An Interlude: In Which Melon Visits an Old Friend

Friends, I have something nice to share with you.

Remember Katie? She is the Lab I walked a few years ago when her human went interstate. She was 10 years old then, but had no idea of her age and had insatiable enthusiasm for people (read: jumping up), walks and food. Because of this I learnt to clicker train, and discovered that I enjoyed working with dogs.

Her human has been jetsetting around and developing a great career, so I haven't seen Katie since then... but the other day I saw her again!

Just home from surgery for lumps and bumps -- I hope you showed my good side!

Her human was back home for a visit so I stopped by the house to see Miss Katie. She is 13 years old now, still has that lovely yellow coat, soft ears and big smile.

Okay. To be perfectly honest -- I wouldn't have known it was the same dog. I knew she's old now, but still expected her to jump up at me -- that was her defining characteristic, in my mind. This quiet, sedate girl just wanted to be with us, and certainly didn't show a lot of enthusiasm.

This is definitely my good side.

I'm sure it's natural and easier to get your head around when you've seen it happen, but I haven't seen her for years. I'm not sure what her human thinks, since she's been away most of the time too. (Katie's been in the care of family.)

Clearly both her human and I are learning about ageing in dogs -- a good lesson -- but regardless, I was very glad to see her again!

Melon's Animal Adventures: an eventful walk

So I hadn't walked Katie the Lab for over a week and I've missed it - I'm finding walking her quite therapeutic, which is great since I struggle with anxiety.

The walk was very eventful, making me realise I really had missed a lot.

First, there was this:

Do you see the hazard in that photo? Yup, the black cat sitting calmly on the stairs. (Hi Xeti, is that you?) Luckily, Katie, who is reactive to dogs and cats, passed calmly and without incident. So I guess it's not all dogs and cats she is aggressive to, just some.

The next thing was that I managed to get Katie to Leave it and Come away from two potential foodables she'd picked up in her mouth. I was feeling really good about that! And there's more...

As I entered a park we normally walk through, a little dog suddenly appeared, running straight for us. Uh-oh! I thought. Katie does not like small dogs. It was a pug x French bulldog and it ran at us, daring us to pass, and continued circling and following us when we tried to leave. It stuck its nose into Katie's behind as we tried to leave the park, and as we left I realised it was still with us and had no apparent intention of leaving. I walked Katie, small dog in tow, back to the playground slide where two people were dozing with sunnies over their eyes. Who in the world dozes while their dog is harassing other people? Excuse me, excuse me! Is this your dog? Heads were shaken. Oh. Then where in the world had this doggy come from? Katie was so good, she did a Sit for me while the dog was still harassing her. I rewarded Katie and sat down to try to check the tag on the pug's pink collar. It jumped right into my lap, clearly being used to attention. As I reached for the tag a blond guy in shorts appeared to collect the dog. Apparently the pug'd escaped from his garage. So that's a non-reactive Katie and a loose dog back home, so this story has a happy ending. (I wish I had a photo from the incident, but as you can imagine, I didn't get a chance to snap any!)

And THEN Katie decided that she doesn't want anyone to think she's a well-behaved dog, so she found two bones/skulls on the walk and with the second one, completely abandoned the walk to lie down under a tree and enjoy it!

She's really getting into it

But look how happy she looks afterward, so what can I say?

Melon

Melon's Animal Adventures: Cats and dogs

This is Billie. 

He lives next to a courtyard that many people pass through every day. At the same time each day, or so I've been told, he comes out to wait for his owners to come home from work. That's how I came across him one day.

And now to a certain Labrador named Katie...
 

Today as I was working with her I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever make any progress on this 10 year old dog that I only see for an hour twice a week ... but then I think I made a little progress on Stay! I ask her to Sit, and then hold my hand (with the treat) out in front of me and take a few steps back. She can manage to stay seated while I step back, but as soon as I step back towards her she'll get up. But she managed to stay seated through the whole routine once or twice today, and boy do I feel much better now that I think I've seen a little progress! I've always had aspirations to be a teacher, and it seems like if it is in my future, it will be a rewarding job.

I'm realising that while Katie is very much active and excitable despite her age, she's actually pretty good on walks, no pulling or lagging, she hops on and off the kerb when I need her to and waits to cross the road.
It's just other dogs on the street I need to be careful of: she is totally reactive to the other dogs on-leash on the street. I see other people walk their dogs past each other in small enclosed spaces like at the market - no way that could be done with Katie! I have to cross to the other side of the road when I see another dog. A few people have seen me hesitant to approach them and their dog and assure me that their dog is friendly - I always have to tell them that my dog is not. It's a pity.
I'm not thinking of working on that with Katie but I am curious: what makes some dogs reactive to other dogs on the street and others not? Can it be trained? Is it a matter of socialisation? 

Lastly, Jackson, the sweet old Golden Retriever belonging to a friend of a friend, is likely to be out of a home by the end of the year. I have tentatively put it out there that I'd consider taking him, but I'm trying to keep a cool head and not run away with the idea, because my boyfriend and family don't think it's a wise idea. I must say I saw him the other day and he was definitely not as alert as he was last I saw him, but hopefully it was an off day.

MMA: Wordless Wednesday

MAA: A Better Day

Thanks to everybody who left me comments both informative and supportive over the past week or so. My biggest struggles are with Anxiety at the moment – every week or two I complicate things in my life and they become so big in my head that I can’t deal with them and then hide away from the world for a few days. That’s when my parents take over care of Cocoa until I emerge vowing to be consistent and do all the things regularly needing to be done for the pets… until the next time anxiety kicks in. But I’m working on it (meds, therapy).
That also explains why I can be slow in replying to your comments – mostly I do receive them on time but it can be a few days before I’m ready to reply them. It doesn’t mean I don’t read and appreciate each and every comment you leave me!

So, onto this girl:

 

Yes that is a Sit. It is rarely seen and never for longer than a second, but I can make it happen

I was happy with my progress with Katie today. Last week I had, in a very vulnerable mood, gone over just to play with Katie in her yard, because the weather didn’t look promising and I wasn’t really up to a walk. But she was so excited at the prospect of a walk that I gave in, thinking I’d just take her down the street and back. It never happened because I didn’t have the patience to wrestle with her long enough to get her harness on!

But today was miles better, for me and for her. The funny thing that happened at the beginning was her putting on my messenger bag in her attempt to get the treats out of it. It was definitely photo-worthy, but sadly my camera was inside said bag at the time so I couldn’t get a photo!

I’m feeling more confident about walking her and training her because today I discovered that she is more responsive than I thought. She looks at me when she hears her name, which I discovered as I chatter to her while I walk (although her hooman tells me she responds only selectively), and I haven’t had any issue telling getting her on and off the road and stopping when I need to. I bought a real clicker today so I’ll keep it on hand, but at the moment I think I ought to just work on getting accustomed to her for a bit, since the clicker stuff is new to me too.

I’m trying to pay attention to the words I use and keep them consistent – come for getting her to go in a direction, up and down for getting on and off the kerb (there aren’t always footpaths so I switch her between the road and people’s front yards as appropriate). It’s not easy though, for example usually I say hup but I’ve also heard myself saying come on, up and off the road, Katie!

It’s fine to keep reinforcing these commands (the simple ones, consistently) when she does things even before using the clicker right? Because I still need to walk her even before I begin training with the clicker.

Thanks again, all!
Melon

MMA: Our First Walk

05/08/2013

So my friend A has just moved interstate for college with her dog Katie staying behind at the family home. In six months the family may be reunited again in a house in the new location. In the meantime, the family are feeding her and so on, of course, but they don’t have the time to walk her. So I’m doing it.

Yup, that’s right, me, Melon. (There was a suggestion originally for me to consider ‘fostering’ her for those six months at my house to save me the trip over to my friend’s house to walk her, and boy would I love to, but we decided against it because we don’t know what her prey drive would be like with Mister Cocoa.)
You may have heard of Katie as my demonstration animal when I learnt How To Bathe A Large Dog. She’s a 10 year old Labrador.

So how was my first walk yesterday? Well. I arrived at my friend’s place and Katie was so excited, jumping around and running in circles, that I didn’t think I’d ever get the harness on. I had been warned of this, but as I struggled I really thought for a moment I would have to turn right around and go back home again! Luckily, I managed it. In fact, I ended up so focused on trying to get the harness on the right way that I only belatedly realised that she had calmed down.

The other thing you need to know is that I had discovered, on a trial walk when my friend was still in town, that Katie hasn’t really been trained to follow commands. She’s asked to wait for her dinner and before leaving the gate, and she does the former well but not so much the latter. But my point is, she won’t do even a basic Sit. Now, I’m not so comfortable walking a dog that I can’t control with at least a Sit, Wait and Come.

Which is why I came to my first walk armed with a clicker I’d downloaded onto my phone and an oh-so-attractive bright orange bumbag full of bacon bits. First lesson would be simply to charge the clicker: click, treat, click, treat until she associates the sound with the reward. Sounds simple, right? WRONG. At a random place on the street I'd stop, get out my phone, press the clicker on the screen, then I'd fumble around for the bacon bits, dropping some in the process which Katie could happily lick up, and then in using both hands to try and pull out the bag of bits to get to them I'd accidentally press the clicker again... I think you get the picture! I did get Katie's attention with treats, but I doubt she even noticed the clicking noise. She even sat once or twice, all by herself, when she realised I had treats, but instead of rewarding that like I should have, I thought, wait! We're not up to that yet! I'm supposed to be charging the clicker! And proceed to initiate another click-treat-failure. Oops. And after the whole walk and a bagful of bacon bits I know for a fact that charging the clicker didn't work because after we got home I clicked it and she paid exactly zero attention to me.

So why am I bothering with the training? Well, I basically just want a way to communicate to her, when we’re out walking, when she’s doing something I like as opposed to when she’s doing something I don’t like. I think I need that to be comfortable with her on the street, knowing she’ll get off the road when I tell her to, knowing I can get her attention when there’s another dog around, and so on. I’m starting to realise, however, that she probably has 10 years of ignoring commands ingrained in her. Is there another way I can achieve this peace of mind, or should I keep trying with the clicker (in a quiet place this time)?
 
Thoughts and advice, as always, much appreciated.
Melon

Melon's Animal Adventures: About A Dog

Some of you may have seen this post before: I took it down for privacy reasons but it should be fine to talk about it now…

12/04/2013

Cocoa: What? You thought this blog was about a guinea pig. Well, let me tell you, me too.
But I'd better hand over to Melon for this one.

Melon: So a friend of mine, J, is living in a share house with her boyfriend. They have inherited from his parents, along with the house, a golden-retriever type dog named Jackson.

Now, it has come to my attention that Jackson is never walked. He is not let into the house because he smells, because he is dirty. His two dishes (one food, one water I assume?) were completely empty last time I saw them. (But dogs only get fed twice a day right? Not like guinea pigs?) There were dog food bags on the counter though.
 
So here's my idea: to offer to walk their dog regularly. I came up with the idea that I could walk their dog, and had a whole bunch of questions for you guys about whether it was a good idea and how I could do it, my mind jumping ahead to how I could handle the dog and how I could blog about developing a bond with him and getting my dog-fix. But now I've rethought: my doing the hardest part just to make sure it gets done will not ensure that its other needs are met. I’m going to start by reminding the owners what should be done for the dog – making sure it always has water and 2 meals a day, keeping it clean so it can come inside, and walking it. If they don't do that then I will urge them to return him to their parents, if I can gather that they will care for him properly. Because I’ve been wanting more experience with dogs (I’m considering volunteering for the RSPCA) I’d love to get involved by offering to walk him, but that’s not a long-term solution for the dog. He need someone who will take responsibility for all his needs. Only if they won’t do those things and they refuse to rehome him, then I will offer to do as much as I can to help the dog out, like coming round and walking him myself. Does that sound right?

My friend has already accepted my offer to come and help bathe the dog, which I’m starting with because I’m pretty sure if he doesn’t smell he’ll be allowed inside the house. To prepare myself I’m off to another friend’s place in a few days to practice the b-a-t-h thing with her Labrador!

I’ll keep you guys updated on how this goes, and I will be grateful for any and all advice.

Melon

Note, Added Later: Both baths went well. (My friend and I got into a car accident on the way home from Jackson’s, but that’s another story.) It was getting late by the time we were done with Jackson so we took him just up the street afterwards because he’d been hankering for a walk, and boy, did I know it! He planted himself at the end of the street and I had to coax him to turn around, poor guy! You’ll hear more about both dogs to come.