Miscues (or Missed Cues?)

The other night, Elka asked to go out, so I sent her to the back door. We have a routine, she sits and waits, and I either snap the leash on and have her wait some more, or I let her blast out the back door. I thought maybe I'd seen a deer or something out back, so I wanted her to wait after the leash was on. Typically, we hold up a finger, like "wait a minute", for signal purposes. I held out my palm instead.

(just a picture of Elka sitting, not from "The event")

Paws up!

Two years ago (!) I had my Command Clinic: Pawmania post, wherein I listed the paw tricks Elka had, such as "give me your paw", "high five", "pattycake", and "Testify!"  Since then, I've added one more, or am in the process of.

See, I can hold my arm out as though to receive a falcon in flight and tell Elka "paws" and she'll put her paws on that arm. I'm expanding that cue, so that she'll put her paws on the object I'm indicating, rather than the arm I indicate with (so, if I use my left arm to indicate, rather than my right, she puts her paws on the object, not my arm. This required a few trials [I have a fading scratch on my bicep], but she's getting it.)

Doggie-Vous Francais?

One day last week, I saw on some news site or other, that there was a proposal to make sure all dogs in Montreal understood cues in both English and French. The notion would be that since in that part of Canada, lots of folks speak French, there shouldn't be linguistic barriers if you were interacting with stranger-dogs and stranger-people. Yearly testing to make sure owners were complying, etc. The thought of legislated language requirements in dog training makes me suffer ennui.

Of course, it was evidently a spoof. But that doesn't stop it from being an interesting thought. Does your dog understand more than one spoken human language? How is your dog doing with just English?

Command Clinic: Pawmania!

Elka uses her paws a lot.  I don't know if it's a her thing, or a Doberman thing (Doberman owners, feel free to chime in!), but it's a behavioral quirk that I've been inclined to cash in on.  Elka will use her paws to hold a Kong (or her Monster Mouth) still to get what's inside.

She will use her paws to fish under the coffee table or couch (often unsuccessfully) for a toy that's bounced there.  And because she would paw at us so much, I gave a bunch of those behaviors names, and now she'll do them on cue and not every time she's playing or wants attention.