Stupid weather

It's very cold. I'm trying to find ways to keep up with some of our training goals in the face of very very cold weather. I need two things: a large indoor (ish) training room to do BAT with Vanya and Nancy (even a barn or something would be good) and to figure out a way to do training with Gustav and Tisha in my house. I can't decide if she should toss him treats or just ignore him, and I can't decide if he should be leashed, behind a gate, muzzled, or none of the above. Finally, I need to decide on a protocol that works for inside the house. I think that just having Tish around would probably help Gustav get used to her, but it might not teach him anything useful (for example how to move away if you don't like someone).

In other news, no visible effect from the prozac yet. Friday is the 8 week mark. We may up the dosage after that. Also, Dottie's diet is wildly successful and she has her lovely slim figure back. She will be so happy when we get to go back up to maintenance rations, instead of weight loss rations. I've never seen her eat her food so fast.

One positive about the cold weather is our walks have been very quiet and uneventful, which is after all my ultimate goal. In this case, we're reaching it by not seeing any or hardly any triggers. I love walking my dogs when it's not stressful like that.

Dog park!

Great news! The small neighborhood dog parks that a group of people on the eastside campaigned for over two year for, myself included, have come into being as of this weekend. I took the dogs out on a jog on Sunday and headed over to one. Once I got there I realized that they were small enough that I could go in and always keep track if anyone was coming, and then high tail it out of there. Thanks to our brilliant design recommendations, there is an entrance and an exit, and both are double-gated. So Gustav got to run around free with me completely nerve-free for the first time in at least two years. No muzzle, no heightened scanning, just fun (and Dottie being grumpy at him for trying to play, but he's much better at listening to her now). I won't lie: I might have been a little misty watching him tear around at fast as he could. His recall is just awful, as might be expected, but I'm so excited for this new training opportunity. It's maybe a ten minute jog from my house. I figure if we show up and no one is there, they can run and play. If someone is there, we can stand across the street or farther and do some nice controlled training, knowing that the dogs are fenced in.

Hooray! I love my city. And my dogs.

Serotonin? Maybe?

Gustav has been on Prozac for about a month. We haven't seen any big changes yet, except for one weird thing. Today Gustav was willing to go in the basement, something neither he nor Dottie has ever accomplished (except once for Dottie when we first moved in). Justin sort of led him down there, and he went. Usually if you encourage him he just balks at the second step and barks. Weird.

Nothing else new. I've been so busy with school that normally my walks with the dogs are once briefly in the morning and a decent one around 8:30 or 9:00 at night. These walks are great because no one is out and we are all calm and relaxed.

I have a new band that practices at my house on Wednesdays. I'd love for Gustav to get used to them eventually. He was on a leash last time, and he whined at them a little, but also barked (along with Dottie) when they all first came upstairs from the basement. I'm not ready to have him loose with them around yet, but I'm hoping to someday.

Quick update

Nothing much new around here. Crazy weather has gotten in the way of some training sessions, and I still haven't managed to set up my weekly Tisha sessions. I'd better do that before the weather gets really miserable. Two new items: there are new dog parks in the neighborhood! I worked with the Eastside Dog Park coalition for a few years, and we finally won! Very exciting, and also gives me a new, closer place to bring Dottie for controlled training (i.e. we can wander around the outside of the dog park and control distance and practice BAT).

The other thing: Justin berated me for staring at triggers too much and therefore calling attention to them. Interesting idea. Today on our jog I practiced not looking at all at dogs behind fences or people out and about, except in my peripheral vision to keep track. Gustav did not bark and lunge at anyone. On the other hand, I don't really know if he tensed up a lot or not because I was just looking forward. Also, an off leash dog came up near up and instigated a pretty fierce stare-fight but was too intimidated to come all the way up to us. Dottie barked a few times, and Gustav did not bark and lunge at all, he just stood stock still and stared the dog down. Pretty interesting. Then the owner came up and got him and we all went on our way. So, while my dogs were not exactly relaxed and happy, then did not go totally crazy and the other dog was smart enough not to come up and start a fight. All in all, I was pleased with the jog. The only downside of ignoring triggers is that I am losing a training opportunity, in that I usually stop and do look-at-that or a tiny BAT set-up. Do you think Gustav learns anything one way or the other by just staring but moving past without incident? I'm not sure. But at least he didn't have any bark/lunge fests.

Wow.

I have been SO BUSY. I haven't had a moment to update here. Briefly, I finished Reactive Rover with Gustav, been doing weekly BAT/mat/etc work with Nancy and Vanya (what a find! I'm so glad I finally found a committed dog owner to work with. And we're both helping one another out, I don't feel like I am incurring a huge debt with someone by taking up their time.), and jogging, walking, and so on. I have been incredibly busy with school, but mostly sticking to my one-big-formal-session a week plan plus the usual day-to-day stuff. Now that Reactive Rover is over I plan to set up a weekly or every-other-weekly session with Tisha to continue BAT with Gustav. On the off weeks I can maybe drive Dottie over to the dog park and do some BAT, assuming Justin is home or I get a little farther on my completely stalled separation anxiety treatment with Gustav.

Other big news: we started Gustav on Prozac this week. This news has sort of freaked out or disappointed some friends of mine, but I think they've mulled it over and realized it's not such a crazy decision since they've watched me work with dog for two years and honestly, not a whole lot has changed. In fact, he's still worse than when we first got him (to think: we used to go to the dog park and let strangers pet him and have parties at our house with people out and dogs visiting!!) but perhaps not as bad as his worst. It's really discouraging. Chelse just said that she didn't want to pressure me, but that every time she saw Gustav "prozac" popped into her mind. So why not. We're giving it a 3-month trial. I just can't ignore an option that could make my dog lead a more balanced and happy life.

Okay! Busy busy busy! I have work to do. And dogs to jog. I'll keep you all updated on Gustav's entry into the 21st century of SSRIs. Who knew I'd ever be here? Sigh.

Tuesday practice day.

I had my training day with Nancy and Vanya (blog is: http://vanyaproject.blogspot.com). Everything went well. Towards the end, I was doing some BAT with Gustav with Nancy as the decoy. She was also feeding her dog Vanya peanut butter, but Vanya was in the car in a crate so the dogs couldn't see each other. Gustav was interesting: He would look at Nancy and be pulling forward, and when he looked away or did some other acceptable alternative behavior, like sniffing, I would say "Let's go" and try to retreat. Only he didn't want to retreat. He wanted to stay there. But he also didn't want to stay there, because once he pursed his lips and I could tell he was about one second away from woofing and maybe lunging. I switched to LAT because it was clear that one of two things was happening: 1. He was ambivalent about Nancy because he wanted the peanut butter but was also scared of her, and couldn't decide what to do. I've seen this behavior with Tish and Berit, especially after they throw treats. The functional reward people are always saying how just straight counterconditioning produces dogs who are ambivalent about the stimulus because the treats distract them from the real issue and they never solve their insecurities deep down. Interesting to think about. Counterconditioning folks would say that, done correctly, counterconditioning actually changes the dog's emotional response over time. 2. He was too close and his staring too intense to be able to tear him away from the stimulus. I'm less inclined to believe this one because I moved him farther and tried again and it still didn't work. Still, sometimes this is the problem with Gustav because he's an information gatherer and hates to turn his back on things he feels truly threatened by. I figured with LAT there was no harm either way: it's counterconditioning and also teaching him to look away from a stimulus. I didn't have to mess with the functional reward at all. There were no bad lessons to learn from looking at Nancy and getting a treat.

Gustav made it 20 minutes while Dottie and I were out without crying. To be fair, this was with a brand new bone from the Farmer's Market, with tons of gooey gross meat hanging off. I got it from him with no growling, but he did seem a tad stiff. 20 minutes! Awesome!

While Dottie and I were out, a neighbor dog came bounding into the park. At first I was nervous, then I just decided to let it play out because I knew the dog was super sweet. Sure enough, it came running over to meet Dottie. Dottie snapped at the dog in the muzzle area, a correction-type bite, and the dog backed off. I warned my neighbor that Dottie was "bitchy" (a strange choice of words, I know, but that's what came out.) The neighbor didn't care and the dog was extremely receptive to Dottie's signals. It did steal her toy once, but the neighbor got it and handed it to me. The dog also jumped on me and was very exuberant, but Dottie did not go too crazy. Her hackles were up and she barked a lot, but this incident reminded me that, on-leash displays to the contrary, she's not really out to rip out throats. Just wants to be left alone. Probably this wasn't the best experience, because she certainly learned that snapping is a good way to get a dog to leave her alone, but honestly the dog was kind of rude and the corrections were not over the top. In the end, I'm oddly pleased by the experience because it reminded me that Dottie is not a really aggressive dog, she's just doing what has worked in the past to get dogs out of her space. After the dog did that, she was able to play fetch and lay down without any problems, even when the dog was still in the park romping around.

Runner's High

I took the dogs on my favorite jogging route today. It's about a 45 minute jog that goes through neighborhoods and a little-used bike path through a marsh where Dottie can run free. I swear they both get a runner's high: usually 20 minutes into the jog they both get into a groove and Dottie in particular looks up at me with squinty eyes and her mouth wide open. To me this looks like a giant grin, like she's saying "Finally! We're moving at an appropriate pace!"

We got mobbed by a loose black Lab, but I just dragged them across the street and the dog didn't follow. Dottie barked and barked but recovered quickly, and Gustav was stiff and looked back a lot but didn't flail and lunge and bark at all. I didn't say a word, just crossed the street at a jog and kept going. I think the dog was a little surprised to find such unfriendly dogs, maybe it will help him think twice about running out to greet strange dogs on the sidewalk. Gustav can be quite intimidating to friendly or submissive dogs, and invariably invites a fight with dogs with more attitude. Other than that there were no growls or barks, and we even passed some tied-up dogs across the street who were barking furiously.

Dottie got to chase a squirrel in the marshy area and also got to run as fast as she could a few times, which is really fast and very fun to watch. She started to roll in something while giving me a guilty look and I called her out of it and she came! She got a big handful of treats and no bath.

Not a lot of "training" got done, but I treasure these days because I feel it's what we're working towards: normal neighborhood experiences. I think the dogs needed a good workout and a low-stress outdoor experience. We all feel good.