Dog on the Loose!

So one confession I have to make about one of my personal dogs: she has the worst recall EVER! Okay maybe not ever, but for a trainer it's pretty embarrassing. I think what's worse is her recall in the yard is absolutely amazing! At the dog park she is the best! She will come to me at a drop of a dime (no treats needed)! I even get a long lead and put on her to practice and she does amazing every single time! But if you give her one inch of freedom she is gone and is never coming back! It's almost become a right of passage in watching Sadie. She will run away from you. She's runaway from me, my boyfriend, my dad, my mom, my boyfriend's mom, and a really good friend who watched them when I was working 12 hours and afraid a grass fire was going to hit the town we live in. She now comes with a list of what to do when (not if) she runs off. I do believe this might have been one of the reasons she was returned to the shelter after being adopted. And by all means this is really her only bad habit.

I've pretty much come to the realization that she (unlike our other 3 dogs) cannot be trusted off leash ever! I'm okay with that; we've worked around it. There is a retractable leash for going potty (the only time I recommend and use such a thing) and a long horse lead when we go hiking or swimming. My only problem comes when that gate blows open or when the front door doesn't latch all the way. We've perfected the "wait" command, so much so that I've actually walked across the street with the front door wide open. I've even been able to leave my front door open while loading the car and haven't had to worry one bit about her bolting. She's a master at "wait," but what happens when I fail at it? Notice I say I failed, not her. She doesn't fail at it (like I said she's a master), but there are times that I fail at administering or practicing the "wait" command.

Today was such a day that I failed. We've been house sitting for my brother, which has been nice having a fenced yard to play in. The catch comes that the back yard is set up so you have to enter and exit through it to get into the house, which for the most part I love, because I can let the dogs out off leash while I set the alarm and then worry about the leashes after the door is shut and locked. However, when someone comes over and the gate doesn't latch is when we run into problems. I'm not laying blame on the visitors; it was in no way their fault. It had happen to me, but I was just luckily right by the gate before any harm could result. If anything it was my fault. It was my fault, because I had knowledge that the gate could do that and I didn't practice "wait" at the gate with Sadie like I should have.

However, it's these experiences that we get to practice the recall she so badly needs. Those times when there is not a leash attached or a fence she can't get out of. The ones where she fails miserably at almost every time. Let me give you back ground on Sadie's runaway habits. The first time it happened was 3 days after I adopted her. She took off when the leash came unhooked from her collar during the car ride and I was letting her out of the car. She ran for a mile and a half before a neighbor who was walking her dog at the time caught her and held her until I could get to her. When she stayed at my boyfriend's mother's house she probably got a good quarter of a mile to half a mile away after our female Boerboel opened the door for her. While staying at my parent's house one day while I was at work the front door blew open and she ran out. I'm not sure how far she got, but she was gone for about 45 minutes. So as you can tell usually when she's running away, she doesn't stop running for a long time. But the glorious thing that happened today, is she got three houses down and came to one of my brother's friends who ran out to help. This has never happened before! It's normally an ordeal and I have to get a familiar car (i.e. my car or my boyfriends car) in front of her in order to get her back. She never stops that soon! NEVER!

Well I do believe that our recall training is starting to pay off. It might be a slow road, but today was a glimmer of hope that things were starting to click. I think if I were to have treats on hand she would have come back quicker, but I won't know until next time.

As a trainer you never like to admit that your dog is less than perfect, but sometimes they aren't perfect. I believe my experiences, like this, give my clients the realization that I'm not a perfect pet parent all the time and my dogs are not perfectly behaved all the time. They get to see that I'm human too and I screw up just like they do. I think it helps (or at least I hope it does) the connection that we have; they get to see that my dogs aren't 100% all the time, they have their moments. I've had clients before tell me that their dog could never compare to mine, so I whip out these stories (or stories of potty training Pyrate) that let them see I have faults and my dogs have faults just like everyone else. They bring me down off of the pedestal they placed me on. It makes it easier for them to come to me with their problems because I have dealt with them before. They know I won't look down on them, because they are struggling with something; I will help them out and guide them through it. 

Who stole the socks?

I've learned recently that Animal Planet has officially been ruined for me. While house sitting I was trying to kill some time before I had to get out of the house, so I turned on the television. After flipping through the channels I deemed that there was nothing on worth watching, so I turned to my old reliable favorite. However I only managed to get  about a minute into the show before I just had to turn it off.  The show was "Bad Dog!" and it was all about klepto canines. I watched clip after clip of dogs stealing random items from their owners and the owners chasing the dogs trying to get said item back. I cringed at every clip (and I only watched two and a half clips). I can't believe how many dog owners think that this behavior is funny and acceptable. When did it become funny for your dog to steal things?

Now don't get me wrong Pyrate and I enjoy the occasional game of chase. I do this as a reward because he absolutely hates playing fetch! It's like pulling teeth with him, so after a good round of fetch I will chase him around while he plays keep away. However, I never chased my dogs when they stole something! This is the worst thing you can do, because you just made it an incredibly fun game of keep away!

Two simple commands can keep situations like the klepto dogs from happening. A "leave it" command is key in getting the dog to stay away from whatever they like to steal. "Leave it" is a simple command that means exactly what it sounds like. The dog must leave it alone. Ideally this means even when you are not in the room; however, to get to that point means a lot of hard work and trust exercises. I always give the example of Pyrate. With him I can place a plate of food with in reach, tell him "Leave it" and walk out of the room for 10 min without worrying about my food disappearing. I am always met with disbelief of this feat, but I also explain this took 3 years to accomplish. Not only does it take a very long time to get to that point, but it also takes constant work. This meant when I left for a summer to go travel in the outback that my dog's training faltered. It took another couple of years to be able to trust him once more.

Not only do the dogs need to know "leave it," they also need to learn a "drop it" command. This is so we can get the items they stole back from their grips.

With two simple commands you can keep the dog from continuing stealing. By removing the fun from the game and by presenting alternate behaviors to get the attention they are seeking your dog no longer has to be a kleptomaniac.

I know that every client I have worked with thinks that their dog could never leave that sock let alone a tasty morsel! However, I've never had a dog come to me that didn't pick up the "leave it" command by the end of the lesson. Now don't get me wrong I have seen the dogs mess up on the "leave it," but it's through no fault of the dog. Usually, as the pet parent, we get too excited for our dogs to learn this wonderful command that we go a little to fast. Breaking the command up into stages works best for our dogs (just like any difficult task). Usually by the next week all the dogs in my class can leave everything we throw at them alone. I've had pet parents who have watched a class that was a week ahead and swore to me that their dog would never be able to do the same.  We can usually throw treats at the dogs, toys, paper, my treat pouch, just about anything until we have "land mines" everywhere. The dogs always surprise their owners in this exercise, because they are leaving everything they tell them to and even doing it at a distance! It's after this exercise that the pet parents start thinking their dogs can be as good at "leave it" as mine are with it!

Why a new blog and what brought me to this point in my life

Today I have decided to create a new blog about my experiences, concerns, trials, tribulations, and general dog training information that I encounter.  This stems from my realization that I cannot walk away from training as easily as I thought I could at the beginning of the year. I have decided that I will continue on training even after I get my new degree. I have also decided to create a new blog about training after I have been mulling over information I gathered from a wonderful training conference I was able to attend earlier this year.

One thing that stuck in my mind from this conference was write everything down. I have failed this in the past. I wish I had a journal, notebook, or something that I kept when dealing with Pyrate's antisocial problems. I remember the dog I adopted and the problem he became after a certain incident. Now he's getting back to the dog I originally adopted. I have nothing to look back at to see the turning point or to show to new people that this amazing pup was a real troublemaker.

I became interested in dog training almost 6 years ago when I adopted a breed of dog I knew nothing about. I quickly learned the problems I faced. Everything from potty training (breed standard 1.5 years if you're lucky), running away, jumping (6 ft in the air), biting, digging. Now I know this was mostly typically puppy behavior, but the more I researched the breed I just adopted, the more I realized how much work would be involved. I quickly started calling all the local trainers and found one that matched my needs perfectly. I will say this was back in the time when positive reinforcement was something that was scoffed at and was barely used. It took some search to finally find a place that practiced positive reinforcement and would allow a dog without a rabies vaccination at his age in (see he had to start the puppy series over again since he was a stray). He quickly excelled and proved to everyone how smart this breed is. It was years later that I actually became a dog trainer after a friend showed me the fun tricks I could do with my dog (we taught him everything from target to riding a skateboard).

My love of training actually occurred before then. It happened back when I was 16 and volunteering at the zoo. I was able to help out in enrichment activities and observe several training sessions.  This continued on when I went to the Smithsonian National Zoo (shortly after adopting Pyrate) and did an internship working with birds. Two of us were put in charge of creating a training and enrichment program for a problem bird named Romeo. I fell in love with training at that point. I was able to go into the cheetah area while I was working there and do training with the cheetah's as well. That summer was the start of my love and it took a few years later for me to even think about transitioning into dog training. It wasn't a hard transition, but it was one that never occurred to me before the day I started my tricks class.

I love watching as others realize that their dogs can be as well behaved as mine. I love sharing with other pet parents my trials and tribulations and them sharing theirs with me. It's an amazing feeling helping those who need it the most, the ones who are at their wits ends realize that they can have an amazing dog. That is the reason I have created this new blog. In hopes that others will join me in the trials and tribulations of myself and the owners around me and also in hopes of bringing information to others who may be struggling with their own pet.