Command Clinic: Look at That

All right, all right. "Look at that" isn't really a command. I've heard it described as a game, which I suppose is sort of it.

"Look at that" is something you may have heard of if you're interested in clicker training and positive methods of training. It's in the book Control Unleashed, by Leslie McDevitt. It's sort of what I've done when working with Elka in respect to other dogs. At absolute perfection, I want her to just be able to ignore other dogs. At worst, I want her to be able to be calm around them. Lofty goals, right? Shoot for the stars!

The Funny Thing About Counter Conditioning

There are a few things I've worked on with Elka on our walks.

First all, the Holy Grail of walking a dog, especially a big one: loose leash walking. I'm happy to say that, combined with the clicker, repetition and improved consistency (I've never said I was perfect; I just play it on the Internet), Elka walks loose leash very well. I still Heel her on my right. We're also working on the left, for which I use the cue "Fuss", which is German for "heel", so we can act all fancy.

We've also worked on reactions to two persistently present things: barking dogs, and machinery, be it from construction or from yard work.

Dog Manners: the barking edition

Hey, you know what really bugs me?

Walking down a street and having no fewer than six dogs bark uncontrollably the entire time I'm on their stretch of sidewalk.

Do you know who I blame for this?

The owners.

I continue walking down that street, despite my annoyance, because I'm using those horrible animals to train Elka to behave calmly and look to me for guidance, regardless of the situation.  I talk her through as we walk by, and I assure you I keep my language clean, but what I say is not complimentary to those dog owners.

The Social Question

Elka is a friendly dog.  She loves kids, and is very gentle with them, of her own choosing. She loves adults, and is a little less restrained.  I think she thinks people of a certain size should be able to hold their own.  The hole in her socialization is she doesn't know any dogs, and only rarely encounters cats.

So, still basically friendly, Elka will do her hesitant and clumsy best to figure out what best is confronting her. Unfortunately, most of the dogs we meet are under twenty pounds, which appears to be the cutoff for whether one trains one's dog.  So we're concentrating on walking calmly past other dogs (command "On by", cribbed from dog mushers), since their owners don't appear interested in controlling them.

Also unfortunately, cats don't tend to like dogs.  Cats are fascinating to Elka.  There's one that comes on our porch, a detail that she doesn't like while inside.  There's one that sits on its own porch when we take our walks, and she wants to shove her big pointy head in that cat's face to say hello, tail wiggling.  We use "on by" for that one, too, as you can imagine cats are not happy with that development.