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.