This is the blog for Monstermom and Monster. Monster is an aggressive dog, and Monstermom is trying to help him get better. Hopefully this blog will chronicle the journey from "You need to put that thing down, it's a menace!" to "What a beautiful dog! Can I say hello?"...
We've spent a fair bit of time in the garden today, just hanging out (the weeds are mocking me, but honestly who cares if they get to live another day). Occasionally people would pass by outside our hedge, but by now the greenery has grown enough to obscure most of the view and Monster often didn't seem to even notice them, and when he did they were basically already past us and he had little to no time to react before they were gone again. However a man walked by leading a bike (it's a steep hill) and talking loudly on his cell phone, so naturally Monster noticed him in plenty of time and positioned himself in a gap in the hedge (a plant has died, I must remember to replace it) and sort of wound up to tell the man off. Tense body, hackles slightly raised, up on his toes, muttering a bit. But as the man ignored him completely nothing came of it, and Monster started to relax again.
That's right, mister! You don't want to mess with this...
Unfortunately as he was watching the man walk away he spotted someone else heading toward him instead (I was sitting where I couldn't see out on the street, but I had no difficulty reading Monster's body language). A couple walking a slightly upset dog was approaching. I let Monster watch them (bouncing slightly and making his protesting but-but-but noise, winding up but not yet ready to explode) until they were just on the other side of the hedge from him - since if I successfully called him away before they were at the most "dangerous" point he would just break when they got there (unless I'd catch and hold him, which would be counter productive) - and tried to catch his attention just as he was about to start a fence attack. I called his name and asked him "Where's the ball!?", as I've been trying to reward him with play whenever someone passes by the fence. I could see that he was conflicted, he wavered between me and the problem in the street several times (it's awesome to have a dog with a coat and build like Monster's, I can see every muscle shift and read what's going on) but after a second or two he raced over to the ball, tripping over it in his eagerness, and ran back with it to me (and slammed into me quite hard, the little darling) so we could play! That was him making a choice, and while he was seriously ramped up he took that energy and used it in play with me instead of in reaction to the triggers!
Sorry about not updating the blog much lately! Apart from our days being fairly repetitive, there's also a problem for me sitting in the desk chair by the computer. There's nowhere to put my leg up, and the chair being on wheels quickly makes... I dunno, something(?) ache.
(There, now you can't be mad at me, I pulled the "broken leg"-card!)
She does it to me too! I'm working my tail off here...
One thing I find incredibly annoying with my leg like this (apart from all the other millions of things which annoy me about a broken ankle) is how bound I am to certain pieces of furniture. Stuck in one position. I figured all this boring sitting around-time could be put to good use by making some treats for Monster. So, said and done:
[Monster:] Mmmmmm... *drool*
It takes a while to cook a turkey, and then it's a big, horrible mess with stripping the meat and cutting it into tiny treat bites. Excellent use of my time! Except... I usually sit on the floor to do this - I'm a vegetarian and I just don't want all that grease and, you know, corpsiness, to get on my table or work surfaces. I wavered a little this time, since it's kind of hard for me to sit down on the floor right now. Not to mention painful once I'm down. But my dislike for non-vegetarian protein (sounds so much better than "dead animals", right?) convinced me to do as usual. After an hour on the floor the turkey was stripped and packed away into plastic bags. Then followed The Question.
Mom... How are you going to get back up?
Yeah, that one! Let's just say I'm glad no one had a camera on me for that little exercise. Hands covered in turkey grease, one leg in a cast: how not to limit yourself if you want to get up off the floor.
In other, (slightly) less complainy, news I'm trying to find ways to have fun with Monster which allow me to stay seated. Bonus if it's also a bit of a workout for him. I've tried filming one such exercise, but as usual you'll see I'm not a particularly skilled videographer...
This is Monster basically not using an inflatable elephant as a position box. We normally do this in the living room, but the cheap video camera I have can't handle the low light so I moved us outside. Monster clearly thinks that's a bizarre idea and isn't overly interested in showing off how we usually do this exercise. It also doesn't help that I'm sitting off to the side, and completely (and repeatedly) fail to throw the treats so he can catch them. Obviously the flaw is my distance to the elephant, so Monster very cleverly decides to fix the issue for me...
Very tiny thing, but we've really come a long way on Monster's hand off during retrieve. Today we've been doing a lot of searching, where he hands off found items to me, and he's so enthusiastic about it (everything is a lot more fun when your dog is clearly enjoying himself) as well as he's very good with holding the items in a solid grip - and no chewing - right up until they're in my hand. He'll chase my hand if I move it away, and really push items to me. As I said, it's a tiny thing. But I'm happy.
There hasn't really been anything specific to point out as sunny today, so let's talk about a fun little pastime we've come up with instead. As a simple nose work exercise, I'll hide an item somewhere in the house and have Monster search for it. Not particularly advanced, but I've been trying to develop it a bit and have found something which is proving much more of a challenge for Monster.
Weeeeell... That makes it sound like it's hard, I can't agree with that. I'm far too good.
So, this is what we do: First, I take out a special treat (usually a half thawed chicken wing, which Monster for some reason really enjoys) and place it in Monster's food bowl with him watching. But instead of giving him the all clear to eat I give him a command to stay. I take out some item (anything really - usually a small item of clothing like a sock, or a coaster, or a key, or my wallet, or one of Monster toys) and show it to him, letting him sniff it briefly. Then I go upstairs and walk around a bit and hide the item somewhere a bit tricky (behind the books on a shelf, under a pillow, under a rug, on a window shelf behind the curtains, and so on - anywhere he'll have to make a bit of an effort), making sure I've touched and lifted lots of other things along the way too (otherwise he'll just track me instead of doing a search for the hidden item). I then go downstairs again and send Monster off to search...
Finally!
This maybe doesn't sound like it's all that difficult, but for Monster it's not so easy. First he has to hold a stay close to the temptation in his food bowl - with me elsewhere so he needs to control himself rather than letting me control him - for several minutes (it's not a big house but I make sure it takes a bit of time to hide the item). He then has to leave the treat in order to get it, and focus on finding the hidden item without getting distracted by the temptation. He then needs to not only find it and race off to his food bowl, but instead pick it up and bring it to me... I don't know about your dogs, but Monster struggles a bit with this. The first three-four tries I had to help him leave the food bowl at all, and follow him upstairs to get him started at all. And even when he'd started searching he'd abandon the search and come back down to look at the treat again, repeatedly. He has pretty good search stamina ordinarily, but found the treat very distracting. And once he did manage to find the item, it was really hard for him not to race off and reward himself rather than finish it and bring the item to me. In other words: lots of fun!
Fun for whom?
Oh, Monster likes a challenge too, don't worry. And as I said, this is surprisingly challenging for him. My only worry now is that it keeps getting easier for him. Soon it'll probably be boring... If anyone has some tips on ways to add variety and difficulty, we'd be happy to hear about it!
So. I was... err... I've been in North Korea. And in prison. Also, the moon! So, you know... No internet. Plus! My hands fell off. Yeah, that's it.
You don't doubt Mom, do you...?
We're doing sort of OK. We were doing better for a little while, but of course that couldn't continue and so a dog guarding its yard ran out into the road and attacked Monster as we were passing by. That sucked. And set us back in training, just a teensy bit...
I did not like that dog. Was I supposed to like that dog? Cause I didn't...
But let's not focus on that! (Believe me, I've spent far too much time obsessing over it already.) Instead, let's look at a happy Monster! I've been reading a bit about enrichment - giving dogs an outlet for natural behaviors, like digging and tearing things to pieces for example - and thinking I really need to pick up some slack in that area. However, I'm really bad at it. I find it difficult to not look at a "useful" side of it too - not that I don't think making Monster happy and letting him be a dog is useless exactly. I just... Look, I can't do it. There's the truth. I want to. I even think I am doing it. And then I take another look and realize I've made it something different... For instance, I've scraped together what little snow we have into a pile - intending it for Monster's digging pleasure. But can I just let him go nuts on it? Nooooo... Instead, I make it an item search game as well - finding and retrieving placed items (I'm sure this has a name in English but I don't seem to know it) in the snow. Now, it's not wrong - Monster still gets to dig and he loves searching too, so really I just made it even better. Right? But taking a look at it, the reason for doing it this way is because nose work and searching is somehow a legitimate activity, whereas doing something just for Monster (meaning has no practical application in for example dog sports) I somehow seem to view as a time waster.
Duuuuuude...
Yeah. Realizing you've got a problem is the first step to fixing it, right? Because this needs some work, clearly. Anyway, he really does love doing it! Take a look:
(Yes, I'm aware that the "retrieve" part is pretty much nonexistent. He's actually pretty good at that normally. I've got no idea why it just wouldn't work when I was filming...)
Monster isn't really enjoying the retrieve training so much. He tends to shut down, lie down and look away, or get frustrated and start pawing at me and trying to get me to play. We have trouble with this quite a lot, I believe it's a combination of Monster severely lacking in confidence and me being very bad at structuring training effectively so it's challenging but not too difficult. No doubt, I'm much worse at this when I'm working toward a specific goal. And when I don't reinforce Monster enough he loses even more confidence.
So I'm doing a take-back on the resolution. No more retrieve. Instead, I'm going back to something Monster really seems to enjoy - and something that's really hard even for me to screw up: free shaping. More specifically free shaping with objects. I just pick a thing, any thing, place it in the training area, and reinforce Monster for interacting with it. I find that we can't get shaping to work without an object, presumably because I put too much pressure on Monster (staring at him and waiting for him to do something), since Monster just lies down and basically plays dead. I suppose we could work on that, but I'm not sure it would be a good idea - the point is to make him more confident acting, not being passive. The reason for only doing free shaping is of course so it won't be quite so easy for me to pile on the pressure and raise the criteria too quickly. If I don't know where we're going it's pretty hard for me to hurry to get there.
I may not look like it, but I actually enjoy shaping.
So, new resolution for this week is having three free shaping sessions, with an object, every day. Today Monster has learned to balance on a snow shovel (out in the garden), and put his head inside a cardboard box. There should be a third thing, but the day isn't over yet.
Monster and I have been doing some good work on the retrieve today. And by that I don't mean we've made amazing and speedy progress, but rather that I've managed to keep it very simple. I'm always eager to move forward, and it's always a bad idea. Getting to the goal without completing the course just means you've rushed through without actually learning a solid behavior. Today we've only worked on take and return from my hand, holding no more than a second, and only in the living room. In fact, I think this week we won't push it much farther than that, instead focusing on varying the retrieve object. Not actually retrieving anything, just getting a solid hold on anything I ask him to grasp - probably not even training outside the house.
I've completely forgotten about the daily resolutions! Shame on me...
Well, no time like the present, I suppose. Although, I think I'm going to change the concept a little. I think I'll try making a weekly resolution to work on a specific trick (or issue), at least part of it, each day that week. It feels like a better way forward in training, not just a way to make sure I actually put in some effort every day.
So, let's see, today's a Saturday. But if I put it off until the start of next week I'm just going to forget about it again, so it starts now: The coming week I'm going to train "retrieve" with Monster. Currently, Monster will retrieve high value items (ball, tug toy, etc) and bring them to me, but then he'll often either try to start a tug with it or run past me and try to start a chase. With low value items (paper, shoe, etc) he'll run off and mark it, but sometimes not even pick it up and often pick it up but not carry it all the way back to me (he'll spit it out halfway and come trotting in for a reward). High or low value, he'll hardly ever give a solid retrieve all the way to my hand...
So, that's where we'll start. Just picking things up and handing them over. Actually, we'll probably start with taking things from my hand and then immediately putting them back. Goal is fetching and retrieving any thrown or placed item, bringing it in to sitting position, and giving the item into my hand. Yeah, I realize we won't get there in a week, but that is the desired end result and it's what we'll be working toward this week - but not pushing toward regardless of what's realistic in the moment!
