First an update. Its been cooler here, so I've taken Gimme to work with me more often. Yesterday was a cool day and when I came out to the car between and after stores, I indulged in short training sessions.
The first time I first walked her around behind my Shopko account. Remember this is where she once showed a lot of concern about the large truck noises on the freeway. We walked right up to the edge of the behind-the-store parking lot and she showed no sign of even noticing the truck noise. She was too busy sniffing and eating blackberries. Then we walked back toward the car and she found a squished and rotting bag of garbage that she wanted to investigate. I took her past it closer to the car and did check-ins, then some eye contact. After that decided to use that distracting garbage (never let a good distraction go to waste) to work leave-it and heeling with distraction. She very quickly figured out that the goodies I have are far better than garbage - who knew....
After my TopFoods account we did more check-ins and then more eye contact. We also did some heeling and I discovered that her duration in the sit between movement needs work. Gee, wonder who's fault that is...?
I have to report a wondrous discovery. Remember I lamented in an earlier post how the good behaviors never globalize like bad behaviors do? Well I've discovered one of Gimme's that has - to a certain extent. She was taught early in life to wait for permission to eat her meals. I can set her full food bowl down and then put all the makings away, wash my hands, gather up the other dogs' bowls and go through the door, before sticking my head back in and giving her the "okay" to eat. It is, without a doubt, her best self-control behavior -- showing that she obviously is capable and I just need to train more of it.
Well the other day we were going somewhere after breakfast, so I put her outside and got breakfast ready for everyone. I set Gimme's breakfast outside the back door expecting her to find it and eat it. Two minutes later I looked out the window to discover her standing there waiting for an "okay" to eat. What a good girl she is!
After that I started paying closer attention and realized that when she is fed in her crate, she's doing the same thing, after a fashion. She runs in and out of her crate, even though the bowl is already in there and I was thinking she was evidencing that she didn't want to get in the crate. I've been putting her in and walking away. Now that I've watched her, I realize she is waiting for me to give her permission to eat. No telling how long she's been sitting there ignoring her uneaten breakfast all this time. Bad mommy for not noticing good Gimme's good behavior.
There are also rules to this behavior that I probably need to work on, rules that Gimme invented and that are too too funny. First, Gimme thinks this only applies to her meals in her bowl on the floor. It does not apply to dropped food. It does not apply to her bowl on the counter. It does not apply to Meaggi or Michael's bowls. That's my girl - Queen of Hoots...
On the way to class last night, Gimme was fussy, which surprised me, since we had trained twice already. I had to stop five times on the way to Albertsons - which promised to make it a long trip to class. When I came back to the car, she was clearly still primed to whine. So I got her out of the car and did a short training session there. Again check-ins (interrupted by a child that had to come and pet and hug Gimme), then eye contact. There were a lot of comings and goings and so this was very hard for her.
When we were done she got back in the car and was completely quiet for the rest of the drive. This lends more credence to my thinking that she is happier and calmer when she gets plenty of training. Is there such a thing as a training-junkie? Could she be developing train-aholism? Hmmmmm.
Once we got to class, she whined briefly, but quickly settled down and was quiet for the rest of the time. Woo hoo... Next time I'm going to get her out when we get there and do a set of check-ins and eye contact and see how that works. If that's what it takes to keep her happy and contented - its certainly a system I can live with.
Nosework class was great. Now that the class is broken down into smaller groups, we are in the later group of five teams. Gimme is far and away the best in the class. My buddy, a Boxer-mix, is the next most enthusiastic. There are also two Border Collies and a blind Aussie. One of the BC's is fairly enthusiastic.
During the first set, there were less boxes than before and more spread out. Gimme was all over the place and just wild to find them. She is verrrrrry busy and verrrrrry fast. This week we were to follow them and add food to the box when they found the hide. That was hard for me because Gimme would snarf up the food and be gone so fast I couldn't catch up some of the time.
During the second set, the boxes were more spread out and again Gimme was little Miss Speedy. The instructor was trying to distract her by moving around the room and past Gimme with other boxes, but she only fell for that once. She is very into this game and thrilled that so many people went to so much effort to invent it for her enjoyment. It's great being the center of the universe.
The third set was done on leash. The boxes were set up around the perimeter, with one up on a chair (the box opening was to the front, not up). Gimme raced around the room and found all the hides. She missed one the first time around that was in the first corner, since she was going so fast and rounded that corner. Denise Fenzi would call that an error of enthusiasm. The instructor said that as the finds get harder, she may slow down to do what she needs to in order to find the hides.
She came home and slept without moving until it was time to go to bed.
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