Eddie the Hunter

My brown tabby cat Eddie has always been the mouser of the house. At our last place, there was a vole colony at the back of the property and on more than one occasion Eddie came flying into the house with a high pitched squeal that sounds like a dying motor emitting from his mouth. I knew after the first time it was a vole so this dash often included me running after him yelling "drop it! drop it! drop it!" hoping he would before he got inside. It never worked out that way so instead, I'd spend 15 minutes trying to corner this poor blind animal that looks like an earless, tailless mouse into some Tupperware so I could return him to the great outdoors.

Where we live now I don't let the cats outside anymore. The yard is too big and they leave without saying goodbye, staying out for a couple days at a time. I'm not okay with this so they have become my prisoners. This has not ramped down Eddie's hunting spirit, however.

It started with a grey fur sack with a stuffed mouse head. You put catnip in the sack and the Lottie is blushed out in 10 minutes. Or not. In our house, we know the hunt is afoot because these weird, guttural meows will issue from some unknown location on the house. The first time he did it, I thought he was dying. Scared the crap out of me. After about 10 minutes, however, Eddie will come trotting into the room, his prize clenched neatly in his jaws. He'll jump up on the furniture and drop his "kill" in your lap. We always praise him lavishly for his efforts. Let's face it, if a real mouse gets in the house I want those skills fine tuned! Especially since the other cat has no interest in catching anything except the occasional shoelace.

Recently Eddie has turned his sights to bigger prey. We have a stuffed lamb chop dog toy that is about the size of a kitten or a baby bunny. Just a few minutes ago, without any pre-emptive warning, he brought me "dead" lamb chop. He dropped it in my lap, took his treat and left. I don't know whether to be proud, or concerned that he's moving on to larger prey. He's always hated the dog. Then again, she has a good 50 lbs on him so perhaps she can handle herself.

Puppy - Round 2

Since my last post, I still have Gayla, fostered a shepherd husky mix, and have taken on a feral puppy. Actually, it was two puppies and it was just supposed to be for a weekend until they could be transported to their foster home three hours north of us.

Here is the whole gang from that weekend. Biff is the little guy and Katy is the one on the left. Gayla is, of course, the one with all the freckles looking less than pleased.

Well, they both went to their new foster and within a week it was requested that I take Katy back. She was being aggressive with the other foster puppies. I'm not certain who was being aggressive, but Katy came out of the ordeal with a couple of bruises for her efforts.

You can kind of make out the spot next to her eye and there is a similar one on the inside of her right ear and on the top of her head.

I specified that she is feral because she is incredibly skittish around humans. We've made great progress in the last couple of days - providing the human is sitting on the floor. If we get up and move around she quickly disappears behind a chair.

If you look carefully, there is a puppy behind that dinosaur. One room between her and humans? Check? Protected by a stuffed dinosaur? Check. Life is good.

Despite all her wariness, however, she is incredibly cute! Those ears! Aren't they just perfect? And she is slowly coming around. Yesterday I put her on the bed and hand fed her breakfast. After eating she not only dozed off, she actually leaned on me. My heart melted a little. How could it not?

Gayla is currently staying at Grammy's house, however. She is less than fond of the puppy. In fact, she tried to eat her. Now we can add that, in addition to children, Gayla doesn't like puppies. But that doesn't make her any less great as a dog! She'd really be the perfect pet for a person or family who's kids are in high school or gone. She's playful, loving and funny. She'd just prefer to be the center of your world. Gayla is available through PawsUp4Rescue.org. Shameless plug. But seriously, 6 months! Why won't anyone even meet this dog?!?

There is such a thing as too many dogs

Please don't mis-understand me. I love all my fosters. But it is time for some of them to find their forever homes! The babies are over their ring-worm and have received their vaccinations so they are actually allowed out in the yard. Can I interest you in a patriotic puppy? Born on the 4th of July, named for the founder of the Treasury and his wife. Also the stars of the hottest Broadway musical this year! Aren't they adorable? Hamilton is the blonde. Eliza is the raven haired sweetie.

Here they are with one of the neighbor's kids. I would love to show you all the adorable pics I took of the two girls with the two dogs, but not my kids so I won't put them on the web. 

Anyway, the puppies have taken right to the whole using the yard to pee and poop. Now when they scream, I put their leash on them and take them right outside. 99% of the time they go potty right away. T calls it "sychonized peeing" because they squat at the same time and finish about the same time. Cracks me up. 

We have taken to calling Miss Eliza "Skyler" even though the proper spelling is Schuyler. She thinks she's a lap dog. It's sweet now, but her future owner may not think so once she starts to weigh 70+ pounds. And if you don't think they will, please notice the size of the 8 week old puppy with the 60 lb border collie!

Then there is my 2 year old Blue Heeler Terrier mix, Gayla.

She can be such a sweet dog. She can also be completely insane. This morning she's on my shit list. I know they say that dogs don't do things to spite you, but it is REALLY hard to believe sometimes. I don't think it was because she was pissed that I walked her and Charlotte separately, but maybe I did. At any rate, when I got out of the shower this morning, someone had peed on my bed. The puppies were incarcerated and Charlotte was doing a pretty good impression of road kill on the floor so that narrows it to one speckled 30 lb dog. I got it cleaned up. Thank goodness for super thick mattress pads. 

So there I am this morning at 9:30, still needing to blow dry my hair and needing to leave at 9:45 for work so I can make it on time. I have to put dogs outside, strip the bed, put a load in the wash, get the dogs back in, feed them and the cats, pack my lunch and oh yeah, shoes are usually recommended on the job! I know they are just dogs but I seriously felt like  Mila Kunas at the beginning of "Bad Moms"! How the hell do people with children do this day in and day out?!? Cause seriously, between the 5:30 am wake up call for puppy poop breaks and ridiculousness like this, I'm exhausted! So, please? Don't you want a dog? Specifically one of mine? Wimby is tired too. Won't you take pity on her?!

Tiny Terrorists

Warning: I use poop related words in this article.

Well, I went and did what my husband told me not to do. And I did it with his permission. We have more than one foster dog. In fact, we have 3. In addition to Gayla, the two newest arrivals are 7 week old puppies. We took them because it was an emergency situation. The foster who was going to take them had a current puppy she's taking care of come down with Parvo. Parvo is highly contagious and very deadly. Since the group was shorthanded (ie everyone already had puppies) we stepped in to help. These two are part of a litter that had 8. The group has been broken up between 4 different homes. Besides the Parvo concern, these poor babies have ringworm which they're on medication for. But this means they have to be quarantined from the other dogs. The reason I'm calling them tiny terrorists is because they don't like being separated from the action. So they cry. Correction, they scream. Like someone is hacking body parts off of them. And the only way to break that behavior is to ignore it. Sweet Jesus in heaven give me patience.

They are doing decent (kind of) with keeping their potty in one area of the pen. But every time I put a new pee pad in the pen they commence playing on it. This concerns me that when I'm not around they may be rolling on spots they already pee'd on. Not very sanitary.

I brought them home Saturday afternoon. I have no idea what they were eating before so I put them on the puppy food I have. By yesterday their poop was becoming less solid. This is to be expected. It's runnier today. I know this isn't unusual but I have to keep track of when I got them and their progress to make sure that this is change of food diarrhea and not Parvo diarrhea.

Just a couple minutes ago Ms. Eliza made a break for it and came wondering into the kitchen. I put her back and plugged her excape route. Now she is sitting in the middle of the pen screaming in agony and pain. At least that is what it sounds like. In reality, I'm guessing it's just her pissed off yell.

They are part malamute. It shows in their voices. One of the other fosters who got the two I was hoping to get seems to be in complete love with her little guys. Then again, hers don't have to be quarantined either. I imagine that would have made a big difference. That is all for now. Here is a picture of my terrorists.

If you look closely you can see the evil in their eyes.

Foster Dog

Have I mentioned yet that I started fostering dogs this year? Back in May, when I finished up the Spring semester I thought I would give fostering a try for the summer. I figured I would get a dog, have it for months on end and at the end of that time I'd be back at school, so that was enough for the time being. The temporariness didn't so much appeal to me as it seemed sensible. Logical even. Well, here I am 2.5 months into this and on my third foster dog. No, I don't still have the first 2. T, my hubby, set the very strict rule of one at a time. This was wise because I've got a soft spot that dogs always find and then later I can't help but wonder what the hell was I thinking.

So first there was Fiona.

She was deemed a difficult dog because she'd gotten into fights with dogs at her previous foster homes. I was her 4th foster. She was a little Terrier mix of some kind. You can't see it from any of the pictures I took, but honestly to me she looked like a tiny white Italian Greyhound. 

Image from http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/italian-greyhound/

I only had Fiona for about a month. She and Charlotte did get into a couple rough sounding play matches, but she couldn't bully Charlotte like she had the smaller dogs she'd been fostered with. She learned with us that it was okay to share things with other dogs. She was adopted by an older couple with a dog a little larger than her. Last I heard everything was going great. Thanks again Linda and Paul for giving her a place in your hearts and home.

Next I had a choice between two that we had in the kennels at the Vet's office. One was an older girl who had come in with a litter of puppies. Her puppies had been moved out, but she was still there. She was going stir crazy in the kennel but there was  a second one that was only about 6 months old and was becoming very frightened and withdrawing into herself more and more. I picked the puppy because I was afraid that if she stayed in that environment too much longer she would become reactionary. I kept a journal of her progress for the few weeks I had her. Charlotte adopted Layla as her own. She stole our hearts. We renamed her Lulu. 

Everyone thought she was Charlotte's puppy because they resembled each other so much. 

She was adopted after her first event by a guy and his teenage son. I haven't heard back from them so I hope she's doing well. She was a really good girl. Smart and sweet. But she had a little bit of housebreaking to learn yet and she had a taste for cell phone chargers.

After Layla was adopted, the mama who was at the vet still needed a foster, so we brought home Gayla. 

She was insane for the first couple days. Couldn't stop pacing around. And so much energy. This was to be expected though because she'd been cooped up for so long. 

This picture is blurry because it was hard to catch her not moving! We've had Gala about 2 weeks now. She's turning into a really good girl too. We just have to work on her reactivity to strangers. She barks like a madman at them. She and Charlotte have gotten into it a few times, most recently over a rawhide. But jump apart pretty fast when I yell at them to knock it off though. 

I've been working on all her training with her, of course. And she's smart. She's picking up on it fast. Cattle dog mix so no surprise really. But T and I had the scare of a lifetime this morning. She got out the door on us and took off for the street. Our first reaction was to yell "Gayla! Get Back Here!" to which she paid absolutely no mind and kept going around the hedges. Thank God everything I've been studying kicked in after the first frantic "GAYLA!" that I screamed out. Against all my instincts, I stopped halfway down the drive and raised the pitch of my voice so it sounded fun instead of frantic and called again "Gayla! Come here baby! Come here!" T switched his tone to a light hearted one as well and she actually stopped in her tracks. She came a few steps back toward the yard, and then all the way into the yard, the whole time, us using our "fun" voices to call her. At that point Charlotte got out and went over to grab her by the scruff and the two took off into the yard back toward the house. Probably could have gotten her in faster without Charlotte's help, but the point of this story is that positive training worked on an unknown personality. 

Reminder: NEVER punish a dog for coming to you. I wanted to yell at her so badly after I got her back in the house and I suspect from her body language she was fully expecting a chastising. I kept my voice even and went about my business. Instead I sat down to write this instead. My stomach is still full of butterflies at the thought of what could have happened. Like I said before, thank God for the presence of mind to put my training to use. 

Right now both dogs are playing as though nothing unusual happened this morning. As it will always be for dogs. 

Operant Conditioning

I can't remember if I've mentioned before that I have been a fan of BF Skinner concerning dog training for quite a long time. It's thanks to his research that we have such things as clicker training and positive training in the world of animals now instead of the classic way of force and control.

My only problem with this is that I often have difficulty coming up with ways to utilize positive training in unique situations. The one I've had the most difficulty with is getting the dog to stop bothering the cats. She likes to run up to them and shove her nose into their side making them jump and run, giving her something to chase. She will also curl her lip at them if they are lying near her and she's very jealous of the possibility of any food if they are around. 

About two months ago, I had a light-bulb moment and realized that instead of rewarding the dog for not bothering the cats,

I would instead reward the cats for being bothered by the dog. 

I set out to begin my training this morning with her most valued treat, cat treats. It was funny to watch her reaction the first time she shoved her nose into the cat and I gave the cat a treat! After a moment's contemplation, she tried a second time, shoving her nose into the cat's side. Again, I gave the cat a treat. The look on her face was priceless. You could almost see her working out the problem in her head. "Nose in cat, cat gets treat. That can't be right. Nose in cat...cat gets treat?!?" A third time, she shoved her nose into the cat and again, the cat got rewarded while she got nothing, not even a word from me.

She sat back on her haunches for a moment to contemplate the situation. She tried this behavior a couple more times and finally gave up bothering the cat, laying down on the floor. I wanted to reinforce the laying nicely behavior, so I finally gave the dog a treat. In my mind I was rewarding the most recent behavior, which was NOT bothering the cats.

 I was incredibly impressed that the dog had just run the equivalent of a science experiment to understand what was happening and I declared myself a dog training genius!

I was still patting myself on the back the next day when I took my coffee to the same chair and the cat jumped up onto the same ottoman. Charlotte walked up, looked at the cat and then looked at me and proceeded to shove her nose into the cat's side. I wasn't completely surprised. I mean, Rome wasn't built in a day. So, according to plan, I gave the cat a treat.

Without missing a beat, she shoved her nose into the cat again, waited for the cat to get a treat, and did it a third time. As I was handing the cat her third treat, the dog laid down and looked at me expectantly. 

I'm happy to say the light bulb went on immediately. I looked at her said "Oh-no-no-no! We are not creating a chain of behaviors!That is not how this works! No treat!" She cocked her head to the side and looked at me as if to say "Why not?"

All in all, I have to give it to her. It was pretty clever of her to think that she had somehow managed to get both herself and the cat a treat in addition to having her fun. I was not happy to see I'd been outsmarted by my dog. Border collies - too smart for their own good! 

Needless to say, I still haven't figured out how to get her to stop bothering the cats completely, though we now have a foster dog, and having an animal of the same species to bother has brought a small amount of peace to the cats lives.

Thoughts on My Dog Training Classes

I signed up for an online dog training class in February. It was a lot of money and I often suffer buyers remorse. Part of the problem was that it was a really bad time to do start something with this kind of time commitment. I was still in classes until May so my time was limited. But I felt compelled to sign up because this course if only offered every couple of years. It's for Dog Agility.

My mistake was thinking that I'd be getting more of the basics with it, but really, that was the course I signed up for last summer and dropped because I was concerned about the amount of money it cost and I had to pay for car repairs in addition to school and I was quickly running out of money. I'm mad at myself for not dropping this class and getting the refund while I could but rather trying to convince myself that this would all work out.

I am still trying to make it work. That is if I can find the drive to. I have the time now, but I still can't seem to bring myself to practice regularly. I think it's because there are basic obedience problems that I thought would be covered in this course that aren't and it's very frustrating to me. That and I can't seem to get my dog excited about some of the games. Maybe because I'm not acting excited enough about them. Hmmm. Food for thought.

I'm using this blog as a therapy session. Can you tell?

While re-watching some videos this morning I had a couple of ideas that I'm going to work on that will hopefully help.

1) I don't think I working in a big enough space.

2) The videos contain beginning, middle and advanced difficulty.I need to break them down and stop trying to work through the whole video at once.

3) Watching the videos without immediately following up with training isn't doing me much good at all.

4) Despite what I just said in "3", I need to look in every single link as there is information that I haven't stumbled upon yet that might help me. ie. Ruff Love

 5) I need to stop being lazy and making excuses.

The program advises doing record keeping so you can mark how far your dog has come. I've decided to try using this blog for that purpose. Obviously I haven't been actually blogging, so why not.

Plans for tonight:

Work on "Drive to the Hand"

Review games in Ruff Love