This is Cassidy. I don’t know what her previously life was like because she was dumped and left behind, scared and confused. I’ve been fostering her for almost a week and I’ve seen a big improvement. In such a short amount of time! She’s doing great with my dogs and cats and likes having a regular routine. She’s available for adoption through @hoodriveradoptadog.
My friend Zenon available for adoption through @homeatlasthumanesociety
Oh Mr. Cuva. He’s some kind of Newfie mix that came to the shelter in June and he is breaking down in the stressful environment.
I put him on a strict behavior plan for the past 3 ish weeks and we’ve seen a huge improvement in his reactivity, stress and all over wellbeing. Of course it’s still not where I’d like it, but I’m happy with his progress thus far. Now if we could just get him a home who will continue training, exercise and rest!
He enjoys playing you-can’t-catch-me and we’re working on a cooperative game of fetch with the Two Toy protocol.
Say hi! 👋🏻
Colin LOVES kids! Children can get easily overwhelmed by a big, happy dog. Therefore, it’s my job as a handler to mediate their interactions.
I first taught Colin to target my hand on cue and then transferred the cue to target somebody else’s hand.
We worked on saying hi to a calm adult before saying hi to a calm kid.
It always helps to have a dog savvy kid to help out!
We took a little field trip today to Mosier Market. Worked on proofing down on the cot with the distractions of people walking by and saying hi. Colin rocked it!
I will forever reward my dogs for nail trims! It’s an “expensive” behavior that often comes with a lot of negative feelings.
Revel thinks this is the best game ever! She would probably be fine without treats as she’s more rewarded by physical contact, but I will continue to reward all the goils for nail trims forever.
I’ve started teaching loose leash walking with camper Colin. This is a HARD behavior for dogs! Humans see the world with their eyes, tend to walk slow and walk in a straight line. While dogs follow their nose and move at a faster pace.
That’s why I pair sniffaris with loose leash walking. One fulfills the dog’s need to move freely and the other is a trained behavior to make the human’s life easier.
Pero Spooks offering a small distraction 👀 Colin wasn’t falling for it!
One of the things we worked with Colin on last week was “touch.” We will continue to work on this throughout his stay here at the Aligned Canines’ Ranch. Touch is a great foundation behavior to teach because we can use it as a recall or greeting que later in training.
I did not plan to involve a toy in this lesson but DDs wanted to 😅
We haven’t done much work switching between toy and food rewards and she’s a little sticky going back to food from toy because she spikes in arousal and overstimulation.
This is something I’d like to work on more
DDs is queen of “hold” in this house 👑 now that we have a couple seconds of duration, I’ve started mixing up the items to different textures: rope toy, cardboard tube and a wooden dowel.
Next steps are commitment to the hold and no chomping!
Note to self: ONE piece of criteria at a time!
1️⃣ sustained nose position. She has this down and will crane her neck for the gods. Not ideal
2️⃣ now I’m focusing on a weight shift to her back end. This takes a lot of muscles she doesn’t have yet. So we’re taking this slow.
3️⃣ next up will be head position without the hand!
Each component needs to be worked on alone and then brought together. I’m happy with how our heel is turning out even though it’s taking us a while
I run SPOTICUS, the robot vacuum, several times a week. The only problem is that the goils’ toys are spread from hell to breakfast so I employ Tesla to clean them up!
I’ve added the cue “clean up your toys” because she already knows the word “toy” and I’m hoping to fade that out down the line and just say “clean up”.
With more success I will add toys further from the box or leave them organically placed and I will move further from the box!
Revel’s favorite alley find
Dusted off the ol’ treadmill today because it’s been a storage shelf for the last 2 months 😅 anyone else guilty of this?
