December 19, 2017

Cookie Jar Games

Week 1

My restless dogs.  In September, Dawson ran into me while running in an Open Jumpers with Weaves course.  I ended up with a broken bone in my right ankle; Dawson was fine.  Approximately ten weeks of recovery followed (my dogs’ interpretation? Approximately ten weeks of BORING followed.).  I’m still not back to running but I do miss working with my boys as much as they miss having something to do.  One of my teachers suggested doing an online Julie Daniels’ course that teaches the dogs delayed gratification.  The course is called, “Cookie Jar Games” and is six weeks long.

I’m going to document my journey through this course and it should be pretty interesting because currently Grady will focus on a treat until the end of time which can be a little annoying if you want him to focus on something else in order to get the treat.  Dawson gets very impatient and very excited all at the same time (and very barky which sometimes makes me very barky too!).

This week we worked on several fun exercises.  One of the exercises involved presenting both hands to the dog, a treat in one hand, the other hand treat-less.  The goal? To have the dog consistently focus on the treat-less hand in order to get the treat.  You’ll see that this was challenging for my dogs because they’ve been taught to simply leave the treat hand alone and that will get them the treat (a version of It’s Your Choice).  I added the clicker after the first session which seemed to help.  Here’s Grady doing the exercise and he’s still figuring out what to do.

Given that for the first five years of his life, he was trained to simply back off the food hand to get the treat, I think he’s doing okay.  Now here’s Dawson who catches on a little faster but he’s also had fewer repetitions backing off  to get the treat than Grady.

Dawson gets barky which tends to be the norm for him whenever he gets excited, impatient or frustrated.  I like that he does his barking, then gets back to figuring out the game.  Good boy!

Once, when one of my dogs behaved in such a manner that I didn’t recognize him (of course it was in front of a group of people), my teacher commented, “Dogs have a sense of humor.”  I wasn’t sure if that explained my dog’s unexpected behavior or if he decided I needed to be humbled.  Can you really control that which doesn’t want to be controlled? Apparently not.  And what happens when you try? You get to eat humble pie.  Not funny.

I’ve been taking agility lessons from a well respected teacher and I was thinking about the first time I took my dogs to work with her.  It wasn’t one of my proudest moments.  Let’s just say Grady and Dawson decided to display their mischievous side and double team me in the process.  Which is strange because Grady is very close to perfect so his behavior surprised me.  Dawson, well, Dawson still pays a visit to “Crazy Land” whenever he gets really excited about something.  Some weeks he visits “Crazy Land” three or four times.  It’s exhausting!

Here’s what I recall about those few hours. (To best capture the spirit of the story, please imagine circus music playing in the background.)

It was a long drive to our lesson so the dogs were well rested by the time we arrived. Since the weather was unusually cool, each dog was left in the van while the other took his turn.  I started with Dawson and left Grady in his seatbelt harness in the front seat.  A few minutes into Dawson’s turn, the teacher says, “There’s a dog out there,” and there’s Grady standing at the closed door of the barn, whining.  I’ve no idea how he got out of his harness. I took him back to the van and put him in Dawson’s crate.  Grady wasn’t pleased with being crated but he left me no choice.  I proceeded with Dawson’s lesson while giving Grady time to think about how unfair life is.

After Dawson’s turn, I switched dogs and put Dawson in his crate with a bully stick to chew.  Mind you, Dawson’s mind is toast and he’s tired – he had worked hard.  And he loves bully sticks.  I take Grady to the barn and hear very little from Dawson which makes me believe the bully stick worked to keep him occupied (hooray for me!).  There are even times I forget he’s out there he’s so quiet.

After Grady’s turn, the teacher walks out to the van with me and I put Grady in his harness and hook him in the seat.  The teacher and I chat for a bit and then we walk into the barn for her to show me something.  A few minutes later she says, “The dog’s out again,” and there’s Grady walking in the barn like he owns the place (are you kidding me?). I escort Grady to the van, tighten up his harness and hook him back in his seat.  Afterward, I explain to the teacher why Dawson is crated and show her where Dawson chewed the seatbelt during the only time I used a dog approved seatbelt harness on him (chewed in less than 10 minutes). I say these words which quickly come back to haunt me, “Dawson’s a good boy, not much of a chewer now.”  Then I notice on the van floor a bungee cord chewed in half that had been attached to Dawson’s crate.  Was the bully stick chewed on?  NOPE.  Not even a tooth mark.  How Dawson was able to get a hold of the bungee cord still eludes me.

“They’re not always like this.” I said weakly, apologetically.  The teacher simply smiled.

I’ve never liked the taste of humble pie.