7 posts tagged “behavior”
Huh. It definitely seems longer than three months. Our progress on everything has been great, and we have almost no problems at all... she's happy, healthy, funny, fun, affectionate, playful, sweet, loving, wonderful. The only issue that we need to deal with now - and it's not an easy one - is separation anxiety. We have possibly a Perfect Storm of circumstances that make this a difficult situation. First of all, it's a condition that is apparently not unusual for rescue dogs, and compounding this is the fact that I work from home, and we take her with us almost everywhere, so she hasn't had a chance to become accustomed to spending time without one or both of us... Totally our fault. She's my little shadow, and follows me everywhere, except for once or twice a day when she goes to take a short sunbath in the courtyard, or if she decides that I'm just staying up way too late, and decides to go off to bed by herself. So, this is a thorny problem to deal with, and will make house training seem like cake (which it was, actually).
Complicating matters is that we plan to take a transatlantic trip of a few weeks in the Fall, and we hope to have friends staying here to care for her, and want to make that as painless as possible for both Sky and friends. So. I need to start going out without her for short periods, and gradually lengthening that time, and try to assure her that everything will be okay if she isn't with us every second. Tough one.
I read a very interesting article in Dog Star Daily that argues against training your dog not to growl. In a nutshell, the author's theory is that dogs have a variety of ways to warn of or broadcast fighting/biting intentions and that these signals allow parties to "stand down", and avoid more serious altercations - and thus, training your dog never to growl could be a big mistake, as it might actually encourage attacks without the traditional warning.
I'm just summarizing and paraphrasing very loosely here, so you should definitely go read the whole article. And, in case you are wondering: in terms of teaching your dog not to growl at you when you take away a toy or food, for example, she has a reward strategy to deal with this.
Something to think about. I just discovered Dog Star Daily today, and it seems to have quite a lot of good information.
Yes, we did it. We. Bathed. The. Dog. And all it took was a tub, a hand-held shower head, two people, five towels (two for us, three for her), a bottle of dog shampoo, a jar of peanut butter, and a pig's foot.
For anyone else with desperately bath-shy dogs, this was our technique: For the past few weeks, we've been putting her in the (dry) tub, where I wipe her down with a wet washcloth (which doesn't frighten her at all) and praise her, and then we give her a big-big treat afterwards, and more praise. Then we were going to try it with just a trickle of water running directly into the drain, and maybe try wetting her a tiny bit if she seemed okay... but since I had a fall and injured my foot, I've been limping around, and we ended up missing this step. In fact, today was going to be that step - but since we were already armed with towels and treats, and I could stand fairly well for more than five minutes at a time, we decided that if we could get by with it (putting just a little water on her) and she didn't totally freak out, we would go for broke and try to do a real bath.
So, we started with the water just at a trickle, tepid-warm, running into the drain, while I rubbed her as usual with a damp washcloth. Then we got the washcloth very wet and continued to wash/stroke her this way. Finally, we took the plunge and gave her a gob of peanut butter while simultaneously wetting her down directly with the hand-held shower head. We had a put a towel on the bottom of the tub to give her some traction, and keep her from slipping everywhere, but it wasn't that effective; it bunched up and also kept slipping towards and clogging the drain. Next time, we'll get a rubber mat.
In this way, we managed to get her wetted down, sudsed up, and the shampoo thoroughly massaged in. We left her head for last (in hopes of minimizing the freak-out factor), careful not to get any soap in her eyes, or water inside her ears, since a moist environment there can encourage ear infections - especially in dogs with floppy ears. The next tricky part was turning up the water pressure so we could rinse her off, and this was a rough patch, because in addition to the water itself, we now had the sound of the water, which is a big part of what she hates. So, yes - she began struggling again at this point, and we just mostly had to hold her during the entire rinsing process. (Plus, peanut butter. Thank god for peanut butter.) She didn't like it at all, and really wanted OUT - but she wasn't in a frenzy, and her efforts were partly just-giving-it-a-shot, and partly reluctant submission to the inevitable.
Then we wrapped her in a big towel and took her outside to let her shake it out... but failed to properly close the doors behind us - so she did one quick shake outside, and promptly dashed inside and did a nice big shake in the bedroom. Oy. The pig's foot reward got her back outside where we were able to dab at her with another towel. And viola! She's a clean girl! With a pig's foot.
Anyway, she's all lovely and white (with patches of apricot) now, and managed to forgive us our trespasses pretty much immediately (upon getting her doggy-crack fix - ye olde piggyfoot)... though it did take at least 30 minutes for her to get over her adrenaline rush, and she was none too keen on having her photo taken afterwards, either. I mean enough is enough, right?
It's been great to see Sky become more and more playful day by day. Today she got really funny frisky, running from the living room to the bedroom and around me, inviting me to be silly with her... plus... she "got" the ball. I don't know if she never had toys as a puppy or what, but she pretty much has no idea how to play; she adores beeps and squeaks and little noises like that, but unless I play with her with her squeaky toys, she doesn't quite know what to do with them - she hasn't really understood that she can make them squeak on her own.
The other day I shopped for and found a ball that has a very low "squeak" threshold; it has a lot of give, and it doesn't take much pressure at all to make it squeak, but up to now she still hasn't managed (or more likely, tried) to make it squeak by herself. The routine is, I get the ball and make it squeak, she goes nuts, I throw it, she runs like mad to grab it, then brings it back to her space and tries to guard it. But today when she chomped down on it to bring it back, it squeaked! And she brought it back to the rug and gnawed and chawed and bit - and made it squeak some more! Eureka!
This is also very good because she mostly doesn't get gnawing, either. You might remember that until our friend's dog Branco claimed her chew bone and started chewing it up, she hadn't touched it at all. I don't think she had the slightest idea what it was for or why she should care until she saw him with it.
All these things that we think pretty much happen naturally with puppies seem like new concepts to her. It makes me so curious about her early life... why would anyone get a cute puppy and then not play with it at all or do any kind of puppy stuff like throw ball or give it chew toys or tease it with squeakies? If that's what happened. I don't really get it otherwise; she's quite a good learner - not slow on the uptake at all, but playing and chewing don't seem to be things she is familiar with. But bit by bit we're reclaiming her puppy past. :)
update: hey, she's now learned to bring it back to me when I throw it, to prolong the fun! We're fetching! woohoo!
Since it's a milestone, I'll do a little update on our progress, perils, and problems. First of all, I'll say that it's been a rather important week, since it's the first one since Sky has been with us that didn't involve some sort of uncomfortable or more or less traumatic experience... until this week we've had the initial introduction to the new household (me only), and then the return of my husband from an out of town job (plus a house guest for a couple of days), introduction to taking walks in the city (light version), introduction to taking walks in the city (seriously heavy version), Vet visits, vaccinations, the grooming ordeal... and throughout all this time - trying to sort out potty issues. And a week before she came to us, she was spayed and also had a pregnancy termination, so there have been the hormonal fluctuations, the post surgery effects, and the antibiotics and other medication related to that. A whole lot of stuff for one little doggy to deal with over a single month - not to mention all that she endured before being rescued by stray.gr.
But she's been such an angel and amazed us with her adaptability and disposition. She's a real champ at walking in the city now, and she's rarely fazed by the loud traffic noises that used to terrify her - though helicopters still freak her out. :) She's become much less timid, and is no longer lying down and rolling over (submissive posture) at the drop of a hat, though confusing situations and some people or dogs still elicit this reaction - and I'm very pleased to see her acting quite bouncy and happy-trotting on our walks, as opposed to the much more tentative gait she used to have.
There's no problem with food, she eats happily, but not frantically, which I'm glad to see, and has no trouble with any diarrhea or throwing up, or any digestion difficulties. We still don't have everything perfectly straight on the potty front, but we're pretty damn close. I'm praising her and giving her treats every single time she pees or poops on one of our walks, and that's the only training we're using right now. She's much, much less shy about doing her business now, and we're having a lot fewer peepee accidents (we never really had problems with pooping), so I'm very optimistic. Her fear of peeing has been the main stumbling block, and now that we've had several chances to reward her for this on walks, we're seeing that behavior change.
And, altogether we are just finding that we are a really great fit. She's happy, we're happy. The great thing about getting a rescue dog that's not a puppy is that some behavior is already known. We couldn't have had a barky or yappy dog, because we have upstairs and other nearby neighbors, or an aggressive dog, or one that wants to guard, or chase cars or cats, etc. We also couldn't have handled a dog that needs a great deal of activity, since we don't have that kind of space - and all the information I had from stray.gr indicated that Sky would be perfect for all those necessary restrictions. She's also incredibly responsive and almost always well-behaved. She comes when I call her, she understands "No" and "Stop" and "Come" and "Sit" - all of which, at least in English, I think, she's just learned since we got her. She's mad about smelling every little thing when we go on a walk and sometimes resists moving on, but when I say "come on Sky, let's go" she'll come right along.
From three weeks ago when we first started walking and she was crossing in front of me and behind me, and getting us both tangled up (not to mention just sometimes laying down in the street and refusing to move) to now, when she heels almost perfectly (except for the tantalizing things she has to stop and sniff) and we can take her anywhere - the progress has been pretty amazing. She goes to the local stores with me, she goes out to the outdoor cafes with us and behaves perfectly, we take her shopping with us in crazy downtown traffic, or for walks among the tourist-filled areas around the Acropolis and Plaka. And she's Perfect.
We are also so delighted with her sweet, affectionate nature and just continue to fall more in love with her every day - so it's a very happy three-week report from the three of us. :)
It's now been seven days since Sky came into our lives, so I'll update our progress and setbacks so far.
Paging Dr. Freud! In terms of personality, she's quiet (we've only heard her bark twice), calm, often rather timid, loving, adores attention and affection, but is not at all demanding. For the most part, she likes to stay beside me, wherever I am. There are some characteristics that are not possible to accurately decipher at the moment. For
Potty, Potty, Potty - She's not quite there. We're pretty sure she's only gone in a yard before now, and we have no yard, so it's taken a bit of time to get her used to doing business on walks. She wouldn't pee or poop for nearly 24 hours after she first arrived, despite walks every hour or two. Once she did, there's not been any trouble with pooping (though sometimes it takes a while, but we can work on that), but she's terribly pee-shy. She just seems not to want to pee at all, though she's gone a few times on our walks, and two or three times in the house. I strongly suspect that because she was punished and poorly trained (possibly even traumatized) at some point in the past, instead of simply learning not to pee in a certain place (inside), she instead learned that peeing is bad... and just tries as hard as she can not to pee at all. I spent a couple of days tracking her every move so that when she started to pee I could take her outside for it, then reward her for it - but she would never start. As soon as she seemed restless and pacing, I would take her out - but she wouldn't wee. I would take her out after she drank water. I would take her out and beg her to wee when she had gone the entire day without peeing. I would keep her confined to a very small area of the house so I could see everything she did, in case she started to go. I watched and watched.
As of today, this stops. I'm pretty sure that she's had a horrible experience (or experiences) with peeing, and me trying to "catch her in the act" so that I can put her out and teach her where to go is actually just adding to the whole pee-stress thing. I'm going to calmly reward and praise her when she pees on a walk. If I do happen to see her start to go inside, I'll take her outside at that moment if I can, and reward her if she finishes there. I've put down some paper by the back door in case she's ever been paper trained, and if she goes there, I will reward her if I see her, and progressively move the paper outside (our door to the terrace is always open in warm weather). But no more stressing on my end, which I'm sure is just adding to the pre-existing stress on her end. She wants to do whatever makes me happy, so this will be resolved, and keeping everything about it calm and tension-free is my goal now.
Doctor-Doctor! Sky has had two visits to the Vet. The first was not a real appointment, we just went to get a collar against ticks, mosquitoes, etc. and the second was her first checkup. According to her history, she hasn't had a rabies vaccine, which seems to me terribly unlikely... But I don't know how things work in Greece. Still. What? We have an appointment Thursday for that, but I'm going to call her foster mom before then to make sure. Isn't this a completely fundamental vaccine? Anyway. Our Vet thinks Sky is part Siberian Husky. She tried to check with an eye
Playgirl? Not so much. So far she's shown almost no interest in toys at all. She recognizes that the ball is hers, because I've noticed that she will get it and put it in her bed area, but she's not interested in playing with it, with or without my participation. She has a chew toy that she totally ignores, and a chew bone thing that she likewise ignores. She seems to have no chew urge, which is good for my slippers, but maybe not so good for her teeth. I'm going to see if I can beg a solid beef bone from the butcher, and see what she thinks about that. She did get incredibly frisky one evening when we took her with us to common courtyard area downstairs, otherwise I would worry that she's too laconic. I'm curious to see if the desire to play comes out as she really settles into the new environment and becomes more confident about her situation.
Summary: Well, I've actually left a ton of stuff out, but the summary is that she's happy, she's learning some things lightning fast, and some other things might be remainder problems - but she seems really happy, and I know we are really happy. She's healthy, loving and anxious to please... and you can't ask for more than that. Happy one-week anniversary, Sky!
Long as you love me, it's all right...
An interesting training article on "shaping" from the Whole Dog Journal: “shaping by successive approximations,” simply means breaking down a
behavior into tiny increments, and reinforcing the dog at each
incremental step until you’ve achieved the full behavior.
"The shaping process works because behavior is variable. In any series of repetitions of a behavior, your dog will give you variations in the manner that the behavior is performed – faster/slower, bigger/smaller, higher/lower, harder/softer, etc. If you wanted to shape your dog for a perfect obedience competition sit – straight, fast, and in proper heel position — you’d break the behavior known as “Sit” into those three components and work on them one at a time, capitalizing on the variability of your dog’s behavior for each one."
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