fear and the pup.

I am skeptical of you and all you stand for.

Lumen is, through genetics, I suspect, naturally cautious of things.
I made a real point with her as a young pup to expose her to as much as I could- all people, lots of places, lots of things. I took her to an agility trial near the airport, an hour and some away from our house, so that she could experience the trial and the planes.

On Saturday we were in the same area and a plane flew overhead and she cowered, looked up, and started to do her run-away-run-away! dance.

I suspect she's in the middle of her next fear period, and I also suspect she will continue to be hard work in terms of getting her to be 'ok' of big monsters (trams, planes, trucks, trains)... 

That being said, my well-socialised, people-loving dog fights this massive internal battle with herself every time we come across a man while out on a walk. I see her thought-process very clearly:
OOO!! Person!!!
Wait.... scary....?!
But it's a person! I love people!!!
But he's tall and large, and has a deep voice.... BE AFRAID NOW!!!
But... but... Be my friend Mr. Person!?!?!
STRANGER DANGER! STRANGER DANGER!!!!!

Which manifests itself in bouts of over-the-top tail and body wagging in her traditional wormy-bent-in-half kind of way, while at the same time, staying far enough away that the person can't touch her and she can't sniff them. Oh, puppy.

Similarly, the other day there was a stick stuck into a log on the ground.
SCARY!
We went up and investigated, and it was ok.

Safety tape to mark out where some construction had gone on?
SCARY!
Oh, it's just fluttering in the breeze. 

Music coming through the speakers unexpectedly or sounding weird? (and trust me, I socialised her to music, I'm sure!)
SCARY!!

You get the idea.
I've written before about our treat-and-retreat game but then there comes a time like Saturday when a plane will fly overhead.
How the hell does one treat and retreat an aeroplane??

I've read so much about how if you feed your dog or 'help them' by soothing them when they're scared that it reinforces that they should be scared... Then I found this website and I loved what she said about helping your dog: It is ok to comfort your dog when it is afraid. You are not telling your dog it’s ok to be afraid. You are holding their hand and helping them jump off the high diving board. Your dog is afraid and doing what it has learned to do to protect itself. You are going to show your dog that it doesn’t need to worry... everything will be better than alright.

Right now, if there's a scary thing- like, a really scary thing, like a tram, Lumen will want to run far, far away. I need to turn that around- to look to me for reassurance. That when planes fly overhead, it's ok to be anxious but guess what- food is coming!! Planes=food. Scary things=games, food, praise. 
I don't think dogs have the capacity to be afraid in order to get more treats. I think if they're afraid, they need tools to help them work through that fear - if that's treating and retreating, great, but in situations when that can't or won't work (planes), she needs other ways to feel 'good' and 'ok', and if that's me shovelling food into her face when a plane flies overhead, that's what I'm going to do.
Plane=food, not fear=food. 

Now to ride out the rest of this fear period- at least, that's what I'm hoping it is...!

photo(s) of the week: swim!

photo of the week: adventure dog

Taken in the afternoon light at the beach.

a compilation of sits...

Click it to see full size..! (This is what happens when the Husband is not home and I have some spare time on my hands... Does this count as 'relaxing'?... Probably not.)

picture of the week: launch & chomp

picture of the week: profile

tunnel mad

Love those ears...

As part of our foundation training, I've gotten out my el-cheapo $37 tunnel, set it up straight, and have been working on drive and speed with Lu, then throwing in a little cik/cap at the ends.

She certainly runs through and considering this is the 2nd session we've done it, I can already see her driving to the tunnel more. The first session she'd do it once, wrap, and then run alongside the tunnel. I also did a couple of wrap & chase around the bollard but she wasn't really into those today. I don't yet have a lot of drive into a wrap from a standstill so I need to work on that I suppose. All questions I can pose once the Foundations course starts in April. In the meantime I'm getting extra practise in, which is great.

I think she's going to be a great little dog to run - she seems to really enjoy the game, mostly. It's been so hot here, and even this morning when we were filming the video it was already creeping up to 27 degrees, hot and humid. I make sure she has a couple of swims as this seems to renew her energy but she was still pretty lackluster compared to normal - bring back the cool weather and my fast, driven, energetic dog! At least if she'll run in this heat, she'll run in the cool.

I think I'll keep working with the straight tunnel for a while, and using it to really get her racing to, and looking for the cik/cap or the Go! at the end... then I might start curving it and see if I get the same drive forward into the tunnel as I've been getting.

I also want to work on, if you do a trick your reward is play/a toy, to really solidify that idea so she knows when we play out here, that that's the reward. Also going to keep working on collar resistance- ST said in a reply to a comment I left on her blog that she just needs to resist, not necessarily pull forward. Problem is sometimes she'll just stand there and look at the toy bouncing around, and if I pull back, she goes backwards. In the video you'll see she's much more interested, even getting lifted up. Hey, if that's what she wants to do, we can do that.

restrain yourself

I began watching the Foundations Fun DVD last night from Silvia Trkman. She suggests the first thing you need is a really good restraint, to get the dog to drive forward, first to a toy being waved in the dog's face, then to a rolling ball, then to a stationary toy... Eventually this translates to driving forward through the tunnel, getting extra speed, etc. 

Well... I started working on this more with Lumen last night. I figured she already had a good 'ready' response, knowing something was about to happen, but hadn't done a lot of restraining her. 

For context- it's been about 30-degrees more or less for the last month or more, with one day dropping down to mid-twenties. So... it's hot. It's been hot for a long time. We're all sick of the heat. Our house is hot. Playing with her makes us both hot... so, it's probably fair enough that she isn't that into the game right now because we're all too hot...

But... Now, being the obsessive paranoid that I am, I'm worried that I've kind of trained her out of 'pulling' to get what she wants... and now I have to go against that training to try and get her to pull in order to get to a toy... And she's interested, and she wants it, but she just watches it... and she'll pounce on it when I let her go but she won't pull back and get crazy excited... In fact, I still don't know what the 'thing' is that makes her super excited... maybe there isn't a one thing, I don't know. 

So... I'll keep trying, and when it gets cooler maybe I'll have more luck. 

tricky tricks

A prize-winning trick at the Lost Dog's Home Petfest.

I thought it might be fun if I made a list of all Lumen's tricks, because some of them are hilarious, and it would be good to know what we need to work on, and it would be fun to take photos of them and have like, a photo dictionary of tricks.
Of course, being only 6 months old, these aren't perfect, and wouldn't necessarily be performed in high-stress, high-tiredness situations, but I can usually get them to happen if I want.
So...

The basics

Sit
Drop
Stand (not great at this one)
Stay
Stand for exam
Shake (both paws)
Wave/Right (wave is the left paw, right is.. the right paw)
High-5.
Come
Fetch

A bit tricker
Roll over/Play dead
'Nose' (Paw on nose while on back)
'Beetle' (Legs straight up in the air while on back)
Sit pretty
Stand up
Stand on feet and walk forwards and backwards
Pray (front feet on arm, head down)
Back up
'Bang' (Roll over dramatically from a sit)
Scratch (Hind leg scratch behind ear)
Bow
Weave through legs
Go around legs
Cik/cap around an object
Nose touch
Paw targets
Stretch (lay on stomach and 'superman' front and back legs)
Frog (lay on stomach with back-legs out at sides like frog legs)
Close drawers
Push a skateboard

Complicated
Handstand (against hand, wall or upright thing)
Lift one or other rear leg.
Flip to either side.
Heel stuck to side.
Reverse figure-8
Lift both legs (at the moment up on a cushion or whatever)
Lift leg on someone (hahaha)
Get in a suitcase
Take (object) and put in box.
4 legs in a bowl
4 legs standing on pods.
Feet in shoes (progress to shuffling forward)
Kiss (meant to be a lick on the chin but ends up being a punch on the chin with her nose)
Leave it


Working on...
Chase tail
'Itchy' (scratch tummy with back leg while standing)
...Um.. we'll call this, 'scratch and bite' (laying down, scratches ear with back leg while biting her tail)
Lick lips
Cross paws
Sneeze on command
Snorkle on command
Yawn on command
Dog cavaletties (walk in boxes without demolishing them)
"Fleas!" (Sit and scratch behind ear)
Don't chase cats.


Eventually...
Wrap up in blanket
Dive into blanket
Shame/hide (hide nose under paw)
Hold it (hold an object in mouth)
Put one bowl into another bowl.
Cross-paw walking
Sit pretty to stand up back to sit pretty
Hold on to paw/toy/pole with front legs.
Hold your front leg in mouth.
Speak (maybe... she just gets a little enthusiastic about this one and doesn't do anything else if I click it)
Maybe 'beg' with paws down instead of in the air.