A Horse is a Horse, Of Course

Gimme has done really well in her training - which is, of course, to be expected with such a smart girl.  This is a picture of her at Rally class.  If you look carefully, you can see the glimmer and sparkle from her halo.  <g>  She'd do better if her person was a bit more adept. 

I did learn during this class that I'm going to have to revamp our cue system (and the sooner the better).  Since I'll be training her for freestyle at the same time as rally/obedience... if I use the same behavior - at the least I have to give it a different name.  I found during this week's class, that when she came in to "front", she kept wanting to spin and back into "under", which we'd been working on.  While incredibly cute - it won't be particularly helpful in obedience and rally. 

Of course, Michele Pouliet made the point that you need to train positions for freestyle different anyway, since you almost never want them sitting.  So once I retrain that way, the confusion should clear up, methinks...

Despite my efforts to have Gimme get used to horses when she was very little... she has since decided they are evil devil spawn that are not to be trusted.  I think the real problem is that she mostly sees them while we are out walking - where they seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere (lots of woods and paths that come from both sides).  After being surprised by having them appear from wherever they lurk, they are actually 100 yards away, and having her react poorly, we have been putting a special effort into getting her used to them.  You'd think 100 yards would be far enough for them to not be threatening, but I think Gimme thinks that the whole 100+ acres per training area is all hers. 

I'd been using lots of treats, but it didn't seem to really be working.  Then someone suggested (for something else) that I get one of those tubes that hikers put peanut butter into for traveling (you can buy them at sporting goods stores).  I was going to look for one, but then saw at the seminar that someone had made one out of a toothpaste tube and a hair barrette.  Since I was near the end of a tube and already had barrettes, I made one too.

Its easy to make and they can easily be opened for refilling.  Empty out that toothpaste tube and trim away the crimped edge.  I actually had two tubes that were near the end, so I selected the one with the flip top (don't want to worry about keeping track of a screw top).  Open up the tube and clean it out thoroughly (I found a tooth brush worked well) both in the tube and near the place where the paste will come out.  Then fill it about two-thirds full with your reward of choice (I used a butter knife to fill it).  Carefully fold over about a quarter inch of the open end.  You may have to fold in one corner if the barrette isn't wide enough.  Place the barrette on it.  I like the kind that snap closed; you squeeze the sides on one end to open it.   

Our reward of choice is peanut butter.  Gimme loves peanut butter better than anything else.  That's why her recall is so good, because most of the time it is rewarded with peanut butter.  You could really use anything soft - like baby food meats or cream cheese.  One of the advantages to peanut butter is that it doesn't have to be refrigerated between uses.  But, of course, you'll want to go with what works for your dog.

I hold the tube in my hand, with my thumb holding the snap lid up out of the way, and I gently squeeze as needed.  The great advantage to this is that you can really prolong the experience, getting a lot of mileage for your counter-conditioning time.

We recently ran into a lady with a grey horse she was unloading from the trailer.  My friend walked up and asked her if we could bring Gimme closer and do some training.  Fortunately the horse folk that we run into on the training areas are, for the most part, very willing to indulge my training requests.  I'm sure they'd like to have my dog comfortable with the horses (and quietly not-barking) as much as I would. 

Anyway we stood there chatting while the horse hung out a few feet from Gimme.  Mostly she was intent on sucking as much peanut butter from the tube as she could get.  She was clearly aware of the horse and I watched Gimme very carefully to let her set the tone of how long, how close, etc.  Toward the end the horse was close enough to reach out and sniff Gimme.  She momentarily turned her head from the tube to see what that was and then calmly went back to her priority mission.  I considered that a HUGE SUCCESS and squeezed hard to give her a big glob of peanut butter.  Then we ended the session and walked away.

Someday, if I can scare up a horse resource, I'd like to train for a road trial title.  Naturally, its essential that Gimme be very comfortable with horses.  Now that we've found a way to use peanut butter -- I see that as a very realistic possibility...