Wow! Triple good day today in the critter-training department.

First, I have to have a llama jumping in the back of a truck in two weeks. I've been dreading training this, it's going to be tough to teach, it's a HUGE jump, woe is me, alack, alas. It's been raining for 2 weeks straight, I can't have him jumping in the mud, he'll probably kill himself, I want to drive the truck in the ditch to start with so he doesn't have to jump too high, but there's a foot of water in the ditch... yadda yadda yadda. So today was finally dry enough, the truck was home, I had a plan. Took Flash out and by moving the truck gradually out of the ditch, I taught him to jump into it in FOUR MINUTES. And he remembered it later, and jumped into a whole different truck, and even kushed on cue once he was in it. Seemed pleased to be up so high, and leaped politely out again. Many times. Ee hah! Pack Level Three, here we come!

Stitch and I had an agility class early this evening. It all came together tonight. She was raring to go, and almost accepted solicitations by other dogs several times, but caught herself. We did some nice short courses. She hit all her contacts but one, she did weave poles at a dead run in line with other obstacles, and I managed to keep my cues ahead of her brain almost all the time. Sure feels good when you (momentarily at least) feel competent!

Back home after class, I sat Stitch down in front of me and started cueing left and right, saying YES and tossing kibble in the appropriate direction when she responded correctly. And tonight, SHE KNEW IT! 80% accuracy! Whee!! Not done yet, by any means, but she obviously had a real breakthrough while she was sleeping last night.


Th-th-th-that's all, folks! Hope you enjoyed it!

And today she's forgotten it again. This is certainly not one of our easier behaviours! I'm getting three llamas ready for shows - Halter, Showmanship, Fleece, Obstacle, Pack, and Costume if I have time - and supervising two beginners training two more, and I just don't have time to be enthusiastic about teaching this to Scuba, who doesn't need it.

I'm still plugging away on Stitch, though. Every time we work left and right I try it a different way. I think I've got it now. She's standing facing me, about 2' away. I've got kibble in each hand. I start the session by getting her volunteering to look in each direction (left X 10, then right X10). Then I start randomly cueing left or right and tossing a treat off in the correct direction when she responds correctly. Then I started leaving little piles of kibble off to the left as she ran right, and vice versa, , and cueing her to get the pile when she responds correctly to the direction cue. She's certainly in the game, she's just not really listening yet. This is a "problem" that plagued Scuba all her life, but instead of training through it, I worked around it, so this is a good chance for me to get Stitch actually listening to cues instead of just being really good at guessing.

Tomorrow's our Disc Dog clinic, but in the meantime, the Crash Test Dummies are at it again, this time learning to look left and right on cue, with the hope that we can use the L&R cues to tell them where to go to get something. For Scuba, I just point, but in the absence of pointers, we'll need a cue. Once she gets there, I use Down, Paws Up, or Sit to tell her whether the item I want is low, high, or at nose height.

I'm also interested in the left and right behaviours because it's homework that's been assigned to Stitch and me by a very good person we're taking the odd private agility lesson from (Stitch is too fast to go blundering around the course waiting for my body to catch up, she needs to get information NOW).

So we started. I began by simply clicking each dog for turning her head to the left, then working again with the heads turning to the right. Then I put a bowl on each side of the dog about 2' away and clicked for looking left or right to stare at the appropriate bowl. And I got another surprise. Stitch figured this out in about 2 minutes, and within 5 was beginning to respond to voice cues. Scuba knew she was staring at food, but wasn't listening to the cues at ALL, so wound up just eagerly swinging her head back and forth waiting for something to click. (ooooh)

The second day, Stitch was still doing great, better response to the cues, and I switched her from facing me to facing away from me. Scuba also did much better. Apparently while spending the day upside down on the couch in front of the fire, she managed to give a few minutes to figuring out what I was talking about.

Scuba was my first all-clicker-right-from-scratch dog. I spent the next 9 years worrying that Scuba was special, that I'd never come CLOSE to having another dog as smart, who could learn as fast, who was as downright amazing, woe is me, if it never gets nearly as good as this again, I might as well give up now. Then I started meeting dogs here and there that WERE as good as Scuba, and I began to have hope that maybe Scuba wasn't really "special" (oh for Pete's sake, of COURSE I **know** she's **SPECIAL**, but that's not what I'm talking about) but that (could it be?) it was the training method that was responsible for the amazing Herness of her.

Part of Scuba's childhood was spent being a Service Dog crash test dummy - if something needed to be taught to a potential SD, I could teach it to Scuba first, work out the mistakes, and THEN teach it to a dog who needed the skill. She was very good at these "3-minute behaviours", both at learning them, and then at either forgetting them (if I screwed up) or remembering them (if the plan went well).

So now Stitch and I are working with an amazing group of people doing amazing things with Service Dogs. Very exciting stuff. And we're kicking over what behaviours they need, what those behaviours should be called, and how to train them. And Stitch CGC CTD (that's short for Crash Test Dummy) is helping. This evening Scuba, Stitch, and I spent their suppers thinking about a behaviour where the dog puts her feet on my chest (yes, in the Real World that's called "dog jumping on people") and then put her front legs in the Down position, another behaviour where the dog Sits and rests her front feet on my knee, and a final one where the dog puts her nose under my hand and gives it a little nudge, no matter where my hand might be. Of course, Scuba The Wonder Dog will get these immediately, and pure dear little Stitch will wander around behind trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Not quite. First, both dogs were able to lie down 5' away from the action and shut up while the other dog worked (this in the presence of her SUPPER. Think about THAT happening six months ago!).

Stitch got the stand-tall-and-lie-down-at-the-same-time thing immediately. Scuba thought I was crazy, and compromised by sitting on the floor staring at me. Scuba got the sit-with-your-front-paws-on-my-knee thing immediately. Stitch didn't think that was possible, though she was willing to tap my knee with one paw while seated. And both of them got the nudge behaviour easily within 3 minutes, though Stitch actually figured out the exact required behaviour faster than Scuba did. Wow, I love this stuff!

In the meantime, we're still using suppertime to practise putting items in a basket. Stitch is gradually getting her good retrieve back, and is hitting the basket on the first try more and more often. We still don't have it good enough to put on cue, though.

We haven't trained any agility in months, but we're in a class, though we've missed half of it with our gallivanting. Stitch and I had a brilliant class tonight. I've been watching agility videos and put a few of the handling manoeuvers into practise. Stitch responded very well and we got some lovely short courses in. She's getting some nice distance. Needs a bit more commitment to tunnel entrances, but the jumps and the rest of the obstacles were good. I decided last month that I'm going to need separate cues for teeter and dogwalk, and tonight Stitch proved it - she's not afraid of the teeter at all, but she was gingerly on the dogwalk, waiting for it to tip.

And then we moved on to the weave poles. We haven't done these in months and months, and have barely done them in a straight line at all. I started out luring her through a couple of times, then progressed to clicking for each "macaroni". Then I asked her to weave, and holy cow, she did! A couple more repetitions, and she could do a jump heading north, curl back and do 6 weaves heading south. I'm thrilled. Looking back, it's been a really good couple of weeks.

Next weekend there's a Disc Dog seminar which I'm really looking forward to. Part of this week I'm going to spend reminding her that she can tug. This is something that is emphasized in the classes we take, but I learned when she was a pup that people with a collapsing disk in their necks shouldn't play tug with dogs, so we haven't done a lot of it.

From San Diego, we went to Denver for Stitch's first real full-time, full-blown seminar. It's hard not to compare her to Scuba, which isn't fair at all. Stitch did a super job. I'm very proud of her. She came off her grooming table a couple of times, but that's minor.

Midway through the last day, though, she came off the table and instead of finding me, she solicited one of the dogs to play with her. I told her to get back on the table and she did. I gave her a treat, and turned my back. She came off the table again, and solicited a different dog. This time I scolded her a bit (Stitch! No! Get back on that table!), and got her back up. I turned my back and she got off again. This time when I saw her, she was headed out the door at a brisk trot. I knew she wasn't trying to escape, and as I followed her out, it occurred to me that this was her way of telling me she had to go out, and sure enough, when I got outside, she was in a dead run away from the building. When she was, in her opinion, far enough away, she stopped, pooped, and came back at the same speed. Note to self: when Stitch is disobeying, she has to go out. When do I get to graduate from the Flat Forehead School Of Dog Training?

Later at supper I mentioned how much fun I had with the Treat & Train, and a good Samaritan offered to sell me hers. I had to buy a new suitcase at the airport to put it in (JUST what this bag junkie needed - another suitcase!), but it was worth it. When we got home, my husband informed me that three people were coming over for barbecue. I set up the T&T in the living room with a mat next to it, and Stitch spent the whole two hours on the mat working to make the beep happen.

The second-last evening we meet our first Treat & Train, a remote control gadget that beeps and then dispenses treats. Stitch has never lived with neighbours before, and while she's quiet in hotel rooms, she's decided that this house needs to be protected from the aliens on the other side of the fence, resulting in an annoying WOOWOOWOOWOO every time she hears a noise outside. Not something I couldn't stop by just telling her to knock it off, but since we had the Treat & Train, we gave it a try. First we used it to shape her to a nearby dog bed. Slick. I do love toys, and this is even easier than clicking and tossing a treat!

Once she was reliably offering the Go To Mat, we started ringing the doorbell, and clicking her for going to the mat. We worked it for about ten minutes.

The next morning, the doorbell rang for real. It was fun to hear the doorbell and see Stitch standing in the middle of the room looking frantically back and forth: Go To Mat? Run To The Door? Go To Mat? Go To Mat!! She went to the mat! And STAYED on the mat as the visitor came in and sat down. I LOVE this machine!

Amazing adventures. We started with a flight to Calgary, from there to San Francisco, from there to San Diego. We had LONG layovers, which Stitch took in stride. She's not quite as good at peeing on cue as I was thinking - have to work on that. Is my life to be just one long list of things I have to work on? Once we got there, she settled right in at a friend's house. The backyard was sidewalks and plants, but by then she was desperate so she decided she could pee on cement if she had to.

At one point later we were working with a potentially-obnoxious young male Lab who appeared abruptly in Stitch's face. He saved the day, however, by whipping his head around so fast I almost heard his neckbones creak, and he even closed his eyes. I don't think even Scuba would have been offended by his apology, and Stitch really appreciated it. So did I - a really good example of Dogspeak. Wish I had it on film.

One of the amazing tourist attractions we were introduced to in San Diego was a wonderful huge offleash dog park with a freshwater river on one side and ocean on an another. Labs make great swimming partners and Stitch got started learning to bodysurf. It was nice to have Stitch with me, who loves other dogs almost immediately, rather than Scuba who only tolerates most of them. It was also lovely that I was completely relaxed having her offleash. She used the space to advantage but never got far enough away to make me worry, and she came brilliantly every time I called. And good for me, too - I went prepared, with good stuff in my pockets. A wonderful, fun, and totally relaxing time for everybody, followed by a visit to a nearby doggy wash.

The human contingent also got a behind-the-scenes tour of the San Diego Zoo. Talking to the animal trainers and seeing how they applied clicker training to benefit the animals was terrific, particularly seeing the hippos mug for their treats, and handing a leafy twig to a calm, reasonable giraffe who lowered her lovely head and let us pet her. Clicker training. Wow. In other words, I touched a giraffe! I touched a giraffe!

And in fact I did both - added a sock AND switched to the wicker basket. No problem with the idea of either. She picked the sock first, but, having spent some time getting the WHOLE sock into the basket, she thereafter left it until last.

The first go-round produced 8 errors for 10 objects (I count initial errors only. Once she dropped something outside the basket, I didn't count how many tries it took her to get it inside before she got it right and moved on to another object). Errors weren't in knowing what to do or in approaching the basket or in picking up the objects. Mostly she put object and muzzle in the basket, then, anticipating the click, swing her muzzle to face me before she dropped the object.

The second go-round produced 6 errors for 12 objects (she found a couple of coin wrappers that fell out of the basket when I dumped the stuff back on the floor).

The third go-round produced 3 errors for 12 objects. The errors were one pen and both pop cans. As the go-rounds progressed, I had gradually moved the basket from directly in front of me to 2' to my right.

The fourth go-round I moved the basket slightly to the left of centre. This produced a problem in that she was focusing on my right hand as she delivered, so she missed frequently. Error rate back up to 8 out of 12. Once she forgot completely and sat staring at me with a pen in her mouth, but I waited her out. Several times she circled, focusing on where the objects and where the basket were last time. Then she "solved" her problem by putting her lips on the edge of the basket so maybe she could get the object in the basket and still keep an eye on my right hand. Didn't work, and we ran out of supper.

I think I enjoy errors more than correct responses, because the errors show so much about what she's thinking.

Another session with the colander. This time I added a couple of empty pop cans and a letter opener to the mix. True to form, she picks up all the pens first - she seems to think the letter opener is a long flat pen - then the clickers, and the pop cans last. She's working now on about 90% accuracy with the colander between my feet - 99% if I count the few times she over or under shoots and has to pick up the item again and put it in.

I start moving the colander away from me. 6 inches at first, then a foot, and finally about 18" to either side. Here's where all those previous hours of shaping show their merit - she's trying hard to put the pen in the colander, but her brain isn't quite sure where the end of her muzzle is yet. Sometimes she misses five times before she actually makes a "basket", but she stays in the game and keeps trying. It's very obvious now that she knows the job. If the pen lands on the floor instead of in the colander, she sort of rolls her eyes and picks it up again. If it still isn't in by the fourth try, she stops and stares closely at the pen, then moves to stare closely at the colander, as if reminding the two of their relationship. Then she tries again.

Hardly any attempt now to get anything OUT of the colander. The job is to move things from the floor to the colander, not the other way around. And only once or twice she forgets what's going on and sits staring at me with the object in her mouth. Tomorrow I'll add some facecloths and crumpled papers, and her practising will start looking like a real job. The next day I'll start using the wicker dish basket instead of the colander.

Another session of putting the pens in the colander. She's got it now, as long as the colander is somewhere between the pens and me. If I move it too far out of the line, her regular retrieve takes over her brain and she brings it directly to me. I'm also noticing a distinct tendency to drop whatever she picks up, but I know that anything I teach will temporarily interfere with anything else I teach, so I'm ready for that. She's getting really good at hitting the colander. Interesting that she picks up all the pens before she picks up all the clickers, yet the clickers are much easier to get into the colander on the first try.



I groomed her this afternoon, full brush-out, bath, and shaved her face, butt, and back legs. Then we went to a garage sale where we found a red hat with purple flowers made for a dog - and it just fit her. She's not old enough to belong to the Red Hat Society, but *I* am. She wore it most of the afternoon and was greatly admired.

Tonight I was thinking about fairly simple things that Stitch doesn't know because Scuba does them all the time. Putting things in baskets and garbage cans came to mind. Stitch's retrieves have been very good lately, and I've started sending her under beds and behind couches to get things that have escaped - things I would normally ask Scuba to do - so I think it's a reasonable time to start asking Stitch to put away her toys.

We start with a large metal colander - a thing that will make a noise when she drops something in it. I gather some pens and clickers and we begin. I ask her to pick up a pen and bring it to me. I'm sitting with the colander between my feet. When she arrives with the object over the colander, I say thank you as I usually do, and reach forward, but instead of touching the object, I stick a treat in her nose. She releases the item, it clangs in the colander, and I give her the treat.

By about the fifth repetition, I'm pretty sure she has a clue about what's happening. She isn't GOOD at it, she frequently forgets what she's doing, but she's suspicious that supper has something to do with getting the pen in the colander. The hardest part for me seems to be blocking her access to the pen she just dropped in the colander, which obviously would be easier to retrieve and re-drop than turning around and getting a new one off the floor. This would be a reasonable easy repetition of the dropping behaviour, but Scuba taught me 9 years ago that once I start rewarding using the same object over and over, it's difficult to get her to not be grabbing everything out of the garbage just so she has something to drop in again, so Stitch and I won't be wandering down that path.

A good session. My panic is starting to settle down.

I was going to shave Stitch down into a short retriever trim for the summer, but we saw a cute PWD bitch in a full lion trim in Calgary last weekend, so I think I'll let her keep growing her pack. Cute is good.

Scuba and I went away for two weekends. The first weekend was Kamloops. Scuba did a good job but was tired when we got home. The second weekend was Calgary - a short flight, then staying at my brother's for two days before the seminar. This is easy time for Scuba, playing gently with the kids, mostly sleeping toes-up on the couch. Still, she was logey the first day of the clinic, not really responsive to cues and sluggish. Several times I thought I saw her limping. The second day I smartened up and increased her Rate Of Reinforcement, which did wonders for her attitude and responsiveness (duh again - can my forehead take any more of this abuse?). Still, she was exhausted when we got home and woke up the next morning unable to put her right front foot down. "Just" a pulled ligament or mild sprain. The upshot is that I'm going to California and Colorado in ten days, and I'm taking Stitch and leaving Scuba at home to recuperate.

Yowzers, that's just downright scary. Yes, Stitch and I have been doing a lot of Service Dogging around town, in and out of stores, going to movies, etc. Yes, Stitch and I went to Ohio on the plane, stayed in hotels, etc. BUT yes, Stitch has been to a seminar, where she was horrible, whiny, fussy, embarassing, etc. On the other hand, we did a mini clinic in Michigan after Ohio, and she did very well. On the other hand, I'm not ready for this emotionally. On the other hand, the longer I keep using Scuba, the longer it'll be until Stitch is ready to inherit the family business. Prince Charles Syndrome.

The worst thing I noticed in the mini clinic was that her On The Road 101-Things was pathetic, so tonight we worked on shaping. We did several fun things - one was to jump over the cross bars under the dining room table - she's never been under the table before officially. The next was to put her front paws in the dog-dish-holding basket, another behaviour that has never occurred to her before. Then I clicked her to grab and pull hard on a llama leash tied around the leg of the coffee table. And finally, I shaped her to get up on the couch. Strangely, this behaviour that she does regularly was by far the most difficult to shape. A good start.

Two more things to check off on Level 5 - scenting, which we haven't worked on in nearly a year, and Target - pawtouch a wall from 10' away on one cue. She likes to pawtouch the wall, and she can certainly do it from 10' away, but not right off the bat. When I test it I get her running out 5' and then looking back at me with a "Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?" We've actually passed Level 5 - the two behaviours we have left are both optional, but it seems only good form for us to have to pass everything, since they're my Levels and I decided these are all important behaviours. We've passed Come, Crate, Finish, Handling, Retrieve, Trick, and Watch all the way through Level 7, and I find my baby Stitch at the point I keep bragging about - where she should be able to get pretty much any Novice title with 3 or 4 additional weeks of training. Another month until llama shearing is done and Shearing Day is over, and then I'll test it out getting her ready for a Draft Dog title. Heaven knows it worked on her Rally trial - did I mention that we attended a one-day clinic and then got two legs with 194 and 200? I DID mention that? Oh, my bad... (snork)

Stitch and I went out again this morning to do some chores and shopping. She was unbelievably "light" - always in the right place, awake and actually working, not just trucking along with her brain in neutral. She watched for the doors to open so she could lead me through, stayed brilliantly in heel position, she looked perplexed at rude friendly people trying to con her into leaving me to go and get petted. It was so much like having Scuba with me that I didn't even think about how well she was doing until this evening.

Stitch and I went shopping in the mall this afternoon. She was lovely - light and responsive. Tonight she went to her first movie - duh. When you take your Service Dog to her first movie, go to an AFTERNOON movie, with NO KIDS. Do NOT pick Ice Age 2 on its first weekend. The entire floor from cashier to seats was a minefield of popcorn. In spite of that, I only had to backstep once as she headed for a piece, and her head came up. She got very tiptoe and concentrated very hard on my face so she wouldn't have to look at popcorn. I had kibble in my pocket and was very generous with it. She sat up once in the middle of the movie to see if there was something more exciting to do, but settled right down again when I told her to. Good pup.

Stitch and I were in the airport in Calgary on our way home from Ohio. They have a 6' stuffed bear toy dressed in a Mounted Police uniform in the mall area of the airport. We got near the bear, and Stitch did an amazing double-take. She wasn't freaking out, screaming or flopping around on the floor, but she tucked her tail away from the bear, lowered her head, and moved to the opposite side of me at the end of the leash. We had lots of space and a couple of hours' layover until our next plane, so we worked on the bear. We went 'way down the mall until she could concentrate comfortably on me and do some simple retrieves. We slowly got closer to the bear. I was clicking her for looking at the bear, and for offering me her Service Dog walk, and for retrieves. When I judged she was as close to the bear as she could get without losing it again - when it was obvious that she was working because she COULD work but she wasn't at all comfortable - I clicked her once more for looking at the bear and then we moved back down the mall and relaxed before trying it again. It took us maybe six minutes to get right up to the bear. At that point she was able to think and able to work - as long as I was between her and the bear. Then I asked her to pawtouch my foot three times, which she did, and then I asked her to pawtouch the bear's foot. She hesitated for a moment, then reached out over my foot and touched the bear. I clicked, treated, and we walked back down the mall. The next time we approached, I asked her to pawtouch the bear's foot right away, which she did. I asked for it three times, and then we walked away. The third time we approached the bear, she was watching me closely, and as soon as I asked her to touch the bear, she jumped forward and whapped him on the knee, obviously having concluded that the bear was a stuffed toy and not worth worrying about. An hour or so later we found another, naked, 6' bear. She glanced at it, recognized it, asked me if I wanted her to touch it, and when I declined, she walked calmly past it. Further on we found some lifesize metal horses, which she readily pawed-up on.

Tonight we went to Rally class. It could easily have been a fiasco. My car didn't start and I had to call a cab to go to the airport to get the truck and then go to class, so I was a bit late and flustery, but I managed to settle down. Curious to see if there are any repercussions from our week alone together. And YES, there were. Stitch was eager to work. We warmed up with an item we learned in the freestyle clinic - facing each other, I held out my right foot, and she touched it with her left paw, then I hold out my left foot, and she touches it with her right paw. A few clicks for one pawtouch, and soon we were dancing - touch left, touch right, touch left, touch right. Very cute. She held on to her enthusiasm for about fifteen minutes, and then started to drift off, but I wrestled a bit with her and she came right back ready for action again. We did Rally courses tonight, and to my amazement she gave me something I've only seen her do in agility before - she stared diligently at the start of the course as we were waiting for our turn, totally focussed, leaning toward the start line, totally ready to do it. How thrilling! Her swing finishes were superb, and her heel position was much better than it has been. Apparently I've been interpreting lack of enthusiasm as lack of knowledge. Whee! This is a completely different little brain than I have ever lived with before (have I EVER mentioned that before?). Just as she is forcing me to become a better agility handler, she is forcing me to learn more about dogs and training. I'm madly in love with her.

Back in Michigan, Stitch and I did a three-hour clicker presentation for Michigan Portuguese Water Dog people and friends. Stitch needs a little more work on table-training - she occasionally decided she'd rather be working than sitting on the table, especially when I sat down with my back to her. That's easy to fix. And once on the floor, she was a bit reluctant to get back on - also needs work but not difficult. And while she DID do some shaping, she's ten times better at home, so obviously we need to take advantage of springtime and start going to different parks to work on shaping. Other than those minor glitches, she was excellent. I'm very pleased with her.

She spent the rest of our visit wrestling all-out with her half-sister and teaching her mom how to play. Then she crashed and spent eight hours sleeping on a bus and in a hotel and on the plane on the way home.

In case I wasn't paying attention to Stitch's regular caloric intake last weekend, we have a horrific trip involving airplanes, lost luggage, missed connections, and an unexpected overnight in a hotel. Stitch performs brilliantly. Her gaiting is correct, her leash is loose, her attention to other people is minimal (she does find the loudspeaker at the airport interesting). There's a well-behaved but rowdy child sitting next to us in the waiting area for several hours and Stitch lies quietly at my feet throughout. She picks up everything I drop, she's unobtrusive, and she manages to appear mildly amused but somewhat bored while the stewardess makes continued coochy-coo noises at her.

It's the end of the second flight of the day when things start to go downhill. We started the day at 5 AM with a very light breakfast. By 3 PM we should have finished a 2-hour bus trip, been picked up and been enjoying second breakfast, but my suitcase fails to arrive, and they can't take it across the border when they do find it, so I elect to stay in a hotel overnight and take the bus the next day - hopefully with my suitcase. By the time we get to the hotel, Stitch is all but comatose. I ask her to pick up her leash and all she can think of is to lie down on it and put her head between her paws. I get settled as quickly as I can and we go down the block for fish and chips. We're the only ones in the restaurant, everyone's ignoring us, and I give her half. By the time we get back to the hotel, she's starting to wake up. I'm concerned about being in a (quite fancy) hotel with a dog who's eating strange food, but apparently she has a cast-iron bowel and suffers no ill effects.

I order a room service breakfast of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, and a bagel. I get all the orange juice and one egg. She's feeling much better and finishes the trip willing and awake.

At our destination, there are four other Portuguese Water Dogs. How fun and interesting to watch Stitch's incredible language skills as she meets the other dogs - one old lady who needs respect and gentleness, one middle-aged dominant bitch who demands respect and needs some cajoling and kowtowing, one testosterone-poisoned lad who needs teeth snapping in his face on a regular basis, and one teenager who's eager to share a good long race around a huge yard.

In case I wasn't paying attention to Stitch's regular caloric intake last weekend, we have a horrific trip involving airplanes, lost luggage, missed connections, and an unexpected overnight in a hotel. Stitch performs brilliantly. Her gaiting is correct, her leash is loose, her attention to other people is minimal (she does find the loudspeaker at the airport interesting). There's a well-behaved but rowdy child sitting next to us in the waiting area for several hours and Stitch lies quietly at my feet throughout. She picks up everything I drop, she's unobtrusive, and she manages to appear mildly amused but somewhat bored while the stewardess makes continued coochy-coo noises at her.

It's the end of the second flight of the day when things start to go downhill. We started the day at 5 AM with a very light breakfast. By 3 PM we should have finished a 2-hour bus trip, been picked up and been enjoying second breakfast, but my suitcase fails to arrive, and they can't take it across the border when they do find it, so I elect to stay in a hotel overnight and take the bus the next day - hopefully with my suitcase. By the time we get to the hotel, Stitch is all but comatose. I ask her to pick up her leash and all she can think of is to lie down on it and put her head between her paws. I get settled as quickly as I can and we go down the block for fish and chips. We're the only ones in the restaurant, everyone's ignoring us, and I give her half. By the time we get back to the hotel, she's starting to wake up. I'm concerned about being in a (quite fancy) hotel with a dog who's eating strange food, but apparently she has a cast-iron bowel and suffers no ill effects.

I order a room service breakfast of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, and a bagel. I get all the orange juice and one egg. She's feeling much better and finishes the trip willing and awake.

At our destination, there are four other Portuguese Water Dogs. How fun and interesting to watch Stitch's incredible language skills as she meets the other dogs - one old lady who needs respect and gentleness, one middle-aged dominant bitch who demands respect and needs some cajoling and kowtowing, one testosterone-poisoned lad who needs teeth snapping in his face on a regular basis, and one teenager who's eager to share a good long race around a huge yard.

Home again, I leave the front door open with the dogs in the front hall as I unload the car. It takes a while. Finally Stitch makes a dash for the cats. I say "Are you out of your MIND?" and she aborts and returns to the front hall. It wasn't her previous ee hah mad dash, more like a question: "Hey, ma, I'm chasing the cats. Are you watching? Are you going to say anything?" and when I did say something, she nodded her head and returned. She spent the rest of the time sitting on the front step where she could see me better - technically wrong but actually really great because it's MUCH easier for her to resist temptation from inside the house than from the step. We're obviously making progress.

Sunday there are two CARO Rally trials. Stitch and Scuba are both in Novice B. The trial secretary has kindly put Scuba near the head of the line and Stitch at the end, so I have plenty of time between them and I get to do the first run with Scuba, which means I don't have to think TOO much about the dog and can concentrate on doing the course. I screw up Scuba several times, but manage to pull through for a 197 out of 200 - which tells me she could pull off a perfect score if her handler knew anything about Rally.

I'm a bit nervous about Stitch having drifted off yesterday afternoon so I don't give her any breakfast, thinking she'll be working for it during the day and she'll be sharper if she's a bit hungry. Another mistake. She appears to be a low-bloodsugar dog, as she's still laggy and seems to have difficulty concentrating on what we're doing. She gives it an excellent try, though, and pulls in a surprising 194. My friend confirms my opinion that she appears tired and distracted, so in the couple of hours between runs, I give her breakfast and then just sit in various places around the building working quietly on watching me and getting faster and more confident.

Scuba's second run is EXCELLENT. I have high hopes for it. I can't imagine how it could have been better. I don't make any mistakes, I have slowed down and I have time to read each sign to make sure I know exactly what we're supposed to do at each station, and Scuba is bang on, eager, sharp, enthusiastic, precise, and pretty. And yes, she gets a 200. The run was my real reward, though, it was one of those times when you feel that it couldn't have been better and you were privileged to have been in attendance.

Stitch is feeling MUCH better but not yet super. As my friend puts it, she's doing everything, but you get the feeling that it's hard work. She's trying too hard to pay attention and stay with the program. So I'm not happy with that yet. Still, I remember to reward her frequently, read the signs, give her a decent time, and get everything done. With a superb sense of the dramatic, the secretary leaves her score until last - and she's pulled off a 200 as well!

Dang, this is one hot little dog. It makes my fingers tingle just thinking about how easy it would be to mess her up!

Saturday we attend an advanced Rally clinic. I thought I'd give Stitch a bit of Heeling practise, and then use Scuba the rest of the day, but I'm thrilled to see that Stitch can handle almost everything. She has some trouble with the moving drop - she understands the cue, but the pull of staying with me is too strong for her to do more than hit the ground and pop back up to my side. Good pup! She's trying really hard. She peters out about 3 PM, and, as my friend points out, "when she's gone, she's GONE". I stand in line waiting for our turn at a mini course, thinking "she's had it, I should go sit down" and "Nah, she can do one more short set" and at that point I learn that when she's gone, she's GONE and there's no point in trying to pretend she's not. She still did everything, but she was lagging and just looked out of it.

We have a full weekend. Friday we drive 4 hours, then take a private agility lesson. I think I want to work on ways to speed me up so I'm not always late on my cues on course, but the expert has us working on directional cues, cued turns, and object discrimination. It occurs to me that if I wasn't paying attention, I could easily decide that the lesson was useless since she didn't APPEAR to address my concerns about slowness at all, when in fact she has given me EXACTLY the tools I need to be a handler good enough to drive this little racecar. We have a lot of work to do this summer!

I've been mucking out the guest room/fibre storage/junk room. I have four huge bags of garbage to burn. I go to the front door, wrestle it open, and go out on the stoop. It occurs to me that it's a beautiful day and Stitch is feeling better so I could go back to hunting her down as she runs around the yard, so I leave the door open. She comes to the door. I ask her to Sit. I give her our Zen cue - No! - and then ask her to Stay. I wrestle two garbage bags out to the burning barrel, light them, and go back into the house. Stitch remains Sitting, relaxed, cheerful. We have a HUGE party, running around the house, getting schnoogies. I take the second load of bags out and again she Stays until I come back. Holy cow!

Service Dogs - so useful. They save you so much time, they save you so much energy. Dear little Tats.

I take my Service Dog out to the car. Drive over to the gas tanks, get out, put fuel in the car. Just as I'm finishing up, I hear that lovely little clunk-Beep noise indicating that my Service Dog has tried to get the keys out of the ignition and has put a tooth on the LOCK button on the keychain.

So now I'm writing in her blog and waiting for a tow truck. It occurs to me that pushing the UNlock button on the keychain might be a useful skill, but unfortunately I have neglected to teach that to her. And NOW seems a trifle late, barn-door wise, if you catch my drift.

Back to reality. Stitch's stitches come out, so we go to the dog park to burn off a little steam. WOW, huge improvement in partnership since our last visit. I've got a pocket full of kibble, and she's stopping in for a piece frequently. I usually feel like she'll get tired eventually and come back so we can go home. This time she loses me a couple of times as she goes pelting across the park to see someone new, but she quickly remembers me and comes back to check in. It's MUCH easier to be relaxed with a dog who occasionally lets her enthusiasm overcome her brain than it is when you're starting to think about needed a lasso to catch the sucker. Not that she was ever trying to avoid me, she was just busy running around and I wasn't part of the team.
We give Paw-On-The-Nose another session. It takes her seconds to remember what we were working on. I've given up on getting her to sit and put a paw over her nose - not because it seems impossible now, because it doesn't, but because she's come up with something cuter. She lies down, tucks her nose down between the floor and her chest, and uses BOTH paws to cover her face. I've started adding the cue - Hide Your Eyes!

Many (many, many) years ago (1975, I think) someone had the novel idea that a dog could be taught to ring a bell. Sounded like fun, so I gave it a try with a 7 month old Giant Schnauzer named Panda. The only way I could think of to get her to interact with the big brass cowbell I had was to smear a little wiener on it.

I smeared, she licked, I praised. I smeared, she licked, I praised. The third time I smeared and she licked, she licked hard enough to make the bell ring. I got hysterical, jumping around, whomping her on the side, and telling her how wonderful she was.

After this display, I smeared weiner juice again, and sat back hoping that she would eventually figure out that it was the sound I wanted.

Panda had other plans. She didn't lick the bell. She looked at me. I encouraged her to lick it again. I showed her the meat juice on the bell. She stared at me. Then she turned to the bell, lifted one Giant paw, and whacked the bell into next week. Then she looked at me again.

If nothing in the training philosophy I was exposed to had allowed me to use food to teach the dog to do anything, be VERY sure that nothing in that philosophy would acknowledge, let alone account for, a dog thinking. I didn't understand WHY it happened, but to this day I remember that I was so overwhelmed with astonishment, so gobsmacked, so amazed, that I started to cry.

Panda at that point had 2 legs on her CD, was a finished Champion, and was my first homebred Giant Schnauzer. A week after she asked me if I wanted her to make the bell ring, she was hit by a car while walking beside me through a farmyard and broke her back. For three months as she recovered she rang her bell with her paw to tell me she needed to relieve herself. She went on to be the first Giant bitch with a Utility degree, a scent hurdle racing champion, the lead dog on my competitive sled dog team, and my heart dog. People I had never met called her a Renaissance dog, but for all she did, all she was, and all the amazing storing I have about her, the one moment that defined her for me for all time was when she asked me that question.

I have a better philosophy of my relationship with other animals now, but witnessing that moment of clear thought and communication still makes me cry.

I have never in my life successfully taught a dog to put a paw over her muzzle. This is a really cute trick, but I have failed with every dog I've ever had. To prove the point, here's a post I wrote in 2000 about trying to teach this trick to another Giant.

"Had a bit of a set-back this morning. I've been out of town with my Service Dog for nearly three weeks, and left my poor Giant Schnauzer at home with daddy. She's telling me she feels very neglected (then nudges my arm for pets and climbs on the couch uninvited - both things *I* don't let her do, so I don't think daddy's been QUITE as mean as she tells me he was), so I decided to teach her a new trick this morning. I've been thinking about getting her to "hide her eyes" or "salute" for some time now - she's a very pawnipulative dog, and this should come pretty easily to her. Background - this dog spent her first year going to dog shows every weekend and being a star, and was taught to totally accept any body manipulations that happen to her. I can (if I could bend down that far) lift her off the ground by the back legs, roll her over and back on a table, hang half of her off a table and she will just lie there. Training - the common way of teaching hide your eyes is to put a bit of Scotch tape on the dog's nose and click the paw-scrape as the dog tries to get it off. So I put the tape on her nose and waited, clicker and treats in hand. She backed up. She barked. She played dead. I took the tape off. I put a large yellow Post-It note on her nose and waited. She backed up. She whispered. She retrieved two things (not easy with a large yellow Post-It note on your nose!). I took the Post-It note off her nose. I lifted her eyebrows and pasted a large yellow Post-It note over each of her eyes and waited, clicker and treats in hand. She backed up. She wagged her tail. She went sniffing around the room and picked up four more things and brought them proudly to me. She spun to the left. I took the large yellow Post-It notes off her eyes and gave her the treats. I went grocery shopping."

I've spent the last three days trying to teach Stitch to put her paw over her eyes. I wasn't successful. My "thinker" wore out, so I asked on the Training Levels list for ideas on how to teach it. I got some dandy answers, but the one I started with tonight was to have her lying on her side. I'd taught her to duck her head to get a treat under her elbow. And I'd taught her to target my hand with her paw. From these I was getting her turning her head in a particularly cute manner, and a really good Sieg Heil salute, but no inclination to curl her paw back toward her nose.

When in doubt, try shaping. I get her lying on her side and I start clicking any motion of her paw. I click for a tiny twitch. Then I click for a full motion. Then I click for scraping the floor. Then I put my hand above her nose - which previously has resulted in the straight-legged salute - and she curls her paw over her nose, holding it there waiting for the click.

For holy cow. I LOVE THIS STUFF!