Posts Tagged ‘dog training’
Allowing Urges
It’s been a while since I gushed about the progress we are enjoying with Asher as he matures into his last few months before turning 4. He is growing ever so close to the free-roaming farm-type dog we’ve been envisioning him becoming for the nearly three years since we adopted him.
The biggest accomplishments are his understanding of our property borders (and for the most part, respecting them) and his increasingly dependable responses to being called to return to us from wherever he has wandered.
Take a moment to absorb the clean, snowy landscape in the photo above, where he is breaking trail for the first time since we got all that snow. It is a treat for us to be able to allow him to trot ahead on his own to explore what catches his attention.
When possible, I like to allow him to follow his instinctual urge to dig. We try to cut him off when he wants to dig in the yard, so it is fun to let him go at it in the woods without restriction. When we are on the edge of a trail, it tends to come down to my mood.
Yesterday, I felt like letting him have his fun.
The pristine, snowy landscape looked a little more like a crime scene after he got done. No burrowing rodents were harmed in the making of his calamitous mess.
The next hurdle of training that would be nice to achieve is for him to respectfully greet visitors, which would involve less loud barking and no attempts to stand with his paws on their chest. The difficulty I see us facing is our insecurity about his behavior around the arrival of visitors, which leads to our anxiety, which he then feels, triggering his instinct to take control and protect us by doing the very things we don’t want him to do.
It is satisfying to have him unleash his “big boy bark” when strangers show up at our door, but we haven’t mastered the skills of discipline to have him heel or sit down and shut up when we call him off. When guests show up, we tend to rely on a leash during the greeting phase.
We keep reminding ourselves that we’ve successfully trained him to respect a lot of commands, so we just need to keep working on each next step with the same consistency that has worked for us before.
His urge to climb on people is one we don’t want to allow. Zooming around outside and chasing squirrels and rabbits in our yard and woods are urges we can grant, as long as he comes when called and stays within our property boundaries.
He behaves like he’s a dog or something, you know? We just have to keep improving our game of being responsible dog parents.
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Animal Escapades
I don’t think I’ve written much about the success we’ve been having with Asher mostly staying in contact with us when we let him be off-leash outside. We’ve been training him with an e-collar, but I don’t think he is as influenced by the collar so much as he’s just maturing and becoming ever more aware of our routine and understanding our property boundaries.
He is frequently content to sit and watch the scenes across our landscape, taking in all the scents that pass his way.
Yesterday, he was taking a particular interest in the horses. I looked up from a project I was working on when I heard the thundering sound of hooves and caught a glimpse of Mix running in from the hay field.
Asher didn’t even twitch. He just watched her approach. I don’t know what got into Mix, but she then ran right back out again. It was as if she just wanted the exercise, but I knew that wasn’t true.
Although, she did then run right back in one more time. That was too much for Asher. He jumped up and ran to the paddock fence to meet her energy. Of course, he didn’t have any plan once he got there. They just stood for a moment, looking at each other with blank expressions.
Meanwhile, the other horses showed no concern for the excitement and stayed up on the high spot of the hay field, calm as ever.
At one point, Mia lay down to nap. As soon as she was done, Swings took a turn.
It was a humid day that had started out foggy. We had received over two-and-a-half inches of rain overnight from a very raucous thunderstorm. Other than the weird burst of running from Mix, the animals all seemed unfazed by the weather.
Mix had been a little gimpy for the last week, and Cyndie has been giving her something for pain relief. I wondered if the running was because she was feeling better. Later, I decided that wasn’t the case because it looked like the running might have left Mix feeling a little more achy than before.
Maybe Asher wanted Mix to stop running around because he realized she might hurt herself if she kept it up. Mix is the youngest in the herd, so it seems odd to have her appear the least comfortable.
We are in the process of slowly transitioning from feeding the horses grains to giving them a manufactured “Senior Feed.” I don’t think Light likes it. She has been dumping a lot of the feed out of her bucket in apparent frustration. Last night, both Cyndie and I noticed an audible increase in gut sounds in all four of the horses.
I think the new feed is giving them rumbly tummies.
Asher doesn’t seem to mind the change. He tries eating what they spill, regardless of what it is. When he refuses to obey the “Leave it!” command, he ends up back on a leash in the barn. We are disinclined toward using the e-collar to train for those violations.
We reserve that for more serious escapades.
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Nonstop Mowing
When the order of the day involves cutting the grass or trimming the sides of our trails, there isn’t much in the way of adventures to write about. It was hot in the direct sun, the mower worked perfectly, I accomplished a little more area than I thought I would yesterday, and I still have over a day’s worth left to finish. That’s not counting the fence line trimming that usually takes several days to fully complete.
Even though I have so much groundskeeping work to do, we won’t get anything done this morning because we have a brunch date in River Falls with some old Eden Prairie acquaintances. To my family and old EP friends, the names Herzog and Westerhaus might ring a bell. You never know who you might come across in life after a move to the country like we did over twelve years ago.
That’s about it. Since that’s all I’ve got, I’ll throw in a photo Cyndie took of the horses grazing in the freshly cut hay field.
One added note: Cyndie just described a successful exercise with Asher off-leash while she was trimming small branches from the large oak limb that fell. (We don’t see much of each other on days when I mow and she is busy with other projects. I hear about her adventures later.) She said he busied himself exploring the woods for a while as she worked, then eventually wandered over to sit upright nearby on the trail and waited until she finished.
Good dog.
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Aftermath Dealing
I didn’t plan on coping with the work that now lies before me. When a big tree comes down unexpectedly, it suddenly claims a large chunk of one’s time.
We started in on the effort to cut up the limbs of the big maple tree in a short block of available time on Friday.
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Cyndie stood and contemplated the prospect of somehow clearing away all the branches and lumber that lay before us. Asher pitched in to do his part by gnawing the ends of branches to show them who is boss around here.
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The broken limb visible in the picture on the left above is not the maple tree. That is an example of collateral damage to nearby reasonably-sized trees, unfortunate to have been directly in the path of destruction. The photo on the right includes a thin maple tree that has been folded over with a 180° bend.
The tangle of surrounding trees adds a significant level of drama to attempts to cut the mess into workable sizes with my chainsaw. It is difficult to detect where the stored energy of torqued limbs and trees is holding things in place or tangled in a way that will suddenly spring free with great force when cut.
I experienced both in the short initial session we worked. There’s a lot more work left to be done when we can get around to it.
Yesterday afternoon, we enjoyed the great pleasure of a visit from my niece, Tricia, and her kids, Brooke and Drew. They were in the area for Drew’s orientation at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. It will be super to have family so close next year, especially since there is a great deal of fondness between Drew and Asher.
I think they will be good for each other.
We’ve been experimenting with using an e-collar on Asher to practice recall and allow him to move around without a leash, but stay on our property. In the last few days, Cyndie has only needed to drive up to retrieve Asher from the neighbor’s place one time.
We know that learning involves making mistakes in order to figure out the corrections, but who is fond of that part of the process? I am guilty of finding it easier to just grab a leash at this point, even though I really want him to learn to stay around without one.
It’s more work for me to stay constantly poised with a finger on the button, needing to quickly decide if he is fine to chase around in our woods or quickly needing redirection to maintain contact with me. When he bolts, it happens so quickly that I can’t tell if my commands are heard and the collar tone or vibration is even being activated.
Yesterday, he came back on his own after chasing a rabbit, so I didn’t fret.
I’m definitely not a fan of dealing with the aftermath when he fails to respond to my calls. It’s so much easier to lavish him with praise when he comes as called.
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Mostly Obeying
Among the behaviors we were able to train Asher to obey rather easily upon adopting him, the one his is most prone to testing is having him stay out of the kitchen. We do not trust his loyalty on that one when we are not around and make a big effort to keep all food stashed out of view and out of reach when we leave the kitchen.
Asher knows to stay out when we are in the vicinity and he impressively will not go after his ball when it rolls into the forbidden zone. However, he is very consistent about taking a step or two across the line to see if the invisible wall may have been relaxed when Cyndie is busy cooking.
This is how I found him when I came down from the loft for dinner after Cyndie called to me:
He should not be past the refrigerator/freezer doors.
Mostly obeying, you might say.
Regarding the recent Wisconsin election that went the way of Susan Crawford who didn’t offer anyone money for a vote, we are feeling deep satisfaction to have been able to cast our votes for a chance at a better future. A chance is better than none.
When we were communicating with friends about the news of our desired outcome in the election Tuesday night, the topic of overt offers of money for supporting the other guy came up.
Cyndie commented, “I think illegal stuff should be illegal.” It really struck my funny bone. In a logical world, such a phrase shouldn’t need to be uttered. In today’s reality, I would like to wear a T-shirt with the thought printed across the front.
Gosh, imagine if there were enforceable consequences for violating just and ethical laws.
Imagine if the police didn’t seem so willing to fulfill the diabolical edicts of a wannabe dictator. I suppose they are mostly just obeying orders.
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He’s Home
Of all the issues clouding our activities of late, this one feels like the most tangible: Asher is home with us again.
He seems pretty pleased to be back in the comforts of his previous territory and free from the constant distractions of other canines needing to be assessed. One clear thing the trainers noted was his constant need to determine the potential threat of the various other dogs coming and going at the kennel. That is not an unusual behavior in a dog but it did clarify that inviting visits with other dogs at our place may be a challenge.
Progressing from the assessment time with the professional trainers, we plan to now work on helping Asher to more consistently respect commands outdoors and learn that the boundaries of our property are non-negotiable. There may be a series of 3 to 5 on-site visits from one of the trainers to supervise the process.
Basically, that means she will be here to teach us more than to teach Asher. I’m sure he already knows what is expected of him. He’s just waiting for us to figure out who the bosses are in our relationship.
An unexpected outcome from two fresh COVID test kits yesterday morning indicated Cyndie’s previous positive result probably wasn’t a fluke. She still looks to be infected and intends to remain isolated from contact with others as much as possible. Thankfully, she is not feeling much worse than any other normal spring day with her allergies to practically everything in our environment, especially hay and molds, in addition to the pollens from every growing plant.
My test came out almost perfectly clean.
The instructions say to look VERY closely because even the faintest hint of a line should be considered a positive result. There is a faint hint but compared to my other test results that were clearly positive, we take this to indicate the virus is losing its command over me.
I’m left with a residual cough that has been my reality for most of my life after an illness. Based on past experience, it will linger for longer than seems reasonable but I’ll eventually get over it.
The tropical rainforest conditions we have been experiencing have the air around here filled with spores from molds, mushrooms, and every manner of flying insects.
Areas of our lawn grass that aren’t beneath standing water will get mowed with brand-new blades that I installed yesterday.
This afternoon we will install flags to mimic the installation of an invisible fence along one of our borders to use in training Asher. In hindsight, it seems so simple after we met with impressive success fencing off our landscape pond and the composting manure piles to train him that those were off-limits.
He has respected that training ever since. (knock on wood)
We are optimistic about the likelihood that Asher will respond equally well to instructions about our property borders once Cyndie and I master the art of being consistent and clear with our leadership.
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Double Punch
Out of the frying pan, into the fire. I have done what I could to put the COVID infection behind me and resume normal activity but putting it behind me wasn’t supposed to be literal. I now find myself about as far away from normal activity as I have been in years.
There is something terribly wrong happening in my lower back that feels in every way as if one of my discs is bulging against the nerve that generates incapacitating waves of pain. My poor brain automatically leaps to a conclusion that the timing of these two latest physical maladies are entirely related, but I have no knowledge that this might be true.
All I know is that I am now one week away from the day my health insurance ends with the company that covered me for the first five months of the year and starts with my new choice under Medicare. I was hoping to get through the transition with a clean break from activity on either account.
Today, it is shockingly difficult to avoid stabbing pain when I cough at a time when my asthmatically reactive lungs are teetering on the backside of a virus notorious for negatively impacting breathing.
I am not a pretty sight.
If I could walk without fear of losing my footing, I’d wander down among the horses and bask in their late spring serenity.
We are fast approaching the end of Asher’s on-site training session at a kennel up north. The trainer has scheduled a call this afternoon during which we expect to learn how Asher has been faring during the previous week and what the plan is for picking him up to continue the training at home.
It would really mean a lot to me to be able to walk without pain by the time of Asher’s return.
Walking is once again the exercise that will become my primary focus.
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Rock Fitting
On the way to the lake yesterday, we dropped Asher off for his in-residence training and he accepted the unfamiliar surroundings without complaint.
Asher is barely visible in the far pen beyond the front area occupied by a dog he didn’t yet know. He passed by this front dog with a brief check, and receiving no response, he decided to ignore it and move on to sniffing every surface in his pen.
We felt it was a great start. Satisfied Asher was in good hands, we hopped in our car and drove the rest of the way to the lake without him.
While we are up here, we are planning to add a finishing touch to the old cabin where the log guys cut off the bottom of rotting logs in March. Having a large stash of faux rocks at home, we brought some up for the job.
These rocks had spent some time as markers in our labyrinth and as a result, developed a layer of dirt that needed to be removed.
That’s fine. We had some time to spare.
After cleaning them up and spreading the rocks out so we could see them, we tried mocking up the layouts for each space.
It seemed like a good plan to me. We felt encouraged by the process and figured the hard work was all behind us. The next phase involved a new adhesive from Techniseal called Stickystone. It is a fast-setting vertical hardscape adhesive.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go as well as my test case back at home. A few rocks had fallen off the foundation of the house in Beldenville so I tested the Stickystone to reattach them and it worked with ease.
For some reason that I haven’t figured out, getting the adhesive to hold the rocks in place up here is only successful about half the time. After completing two of the five surfaces, we were using up the limited supply of adhesive too fast and my patience was dwindling.
We had spent so much time cleaning and prepping that the mounting and remounting had pushed us past the dinner hour. We were tired and hungry and I was very frustrated. Our remedy was a trip to Coop’s Pizza for dinner.
If it’s not too rainy this morning, we’ll try hanging more rocks until the adhesive runs out. I will be looking to focus on the outlook that partial progress is better than no progress at all.
Come to think of it, that’s also one way we will be considering Asher’s training while he is away.
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Asher Away
Today we are taking Asher to camp for a twelve-day live-in training experience where he will get time to socialize with other dogs and begin learning lessons wearing an e-collar. It is a new step toward improving Asher’s respect for our commands to him with the ultimate goal of allowing him to roam our property off-leash while obeying the confines of our property borders.
Last night we had a wonderful consultation session in Hudson that introduced Asher to one of the staff who works at the kennel where Asher will be “vacationing.”
Cyndie had contacted these trainers after Asher had received a ban from the doggy daycare place where we’d been taking him for playtime with other dogs. At the time, when the daycare reported Asher was “reactive” to two other dogs, we thought it was a worst outcome. Now, we see it as a good thing because it moved us to this next level of training with skilled professionals.
During yesterday evening’s ‘meet-n-greet,’ we were allowed to sit on the curb and let the trainer handle Asher while a colleague walked two different dogs nearby in a busy parking lot beside a busy street.
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Asher definitely took notice, but the trainer was able to reclaim his attention and continue walking without difficulty.
The next dog was bigger and the handler was playing rambunctiously with it and had her dog bark on command but Asher was nothing more than curious.
At the completion of their exercises, they returned with the verdict that they didn’t see Asher’s behavior as being “reactive.” They described it as being understandably curious.
When we told them the name of the facility that applied the term “reactive” to Asher’s scraps with two different dogs, their response was instantaneous that the level of training of staff at such a location was not of the highest quality. That helped us to give the upsetting news they reported about Asher’s behavior much less weight in our minds.
With this brief exercise with Asher, the trainer has a good idea about an itinerary she and the kennel owner/trainer will plan for the next week and a half at their facility with other dogs that will be on hand.
There are a lot of promising circumstances with our new trainers. The kennel is on the way to our lake place. The trainer we met last night lives very close to us in Ellsworth. She will be able to come to our property after Asher completes his training at the 40-acre kennel property and help us apply the things he learned up there at our home.
She also proposed the possibility of her picking Asher up and taking him to the kennel on future occasions to save us the drive since she would be going there frequently. That would be handy for us in times we weren’t otherwise on the way up to Hayward.
Both trainers last night felt very confident that Asher will be able to learn to respect our commands more reliably and to respect our property borders with more training and his natural maturing.
That speaks well to their confidence that we can be trained to be more effective dog handlers, even at our age.
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Training Advice
We decided to pay a local dog trainer to stop by our home to meet us and Asher, to see some of his behaviors first-hand, and to advise us on what we could work on to improve his compliance in a few problem areas. She makes it sound so easy.
The good news is that we obviously have achieved success in a variety of areas, which the trainer framed as a good sign we should be able to apply the necessary focus and repetitions to train even more desired behaviors.
It will serve me well to get Asher to the point of being able to soothe himself in the house. I’m looking forward to some exercises where Asher will be tethered beside us but will get ignored until we are ready to interact with him. I feel more confident about allowing him to fuss after the latest assurances from a professional.
Dog trainers exude a confidence that I lack when it comes to interpreting dog behavior. After witnessing some of Asher’s behaviors yesterday, our visitor said it was akin to a toddler not getting their way and having a minor tantrum about it. When I am unclear about reading dog behaviors, I give them unhelpful feedback that rarely leads to outcomes I prefer.
Asher will be two years old this month. He has lived with us for just over 9 months and we have made good progress in training him to respect many commands. He will continue to grow out of his puppy rambunctiousness and we will continue to teach him behaviors we require him to master.
I’m feeling optimistic, even though I wasn’t interested in being a dog trainer. It feels a little like taking medicine. I don’t like it but I know it’s good for me.
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Relative Something 