Thinking boy

For a few weeks now I've been having Marley make choices.  Mainly, which flavor of treat paste to use in his Kong toy.  For that I've just held two or more cans and he uses his nose to bump the one he wants.  He's pretty adamant about his choices, too.  The first few times he seemed so quick that I wasn't sure and I'd have him do it again.  Then he'd bump it two or three times.  Message delivered!

Today we went a step further.  He was agitating for something.  I couldn't tell if he needed to go outside or if he wanted his greenie & charcoal biscuit (part of the morning routine).  I was in my favorite seat, a recliner, with my feet out.  I pointed to my left and asked "Want potty?" then pointed to my right and asked "Want greenie?".  He sat there for a few seconds then got up from my left side and moved to my right side.  He had thought about the new "puzzle" and worked it out.

At times his intelligence almost scares me.  I think he's the smartest dog we've had.  I really doubt either Una or Max would have understood this challenge within seconds.  It would have taken several tries for the concept to sink in (if it did).

Now, if we'd just get the loose leash walking and greeting people mastered.

A recent photo as I was taking sunset photos on the way home from Idaho.  It's a composite of Tom & Marley and one of the sunset shots that could be blended. (The original shots of them didn't have enough color in the sky).

"Fur kids" in cahoots again

Well, they've been at it again.  As I was bumbling around starting the morning routine, first I heard Marley chewing on a hard toy.  When I was heading back to the living room after letting him out, I saw a dark "ball" on the floor.  Hmmm?  It was somewhat dark still since I only turn on the kitchen LED strip under the counters, on the lowest setting, and the lamp in the corner of the living room at this time of day.  When I picked it up ... DAG NABBIT ALL TO H*** !!  It was the lid to my favorite coffee mug.

I like the covered travel mugs because I can sip my coffee over the course of an hour to four hours while keeping it warm enough to enjoy.  The current pair of mugs were welcome gifts from the credit union and the best we've had so far at keeping our coffee hot.

The best I can guess, since I found my cup on the floor in the kitchen, is that Charlotte was cruising the counter, checking for mice, and bumped the cup to the floor.  This is not the first time she's knocked something off a counter or table that Marley then decided was OK to eat/chew/destroy.  At that point, Marley has a target.  For once it's something of mine instead of Tom's.  He probably resisted temptation for a while, but eventually, he took it.

I don't know if I slept through a "request" (read demand) that I get up somewhere between 6:15 & 7:00 or if he just decided to be up without me.  In the past he'd chew up stuff when I didn't get up when he started his stamping & whining & groaning routine, and he was bored all by himself (or whatever reason led him to the chewing-on-human's-stuff sessions).

At first I though the threads having been breached was why it leaked.  Then, as I set it up for a photo,  I realized it has a gasket for the stopper and it was off track.  I was able to get it back in place and get it at least 98% leak-free.

So, what did I do to Marley?  I picked it up & held it out toward him and asked him "what did you do?" in a very stern voice.  He's sensitive enough that for several hours he skipped the parts of his morning routine and went straight to lap time, trying to suck up.  Even when I started encouraging him to return to "normal" he was reluctant for a while.  He knew he did wrong.  He was very submissive & withdrawn.  Later he returned to pretty much normal, demanding/asking for his daily activities.  He thinks we're playing, but a lot of it really is one kind of training or another.

New Toys

To make sure we keep Marley learning I ordered a few new things that we can use to work with him.  I got a couple more dishes of a certain size - we can use them for "shell game" type games.  Whether he has to follow one item as we move the bowls, finds food under one or more of the bowls, or starts learning to retrieve something from one of them to trade for a treat.

The other was a low budget indoor agility kit.  It includes a square tunnel (needs some propping so it doesn't lean over enough to go flat) and a weave pole/jump set.  The recommend introducing one item at a time.  I figured it we started with the tunnel the others would be easier, at least as far as getting used to them.

So, I set the tunnel in an area of the living room that didn't block the flow of traffic and against something that would keep it from falling.   At first, Marley was suspicious, but he did a bit of sniffing, feinting, backing, sniffing some more.  Later, we moved it to a better location and double-teamed him to get him to go through.  Within a very, very short time he understood he was to go through the tunnel in order to get the "chicken cookie".  He even went through a couple times  without being asked to so. 

We'll give it a couple days before introducing the weave poles.

What direction to go next with training?

We will continue to work with Marley on the necessary social skills - walking nicely on a leash, heel, greeting people politely, etc.  We'll continue with the social/obedience skills that he's mastered - sit, down, stand, stay, wait, free (the release command).   We will also continue to teach him "cool" tricks.

Right now he knows:
Shake, other hand, high 5, find it, step (where I indicate where he should put his foot).  I've been looking up other potential tricks for ideas where to go next.  I'd welcome some input.  If you have ideas, comment and let me know.

One observation from past pets of various species is that animals (or people) who keep learning retain the capacity to keep learning.  I've taught dogs, cats, rats a number things over the years.  The ones who were taught more tricks over the years, kept learning well into old age.

Graduation (and weather)

Yesterday we braved the weather forecast; it said the snow would move into Sandpoint late in the afternoon, and even later for us and that it should only be 2-4 inches.  We drove right into the storm, and by the time his last class of the 6 week course was over, Rebecca was urging us to go before it got even worse.  Luckily the snowplows were out and keeping the roads fairly clear.  We did see a number of drivers come out of a side road and punch it just a bit too much for conditions & fishtail.  I kept plenty of room ahead of me, the only direction where I really have any control over safety zones.  For once we didn't grab food on the way out of Sandpoint in the interests of getting home while we could still get in our driveway if it was going to get ugly.  We do have a small "hill" as we come in, with gentle curves, and the ATV can keep it only so wide ... just barely more than passenger car width.  This morning it's up to 33, after a 25 overnight low and the house roof is shedding its 3-4 inches of new snow.  Now it slides down the pile toward the house instead of out toward the yard.  The "burning bush" by the dining room window has a little over 1/8 inch of ice coating it.  Lovely weather.  (Garage is still standing, still carrying a heavy snow load, still precarious)

So, back to Marley's final class for the next several months.  Petco offers puppy classes, which we skipped right over, and Adult Dog 1 and Adult Dog 2, both of which he has now completed.  Rebecca was pretty casual and unobtrusive about how she gave him his final exam.  Since one dog didn't show, and the other was late, we had the first half hour or so one-on-one with her.  As far as Marley knew he was just getting attention & treats.  The basic "in place" behaviors he did with flying colors.  Those are sit, down, stay, target.  She'd seen us practicing leashed walking in the store already and we all know he still needs lots of work on that.  He also did well with "four on the floor" - Petco's term for keeping all 4 feet on the floor when greeting people or being petted.  We also showed off with "shake", "other hand", "high 5" and "step".  So, compared to how our first dog did at the end of her obedience class Marley did really well.  I'd call him the star pupil of the class.  He definitely earned his graduation certificate and package of goodies.

The only other dog to make it was Lucy.  She's a very shy, timid dog out in public and trembles through the sessions.  Just being able to be around people and other dogs away from home is the big thing for her, and yesterday she proved it's working.  She not only greeted Marley, but she approached me, unasked, and even requested some gentle petting.  She still trembled through the time we were all there.

So, what's next for Marley?  We will continue to work on all the stuff he does well, to keep him doing it well.  We'll continue to expand on what he's learned.  Where Una was laid back, what can I do to please you, and Max was a real traveler and tourist, Marley is a learner.  He wants to keep learning new things and he wants to practice the things he has learned.   His puppy excitement is still a barrier to the "nice" leash walking and greeting people, but he's showing signs it will come, with practice.  Eventually, I want to get his "Canine Good Citizen" certificate.  I don't know if it would get any discount with our insurance, but in some cases it does (so I read).  It is a way of documenting that he's a well-behaved dog, which could help in checking into hotel/motel rooms or RV parks if they're at all skittish about labs or big dogs in general.  Beyond that, maybe agility, maybe rally obedience.  But those are all months out before we could even get into training.  Most of those require full obedience compliance as a starting point and being at least a year old.

He loves his puzzle

Marley is a huge fan of routine.  We start the day with treat in a Kong ball.  Then we toss a ball for him ... he gets a piece of kibble every time he brings it back, and a piece across the room to position him for the next toss.  He gets a greenie and a charcoal biscuit after one of his morning potty breaks - he has to seek it out with his nose.  Then somewhere in the late morning or early afternoon he gets to solve his puzzle.

His puzzle has 7 holes to hold treats.  Two of them have flipper covers, two have "towers" to lift off (he knocks them over) and the last 3 have 2 sliders.  He often checks some of the holes several times in case he missed a treat, but he general clears it within 30 seconds to a minute.

Here he is in action:

Stepping out ...

Last week I taught Marley to "STEP" on things.  I was working with a 2-step folding stool in the hopes that by the time he's recovering from an injury or surgery, or old and weak, he will readily walk up the steps into the car.  We learned that when a dog is not feeling well, and doesn't like to accept help is NOT the time to try to get them to use something new, even it would be a hundred times easier than jumping into the car.

So, with a foam circle (craft item) and treats I accomplished what had been nearly impossible the week before.  He will now readily put a foot on either step, depending on where I put the foam circle.  Since "TARGET" (formerly TOUCH) is done with the nose, I had to start with a different behavior that was already established.  So we moved from "HIGH 5" to "STEP". 

By holding the foam circle over the hand he was to HIGH 5, he started by doing the HIGH 5 on the circle.  Then I started putting the foam on the bottom step of the stool.  It only took a couple of tries and he had it.  Then the top step.  Then places on the floor or furniture. 

Today we took a new step (pardon the pun) in working with this behavior.  I had him STEP on the stool without the foam circle.  It only took a minute for him to move from a physical/visual target to STEPPING where I pointed.  Then I pointed to his ball, his bone, a box.  All immediately were either stepped on or pulled.  He loves to curl his paw and pull, hard.  He sometimes draws blood when that paw hammers down on my hand or arm and pulls.  Need to figure out how to tame that power.

We had to go back to the target when I asked him to STEP on the boot tray that contains his food and water dishes and their drips.  He wanted to do it but was very reluctant.  Once I put the foam circle in the corner of the tray, he was STEPPING right where I asked.

I think, beyond the use of the step stool, STEP is going to be the basis of some very useful behaviors in the future as we build on it.  For example it's an alternate way to indicate a choice.  (When I "stuff" his Kong Ball I hold out 2 cans of different flavors and let him choose which one he wants.  He sniffs both, then repeatedly bumps the one he wants.  Liver is big this week.)

I fill every other slot with the flavor paste (think of the "easy cheese" spray can cheese) and he licks & chews it out while I set up the coffee pot, feed the cat and get ready to slowly start the day.  It buys me 10-15 minutes before we start the "greenball" fetching/feeding game for his breakfast. 

Smart pup!

This morning we're dealing with 18 inches of new snow (through last night) on top of the foot and a half to two feet on the ground, and the piles along the front & back of the house where the roof snow lands and temperatures above freezing AND RAIN! 

The roof took about 3 hours to shed all but a couple of lumps.  Now the pile along the house is high enough that it partially obscures some of the windows.  More importantly, the back half falls on the deck that extends from the back porch to the end of the house and is our main way in & out of the house.  Every time the roof slides, we have to shovel piles of heavy, compacted snow to be able to get to the gate.

During the time it was still sliding I went to the kitchen.  Marley followed, of course, so I offered him the chance to "go potty" and opened the door.  As he started out I told him to "be careful" because there was a chunk hanging over the area where it transitions from porch to deck.  He stood on the porch a minute or so, looking out at the wall of snow, then up at the hanging block of snow and came back in. 

Smart dog.

Good nose!

Last night we were playing one of  Marley's favorite games - "greenball".   We have a soft spiky green ball that we toss for him to catch and return.  He gets a piece of his kibble at the couch when he returns it and a piece tossed across the room to get him over where he's far enough away to catch a good toss.  At some point the ball rolled into a hidden spot and something else distracted all of us (probably Charlotte wanting to come inside, followed by giving her some kibble or dry food). 

The green ball had disappeared.  We looked in the corners.  We looked under things.  We looked inside things.  We looked behind things.  No luck.  So we brought out a substitute ball.

Now, the substitute ball brought its own issues - he wanted to chew it instead of retrieve it.  I'll say more about that after I finish with the green one.

So we continued the game, more or less, with the substitute ball.  And eventually we finished.  We looked again for the green ball before we went to bed.  I looked for it again when I got up today.  We played the game with the substitute ball.

Later on, after yet another search, I told Marley to "find it, greenball".  He set off about the house sniffing & looking in all kinds of places.  It was several minutes and I had even lost track of his assignment when he started whining at the space under the phone table.  He'd stick his nose in the small space then pull it out and whine again.  I immediately knew he'd found it.  I got a "grabber" and pulled it out.  It was all the way back to the wall, in a corner under the table.  He found it by nose.

The practice he's been doing to find his treats is paying off.  Most days he gets a "greenie" and a black (charcoal) biscuit that are placed around the house for him to find.  He goes around the rooms where his treats might be (we never put them in the spare bedroom, rarely in the kitchen or dining room) with his nose in the air, circling in on the scent until he finds his treats.  It might be time to start having him discriminate between scents ... might have to think about how to go about doing that.  Perhaps the first step will be to have him bring something in return for a treat, then start having him bring specific items (out of an array), then by scent.  Something for me to think about.

So, back to the substitute "greenball".  When I found that the soft spiky balls fit in the "ChuckIt" I bought a couple of spares.  I'd used an orange one in the ChuckIt outside, and bought a green one and a red one.  We'd been playing with the new green one in the fetching game.  The red one was a backup for either the orange or green one.  The red one has a slightly different texture, softer, and Marley was trying to use it as a chew toy.   He'd even gotten it partially deflated.  We ended the game to indicate these balls are not chew toys.

This morning, before he found the green one, we were playing with the red one.  At one point he had it half deflated, sort of half inside-out.  He dropped it when he heard the air hissing out of it.  When he dropped it, it began to whistle.  He stepped back, looking at it.  He circled it.  He cocked his head.  He sniffed the carpet near it.  Because the hole is tiny, it took a long time for it to re-inflate, so it took quite a while for him to decide it was safe to pick it up.

Once we had the green one back, he got a very nice "high value" treat and we did another round of the fetch game.  He doesn't try to chew the green ball.  I'm not sure he'll want to chew the red one after it sounded off at him, either.

Please, try it out ... please, please

After getting "rope burn" several times when Marley's leash was slipping through my hand as he tried desperately to get to a new person or new dog ... we bought a new one.  This one is a nicer material, less likely to slip and with clips and rings at various places on its length so you can do a number of things with it.

As I was reading the packaging, and checking out the clips and rings, Marley sat in front of me and practically begged to try it out!  I can j-u-s-t buckle one of the clips to one of the rings to go around my waist.  As soon as we were both buckled in it was clear he wanted to do some "loose leash walking" practice.  With no food rewards we walked around the living room, hall & kitchen for a few minutes with him performing almost flawlessly.

In this exercise he is to stay close enough the leash has no tension, preferably just behind my left knee.  If I stop he is to stop and sit just behind my left knee.  This is the position we want when greeting people (long ways to go on that one), to be ready for the next command, or to finish our session.

We're working on getting him to perform like that outside the house (which, this time of year, means outside the fenced yard), and public places.  It's going to take lots and lots of practice.  We also need lots of "volunteers" who can help him learn that he gets "loving" if he sits and nothing if he's too excited.  We can't really do too much of that between the two of us.  Luckily, many people are more than willing to pet him.  Unluckily, most of them are also more than willing to forgive his rowdiness because he's still a puppy.

I'll leave you with a photo taken last night ...