Princess SCARLETT
SCARLETT LEARNING TO BE A DIVA IN NAME ONLY
Scarlett is a 4 month old Cane Corso mix. At just a few months old she was already demonstrating she was learning to be territorial and how to control spaces. She was barking out the window at all pedestrians and she was very reactive on walks!
Her owners have been teaching her to yield space to all family members including the children. She is learning her job is to go to her crate when a visitor knocks or comes inside, and not to bark or rush at them.
Now SCARLETT is learning strangers PAY 💰 in CHICKEN outside too 🍗!!!
We call this calm engagement game BE NICE and we mark with a clicker when SCARLETT is calm and looking at strangers! It is socialization at a distance!
Princess SCARLETT 👑 is agreeable to our training terms and has considered changing her behavior! 😁
Fantastic first walk by her owners AMY and ZACH playing the BE NICE game!
Zach keeps Scarlet from making the lead tight. A tight lead loads her with arousal and makes it harder to calm her.
AMY holds SCARLET to the rules of the game.
Calm looks = Click / Chicken!
Reactive barks and lunges = negative marker followed by body pressure/ spacial pressure/ visual block until SCARLETT calms and we can start positive reinforcement again.
Queen Casey - Part 2
MY MORNING COFFEE ☕️ COMEDY - PART 2
Casey Bojovnik is on a roll this morning 😆. I think I am going to have to start calling her the “Meister Burger Burger Meister”… NO TOYS 🧸 FOR YOU!!!
Rain was chewing on this toy until he caught the icy glare of Queen Casey. He has finally learned to speak “Dog” and catch the little stuff.
Normally I would interrupt this kind of tyranny, but it makes for good comedy to show you what I live with 😂
At least Casey has learned to be a little more judicious in her tyranny as she has aged 😎
Looks like Rain has been taking notes 🤣
Queen Casey
MY MORNING COFFEE COMEDY PART 1
Poor Buster Brown was chewing on one of his favorite chew toys and Casey began giving him the evil eye. So he stopped chewing and just said “Uncle” and laid to the side of it.
Then for some odd reason Casey didn’t move in to take it. Apparently she just didn’t want Buster to be chewing on it!
So I watched and waited and gave Buster permission to resume.
My only mistake was not seeking permission from Queen Casey to release HER subject to one of HER toys. 😂
Poor Buster will never trust me again! 🥺
Philipsburg Dog park
DOG PARK ADVICE…the Book 😂
Well I broke my own personal rule to never go INSIDE a dog park with a client dog (or my own dog! 😳
My 1 yr old German Shepherd RAIN and I were out to help a client dog, a 1 yr old female Beagle named BRANDY, at the Philipsburg Dog Park and it ended up busier than we hoped. We were hoping it would be just us and our 2 dogs.
But I let RAIN experience a few more safe looking dogs. I practiced some recalls under bigger distractions. He did way better than I could have hoped and I got to see what my client needed me to see in her dog BRANDY.
***********************
Here are my PROS for DOG PARKS:
-Fenced in area for safer sniffing and exercise
-Your dog can make regular canine play friends that are hopefully beneficial for your dog learning canine social norms
Here are the CONS for DOG PARKS:
-Risk of disease transmission and worms
- Risk of a inappropriate / untrained dog
coming in that scares or injures your dog
- Risk that owners are on phones or somehow distracted and not paying attention to their dog
- Risk to children or people coming in that may be bitten especially breaking up a dog fight.
- Risk of resource guarding over food, toys, sticks, people, and spaces even between dogs that are otherwise getting along.
- Energy or Arousal is our enemy in dog parks and almost unavoidable. Each additional person and additional dog coming in adds to the energy. One energetic dog like the tan hound mix TUCKER coming in can set off a huge fight with numerous dogs. So cap it at 6 dogs and their owners. If there are more than already in the area then WAIT until some come out.
*********************************
No where in the natural world will individual pack / herd animals gather with strangers from other packs / herds to play together.
In nature at a watering hole there may be more traffic of wildlife for a survival need and there is a lot of risk of conflicts between and within species.
So if you know all of
Yoda
YODA iS A SMARTY!
11 month old YODA is smarter than both of us! He is in training with the hopes of becoming a police K9 someday, but working 2 humans for some chicken today 😂
We Started PLACE with luring and shaping. No cues.
YODA was working the PLACE behavior to control us reinforcing him! If you make the animal think they figured out how to win on their own by solving the puzzle you have less recidivism of the behavior. The dog owns it and can use it to his advantage!
Once he figured it out we named it PLACE and started cueing him verbally and with a hand signal (pointing at PLACE.)
Old K9 saying: “Don’t name it til you like it!”
PLACE is a good targeting behavior that helps give the dog confidence moving away from us. Its useful for needy or anxious dogs to build a reinforcing behavior away from the handler.
Add on: Zach, YODA’s handler / owner, was wearing a body cam that intermittently beeped. This beep was causing alarm in his young dog so we let the beep become a predictor of high value treat (chicken)! By the time we were training PLACE the camera beeped and YODA was desensitized to it!
Buster and Casey were just kids when fell in love 💕. Buster didn’t have a choice in it but he grew to tolerate her well 😂
8 yr old Cattle dog Olive used to be a dog-dog reactive client of mine long ago. Thanks to some gentle dogs who showed her other dogs can be kind little Olive is now passing it on and teaching my young-blood 1 1/2 yr old RAIN some dog norms and dog manners. #WhatGoesAroundComesAround #ThankYouCitaraAndTug❤️ #DogManners #PassItOn
Manners lessons for RAIN
8 yr old Olive came to visit for the week.
She met Rain last August and seemed to remember him through the fence so I just chucked them out together.
1 1/2 yr old Rain is getting better and better at gauging the dog he is dealing with. He is much calmer and careful with Olive than other dogs he has played with.
Rain gets excited and Ts off (placing chin or paws on the shoulders of the other dog as they stand perpendicular) or humps new dogs. These behaviors can get Rain into a fight if he does it to the wrong dog so Im glad Olive is addressing it, otherwise I’d have to. No one can teach a young dog manners better than another calm judicious older dog.
Olive offered Rain her butt to sniff, thats the first time Rain Ts off. Olive lip licked several times, froze up momentarily and when he stopped she did a shake off which showed she wasn’t comfortable with Rain doing that.
The second time Rain Ts off Olive addressed it a bit more clearly with a snark.
Rain’s gonna learn. Lol.
#LifeLessons
#DogManners
#ThanksCitaraAndTug ❤️
#PassItOn
Casey’s Protection Sport training from 2020. We miss what we called “Toughie Girl School.” with our wonderful trainer near Reading, PA 😎
Your canine partner (working or pet) is your RIO (phonetically sounds like REEL or Ree-oh) like in the movie TOP GUN 🍿 when Maverick says Goose was his RIO. His responsibility.
Military Working Dogs (MWD) are always given a title one above their handlers so the handler remembers the importance of his / her canine partner and to trust their dog!
The handler is the “Pilot” or the “Driver”. Our canine is our RIO which stands for RADAR INTERCEPT OFFICER (RIO) 😎
The canine partner is both radar and interceptor so it fits perfectly 😁 and thats why I always called my Police K9 partners and my current dogs my “REEL” / RIO. Their needs come first. If I take care of them they’ll take care of me!
Let them outside first thing, feed them good nutrition and fresh water daily, exercise them, train them, play with them, enrich and challenge their minds.
Then your RIO will bond with you, love you, listen to you, maybe even protect you!
Always take care of your RIO 🐾!!!!
Hope your pets and you are navigating these frigid 🥶 temperatures. Having the pets inside keeps them warm but they sometimes get a bit needy for exercise and attention 😵💫
Do like me. Get yourself a “security” fun police dog 😎 like Casey to keep the ruder young pups at bay!
For the record, that is DEFINITELY NOT a halo 😇 above Rain’s head. Sorry for the glazing on the camera lense. I think Rain licked 👅 it 🤪
#RowdyRain
#CrowdControlCasey
My early morning amusement. Pardon my dirty house. Guess who WINS?
Brains, Brawn or Beauty? 😂
8 month old Ben is a Sheepadoodle. His owners Donnie & Denise are doing an excellent job teaching him PLACE.
PLACE will be BEN’s job to do as guests arrive, or when he is harassing other pets in the home and needs to calm for a moment.
GETTING MY PUPPY FIX 🐾
8 week old female German Shepherd HONEY 🍯 just started a 5 week puppy obedience package!
She is a liver colored GSD and she was having a “growing day” for her first session and she nearly slept through the bulk of it!
She was not interested in training for food today so we switched to motivating her to learn CRATE using toys instead!
The DOG picks the REWARD!
We pick the BEHAVIOR!
Rowdiest Casey- Rain play session to date without muzzle. Im trusting Casey more and more not to hurt Rain. She seems more tolerant in the evenings.
At one point you can hear her snaps audibly and thats a sign her arousal level is AT or near Threshold. As the blood gets pumping and feeds the large muscle groups it robs it from fine motor skills of vision, hearing and dexterity in the mouth.
She ran into her kennel aka “Casey’s lair”at that moment. She was forcing a momentary intermission.
Good play is like a DANCE. One dog chases or tackles the other, then an intermission, then they usually change roles. If play always seems to be one sided with one aggressing and one being prey its not good.
The kennel is Caseys SAFE area. I will stop Rain from going in there so Casey learns I have her back in controlling this energetic big boy.
Im hovering a bit, but its to teach both of them to control their arousal levels and take mini breaks to catch their breath or I will help them make it happen.
Until Casey trusts him 💯 % in all contexts and all arousal levels I must monitor their play. Rain plays ROUGH. I still don’t think Casey will tolerate him on top of her. That might flip her and her short fuse into a fight.
I don’t micromanage every dod-dog play session like this. I just know Casey’s potential to do harm and things can change on a dime with her.
But each day is more pennies in the piggy 🐷 bank of TRUST!
Casey (no more muzzle!!) and Rain helping me with the yard chores. Rain has “STAY IN THE YARD” down pat now!
First day with Casey out of muzzle so I wore them out really good first and then separated Buster out to keep things calmer.
Casey was able to move toys out of the way of my garden tractor since her muzzle was off.
Life is good 🥰
Getting very close to trusting Casey without her muzzle! She was very tolerant when Rain playfully bit her back legs. I am watching for more incidents like that where she acts appropriately in addressing his juveniles hijinks.
