Start, Stop! Start, Stop!

I'm an Aries, what can I say?

I love coming up with new projects and figuring out how to implement them.  I'm just not great at the "finishing" part.  I get distracted easily.  Hey, I'm also on the cusp of Pisces, the dreamer, so who can blame me?  I'm not sure how other bloggers do this, but my "technique" is to create a draft every time I have an idea for a post.  Perhaps this isn't the right method, since right now I have over 12 drafts just sitting there.  Waiting to be brought to life.  Taunting me with their incompleteness.  Oh, I'm overwhelmed looking at them.

Inhale, exhale.  Okay good.

So what happened with this blog?  I find myself feeling guilty for allowing these drafts to fester away; to shrivel up and get shoved behind the couch.  Also, this blog is supposed to be about dogs, not my attempts at blogging!  What am I doing?  I'm so off-track!

Inhale, exhale.

• I promise that I'll share with you the news on Bella and our attempts at utilizing Natural Dog Training.
• I have a good one on something I learned in regards to Harriette (and it happened just a day later... hint: Neil Sattin contacted me - oooh!  I have goosebumps, and I feel like I just got a celebrity's signature).
• I really want to share my own version of NDT basics.

Yes, there's all that.  I will get around to it, I promise.  I have a feeling that I've had writer's block because I've been keeping a secret.  So in my next post, I wanted to explain why I've been neglecting this poor little blog.  It's no fun to write about, so this little post is just a "teaser" for the explanation to come. 

Here's a hint:

Rubber Band / Snap!

Rubber Bands & Harriette's Barking

Harriette's energy is bound up like the bands of the World's Biggest Rubber Band Ball.

Sure, energy definitely isn't stationary, but bear with me a moment while I work through this.  For a little background picture, Harriette is a two and a half year old Bichon mix, I've known her for four days, and she's got a few nervous tics.  She's on more than four medications for itching, but overall she's a happy pup, and doesn't mind the treatments, or the neck cone she wears if that scratching gets to be too much and she could hurt herself.

I observed her sunbathing on the window seat this afternoon, looking quite comfortable, when all of a sudden she noticed some offensive object outside and she... SNAPPED!  Okay, she barked.  You know the kind:  explosive, screeching and blaming the world.  "Snap" was the first word that came to mind, but as soon as it arrived, I loved the idea.


The Dirty Word(s): Red Zone

I'm sure you've heard of a few concepts describing our dogs going nuts.  One I especially dislike is "red zone," since the words connote the type of thinking that keeps you from being able to help your dog.  "Red" is bloody, scary, hot, stoplight.  Halt, freeze, do not touch.  Careful.  "Zone" is indicative of space or time.  From here to there; then to "When?"  It's mysterious.  You have to guess when it'll end.  A literal space separates you from your pup while he's in that "zone," since you don't want to get too close or you may get hurt.

The worst part?  "Zone" describes a single event.  According to dominance theories, even if your pup goes from a Level 9 to a Level 8, it's not good enough.  You can't let up on alpha-rolling her or (warning: sarcasm) sending calm energy through your body, down your arm with which you're restraining her on the ground.  You need to wait until she's at least down to a 4.  Okay, now she's out of the "zone".

No.  By lumping it all together, it becomes impossible to sort out the tiny moments during which you could have seized the opportunity to redirect, or to find some other way to help.  If you can - if you would like - a new way of thinking about your pup's breakdowns, I'd love to share a different view of what may be going on, and explain how you might use this Rubber Band / Snap! idea to help your dog, both at the moment and long term.  Keep in mind that I'm no expert, so take from this post what you will.


The Energy Bound Within

Since I don't know Harriette well enough to say for sure what she's going through when she lost it for a second there, I'm going to come up with a hypothetical pup, Casey the "Every Dog," and run a little scenario by you.  Imagine Casey as two months old.  He's got a ton of energy; instinctual energy, just bursting to be utilized.  He needs to chew, needs to bark, needs to run, needs to cuddle, needs to be taught what's safe to encounter, and needs to learn a few techniques for how to get rid of that energy.  The first rubber bands are tied together, and his little ball has started.

Now let's say he's 9 months old, an adolescent.  Bands are added with each experience that creates a well of emotion inside him, and now the ball is about the size of your fist.  They're layered on nice and easy, without much stretching.  If one day Casey is startled by the doorbell and no one's home to help him get rid of the emotion (fear, perhaps?) that's enveloped his body -- not to worry.  It'll hold.  These are new, freshly manufactured rubber bands.

And now Casey is two, and the ball has grown to the size of a cantaloupe.  The new bands are stretched to their limit.  You can see cracks in some of them.  A few of those original bands are really getting old, and are beginning to break inside.  And now every time the doorbell rings, Casey feels that intense rush of energy and a new band is placed on the ball.  But it's too much tension.  The band snaps.



The Replacement Word:  SNAP!

Say it a few times.  Snap!  It lasts for half a second when you say it.  The word elicits a powerful, fleeting moment.  Sure, there might be momentary pain, but it's soon forgotten.  May have been annoying to deal with, but now that you're over the shock, you can figure out how to deal with it.

When Casey reacts to something in way you don't like, try to think of his response as a result of a sudden surge of emotional energy.  Too much for him to handle, so he snapped.  But that reaction is done.  Over with.  Snap.  Sure, he may still be barking, this is simply a rebound effect.  The rubber band has broken, but now it's whipping about before it settles.

Don't get mad if your pup isn't listening to you.  He's not asserting his dominance by ignoring you.  He simply doesn't feel as attracted to you as he does to whatever brought about that energy and caused the huge SNAP in the first place! 


How About Poor Harriette?

I'm not sure if I initially made the right move to help the tension of the "Something-Walking-By-The-House-Bothers-Me" snap.  Her barking startled me, so I gasped and in knee-jerk fashion, gave a curt, "Hey!" for her to stop.  She did, for a millisecond, and then went right back to it, as wildly as before.  Gasp and "hey" probably added tension to the band.  Darn.

So I took a moment and decided to try redirecting Harriette.  As counter-intuitive as it sounds -- since the "reinforcement experts" say you're not supposed to praise bad behavior -- I would wait for the slightest indication that her attention wasn't 100% on the offender, and then redirect that attention towards me.  So I took a breath, tried to forget about what the neighbors must be thinking, and watched.  It took about 25 seconds, but finally Harriette relaxed her shoulders back a bit.  The tiniest movement.  I called to her a sort of direct, happy and certain voice, "Come check this out!" and leaned over towards the ground.  And guess what?  She was thrilled to leave her post as Guardian-Of-The-Window-Seat and come on over to me.  As she did, I saw the woman walking past my house pushing a stroller and walking a lab.  Hmm.

Harriette wasn't completely satisfied, however.  She ran back over to the window and gave another few barks, but within seconds she dropped her focus on the lady, a tiny moment, and tilted her head towards me.  There was another chance to stop that rubber band from whipping about!  So I called to her again, and this time she didn't return to the window.

Did I actually teach her that she can come to me with stress, rather than directing it at the outside world?  Did I help her learn how best to release that energy?  I don't know.  Probably not.  She was only with us for a few days.  But I do know that as the days went on, she did bark at the neighbors less often.  Thanks to Harriette for teaching me this lesson, because it'll help me with all my future Snappers!

Kevin Behan's New Book!

I have a list of about 12 dog blogs that I follow, and I love the yellow brick road of links within links that I find myself investigating.  If I hadn't clicked, I wouldn't have known that Kevin Behan, the creator of Natural Dog Training, is coming out with a new book in January 2011 entitled Your Dog Is Your Mirror.  I'm so excited! 

I feel as if I'm about to enter a marathon and I need to do some serious training to get in shape before I dive into this book.  What a great way to motivate myself to focus again on practicing NDT.

What Am I Trying to Teach?

Today I had a couple of free hours, so I decided to take Bella for a ride and run on over to my sister's house to pick up her pups, Mika and Gordy. Unfortunately we couldn't go right away, since the two had already been on an adventure earlier in the day and had rolled in something that would sell like gangbusters if dogs were the consumers and had their choice of perfume.

Gross. After the two got a good hose-down out in the street and they'd dried off a bit, we headed out of town and the four of us set out for a little forest adventure. At one point Bella heard a ground squirrel, and took off in a flash.

I thought, "Here's a great practice moment for us," so I yelled, "B, Sit!" ...

And she kept running.



Background.

Here's a little background on Bella and the "Stop/Sit!" command. For me, "Stop!" means stop moving, and "Sit!" means stop moving and get-yer butt on the ground. She's pretty much got it down. I'd say that 90% of the time she does come to a screeching halt, which makes me so proud. No, wait. We're both proud, since she has such an intense stare as she watches me for the "release/come" command, and then there's that look of ecstatic glee as she rushes back to me. Ooh, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it!

We started working on this last summer. Not sure what prompted learning the command. Maybe it's because we'd moved into a new home with a big ol' yard and I wanted to be able to trust that if she was hanging out, I could stop her from chasing something before she got to the street (another dog, critter or an errant ball). Just for fun, one day I decided to see what she'd do, so we started with a basic off-leash walk, where I'd let her go out further and further each time. At 10, 20, 50, 100 feet in front of me, she understood the game pretty quickly. I think the burst of noise when I said "Stop!" or "Sit!" made her freeze, and for some reason her auto-response when waiting for me to do something is to sit, perk her ears up and look at me as if to say, "Huh? What. What's going on here?" And the best part was the recall, since she knew that tons of praise, pat-downs and an ear scritch were waiting when she got to me. She just loves being the "Good Girl!"

To up the ante, we then worked on "Stop!" while she was running to fetch a toy. "Fetch" for us is having her "sit/wait", watch me toss the toy into the sagebrush, I let the intensity build for a few seconds, and then... "Find It!" or "Okay!" Ooh, she lives for the anticipation of the recall command. To test her on "Stop!" I would try it every 3-5 times I threw the toy.

Okay, that's not true. I had to learn to test her every 3-5 times... At first, I thought it best to work on it with every toss, until I realized that she was anticipating the command, and even when I wouldn't ask for it, she'd slow down half-way to the toy, ears perked back, wait for it... wait for it...

Well that's not what I wanted! I wanted Bella to go for a full-out sprint as she chased down the toy. It was as if she thought the command was, "Go find it, but make sure you slow down in the middle of the run, then speed back up to grab the toy!" That's not what I wanted to teach.



Fast-forward to today.

After reading some Natural Dog Training (NDT) articles on squirrel-chasing, I thought that would be a fantastic way to test Bella even further. I'd never considered using her fascination with the little things as a way to get a training session in. We've been working on it, with about 80% "perfect" results (slowing down and moving another 5-10 steps before the sit doesn't count), so I thought, "Let's try it. B, Sit!"

Then I messed up, too. Rather than ignoring her "failure" and reinforcing the command with lower-level practice, which would have been helpful and happy for both of us, I let my emotions get in the way. As soon as she came out of the bushes onto the trail, I blurted out, "That was so bad, naughty Bella," with that tone that means business. And poor B. She cowered and tried to apologize, but I doubt she knew what for. After all, when I'd yelled out the command, she slowed, turned a corner, but happily kept going along her merry way.

I know better. Intellectually, I know that she wasn't rebelling against my authority or something silly like that. But that horrible inner Voice came up, saying, "How dare you? I commanded something of you and you ignore me? Who do you think you are?" Wow, that Voice is hard to control.

I realized that I was providing a negative experience for "Come." I scolded her right as she came out of the bushes next to me. There's something wrong with that picture. To apologize, I gave lots of love and "it's okay, baby"s. And I realized that I needed to make this a positive experience, so I decided to grab a stick for some easy "Fetch!" As a bonus, I even added a little underarm smell to the stick, since that adds quite a bit of value to the game for her. All was forgiven.



What am I trying to teach?

As we walked back to the car, I mulled over why this wasn't working, and a thought occurred to me: Why am I demanding a full-stop of momentum?

What a let-down when you're in such a high-intensity game such as squirrel chasing! I try to add a bit of that feeling by having her anticipate the recall (which literally gets her shaking with excitement), but surely that's not as good as the chase. Am I maybe teaching her that "Stop/Sit!" means "I have to ignore my feelings immediately in order to obey mom"? I don't want that. I want her to think, "If I obey mom, I'll get to keep this feeling or even experience a more pleasurable one."

And then it occurred to me. Why don't I change up the game and ask for an immediate recall (U-Turn), rather than a full stop? I mean, Stopping-The-Squirrel-Chase is a "trick." The practical purpose of this training is to be confident that I can get her to stop before she runs out into the street. It's to keep her safe, so it's important we get that 80% closer to 100%. So if "Sit!" is causing us a bit of trouble, why don't I try "B, Come!"?

Thank you, Bella, for teaching me that I needed to come up with a new game. Readers, I'll keep you updated.

The "First Draft"

It's time to start this thing.
 
I set up this page about two months ago, but haven't had the nerve to write anything. Why is this? It's not as if I don't have anything to say! In fact, when it comes to the description of this site, that it's to be a place for me to share my "journey" of discovering the different dog training methods, theories and ideas, well, I have plenty to say.

I think what I'm nervous about is the vulnerability of sharing these thoughts, and then later discovering how wrong I truly am (or, rather, was). If this were a personal journal, it wouldn't be so frightening. If no one else were to read these little posts, I wouldn't be so nervous about exposing myself to criticism. Because deep down (even now) I know that I'm wrong. I know that the way I handle the dogs around me at this moment isn't ideal. I'm a worrier. I get frustrated much too easily. At times I'm lazy. It's not even that I don't have all the answers; I have very few of them! The point is, I want to be better with the dogs I work with and live with. I have this itching, this inkling, that "better" is out there. And my one redeeming quality is that I'm willing to put in the work to get to better. I'm smart enough to know that there isn't one particular X-Marks-The-Spot idea. This will be an accumulation of ideas and theories.

 

Why a blog for everyone to read?

So why am I subjecting myself to this torture? Why don't I just keep this blog "safe"? Well, for me, safe isn't worth it. If I were only writing with friends, family or myself in mind as the audience, I probably wouldn't be so excited over the concept. Because I do want to find out what others think. I love a good debate. I love the adrenaline that starts flowing when someone catches me off-guard in an argument. I love the energy of the scramble that happens in my brain when I hear that, "But what about...?"

I do have a few concerns that my clients will "find me out" and this facade of "perfection" that I'm working so hard to create will be torn down in only a few posts. After all, it's a new business, and I'll be the first to tell you that it all starts with trust. Trust that I will be able to provide the quality, loving care that my clients' dogs deserve. To any clients (or potential clients) out there, my only hope is that you take this journey with me. I hope that through some of my trials and errors and successes, you'll be able to see yourself in my stories, and improve the relationships you have with the dogs around you, too!

And really, if any pet care professional tells you that they are perfect handlers of the dogs around them... that they've never cringed after giving a "heel" correction with the leash that was just a bit too hard... that they've never given the "Hey!" warning a bit too loud and growl-ey to stop a pup from eating something gross on the ground... that they've never strangled the air when the two year-old Labradors decide to run in opposite directions just as you've picked up the potty (but haven't flipped the bag to "secure" it with the handles)... they're either lying, they aren't very self-aware, or they don't care about getting potty on their hands.

Hence this silly little experiment in offering my thoughts and musings for your reading pleasure. Well, one can wish, yes?