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")

Blog the Change, April 15, 2012

Well, I daresay my Blog the Change platform is the same as it was back in January.  Train your dog! Your life, and hers, will be better.

I don't know a lot of dog owners, at least not to talk to at length. I try to "spread the gospel" anyway, as it were. One library patron got a puppy a few months back, and lately has come in describing how the puppy is chewing everything up. Oh, we've dealt with that, haven't we? I recommended feeding her only out of Kongs, which would contain her regular meals but mixed with a bit of yogurt and freezing, to use up that mental energy. Apparently the puppy does well in other realms, with sitting nicely for her meals, and retrieving. 

One of my friends, when visiting somebody else, taught the dog in that household "touch". Another friend's dog knows "roll over", which Elka does not, by the by. Any time Elka is on her back, it is on her own terms, and it's typically on a couch and on an object of her vigorous affection.

"Touch" and "roll over" might seem like silly tricks. "Touch", however, can lead to other things, like closing doors or cabinets, or send aways in agility and other dog sports."Roll over" might be pure fun, but you all know that I think trick training is valuable in and of itself. When you do trick training, you're still spending time with your dog and bonding, and working together. When Elka and I trick train, it's also typically when I bust the clicker out, and she's overjoyed to see that happens. The clicker means treats, and Elka loves treats. She also kind of likes getting something right, which is nice. 

Elka's "drop it" is still quite nice. She had a piece of candy in her mouth that somebody had let fall on the floor, unnoticed (a Sour Patch Kid). My fiance said "drop it", and she did immediately. I'm so very proud of that in her.

Dogs that you spend time with aren't bored. Dogs that you train don't tend to get cast aside and end up in shelters. Rescue, maybe, because sometimes home situations occur that are unavoidable. I think it was in Playtraining Your Dog that Patricia Gail Burnham said something about how people will sell their conformation champions, but asking somebody to sell their titled Utility Dog? No way, José. Granted, there's also a degree of training that goes into conformation dogs, and I don't know that owners give them up that easily either, but every owner is different, and competitors may be in it for different things, to be sure.