Anara starts training

As every good Mom knows, time away from the kids is essential. Anara spent her time away working on some social skills, manners and enjoying the beautiful weather. She is working on her sit cue. The first behavior taught sometimes can end up as the default behavior so we try to ensure the first behavior  is either a sit or down. It is much better to have a sit as the default than a spin or jump for joy cue. The sit can also be used as the positive opposite of the jump up behavior that we have seen with Anara. Our job will be to manage the jump up so Anara does not practice it when greeting us or other people and then to replace it with the newly learned sit.

Touch to a hand is a targeting behavior that has a multitude of uses. Touch is the basis of an off leash transport (moving a dog from one place to another without the handler physically handling the dog). It is also used in the vet’s office to load a dog onto a scale or exam table without physical manipulation. Many other behaviors such as spins, shakes, pushing on objects, jumps, platforms, balance beams also use touch as the starting point. Anara started her touch as an opposite of sit. Later, we can add a Stand cue to substitute. In the meantime, touch works great for getting Anara into a standing position so we can re cue sit.

Walking politely on the leash is also a valuable skill for dogs. Many dogs are given up because of their lack of leash skills. Anara is learning to walk politely with the leash loose so that she is a pleasure to walk.  She is also learning to sit automatically when her handler stops. Keeping distractions to a level that she can achieve success but still challenge her makes training more exciting.

Meeting new animals and establishing a baseline of behavior will also be important information to a potential adopter. Anara met a dog savvy cat today and showed mild curiosity. There is a world of difference though between a dog savvy cat and a cat that will run when confronted by a dog. A running cat might cause Anara to chase. This would be an example of prey drive. To say she was cat safe based on this one encounter would be misleading. Things are looking good though in the cat world at this moment.

Anara also met two senior black labs. She was a little over threshold upon approach but we used distance and obstacles to lessen visual stimulation and introduced when Anara had more composure. When she was calm, she was introduced and despite having a philoerection (hair standing on end between shoulders and back) she offered appropriate calming signals such as lick lips, head turns and eventually a play bow. After a few minutes she was licking both dogs. Her reaction to their handler was slightly more interesting. She did her hug behavior (jumps up but places feet on either side of the waist and rests head on chest of person) and submissive peed at the same time. It was an interesting behavior. Usually dogs offering submissive urination would crouch and not jump. So that leaves the possibility that it was more of an excitement urination although she didn’t seem overly excited. We learn by observing behavior and keeping our minds open to the possibilities. A sit to gain attention might change the whole scenario and give her more confidence by lowering the excitement level of the greet and thereby lowering the stimulation levels.

We finished the training session up with a little fun at the facility and some beginning nosework. Enjoy the video clip of Anara and the learning process!