Inside only

No walk today, it's just too cold. When this happens, I give the dogs their meals in trick training. One dog gets a kong in the second bedroom, the other gets their kibble piece by piece via clicker training. I should really work harder at training Dottie to accept being put away in a room even while we're home. She's fine if we leave, but starts barking and whining if we're home (especially if she can hear the clicker and she's missing out!). I ordered some chew antlers today and I'm planning on giving them only when we're home and the dogs are in their room-hopefully this will sweeten the pot and help that training.

Dottie knows lots of cool tricks and we're working on shaping. Shaping is cool because she doesn't get a command, she just has to figure out what I want through trial and error. I take a laundry basket and put it on the floor. Then she gets a click and treat for looking at the basket. Once she figures that out, she only gets a click and treat for touching the basket, then touching the basket while standing, or sitting, or whatever. It's fun and very mentally challenging for her. It's extra cool to watch her learn what I want her to do with absolutely no talking or gesturing from me.

Gustav, well, he's a bit of a slow learner. We're stuck on down and stay and leave it, bless his couch potato heart. I think about where Dottie was at his age, and I'm hoping to look forward to a very mellow future (with a little less aggression, I hope). Dottie was a spitfire at age three, she could run all day and not be tired. Gustav seems satisfied with so much less. I'm so glad Gustav doesn't have Dottie's energy needs and anxiety and reactivity, along with his aggression and bully attitude towards other dogs. That would be an insurmountable issue.

I think I see a little of Gustav's past when trick training him. He absolutely will not learn take it, where he takes a toy from my hands in his mouth. He just refuses. I guess I won't push it, but it's weird. Also, when working on a down stay, he jumped a mile when I moved a little quickly towards him to treat him. I wonder if he was slapped or yelled at in his early training, or if he's just jumpy by nature.

I once heard Patricia McConnell say that mental exercise was twice as tiring as physical exercise for dogs. I don't see that in my dogs at all, otherwise we'd being doing tricks all day and little reasonable walks. It takes the edge off, for sure, but I can tell they still want to sniff the neighborhood and stretch their legs. But when I let them out in the yard, they only last a few minutes. Sigh.