What a month. Things have been so busy recently I haven't been able to see straight. This post may be a little on the long side, but with any luck this will be the last major gap in updates. Perhaps I can get an every day update going...anyway on with the show.
When I last came to you it was from my mother's house in West Virginia. Her dog had been causing some of Chance's behavior problems, or so I thought. Now my mother has come to stay with me for a month x.x and even without the dog, its gotten worse. At first Chance had been responding to his commands well, working better than ever and I was down right excited. Yeah it didn't last....
So what happened?!
Simply put my mother spoils dogs and sees them as children...not animals, members of another species or anything. She talks to them in baby voices, will do her best to entertain them, reads the body language all wrong, as a lot of people do, and refuses to discipline them. Whats so amusing about this...it's kinda how she treats the grand kids too.
Learning a few tips here and there from Ceaser Milan: The Dog Whisper via books and dvds has offered me a new insight into understanding Chance. A few examples:
- You want your dog in a calm submissive state of mind before doing anything. This means ears slightly back and eye 'brows' perked. This means they see you as the boss and will then do what you want.
- My mom sees this as "I'm sad, worried, scared of you because I am being abused."
- Wagging his tail, bouncing around and in wiggling like crazy means I am excited about something. Happiness and excitement are not interchangeable as they are two different states of minds. Trying to work with an excitable dog is a disaster waiting to happen. Achieve calm submissive before working.
- My mom sees 'I'm happy, I'm happy, lets play lets play!!' and as soon as the calm submissive is trying to be achieves she gets on my case about, "Oh he just wants to be a puppy, let him play and be a dog already.
There really is a lot more to it such as offering baby talking pity to the dog and putting words in his mouth while I am trying to work with him, messing up his feeding, out and water schedule by letting him do what ever he wants and worse yet is doing this while we are trying to work. It probably stresses me out more than I should allow and as a result Chance reads this and doesn't view me as the calm, assertive and confident leader he should. As a result he starts trying to fill in the gaps which makes working impossible.
So what does this mean. It mostly means that today, Labor Day, I get to labor away. I play a ton of sessions today, two or three mile walks and a trip to the mall 'If its open' just to work him in a crowd. I got him a newer light back pack for hard days or when its hot out (has a mesh back for better air circulation), but for the moment I need his heavy pack. When he wears this he works harder. I also need to keep myself calm and confident and perhaps away from my mother for a while.
- The moral of this post: Service dogs are in the end just dogs. They need you to be a strong pack leader in order to do what you want, not what they want. A mother or other friend or relitative who thinks they know better than you is not a good thing to have in your home.
Training takes time, consistency, and patience. With the added stress of a know-it-all with very different opinions regarding dogs and their training can have it all undone in a moment.I'll add more later, but for now I need to get on to one of those sessions with chance. High value treat of hot dogs and beef jerky here I come.
tata - Sara & Chance
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