heel' cue telling him to walk at my left hand side, I will teach him 'side', a cue to walk on my right hand side. In shops, especially places like clothes stores where the places to walk can be tight, and what you may want to look at doesn't involve looking over a dogs back, it makes sense to swap your dog briefly to the other side. This is why I will teach the other cue. For now however, we are working on teaching Knightley where I want him. The other thing to consider is, when he is finally starting to wear a mobility harness, he will need to walk slightly ahead of me, whereas in a classic heel position, his head should be equal with my knee. I am guess the equipment itself will act as a cue. Often this learning of equipment and what is expected because of certain equipment is called 'equipment association' and can be helpful - or can be rather annoying because a dog knows he can get away with worse behaviour in a particular collar.

We're also doing loose leash work - basically the heeling but with the leash on, but trying to pretend the leash isn't there. I am keeping the click/treating super regular to try to keep the leash completely loose, even out the front in the street. It works well if I keep up the level of reinforcement and there are no serious distractions. I think we are just about at the standard to pass Level 2 loose leash, but we have some more work to do on his relax and stays, so loose leash will get more work done on it. Yesterday evening we were out in the street practicing loose leash, and the people who live across the road called out to us, calling Knightley's name..... sigh. So much for loose leash. With a serious distraction like that there is no hope! However, I think we may be actually getting somewhere. It wasn't a pretty heel or anything, but we went for a little walk in the rain today and he was quite loose the whole way..... until anything happened that is, sigh.

Knightley on his new bed, with lots of things to play with and
chew around him. He still lies in his crate sometimes, but now
he has the choice. He has grown so much... at first we thought
the size of the crate was absolutely ridiculous, but now when he
is stretched out it is almost too small!!

The house is still in disarray after my brother moved out, but it has meant that instead of being in his crate when we go out every day, I have let Knightley have the run of his pen because that room is yet to be filled with furniture. He is definitely completely house trained, we have no accidents at all... and I think he enjoys the extra freedom of the pen. There are more things to chew on, extra things to lie on, and I have the two doors of the crate open, which he seems to like. He has a new bed too, as he had outgrown his original one, and he is becoming quite fond of it.

In the last three days I have started extensive counter conditioning to get Knightley to accept the feel of a buzzing tool (in this case a battery powered lint shaver) against him voluntarily. This is part of Level 2, and is to make grooming easier (pet clippers), and also in case your dog ever needs to be shaved for surgery. The idea is to get Knightley actually liking the buzzing sound and feel by associating it with food and praise. So I started with just showing him the shaver, and telling him to 'touch' it, so that he reached out with his nose and touched it. This is a good way to introduce a dog to an unfamiliar object. I then turned it on at a good distance from Knightley (far enough away that he was unsettled but happy to stay there voluntarily) and instantly started click/treating him very quickly. As soon as I turned the shaver off, the kibble stopped. I turned it back on, and the shower of kibble started again. By that technique I was trying to get into his mind 'great things happen when the buzzing starts! it isn't scary at all!' He had definitely relaxed about the sound after several repetitions.

After doing that quite a bit, I turned the shaver off, and brought it close to Knightley, but he had become scared of it, so I held both kibble and the shaver in the same hand, which got him nice and close to it again, and he realised it wasn't eating him. As I moved the shaver towards his body, he shied away, but came back for more kibble, and I started click/treating like mad as he relaxed next to the shaver. I managed to briefly touch it to him while it was off and still have him relaxed, and have it on, a good metre (3.3 feet) away and have him only a little tense. We left the first session there.

The second session was more of the same, I just started bringing the shaver closer to him whilst it was on, until it was only 50cm or so (1 1/2 feet or so) away from him. He was happy to have it against him for a couple of seconds while it was off, but was quite scared of it when it was on still. I had to be careful I didn't push him too far - I wanted him to be able to be completely relaxed by the end of the process. I started throwing 6-7 kibble on the floor, but holding the on shaver in the midst of the scattered kibble, so that Knightley had to choose to come near in order to get the kibble, but I didn't stop him from backing off if he felt he needed to. After a few tries of that, he was definitely getting a lot braver.

I have been intrigued by the training technique called Behaviour Adjustment Training (known in dog training geek circles as BAT), which uses small amounts of stress and negative reinforcement to teach new reactions to situations. For instance, say there is a dog who is scared of and stressed out by strangers, and starts barking at any when they come too close. Using BAT, you would get yourself a stranger to train with, increase your dogs stress by going towards the stranger, and judge it so that the dog is stressed but is still calm and not barking.... and if the dog is doing well and behaving itself, you reward it by walking away from the stranger (this 'pleasureable' relief from stress is known as negative reinforcement, as opposed to something like a treat, which is positive reinforcement). It is very empowering for a dog to realise that its behaviour can actually control the environment like that, whereas its barking rarely did what it wanted. Further sessions would involve going closer and closer to strangers, and rewarding good behaviour with a withdrawal... until the dogs stress level would go down and down, as it knows that sooner or later it will leave and be able to relax, it just needs to keep being polite.

I was thinking about BAT as I was doing the third shaver session, so decided to use the ideas involved a little more deliberately. If Knightley let the shaver get really close to him whilst it was on without getting too worried, I would reward him with both treats, and removing the shaver entirely, and turning it off. If he was upset I would concentrate on click/treating calming signals and slowly moving the shaver further away and closer until he settled down a bit. When he really did well and went a step further than previously, I would take it away entirely and turn it off. It seemed to make sense to Knightley, because the clicker coupled with these ideas really made progress. By the end of the session, I was turning on the shaver against him for a second or so, with little reaction. I've done one more session since then, and I think I've nearly completed this part of Level 2. It can sit against him, continuously on, and he is happy to lie down on the couch next to me, just feeling it buzzing on him. Tomorrow I will make sure he is happy to have it all over him - ears, feet, tail etc. He has done very well though, and every bit of handling we work on the better.

You know what, I would use this technique for any sound or sensation I wanted to get a dog used to. This is pretty much how I got Knightley used to being brushed happily, how I got him happily to have his teeth fiddled with and now is just about happy to have them brushed, to have his nails clipped (a big one for many dogs), to get used to a vacuum cleaner, to get used to something like a coffee grinder or dishwasher that makes an odd noise. Of course some of these things you can't physically move around, so for the BAT techniques of negative reinforcement, I would actually move away with your dog for a short time if it had done well, praising and treating all the time. So many of the techniques I use to train aren't just for the behaviour I use them for - they can be used for so so many things and once you realise how adaptable they can be..... you're always going to have an idea to solve a training problem... or three or four....    

Knightley's relax got up to 35 seconds tonight, which isn't bad. We are having trouble making that minute though. He stays lying down, but his head pops out of relax position. We're also having trouble with the one minute down stay at 6m (20 feet).... we get to about 30 seconds or so, before he decides he is bored and there are more interesting things to do. He is better in the sit because it is closer, but still isn't rock solid. He is doing better in stays than many 6 month old clicker trained dogs - from what I have heard..... but still, this is really what is holding us back now - the duration behaviours.

We also did some towel zen this evening. It has been raining today, so Knightley has needed drying off most times he comes in from outside, and somewhat foolishly, from when we got Knightley as a tiny puppy he has been allowed to play with the towel when being dried, the favourite being tug. Sometimes I don't mind, because he really does love the 'towel game' as we call it. Sometimes however, when I'm trying to dry his feet or his ears, I would appreciate a quiet dog. So we practiced him spitting out the towel and not touching it until given clearance to do so (leave it..... OK!). He actually did very well, I was able to drape the towel around his head and everything, without him latching on, which is usually a given. Our zen cue is soooo useful! If you weren't to teach all of Sue Ailsby's Levels, but were to pick and choose, I would go for zen as my number 1 behaviour. Zen creates a dog with self control, who thinks before it acts. I am a huge fan.

Anyway, this has ended up as a huge massive post, congratulations and a click & treat if you read the entire thing!