Fantastic public access training and teaching the family to walk Knightley!

10 months 1 week 6 days old

Today I needed some prescriptions filled, and the shops are not at all far away and Knightley needed some public access work so off we went together. He behaved like a dream!! I can't actually believe what a good boy he was. First I went to drop my scripts off (I had like 7 to get filled, yes I take a *lot* of medication), then I had about 15 minutes to use up while we were waiting. So we went into the supermarket to do some training. He was such a good boy. I had his halter on really loosely (the Infin8 is very different to other halters, it acts more like a mix of a collar and halter and as you slowly loosen it, it becomes even more like a collar), but he didn't try to pull at all and heeled very nicely. There was a bunch of onion peel on the floor in one place and I saw him eyeing it but told him to 'leave it' and he instantly ignored it. What a good puppy! There was very little sniffing, and he ignored the people completely! Wowsers. Despite the fact I am doing very little public access work (I decided that once a week is enough until he reaches a year of age when I will start taking it more seriously) he is still learning from each trip we do together.

Looking a bit lonely in a stay, doing some training
in the supermarket. Maybe he's worried I'm about
to leave him?? I don't know. Each time I put him in
a stay he seemed to get a little mournful. Maybe I
need to work on me leaving him as a wonderful
 thing - rather than me coming back to him.

I did some basic obedience practice inside the supermarket. We were there at a time that wasn't too busy, so the aisles were relatively empty. We did basic sits, wait then recall from the end of the leash, stay with me walking around him in a circle, and then stay with me dropping the leash and walking a few metres away. All perfect. Then I went out of the supermarket and into what is still an inside area but was not very populated, and we worked on down stays where I stepped over him, and worked on stepping near his head and tail without him shifting. All once again perfect! GOOD BOY! I was so happy with him. We left it there and went into the chemist to wait for my prescriptions, where I let him 'visit' with one of the assistants there. He was very grave and gentle and stayed sitting - yay! One of the problems I have is with him flopping down on his back for a tummy rub from a sit or down when I allow visits. He got lots of praise and a treat for staying in a sit. Then into a down stay under my feet while I sat and waited for my meds.

After everything was done I took the handle of his vest, and he walked nice and slow and loose home. I am training him that only if I put pressure on the handle is he to lean into the vest. Otherwise he isn't to pull. Even without him pulling it still helps with my balance overall.... it just makes me feel safer. I am just so much more confident with Knightley - and he is only beginning to work for his living!

Anyway, soon after we got home Knightley and I were off to my parents place for an afternoon with my parents and brother. Knightley had a great time exploring their big backyard, getting into all sorts of trouble. He decided that tearing up weed mat is a LOT of fun and kept on returning to do it again and again throughout the evening whenever he went outside. I think we encouraged him a bit because the first time he did it was so funny - I think in his doggy mind he was trying to help as my mum was trying to pick up bits of weed mat. My parents will be looking after Knightley for one night in July and two in August as we have a wedding to go to in Sydney in July, then we are going to a company weekend for my hubby's work in August up at the snow. We went last year just before we brought Knightley home (have a look at this old post from last year if you are interested in seeing snow in Australia! Yes, it does exist!) and it was a good weekend. Maybe next year we'll take Knightley when he has his permit. It is becoming more and more likely in my eyes that Knightley will indeed become a fully functioning assistance dog. Unless there is a big personality change we are on track.

Anyway.... back to what I was talking about.....! So, as my parents will be looking after Knightley, today we all took him for a short walk, and I had his Easy Walk harness on him to make it relatively easy for them. They all had a go, including my brother, and it went pretty well really. I showed them how to walk backwards if Knightley pulled to get him back into a rough heel position so that he will learn he can't get away with pulling with them. It helped that Knightley was pretty tired already from our trip to the shops and doing training there, and then romping around their garden. They may not find it quite so easy first thing on a morning! I also went through quite a few of Knightley's basic cues with them, although I think providing them with a 'cheat sheet' is a good idea. When we got back Knightley eventually flopped down and slept. I am pretty sure that he will have a good time with my parents and will get quite spoilt. They are quite fond of him, and as long as they keep up the exercise I am sure he won't cause too much bother. A tired dog is a good dog! My mum is also keen to do all the raw feeding stuff while she has him under her roof, so that's good. I believe she is also quite keen to get the food too, although I did offer to bring over weighed, bagged food to make it easier. We shall have to go on a shopping trip and get enough for the three nights he will end up spending under their roof.

I need to have a raw food shopping trip myself actually. I've nearly emptied our freezer of food for Knightley except for a few bags of bits of turkey. I have no red meat left and no organs. So it's definitely time to do some shopping! Maybe a bunch of beef heart, and some ox tongues would be great. Lamb necks are really cheap too, give him great healthy red meat and take him ages to eat so they tire him out! This is an vital consideration because Knightley has sooo much more energy than he used to! I used to wonder if Knightley would ever actually have the stamina to be an assistance dog, but I guess it was just puppy energy.... puppies are always going 100% to 0%. Speaking of not being a puppy anymore, the leg continues to raise, but only very occasionally and only against trees!

My final bit of news is I've set up my new sewing machine and have started playing with it. I have also ordered my fabric to make my prototypes, and bought a few more bits and pieces at a sewing store last week. Once the fabric, webbing and clips/D rings/O rings/etc arrive I'll be good to start on my first vest. It will be a mobility harness/vest, as Knightley needs a new one, so that will be my first priority. The sewing machine is extremely easy to use and I'm very happy with my purchase.

So today was a really good day. Knightley is coming along so well and I am bursting with pride!

Knightley needs practice working outside, nice walk, new (used) car and NEED A WEEKEND AWAY!

9 months 4 weeks 1 day old


Well it has been quite a busy weekend and I am terribly tired. Hubby and I went to the shopping mall yesterday and took Knightley. We needed a few bits and pieces, and hubby needed to swap a bracelet he'd got for me for our anniversary for a smaller size (obviously he thinks I have fat wrists!). Knightley did very nicely and got lots of attention as usual. We practiced our new 'flat' - the new cue for down. It was great, no delay, obeyed on every cue with no problems after starting with a bit of shaping. It's looking like I am going to have a solid down, hopefully for Knightley's whole life. Now time to start proofing it with even more distractions.

We then went and looked at some used cars. Our current car is getting pretty old and needs replacing but our finances aren't yet at the stage where we can buy a brand new car. So we looked around, found a possibility or two, but decided that there were some more cars across town we wanted to look at. I was absolutely exhausted after walking around a shopping mall and then a bunch of car lots. Knightley had been pretty well behaved up until then but as my attention was going and I was walking slower and slower he started misbehaving a bit. Of course that is the time I want him to step up and become a solid unmovable object! So he really did the opposite unfortunately and lost his focus. Last weekend when he helped me through my migraine he did great and focused despite me completely off in la-la pain land. However this time was outside, and Knightley doesn't focus well outside at all. So while it was very unfortunate he couldn't help me when I needed it, it shows me what I need to focus on. He can obviously be trusted a little to keep it together inside when I am not able to focus myself, but outside is another matter entirely.

Knightley meeting a lovely older female Golden on our walk
today. Knightley pretty much loses his mind when he meets
other dogs - he just loves them so much!

He woke up with a bit of a bad tummy this morning, so hubby and I took him for a good wandering walk where he could empty his poor tummy if need be. After the horrible weather earlier this week there was a good stream of water flowing in the storm water drain that runs by our house, and it's pretty good and clean so I let Knightley romp in it. We met another Golden Retriever on our walk today, a 12 year old female. Knightley ran around her like an idiot, trying to get her to play with him... trying and failing really. It made me realise that Knightley really is just about fully grown in size, although he has an awful lot of coat growing to go!!

My very happy rather wet Knightley.

He absolutely loves these walks. Since winter has come along it gets dark too quickly to get to the dog park more than once or twice a week. So I bought a flexi type leash (a leash that retracts and goes up to 5 metres in length) so that we could have walks along grassy areas and he could run around sniffing and just generally having a ball. Unfortunately I can't yet trust his recall there as it's a place where lots of other people walk their dogs, cycle, and so on.... and Knightley just loves people and dogs far too much. One day we'll get there. I don't approve of flexi leashes anywhere but where they will cause no possibility of harm to people when extending or retracting. As the lines even for a big dog are quite thin, they can even cut flesh when extending or retracting. If you only ever use the retractable/extending aspect of the leash when there are no people around you, and keep the leash locked in a fixed position of 180cm (6 foot) or less at all other times I think they can be useful. It certainly gives him the chance to get a bit of exercise but I can still walk very slowly. They can be especially valuable tools for those with service dogs who are permanently in a wheelchair, as they need many different lengths of leash throughout the course of a day.

Dashing through storm water at a breakneck pace. He's definitely
a water dog!

Speaking of wheelchairs, I have hip injections tomorrow that are supposedly meant to help my poor hip but past experience leads me to expect a week of virtual immobility. Whether after the tissue damage has healed there will be some temporary improvement is anyone's guess really. I'll be relying on Knightley's retrieve a whole bunch. I also don't want to skip my work on Thursday/Friday but certainly by Thursday I don't expect to be all that mobile. I could use my walker I guess but I am inclined to take my wheelchair. It's a heavy steel cheap thing I got when I first got sick but it's comfortable at least. I've been wanting to get a good quality lightweight wheelchair for a while now, but to get funding assistance from the government I need to see an occupational therapist, and I know to see the hospital ones the waiting list is pretty long. I've been thinking about another option so I may look into it. Whenever I am flaring and hubby and I need to go out, we take the chair.... but it is so heavy I can barely push it myself, especially if I am particularly sick. I'd also like the option of having Knightley help me with the movement of a wheelchair, in which case I should be minimising weight and resistance as much as possible.

A rather blurry photo of what we hope is our new car as of
tomorrow. LOTS of room for our big boy in the back!

Anyway, after our walk today Knightley's tummy seemed better, so we decided to take him with us to check out the cars over the other side of town. The big news is we think we have found ourselves a new (used) car! We took it for a test drive, and there were a couple of electrical problems, but if they are fixed to our satisfaction then we will go ahead with it. It's a stationwagon for a couple of different reasons, one of which that Knightley can go in the boot/wagon bit and get lots of room. It is pretty much exactly what we want, so we're going back tomorrow with a couple of other people to make a final decision. Unfortunately it will be after the local anesthetic injection from injecting my hips wears off and I'll be in a bad way... but it's just the way the world works out!

I've been wanting a holiday for a while now, but the state of our current car (not great, needs a lot of maintenance to be completely sound) has put me off a bit. However I think a new (used) car needs to bond with us and have a trip down to the coast! There's a pet friendly farm (with four very friendly border collies apparently) that has cabins and rooms, which I've been wanting to visit for many months that looks wonderful. I really need to get away - I haven't left Canberra since we travelled around temperament testing puppies in order to find Knightley. I wouldn't really call that a holiday though, and before that I left Canberra for my wedding a whole year ago in England........ it's definitely time for a weekend away!!

So, a very long very tiring weekend with several painful days to come. I need to get a semi-early night, so I'll be off now. *waves byebye*

Great public training but things to learn, Knightley full of beans!

9 months 2 weeks 1 day old

Knightley's current vest. I don't like the fact it has a strap
parallel across his chest as that has been proven to restrict
the shoulder joints of dogs. I want one with a Y shape. Overall
 he just acts like he is a  bit uncomfortable and is starting to be a
 little 'equipment shy', in that when the vest comes out, he goes
away, which is definitely not what I want.

So today we had a great trip to our local shopping mall. This was the third time we have gone in. The first time was about 5 minutes, the second time was maybe 10 minutes, but today was probably 40 minutes. It's important to ramp up times in big new places with lots of varied experiences, or the dog can get overwhelmed by the experience. We also went to the food court area to give him practice lying under tables. He did get up twice but I put him straight back into a down. We also need to work on getting him to curl, rather than just go into a down. I have a feeling the reason he was getting up is he finds his vest rather uncomfortable to lie in. It is starting to get a bit small for him in the girth department, and while I could just get a girth extender I would rather get a vest-harness that is more comfortable for him in terms of the style, and less constricting of his maturing joints. I found one I really liked but it would have needed a small adjustment to make it useable, and the people selling it wouldn't do it and were quite rude in their reply too. I have since found a vest/harness at http://www.servicedoghouse.com that I like, but once again I would like an adjustment. However, as they make all their vests from scratch I hope that they will be amenable to it. So far at least, I have received very good customer service from them in comparison to the first place I tried.

Overall his behaviour was very good. The food court was very noisy, we even walked past a toddler having a pretty full on tantrum, and Knightley was completely sanguine. So the distraction part of a PAT would have got a big tick! The only trouble came in one of those $2 type stores, with a feather boa, which Knightley thought looked like the perfect toy for him, and started going for. He definitely longed to plunge his mouth into all those feathers, and I had to tell him 'leave it' repeatedly, and give him a bit of a pull away from them. Oh, he really wanted those feathers! It would actually be a good place to practice in, lots of tiny bits of rubbish on the floor, some narrow isles to practice close heeling next to me turning this way and that.... it was a good experience for him, but once again.... sigh... shows how much work there is to do.

Another thing I really truly must do is teach a tail tuck, but I think it can wait for another month or two, until we start really trying to train for his permit. When he sits next to me, his tail streams out behind him often into the path of traffic walking past. And Knightley has *quite* the tail these days, let me tell you! You can see what I mean in the photo I posted above. I know some people manually move it out of the way with their stick or crutch, but Knightley always gets up from the sit if I do that. I suppose I could just teach him not to move if I do it, but I would rather teach him to move his own tail. That can be harder for some dogs than for others, but Knightley has great back end awareness, so I hope it won't be too hard.

The last several days he has really been full of beans.... galloping everywhere instead of trotting, and wanting to play, play, play. It's like he has lost his puppy sleepiness and has suddenly discovered the boundless energy of late adolescence. I'll play a long game of fetch and he'll go lie down for a bit, but then 20 minutes later he'll be pressing another soggy toy into my hand! Or we'll go for a walk, and I'll make sure he does lots of running around and then we come back, he has a short snooze and then he starts barking at a speck on the wall. Crazy dog. He hasn't been going to the dog park anywhere near as much of late because it is getting dark so much earlier here as winter is coming, and I think that is contributing to the amount of energy he has. Unfortunately the dog park doesn't have floodlights, so if you don't get there by about 5:30pm then it's just too dark. So if you're working until 5, it's pretty much impossible, even taking into account we live close to both our works and the dog park. He got a good romp there this weekend, but that will likely be it until next weekend.

Knightley's raw feeding continues to go well, but I have swapped him over to nightly (!!!) mealtimes only, as he wasn't all that interested in eating in the morning and would just hold the chunk of meat in his mouth for half an hour doing nothing, until I eventually managed to take it away somehow. So it was obvious he was ready to eat once a day. That seems to be working out well, and if he seems particularly hungry during the day I'll either do a training session or give him a raw egg. I tell you what, he really loves beef heart. He could eat that every meal and be a happy dog! Too bad it wouldn't be balanced though.

Going to have some chilly nights this week, all below freezing. Knightley seems to be enjoying the nip in the air, but I'm not! Anyway, that's all from us here downunder. I hope everyone in internetland is well.

Knightley's assistance dog permit, public transport, strides towards loose leash

9 months 1 week 4 days old

Working on sit stays outside. Inside these things are easy - outside

Well FINALLY today, after about 11 sporadic months of investigation, calls to different government departments, agencies, various call centres and more I finally hit upon the right person for the question. I had been trying to find out how to get a public access permit for Knightley here in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT, a region somewhat like a state that surrounds Canberra, the capital city of Australia), which is not exactly organised when it comes to assistance dogs. The only mention on the internet of assistance dog access in the ACT is to mention that to get no holds barred public access here your dog must have a permit. So this time I hit upon the right person after like five call transfers and half an hour on hold. All I need to do is when Knightley is fully trained is completely document his training (videos would be helpful apparently), get signatures from any trainers who may have helped me, and get a letter from my doctor saying that I would benefit from an assistance dog. Then I send it into Domestic Animal Services and they assess my training, and they hopefully give me the permit.

My beautiful Knightley, definitely growing up with a very
male Golden Retriever profile. You can see his yellow ACT
tags on his collar. He will get special assistance dog tags if
given the permit.

I will do it properly as if with a program, and keep a full training journal, as well as do the videos. I won't start keeping the journals for maybe another two months, until he is 11 months old. As there is no official format for this application, I will let both IAADP (International Association of Assistance Dog Partners) and ADI (Assistance Dogs International) be my guide, in terms of training standard and training amount. Both IAADP and ADI recommend a minimum period of six months of training, and I can see Knightley being mature enough at 17 months, so I shall start officially training in two or so months, and Knightley's status in my header will change from "Puppyhood" to "In Training". In my mind he will start being a Assistance Dog in Training then. In North America, where assistance dogs are called service dogs, they called them Service Dogs in Training, but you often see the acronym SDiT. You don't actually see ADiT for some reason. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.... the recommended number of training hours overall is 120, of which 30 hours should be devoted to public outings. Theoretically you can count hours before the six months starts, but I will only be counting those after then. Knightley and I have a lot of work to do.

My good boy. Going well for his age but still lots to learn.

Looking at the IAADP website, the "Manners" section of assistance dog minimum training standards for public access is currently our main concern. Obviously Knightley's task training is the more important part of his training for his job, but I already have a good start on the task training, and the harder tasks can even come after Knightley has got his public access. Which is why all the public access training is so important, and not at all insignificant in its own right. Some of it is improving already, and some of it is not a problem.... but other things aren't so good. Here are the required manners in full, from here, with my comment in red.

Manners: a dog must acquire proper social behavior skills. It includes at a minimum:

A slow(!) recall back to me. Knightley tends to be a fairly steady
dog and I don't mind that, so long as his reactions to my cues are
instant. I would like a bit more dash, but that just aint my boy.
In addition to manners and task training, assistance dogs should
know basic obedience: sit, down, recall, heel, and stay.

• No aggressive behavior toward people or other animals - no biting, snapping, snarling, growling or lunging and barking at them when working off your property. (easy)
• No soliciting food or petting from other people while on duty. (no soliciting food fairly easy, but when people reach for Knightley's head, he leans towards them for pats.... so work to be done there)
• No sniffing merchandise or people or intruding into another dog’s space while on duty. (he occasionally sniffs, and he's quite hopeless around other dogs, LOTS of work there.)
• Socialise to tolerate strange sights, sounds, odors etc. in a wide variety of public settings. (easy, done this since a young age, will continue to expose him to new situations)
• Ignores food on the floor or dropped in the dog’s vicinity while working outside the home. (not good at this! he will leave the food on cue, but will not ignore on default, heaps of work here)
• Works calmly on leash. No unruly behavior or unnecessary vocalizations in public settings. (pretty good, some leash work, not unruly but barked on two occasions in public before, need to make him ok with hubby walking out of sight)
• No urinating or defecating in public unless given a specific command or signal to toilet in an appropriate place. (very good with first command, not quite as prompt with other, one time he had an upset stomach in public and whined and looked at me constantly until I got the message and took him outside, is a good boy!)

A life with this beautiful creature by your side, who would say no?
I know this is not considered a task, and you are not allowed to
have a dog with you for this reason, but Knightley makes me feel
so much more -able-, just having him with me when I am out. He
takes the dis out of dis-ability just by boosting my confidence.
Yep, I love my dog quite a lot. If he were to fail now as an
assistance dog I would be absolutely beyond consolation.,

So, I have something real and tangible to aim for now, which is great because my training has become a little fuzzy of late. I will focus on training that would be part of a PAT (Public Access Test) if Knightley was going to take one. I really like these examples from IAADPs PAT (taken once again from here).

 ( 1 ) safely cross a parking lot, (yes) halt for traffic, (yes) and ignore distractions; (sometimes)
( 2 ) heel through narrow aisles; (fairly well)
( 3 ) hold a Sit-Stay when a shopping cart passes by (yes) or when a person stops to chat and pets the dog; (sometimes flops down for a tummy rub)
(4 ) hold a Down Stay when a child approaches and briefly pets the dog; (yes but sometimes rolls over onto back)
( 5 ) hold a Sit Stay when someone drops food on the floor; (yes) hold a Down Stay when someone sets a plate of food on the floor within 18" of the dog, then removes it a minute later. [the handler may say “Leave It” to help the dog resist the temptation.] (if I can say leave it, yes, if not...)
( 6 ) remain calm if someone else holds the leash while the handler moves 20 ft. away; (yes)
( 7 ) remain calm while another dog passes within 6 ft. of the team during the test. This can occur in a parking lot or store. Alternatively, you could arrange for a neighbor with a pet dog to stroll past your residence while you load your dog into a vehicle at the beginning of the test. (NO!)

So I think I'll do some concentrating on PAT type training for a bit, to get him ready for more public access outings in a couple of months time. Our public outings have been mainly only to our nearby shops, which I have permission for. Unfortunately, I have no rights of public access until he is fully trained, so wherever I take him I must get permission first but I have found businesses to be very accommodating so far. I have taken him very briefly to our big shopping mall, to an office supply store, and we went to that factory outlet mall the other day as well (where I had my first access challenge). That's about it so far though, apart from poking our heads into my work the other day for about 2 minutes so he could get a handle on the floor.

Anyway, that is enough talk of Knightley's permit and his training towards it. Recently we have finally made some strides towards a reasonable loose leash, especially when Knightley is 'working' in his vest. It does partially dissolve under stress, but it is a good start. I have found it very hard to click and treat whilst outside while holding a leash and a crutch, so it has taken me much longer to train than I had wanted. Looking back I would have done it differently from when he was even a baby puppy. When he was a baby I would stop if he pulled, but I was happy enough to have him out of heel position. Now I realise stopping still gives the dog quite a bit of satisfaction, you really must BACK UP as it swings the dog's head away from whatever it wants to get to. If you just stop, it can stare and continue to pull to try to get to the thing it wants. Not good. Also being simply happy to have him not pulling, but not have him in heel position has created a dog who is much harder to now GET in heel position lol. I should have insisted on it from the beginning. There are SO many things I will do differently with my next dog. Poor Knightley gets to be on the receiving end of all my mistakes!

I had some unfortunate news yesterday. Our public transport service (buses) won't allow Knightley to ride until he is fully trained, not even for training purposes. I've been talking to a guy from there for a few days, as I wanted to get him on a bus before he was much older just to get him used to the motion, and lying under my legs etc. The younger the better really - once passed six months that is. But they won't allow him on there until he has his permit, which is completely daft because that means he will theoretically be fully trained and won't have been on a bus. I then had a brain wave and called the guy back and asked if I could take him on a bus while it was in the bus depot. It would allow us to practice getting on and sitting down in various different seats, and would also show the permit people that I had taken my training seriously. Still, I was mighty annoyed. How stupid that a dog has to be fully trained before it can touch a bus, but to be fully trained it should really have experience ON the bus! The world is a silly place.

On that note I shall leave you all.

Great training session, good training walk! Great puppy!

7 months 3 weeks 1 day old 

This is an oldish photo, but still demonstrates the variety of
objects I am getting Knightley used to holding. Once I am sure
his mouth is soft and controlled, I will move to personal things
that I might actually drop and want him to pick up. One of the
things I am going to be asking him to pick up is my handbag,
when it's on the floor, so I am going to perhaps reinforce part
of the strap to also give him a target to know where to grip.

Knightley and I had a really good training session today, especially with our retrieve training. I worked on getting him to reach for his dumbell up and down, very close to the floor... then moving it so he had to twist around to grab it, or even take a couple of steps. We are working just on a good hold... getting some good 5-6 seconds quite reliably. I was even able to take my hand off the dumbell for like half a second and he held it nice and securely, like the champ he is! He tends to love holding things - when we go for walks he'll trot along with a stick for 5-10 minutes, so if I can just tap into that frame of mind, I think this part of the retrieve will be sorted. I have started saying 'thank you!' as his cue to give me the object, instead of 'yes!' which is my normal finishing marker. I like the idea of being courteous to your dog. Tomorrow I'll do some work with other objects, like spoons, pencils and the like.

We did some great eye contact work, then finished it up by working on the speed of Knightley's downs. Sometimes he isn't exactly prompt! I was thinking of completely retraining it, giving it a new cue and everything. We'll see I guess. That's what I've done with Knightley's "crate!". He wasn't all that good about obeying the "crate!" cue, so I started retraining from the beginning, then gave it the "box!" cue. It is working much better so far.

We had a great loose leash training walk today. By the end he was really sticking to my side. It takes so much patience though, and completely implacability and unwillingness to compromise. If you let yourself be pulled forward even a couple of steps because you couldn't be bothered, then you have ruined it for who knows how long. Pulling = never ever going forward, must must be the rule. Knightley must always only go forward if he is at my side. If he pulls ahead I walk backwards, pulling lightly on his collar then releasing when a paw moves in the right direction... until he is in the right place at my left side. Then I praise, treat, and proceed.

Anyway, it was a really positive day, although he does have the runs a bit as I fed him raw liver (as I mentioned last time - perhaps it was a bit much) and like quite a few dogs, it just made him a little runny. I should have started smaller, but it's extremely important he has liver in his diet. I thought he likely wouldn't have a problem because he's been having freeze dried liver for many months, but obviously it is a different beastie!

Show tomorrow, lots of training and compliments!

6 months 4 weeks old

In the last three days Knightley and I have had three compliments about how good his behaviour is; the most recent being today when we were up at the shops getting him used to his new halter, and two dogs tied at the pub started barking at him very reactively. I am teaching him to ignore distractions like that, so that every time he looked away from the dogs (and he spent most of his time not looking at the dogs and only glanced at them occasionally) I c/ted him. A couple were walking towards the shops, so they could see what we were doing, and called out to me "that's very impressive!", so I went over to talk to them. They thought Knightley's behaviour was great. It really makes me feel good to hear that.

We took Knightley to one of the pet shops near here to use their dog wash today, and he was pretty good there too. I have been training him so that if I stop and stand still for around 5+ minutes he can go into a down and just settle down to wait for me. He did that today while we were talking to one of the shop attendants, and she was sooo impressed. It was there that we actually went for our puppy training, and they remembered Knightley from when he was an 11 week old tiny little fluffy baby. What a difference to now, when he is very close to being 7 months old.

On Friday I picked up his first padded assistance dog vest from the post office. I ordered it from Activedogs from the US, as well as a couple of other items, and it looks really great! I am completely happy with it. The management at the show we are going to tomorrow are letting us take Knightley on the condition that he is clearly marked as not a normal young pet dog, but as an assistance dog to be (hopefully!), so that is the main reason I have this vest a little ahead of the usual time scale.

I think we're going to have to go earlyish in the day because it looks like it will be a warm day, and I don't want Knightley overheating. He will quite likely be stressed enough from all the strange things already there, and that increases the likelihood of overheating, so going early is a good idea - if I can drag the hubby out that early!!!!!

We've been doing more work on his zen, lots of food zen and animal zen - bird and dog mostly. I know he will be seeing all sorts of animals at the show... I meant, they even have pig races! But I hope the work we have done on zen carries over to the other animals, mostly horses and cows, because there are are definitely a lot of those there. They are one of the main reasons I wanted to take him. I've heard of mature working dogs bumping into a horse for the first time and totally flipping out. I really want Knightley to see some bigger animals before he gets any further in his socialisation and training to prevent that type of reaction later down the line.

The Comfort Training halter is in the country and should be arriving imminently but hasn't got here yet. However, I decided that I really wanted a halter for our day tomorrow, so I ended up buying a Gentle Leader for tomorrow. We've done a bunch of counter conditioning today to get Knightley used to it, to the point he happily puts his muzzle in the loop now, whilst wagging his tail expectantly. I will take it off regularly tomorrow as he won't have ever worn it as long as I'll be asking him to.

I can't wait until tomorrow, it should be a fantastic learning experience for Knightley. I'll just have to be careful to watch him carefully for signs of stress and give him lots of breaks from the crowds. It should be fun for me and the hubby too! Be prepared for lots of photos!

Worried about a lump on Knightley and more socialisation

6 months 3 weeks 1 day old

Knightley has had what looks like a little hot spot (a fungal infection that develops after a dog gets wet and doesn't dry quickly enough to stop the fungus from forming - Golden Retrievers are particularly susceptible to it) on one side of his muzzle for the last couple of days, and I have tried hard to keep it as dry as possible, although there was little else I could do. The common household remedy suggested for hotspots online isn't available in Australia (Gold Bond Medicated Foot Powder - the stuff used for athletes foot, the powder keeps it dry and also treats the fungus), but it seemed to be slowly getting better, and it was tiny anyway. I had noticed a very small mark on the other side of his muzzle, it just looked like the fur was slightly thin there, but had paid it no heed because the hot spot (or whatever it was) was so much more obvious. Anyway, today the pinkish spot looked a bit worse, so I actually felt it. Imagine my surprise when it was actually quite a firm large lump - about the size of a baby pea. This has pretty much freaked us out. Golden's get a LOT of cancer (hubby is calling this the 'c' word) and I have to say, this is what I thought when I finally actually *saw* this lump properly. He is surely too young though? I have heard of a year old, but 7 odd months? The lump is pink and shiny and the hair has fallen out on top of it. I am going to phone the vet as soon as they open tomorrow, and get an appointment. Cross your fingers for us, let's really really just hope it's a simple benign lump that won't even need any intervention.

Before the hubby and I started getting stressed about the lump I first took Knightley up to the local shops for some socialisation and training (they are very close, so it's an ideal socialisation trip). It is like a mini mall, a complex of shops built into one building, so we took a walk around the whole building. We stopped at the entrances in order to just sit and watch people going in and out with a nice loose leash, and also get even more used to automatic doors (we've done this quite a bit already). We did some nice heeling, and I asked for a range of cues in a quieter place in the shade. It was pretty hot! It makes me aware how hard it would be for him to work at this time of the year for a good chunk of the day, unless he was inside. There's a sports bar that has tables outside and serves alcoholic beverages I go past on my way to and from the shops, and today there were two dogs tied up outside it and they go quite aggressive as Knightley and I went past. On the way there Knightley found it hard to focus on me, despite repeated 'leave it' cues that only worked for a couple of seconds..... the dogs really looked and sounded legitimately aggressive and Knightley doesn't have much experience with that, so I wasn't surprised he had trouble focusing. However, on the way back, the dogs did the same thing, but Knightley virtually took it in his stride. He did turn to look at them once as we were leaving, but a 'leave it!' go him back to heeling nicely. I was impressed! If he can have one new experience on every socialisation trip then I am happy.

He actually had two, as the party I mentioned in my last blog entry was a birthday party, and there was a big shiny banner blowing around in the road this morning when I was walking him up to the shops. Knightley was very suspicious of it, I think mainly because with the wind moving it, it looked potentially alive. So we backed up to where he wasn't acting spooked, and every time he looked at it I said yes! and gave him a treat, then took a couple of steps forward. Before we knew it, he was happily standing in front of it. Then a big gust of wind blew it around and he danced back several steps in surprise. So I picked up the banner, and cued 'touch!' and suddenly he forgot his issue with it and came forward and touched it with his nose. I gave him a whole handful of treats, and he completely relaxed. When we returned it was still blowing around (the hungover party-ers did surface and clean up eventually), but Knightley completely ignored it. Success!

Anyway, Knightley and I had a hour or so to recover from the heat, and then he, hubby and I went out to the local fresh foot markets, which we have been taking Knightley to since he got all his shots at 14.5 weeks old. It has been a while since we last went though, so I was interested to see what would happen, especially in light of yesterday's cafe practice. We went to have coffee at one of the cafes there, and after sitting down, Knightley immediately went into a down of his own accord. I was really really happy and impressed with him! I guess he remembered the down jackpot from yesterday.... either that or he was still tired from the walk to the shops. Either way, he got another jackpot. He did get up several times - there was a potato chip (fry to you North Americans) that I kept having to remind him to 'leave it' as it was within reach of his down and really must have been quite torturous to lie next to - but it was good practice and he always went back into a down, usually of his own accord. I had his 'please pat me' patches pinned to his harness, and he had some good attention, and he was nicely polite - although he rolled over for tummy rubs to one of the people sigh. I have to work on him remaining in a sitting position. We walked along the length of the markets, past people eating and having coffee, and Knightley didn't try to jump up on them or bother them - although he was pulling a little, sometimes suddenly. This is the situation I need the Comfort Trainer for, just until he learns that not pulling is a universal requirement.

A short time later we were walking past a particular book shop at the markets that I know to be a friendly shop, and I asked if I could come in briefly with Knightley. The young guy at the register said sure, so Knightley and I walked around the shelves. He was really great! The leash was nice and loose and he was very polite and didn't overtly sniff anything. I got him to sit and down - the down took two repeats of the cue but not too surprising in such a new place. Overall it was a great visit to the markets. It was at the end of the markets that we realised that the mark on his muzzle was actually quite a significant lump and started stressing, so it ruined a good outing a little. Nevertheless, it has been a productive weekend in Knightley's socialisation, and he is doing great!                                                                  

The benefits of raw feeding and a 1 minute down stay!!

6 months 2 weeks 4 days old

So after working on a 1 minute down stay for months today we got there! I really think I can credit the Manners Minder with helping to break the 1 minute mark. Whilst a minute isn't very impressive for an adult dog (my previous dog had to do a 5 minute down stay in his training exam - surrounded with dogs on either side), for a 6 month old puppy I am VERY happy with it!! Puppies just don't have the powers of concentration an adult has, which is why task training for assistance dogs in training only starts when they are at least a year old - when they are more likely to pick up the training quickly and make sensible choices. For Knightley's age, he's doing just fine. Now I need to work on getting it up to 1 minute outside with distractions, which will  be much harder! We can do a 20 second down stay outside comfortably with distractions, we just need to work on increasing that slowly up to the minute mark. Now the fact that the Manners Minder (MM) is battery powered comes into its own, because I can easily take it outside with us, and use it to build his attention span in the face of all sorts of distractions. On the subject of the MMs portability, I am very happy with it for someone who isn't able to move heavy or difficult objects without repercussions on my health. I don't have to reach right down to floor level in order to pick it up, and it is actually lighter than it looks, which would make taking it outside fairly easy for me. It really is a well thought out tool.

Our sit stay actually went backwards today but never mind that, I am sure that was just a bit of a blip......!     It is very rare that Knightley actually breaks a stay, I take stay training very very slowly in order to have him less likely to develop the bad habit of thinking it's ok to break a stay if he's bored. If you increase the time of a stay in leaps and bounds then the chance that the dog will break in one of those those longer periods. If you treat really regularly and don't keep the dog waiting for you to return to him for long, then the dog is getting more feedback that it is doing the right thing and is more likely to continue doing what it is doing because it is getting treats.

Knightley with some chicken thighs.  He
must always wait for release ("go eat!")
before touching his food. It takes quite a
bit of self control to stay away from a bowl
of raw chicken. He's a good puppy.

Raw feeding is going really well....Knightley is definitely loving it! I've fed Knightley a range of chicken cuts now, depending on how much bone he needs for a given meal - trying to keep up the 80% meat, 10% bone and 10% organ (5% any organ and 5% liver) ratios. I gave him a chicken maryland last night, his largest cut so far, which is the thigh and drumstick with bone in, and it was pretty amazing watching him eat it. When you are raw feeding you give the food in as large a piece as you can, you shouldn't cut it up. Dogs have a limited ability to tear off bits if they need to, using their feet to hold the food down and using their molars to cut the food off. Mostly though, the dog will give the piece of food a really good chew, breaking up all the bones inside (amazing to hear their jaw strength) and then if the piece fits, it disappears down the hatch. Amazing stuff. That's more of less what Knightley did with the chicken maryland. He chewed off a small piece first, as obviously he thought it was a bit big for him to swallow straight off, and then systematically gave the whole cut a good chew, breaking down all the bones into little pieces inside the chicken and putting lots of holes in the chicken itself so it became a lot more pliable. Then.... with a swallow, the whole thing just disappears. Raw feeding has several great benefits:

• If the pieces are properly sized, it can give the dog some good exercise
• Managing large and unusual cuts is a good mental workout
• Dealing with bone, meat and organ instead of kibble or wet dog food keeps teeth in top notch condition
• It avoids all the horrible 'fillers' dog food companies put in their dog foods, such as corn by-products, beet pulp, and anything else that the dog doesn't actually digest but could be possibly sensitive to, and is cheap to bulk it out and reduce the cost of manufacture
• It gives the dog some quality meat instead of the worst offcuts the *vast* majority of dog food manufacturers use in their food. Not only that, it is unprocessed, without the need for stabilisers and preservatives.
• You know what your dog is eating, instead of a list of ingredients that you may or may not understand.
• If the ratios of 8:1:1 are properly managed then your dog will be going to the toilet a lot less, with a LOT less volume (as nearly everything you feed is able to be digested), and with a great consistency.

The only drawback at the moment is cost, and that is something that tends to come don over time as you find the cheapest places to buy. Australia has much more expensive chicken than the US/UK etc unfortunately, and you are always meant to start raw feeding with chicken because it is a meat most dogs like but few react badly to, and one that is easy to get in many different cuts. Also, the bones are soft for beginner raw dogs. I have started looking around for alternative sources - abattoirs, farms etc and the like, but it can apparently take many months to get good sources. Once that is achieved, the cost is meant to be quite similar to that of a top quality kibble, and I am already feeding a very good kibble.

Other than our adventures into raw feeding and working on stays, we are doing lots of loose leash as per usual, polishing our 'back up' cue which is looking lovely, and working on door zen a lot too - trying to make it automatic so that he won't go through any recently opened door without waiting for permission. He is doing really well and it is a very nice handy behaviour. The only problem is when someone comes to the front door, it all goes out the window. Door zen???! But this is a NEW PERSON!!!!!!

We'll get there, like we will on everything. :)

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. 

A week alone, another migraine, Manners Minder and Loose leash breakthroughs

6 months 2 weeks old

Knightley being a good boy and keeping me company
in our bedroom. He definitely enjoys sleeping on a bed!!
But it was only for while the hubby was away, so I hope he
doesn't get unhappy  sleeping away from me now.

I am sorry to those who come back to read my blog from time to time and have found it empty for a while now. My husband went away for the whole week on a work trip, and left just me and Knightley to get on with things - and then I got a migraine. We had a really close time actually, I gave into temptation and gave him the chance of sleeping on our bed with me - although if he hadn't settled quickly it would have been straight out to his pen with him. He was actually extremely well behaved, and slept very nicely - no trying to lick my face or anything, and it meant I knew when I had to get up to take him out, and when I could sleep in until. It meant I wasn't anywhere near as lonely as I could have been, to have a warm furry puppy happy to cuddle up with me during the night. On the second night he was in a hyper mood, so I did some 'relax' with massage until he was calm. I have tried to establish the bed as a calm only place. He has done well, I am proud of him.

Being calm and gentle while I feel sick. Such a good puppy.

The house is still not completely clean and in order from my brother moving out (I hate the chaos moving creates!), so I took the hubby being away as an opportunity for getting some of it done. Unfortunately I think I may have over extended myself a touch. I went to work on Thursday, feeling like 'normal' and about 25 minutes later it felt like someone was trying to  hammer a nail into my left eye brow ridge. I went and lay down in a dark room for an hour, but it wasn't helping, so ended up going home (in extremely hard rain!). Then my skin rash started flaring up, which biopsies have suggested is a rather rare form of a lupus rash (Tumid lupus erythematosus) - I get it mostly on my chest as well as my face but only when things are just rock bottom with my body. So I guess my body is not in a good happy way at the moment. Although my skin is not looking as bad today, it still isn't right. It actually changes texture when I am struggling and becomes dry, thin, fragile and kind of crinkly, so I know when I need to really start to take things more easily. The day previously I had got several injections into my more troublesome hip, which had left me very sore.... so overall my body is just NOT thrilled with life lol. Thankfully Knightley was sweet and quite well behaved through the particularly bad day, and that always always helps when I'm in pain, especially as I had no one to look after me.

I had another frustration this week - we ordered a custom couch about 5 weeks ago, and last week it arrived in the warehouse. I arranged for delivery for this Monday, but it didn't come. Then I was promised it on Tuesday, and then Wednesday.... and by then I was getting very cranky indeed. I was spending far too much time on the phone with furniture people who told me my delivery was marked as 'complete' HAH! Anyway, finally it is set to arrive in a matter of hours, only 6 days late. Will seriously think before buying from these people again, problem is their prices are too good. I guess that's why their staff has no clue and their computers apparently cause all these problems. Aaaanyway, with a brand new couch, there is a new rule - puppies are allowed up only upon invitation, and never with anything in their mouth. Since my brother moved out we've had a small two seater couch we managed to get for free - as he took a good deal of the furniture with him. Before the hubby left for the week, he moved the small couch into another room to make room for the imminent (or not so imminent...) delivery. The couple of days previously the pup and I had worked on the new rules. He would start to jump up and I would give a quick "ah-ah" (yes, I know this is not pure positive training, but I am not using it as punishment, just as a quick light 'don't do this' noise aversion technique) followed by lots of praise and treats when he retreated. He'd try maybe 5 times to get up and then figured it just wasn't worth the hassle. The cue for jumping up is the normal jump cue - "hup!" He is good at this one everywhere except where it would actually be quite useful.... the car. Need to work on that somehow.

Knightley at my brother's new place. He loves exploring new
places. It's quite amazing watching their noses go, as they
check out every nook and cranny. I wonder what it's like to
be able to smell like that. Like living in a whole different world
I bet.                                                                                        

Last weekend we had a trip to my brother's new place, and Knightley had a ball exploring. He started digging a bit in the leaf litter under the cover of some thick bushes, so we decided to put him on his leash. He actually settled down really really nicely. I was very pleased with him. Usually he gets quite restless in a situation like that, lots of people around and he can't get to them, an environment begging to be smelt all over and he can't get to it.... in the past I wouldn't have been surprised if he had barked. But he was a good boy and eventually just lay down and had a snooze. This is what I would like as his 'I'm doing nothing' default, and I have started training that if I am sitting or standing with him on his leash for any period of time he should just lie down and settle. This was a good test and he did well.

Before I got the migraine and the other symptoms started flaring, we were doing well with the little bits of Level 3 we are having a go at. I am getting him used to door zen at ALL doors. Wherever he is, he needs to pause at a door before receiving a go ahead. It is a long way in the future that we can use it at the front door and he won't try to frantically welcome a mail delivery man or something, but I am trying to install an absolutely iron clad respect of doors. It is actually extremely handy if you are carrying something and can't see your feet and going through something like a baby/pet gate which is so narrow. I know that Knightley will be patiently waiting for me to go through, and if he is allowed through (rare!), he will be given the go ahead (OK!).

We're doing watch (eye contact) at varying distances, up to about a metre and a half (5 foot or so), and he is great at it. We're working on the part where I start looking away and still have him looking at me. So he learns to maintain the eye contact whether I am giving him attention or not. This is extremely valuable for simply getting him used to being with me in mind at all times. watching eagerly for my next wish. It can also teach a beautiful formal heel, the dog looking right up at you as he trots along, as you look straight ahead. I know we need to do more proofing of our watch outside, we have done limited work of it outside and that is where it will come into its own. Once I recover some more, I will make that a priority.

Doing a nice sit stay for the camera at my brother's place. The
Manner's Minder is going to be so fantastic for increasing stay
times and distances because I don't have to return to the dog
treat him, but can keep the object clear it its mind and still give
treats to encourage him to keep on going and going. Just a
great gadget. Too bad it's made by Premier, because many
positive trainers are boycotting them now due to their takeover
and the changes that are unfortunately happening. I am happy
to boycott them for everything BUT the Manner's Minder!

My Manners Minder arrived earlier in the week, and I got VERY excited at first. Then I got less excited as I realised that it needed batteries. Amazingly I had the 4 D batteries that I needed, but I didn't have the 23AE battery for the remote - I'd never even heard of one. The local shops didn't have one, so I've been waiting all week for the hubby to get home so that we can go somewhere that is likely to have it, cross fingers (this is why I need an assistance dog - independence!!). I should have just ordered one online, sigh. I can completely understand not supplying the D batteries, but not supplying the 23AE for the remote......?! Very very very annoying considering that it is rare. I am quite annoyed as I can even turn it on and everything, but it just sits there useless without the remote. Grrrr. The hubby got back this evening, so hopefully this weekend I will obtain the battery I need. It is going to be so useful, I just can't wait to start using it. We are likely to stop making much headway on Level 3, but it will definitely help us get a solid 1 minute stay in any position we wish, as well as teach a lot of new stuff I have planned that aren't Levels related but are good manners.

We are really getting somewhere with our loose leash. We do a lot of heeling work inside the house, so he gets used to the cue and the position at my left. I make it tricky, varying my speed, quick sudden turns where he has to backtrack in order to get into heel position, and sometimes even walk backwards. We do our normal walks with both his Freedom Harness and a leash to his collar at the moment, so that he gets used to walking completely loose with a leash on his collar. I tell you what, it is a very nice walk too - until he sees a major distraction, when I start backing up. When he is loose at has walked to my left side, I c/t or yes!/treat and walk forward and try again with the distraction. I'll give it as many tries as I can so that Knightley can learn. If he starts going loose as we go past the distraction I go absolutely nuts with the c/ting, just shoving food into his mouth and praising him verbally like a crazy woman. I am sure my neighbours think I am absolutely mad. I am also doing a lot of c/ting for sitting or standing at my side with a leash loose with distractions around. Hopefully it will sink in - although I think the halter I plan on getting (the Comfort Trainer as suggested to me in my last post) will help with that.

I have also been letting the leash on the harness trail on the ground and just using the leash on the collar as the only one to hold onto. This has been nicely effective. He can feel that slight drag and that reminds him that he has the harness on, and yet if he pulls he feels only the collar pressure, and I do the step backwards thing to get him in place before c/ting and walking forward. I try to anticipate him and start walking backwards - tempting him with noises - *before* the leash is actually fully tight. If the leash gets tight without the presence of a very serious distraction, then you are not paying enough attention. Be proactive and don't ever let the leash get tight. Do what needs to be done to lure your dog back to your side with noises and even a hand target, then immediately reward it with your c/t and proceed again. If he walks nicely beside you for even a second or two (face it, there is almost always at least a half second of nice walking before they decide you are boring again, so no excuses), shower it with treats! You walk with me, you get treats. You start trying to forge ahead, I urge you gently back to my side where you get rewarded for doing so, and then I shower you with treats for walking with me again. It is pretty persuasive, especially for a hungry growing puppy.

Anyway, I think you are all caught up with the most important developments here downunder!

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!