Piper recently graduated from a 5-week Obedience Training Course from Auntie Sally. All the dogs graduated, actually. She wasn't the best, wasn't the worst -- each dog did well in some areas, not so well in others. Piper proved to have a quick learning curve, undermined by her over-the-top sociability, which at least is better than being a biter, a barker, or a "scaredy dog".
The class was based on Clicker Training (CT), in the mode of Karen Pryor, best known for her work with dolphins and as one of the founders of what is now the familiar method of "click and treat" (CT). This method turned out to suit Piper much better than traditional methods, many of which use a strong dose of negative conditioning, including choke collars and frequent use of the word "No". With CT everything is positive. When the dog engages in a behavior desired by the trainer, she hears a click and gets a treat. That simple. There are a lot of web sites that talk about CT, but for an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable account of the origins and applications of operant conditioning for animals in general and dogs in particular, we suggest her book, Reaching the Animal Mind.
CT does not guarantee instant success. The dog has something to say about it, and Piper's bugaboo is her strong, playful attraction to people and other dogs. Training her to be more relaxed around others is difficult for us because we don't have a lot of people coming and going here at home, nor do we have any other dogs, only a justifiably wary cat called Pywacket. CT has helped in this regard — Piper gets rewarded for not chasing Mr. Py and not jumping on him. The training has proven to be effective here and in many other areas as well, although Piper's desire/compulsion to chase or bug her kitty friend is obviously still there, even when it is overcome by treats.
We like Clicker Training and will continue to use it with Piper. Her graduation meant mostly that we were trained in how to train her in over a dozen basic behaviors. So we have a lot of work ahead of us, and she has a lot of treats ahead of her!
A Brief Look Inside Her Brain
The minds of dogs are fascinating, not only because it's so hard to figure out what they are thinking, but also because they surprise us with unexpected displays of complex mental activity. Piper did just that two nights ago.Sometimes in the evening we give her a rawhide bone. The ones we have are about a foot long, no knobs on the end, and our custom has been to take them away from her either when the bone is half gone it or when it's nine o'clock, whichever comes first. Piper does not like to give up her chew toys. She's never mean about it – just tries to hide or to hang onto them for dear life. Usually we end up having to pry the rawhide from her mouth, something which I really don't like to do, because I know how much she likes her rawhide.
Tuesday evening the clock was approaching nine – both the clock on the wall and Piper's internal clock. At about 8:45 Mary noticed the clock, and said, half-joking, "Wouldn't it be great if she knew it was time to stop chewing, and brought us the bone?" A few minutes later, Piper got up, rawhide firmly ensconced in her teeth, and sneaked around our recliner and underneath an end table, where she often hides to avoid having her prize taken away. It was interesting to the two of us, who were sitting on either side of the end table, that she wasn't chewing on it – just lying there with the rawhide.
At about five minutes before nine, she suddenly pulled out from behind the table and sat up, leaving the rawhide on the floor. She looked at us, as if to say, "OK, go ahead and take it now," which we did. All three of us then resumed our normal evening routine.
We were both stunned by what she had done, first, because it was an entirely new behavior, and second, because it displayed an intelligence on her part which somehow overrode her instinctual desire to hang onto important things, and third, because we had just been joking about just this very behavior. We still don't know for sure what is going on in that pretty head of hers, but what we do know is that there is a lot more happening there than we thought.
On the other side of the ledger, Piper has become a diggin' fool lately, scouring out little holes here and there. That, we hear, is a tough habit to break. But now that she is smarter than we thought, we feel a little more confident about it (though not much!).
Update on this post: A week later the bone was being seriously chewed, as usual, and when we went to take it from her, she growled at us. We did end up taking the bone from her, and we learned that she is all bark and no bite - true to her Golden genes, thankfully!
Pet Pet Peeves
Having had Piper for ten months or so, we have begun to develop a mental list of "Pet Pet Peeves". While not egregious, they merit attention here in our blog and are listed below in no particular order.
1. Owners who force their dogs to spend cold, wet days and nights on the concrete stoop or driveway, or in an unheated van, year-round. Take them inside, please -- at least into your garage, or build them a dog house in that big back yard of yours next to that nice, big equipment shed.
2. Owners who leave their dogs in the front yard, off-leash, because they are "well-trained and never a problem." Got news for ya, neighbor -- they're a problem for us walkers and our dogs. Your dogs aren't THAT well trained, and when they come running out to meet us, sometimes they're friendly and sometimes they're not. Put them on a leash, please, or take them back to school.
3. At the local dog park (a): Owners who bring their big, aggressive, I'm-in-charge-here dogs, and then let those alphas have their way with the dogs who are there to have fun. Get off your cell phones, please, and take care of your animals. Better yet, take them home. Also, potty your dogs before bringing them inside the fence. Also, clean up the potty, please.
4. At the local dog park (b): Owners who send their young children, unsupervised, to take their dog into the park through the safety gates, having told them nothing about how the safety gates work. They work like this, Mom & Dad: you open the first gate, take your dog in, close the gate, unleash your dog, then open the second gate and let your dog into the park. You do not let little Susie stand there with both gates open, dogs all around wanting to meet the new dog, while she freezes, confused and frightened, not knowing what to do next because you aren't there. Dogs will get out, as Piper and several others almost did last week.
5. Owners -- like us -- whose dogs jump up on people. We still haven't signed Piper up with Auntie Sally for Obedience School, which we have delayed because ... well, just because. Hopefully in April (of this year!) we'll get going on this, because we hate inviting people to our house and having to manage her "five-minute-furry-flurry" of aggressive affection. She does settle and becomes quite the good dog after that, but we've got to teach her about "four on the floor" before she alienates all of our family and friends. Just to keep things in perspective, however, it should be said that she is probably better behaved around humans than I was when I was a bratty little preacher's kid (David speaking here).
6. Dogs who fake out their owners into thinking they need to go out at night to do their business, when in fact they just want to go out and check out the moon or protect us from squirrels. Piper is just a bit manipulative. In doggy-land, where right/wrong does not exist, she does not see this as a problem.
7. Dogs who take what is not theirs. Dogs who think everything actually IS theirs (e.g., shoes, dinner napkins, or, by far the worst, UNFINISHED CROSSWORD PUZZLES). Ditto here about doggy-land.
So that about covers it. Let us know if we missed anything.
1. Owners who force their dogs to spend cold, wet days and nights on the concrete stoop or driveway, or in an unheated van, year-round. Take them inside, please -- at least into your garage, or build them a dog house in that big back yard of yours next to that nice, big equipment shed.
2. Owners who leave their dogs in the front yard, off-leash, because they are "well-trained and never a problem." Got news for ya, neighbor -- they're a problem for us walkers and our dogs. Your dogs aren't THAT well trained, and when they come running out to meet us, sometimes they're friendly and sometimes they're not. Put them on a leash, please, or take them back to school.
3. At the local dog park (a): Owners who bring their big, aggressive, I'm-in-charge-here dogs, and then let those alphas have their way with the dogs who are there to have fun. Get off your cell phones, please, and take care of your animals. Better yet, take them home. Also, potty your dogs before bringing them inside the fence. Also, clean up the potty, please.
4. At the local dog park (b): Owners who send their young children, unsupervised, to take their dog into the park through the safety gates, having told them nothing about how the safety gates work. They work like this, Mom & Dad: you open the first gate, take your dog in, close the gate, unleash your dog, then open the second gate and let your dog into the park. You do not let little Susie stand there with both gates open, dogs all around wanting to meet the new dog, while she freezes, confused and frightened, not knowing what to do next because you aren't there. Dogs will get out, as Piper and several others almost did last week.
5. Owners -- like us -- whose dogs jump up on people. We still haven't signed Piper up with Auntie Sally for Obedience School, which we have delayed because ... well, just because. Hopefully in April (of this year!) we'll get going on this, because we hate inviting people to our house and having to manage her "five-minute-furry-flurry" of aggressive affection. She does settle and becomes quite the good dog after that, but we've got to teach her about "four on the floor" before she alienates all of our family and friends. Just to keep things in perspective, however, it should be said that she is probably better behaved around humans than I was when I was a bratty little preacher's kid (David speaking here).
6. Dogs who fake out their owners into thinking they need to go out at night to do their business, when in fact they just want to go out and check out the moon or protect us from squirrels. Piper is just a bit manipulative. In doggy-land, where right/wrong does not exist, she does not see this as a problem.
7. Dogs who take what is not theirs. Dogs who think everything actually IS theirs (e.g., shoes, dinner napkins, or, by far the worst, UNFINISHED CROSSWORD PUZZLES). Ditto here about doggy-land.
So that about covers it. Let us know if we missed anything.
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