On Joy, Trust, Teaching and Learning

By Liz on May 27, 2018

Puppy days…

Some days are kind of … one day well behaved and on the way to being a grown up dog and the next, it is back to puppy brain :)

Overall though, Emmett’s paying attention to me, his sitting to say “Please” … I am so pleased!!

“Leave it” is still in progress. If you watched the video linked in the last post, we have reliable eye contact. And open hand. But putting a treat on the ground … not there yet. We work on it every day but stop when it becomes frustrating for Emmett or me. And partly, it tends to become a rough game of pounce on my hand so that the learning goes out the window. So I stop and we do something else. This will likely be a months long thing to get to where he will “leave it” re Auggie, treasures in the woods and other very irresistible things.

Drop has recovered from a sometimes keep away game. There was a time of everything goes in the mouth: moss, deer droppings (the messier, the better), mushrooms (GAH! I only know a few for sure), rocks… And he got to know when something was “bad” and would not drop it – particularly a big mouthful of fresh droppings. So we stopped the woods walks. But now he’s gotten past that and drop is currently reliable. Moss and deer droppings – yes, but leaving the other stuff alone. Plus as I write this, he is 6 days past getting his last in the vaccination series, including Rabies. The 2 week mark from that vaccination will be a week from Monday, but he should have some pretty good defense in his system at this point. But like everything else, sometimes the puppy brain “I want it and I know you don’t want me to have it … this is fun!” takes over …

Growing: taller, longer, stronger, heavier. All input and output is great and normal! The Kongs … kind of a life saver. I’d not ever tried them before and after reading that they are a great delivery system of meals for puppies: takes time to eat and is fun – tried them out and WOW! Because I was doing so much click-treat for learning, I was concerned about staying in the range for food volume and the Kongs have relieved that concern. I use a mix of canned food – which is low cal and mostly water – and kibble and so there are meals but I have wiggle room for the click treats. I use primarily his kibble for treats with a bit of the yummy training treats mixed in. And for practicing recall and leash walking … high value hot dog bits!!

But now as in NOW (5/27), I am not click treating for learned behaviors – or at least very seldom: sit to say please, sit for food, go to your bed … those are well known behaviors so my click treat for those is maybe 1/5 of the time. Down is well known but it is so important that I click treat maybe 1/2 time at the moment. Recall … every time a click treat – SO important to me that recall is not an option and happens every single time. At any rate, it is wonderful to see that some of the withdrawal of click-treat has not affected the behavior – it happens!

I’ve often thought about how things were with Karl, my last 8 week old puppy … 17 years ago. We had a tough time with some of puppy-hood. Karl was very mouthy and my arms looked like I had a new kitten, not a new puppy. I read a lot and tried many “physical” corrections. Ultimately, he grew out of it and also ultimately he was a dog of my heart but we had a rough beginning and now I so wish I knew what I know now.

I kept notes of that time raising Karl and that experience is so different than what I’m experiencing with Emmett via the positive reinforcement. Via the notes and my memory and photos – I was hard on myself, hard on Karl … part of that difficult experience was that when I got Karl, I wanted him to immediately take Zack’s place. I lost Zack so suddenly and painfully and I just wanted the same dog life – immediately! Of course, completely unreasonable and eventually I came to understand what I was doing, relaxed and things went better. And now, thankfully, I am NOT doing the same with Emmett.

With Karl, I remember feeling a lot of pressure to be the perfect trainer. I felt that I needed to do everything perfectly, to not let anything get out of hand. And of course, so much was not perfect. And yet, we got to the point of being so close and Karl being so trustworthy. So, with Emmett, while I do want to get things right and certain things: recall and leash walking, have some special pressures (on me!), one of the things that I am aware of is that the building of bond, the learning, the play, the joy – those are all long term things. They do NOT happen in a day or in a week or in a month. We hopefully have years together and the reality is that training is lifelong and the first two YEARS are fairly intense as puppy grows into mature dog.

So, some function of my own age, my own experience, my focus on longer term and on thinking about what I’m doing is making this experience easier for all of us. Every night and every morning, I am grateful for Emmett and Auggie and how we are proceeding. And I think about the day before and what happened: what did I try to teach, what did I actually teach, what do I hope to do different tomorrow. I’ve made many mistakes, but I’ve made more non-mistakes: real teaching and fun and leading.

We are having SO.MUCH.FUN. I might be learning more than Emmett! I think I could write a book: “Life Lessons from my Puppy”.

Ok.

We have been a week with no piddle pads. The week before was just 1 piddle pad. No way would I say house training is complete, i.e. “bullet proof”, but we have a good 10 days of “outside potty” and Emmett knows to go to the door. Plus, at almost 15 weeks he has some “holding” power. I feel confident with leaving him in the gated kitchen-sunroom to shower, do short chores outside and in other parts of the house.

The crate is in the sunroom and the playpen is in the bedroom. My thought is to transition Emmett to sleeping less confined and also give him access to cool floor or soft bed. As it has been warmer, he is often choosing the floor vs one of his fleecy beds.

Auggie and Emmett: still a bit rougher play than I’d like, but Auggie initiates and participates. Still, I’m encouraging and click-treating low key play and occasionally separating them if it seems over the top. Improvement every day … mostly!

Socialization: Men, women, children have visited and Emmett has been stellar. He LOVES visitors and does not seem to have an issue with sex or size. Plus, I now often wear a hat and/or sunglasses outside and those have not affected any behavior – YEA!! Next week, we’ll start meeting some other dogs.

On things not puppy: the yard – GAH!! A mess. I bought grass seed and will try to recoup a little, mainly for dust management. I pretty much gave it up last year in the smoke and heat and taking care of Bear. It shows.

Fuschia: Good grief, this new variety which is Autumnale Fuschia – I LOVE it.

Food: We all eat. I’m baking bread but crackers have been purchased. We are 2 weeks into this year’s CSA and enjoying local, seasonal greens.

Memorial Day Weekend – hard to believe. It has been so far a warm and not too wet Spring.

On we go!