Category Archives: Training

Taste the rainbow.

I do love those dreamy vacation stops in Donna World. It’s such a happy place to hang. Everyone’s so nice and they all have that sweet Scottish lilt to their speech that I find so fascinating to listen to. Nerd is the word here; it’s a title of deep respect. Dogs and cats get along and play under under the rainbow adorned skies. Delicate laced butterflies flit about flowers that I don’t have to remember to water.

And there’s unicorns, y’all.

[sigh]

Ok, shaking that off. I’m back now. In the real world and sitting here looking at Yaxley with less than peaceable kingdom thoughts. I’m working through my noggin that this amazing pup and I have only eight weeks left together. 

Yaxley returns to Canine Companions for Independence on August 18 to matriculate into the Advanced Training program.

First day at the Sword House, Feb 2011

We’ve done a lot, been through a lot, since he bounced into my kitchen in February 2011 as a two month old cotton ball.  Our work is just about done. Really, he’s pretty solid in most of the thirty commands that CCI asks that we stuff into that gorgeous retriever head of his. So what now?

Well, with just two months left, now is a good time to review. Let’s see how close to proficiency we can get with these commands. Some we don’t need to worry about. Yaxley does an automatic Under/Down when we reach our table in a restaurant. Our little pro will actually do it before I can get the command word out.  His eye contact is spot on, giving the impression he’s working on a Vulcan mind meld with you. The basics, Sit, Down, Bed, Kennel, Car, Shake, Stand, Drop, Let’s Go – all good. 

We need to get stronger on Back, which is to walk in reverse. A handy behavior for someone who uses a wheelchair and has the dog facing them. A Back command requires that the dog walk backwards while facing their partner. Nice for maneuvering tight spaces where a chair and the dog can’t be side by side.  Similar is Turn, asking the dog to reverse direction.

Then there’s our nemesis command of Speak. Darn it, for such a vocal puppy at two months old he just refuses to get this one now. Micron has shown him how to Speak on command.  And we use freaky little Jager to demonstrate the Quiet command, which comes out sometimes as please-shut-up-jager.  Our little spotted guard dog, alerting us to all imminent danger whether real or imagined.  But Yaxley has put up a mental block on this one command.

Thanks for letting us know the neighbors came home again, Jager.  Duly noted.

And then there’s that one oh so special thing that only volunteer puppy raisers can provide.

Socialization.

So critical during those young puppy months, this socialization stuff.  The professional trainers at CCI will be focused on the advanced behaviors that an assistance dog needs to know.  By the time the pup reaches them, the fuzzy feller needs to have a comfort level with nouns. You know . . . people, places and things. Nouns. Grammar, not so much. I think they can use double negatives and be ok.

A search through this humble dog blog on the word Yaxley (there’s a word cloud in the column on the right) will net you our Great Noun Adventures. Beaches and camping vacations and little kids and wearing bunny ears and shopping malls and movie theatres and obnoxious cats that you can’t eat and the library and groceries and . . . Stop!, you cry. You’re making me tired.  Yeah, I know, right? We’ve been a couple of  busy critters.

Not my little boy anymore [sniff]. Almost ready for dog college at CCI.

Goodness, what could possibly be left then? I’m thinking proficiency is a good goal. For everything, commands and socialization adventures. 

But let’s set some goals. Y’all will keep me on task, right?  Ok, let’s keep things simple with eight goals to achieve over eight weeks.

1. More socialization. Yaxley needs to be comfortable with entering any place that a person would want to go. We’ll cover our first museum trip in an upcoming post.

2. No more flinching at grocery carts. Enough of this one already, kiddo. Yaxley has never been hit by a grocery cart, but the loud noise when carts bang together makes him jump. He recovers quickly, which is a good sign. We’ll get a few more grocery trips in to reinforce this environment as a safe and pleasant one.

3. Hold an Up.  Front paws on a surface (desk, wall) is Up. He needs to hold this position until told Off. We can do better here.

4. Perform Back without guidance. We introduce this command using a tight space or against a wall on one side. I’d like the see the yeller feller comfortable with this in an open space.

5. No more Chewbacca channeling.  I need the help of co-workers, friends and family on this one. You know who you are. All of you that Yaxley loves so much that he will sing his wookiee love songs for you. While holding no less than three toys in his mouth while he circles your ankles. You know how we measure the depth of his affection by the volume of his greeting? Ok, now I invite you to close your eyes and envision an assistance dog on the job. Is the dog singing, dancing and juggling toys? Right, we’re gonna get serious on this one. I’m counting on you.

6. Make sure commands are solid without the mighty Micron’s assistance.  Sure, Micron knows all this stuff. After all, he went through the same routines plus has three months of advanced training under his collar. I want to spend more one on one time with the Yax Man without the competitive nature of these two influencing things.

7. He will learn to Speak on command. Oh yes, he will. Just once. That’s all I ask, sweetums.

8. More socialization.Yeah, it’s that important.

Well, there ya go. It’s in writing. And posted out here in the blogosphere so it must be true, right? We got us some work left to do. Please do wish us luck, won’t you?

Addendum:

I actually took that butterfly photo yesterday. It seemed to fit right nicely into the topic at hand, so I was glad to have it this morning.  I just looked it up and see that this is a Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly. Common in Ohio, but rare in the wasted landscape that is my flower garden. By the way, did you know that purple coneflowers don’t need much water? I did.

“Do you want butter topping on your popcorn?“

This my 1978 version of “you want fries with that?”  I’m hard at work behind the concession counter at the Salem Mall Cinemas.  My first real job and I’m totally jazzed up about it.  Gettin’ paid by a corporate printed check and everything. We gotcher first run movies that I can see as many times as I want! For free! Mmm, surrounded by the aromas of cola syrup and warm popcorn. Rows upon rows of colorful candy boxes aglow under the fluorescent lights in the glass display case. Minimum wage in 1978? A cool $2.65 an hour. You don’t get this kind of payola babysitting the neighbor’s kid, I gotta tell ya.

This heady buzz actually lasted nearly an hour before I was able to check off this concession job as a solid 8 on the Suck Scale.

A mere few minutes after donning the stylish brown 70’s era polyester uniform, some power hungry jerky usher hands me a rag mop dripping gray water. With an aura of all the authority a part-time usher can manage, he tells me the newest employee gets to clean up after the clogged john in the ladies room. Seeing me blanch at the prospect, I was saved by the smell by a compassionate co-worker who calls his bluff and sends him on his merry usher way. But my relief was short-lived as during concession training, I discover that there are no cash registers. No calculators and not even a scratch pad allowed. All concession sales are to be added in the noggin, the total snack dollar investment shared with the hapless popcorn eating public, then accurate change made. Augh, math! My high school nemesis.

We did not cover this in the interview process.

Which by the way, was not much more than, are you a cute 16-year old female, what’s your social security number and can you start on Friday? Not a single warning about doing math in your head. The mop is starting to look more approachable.

Things just go south from there. The popcorn, as I soon discover, is delivered already popped in huge yellow plastic bags. That’s right, pre-popped from some prior date in time and tossed from a panel truck by a guy with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. And that yummy butter topping is a coronary-to-be packaged in a hefty day-glo orange brick of shortening. We’d thunk the lard loaf in a warmer for about an hour until it melted into an aromatic imposter of slick buttery goodness. So you want a Diet Pepsi with your butter-topped popcorn? Chick, I wanted to say, going diet cola ain’t gonna save ya from that bad decision. 

I’ll tell you another thing. Luke didn’t have abs like that.

But 1978 is coming of age time for my teenage geek selfness.  The cinema is celebrating the one-year anniversary of Star Wars. This is is Episode IV – a New Hope, people. Where it all begins and I could watch it pretty much anytime I wasn’t working concession. Oh yes, do envy me y’all. Over the summer months of 1978 I do believe I clocked in about a thousand and two viewings.  I’m kind of a a fan of the Star Wars franchise, you might say.  The question to ponder, what did geeks talk about  before 1978?

So, with all the authority a concession girl can manage, I will tell you this.  Greedo did not shoot first.

Good or bad, that job only lasted the summer. I moved onto another genre of mall employment at Spencer Gifts, the split personality of mall retail. The red shag carpeted purveyor of adult-themed accessories awkwardly in the same line of sight as the innocent plush toys for kids. Oh, but stories for another day. Like how we dealt with the fella back in the blacklight area interacting with the Farrah poster [shudder].  Ah, memories.

So anyway, my intent is to convince you that I have some experience in the world that is shopping malls. Been around that block, so to speak. I’ve gone from wage slave to shopper of family material goods.  As a mother, I’ve marched that solitary walk of ten paces behind a young teenager (don’t walk with me, Mom) just to observe with an odd mix of horror and pride that my young son is turning the heads of teenage girls. But as I’ve aged grown, malls have changed as well.  We now see stores marketing to the youth of today of pretty princesses, custom-made teddy bears and t-shirt shops suggesting anarchy is truly the way of the future.

Yax processes this new place in his noggin.

And because a shopping mall is just one more place that people enjoy, a service dog should be comfortable in the environment as well. As a CCI puppy raiser, I understand that the pup in my care must have a been there-done that attitude with the all around sensory experience that that is mall shopping.  So our local puppy raising group arranged a training session at the nearby Tuttle Mall. 

We meet in the food court, dogs and puppy raisers, for a quick intro. We count fourteen pups, some as young as six months. But we’re geared up and ready, training capes and gentle leaders on.  Let’s do this thing.

Yaxley, I say, Let’s go.

And off we go, riding in the glass elevators and walking through various and sundry shops. We practice Ups, Unders and appropriate greetings with shoppers. Fourteen dogs march through the indoor kiddie playground to experience the spongy cork flooring under the paws and the distraction of kidlets playing. We emerge from the playground with several kids in tow. Not a problem, let’s put the pups in a Down and allow some quality time to encourage calm greetings with their young fan base.

Little boys smell like french fries

Build-a-Bear has potential doggie distractions with a gazillion stuffed toys watching you with their black button eyes and that freaky machine that has bear gut stuffing tossed about. Yaxley did a fine job keeping focus, while I was distracted by the discovery of tiny Build-a-Bear underwear briefs. Teddy bears wear tidy whities now? With flys?  My, times have changed.

Recovering from the tidy whitie trauma.

A handler swap is always helpful in pup training. Same commands, a different voice giving it.  We’re reminded of the pickle test.  Does the dog react to the command word or the situation?

Think about this . . . I open the car door and say “Yaxley, Car.” He jumps in every time.

How about if I open the car door and say “Yaxley, Pickle” and he jumps in, well, what does that mean?  That he’s reacting to the situation, not the command word. Time to mix things up then. We’d try training using a different car. Or give a series of other behaviors while the car door is open, before giving the Car command.

Same philosophy for changing handlers. How does the dog react to a Sit or Down given by someone not so familiar?

Yax working with another puppy raiser and doing a stellar job (middle of shot).

And yet another handler.  Good dog. Yax.  Do me proud, yellow one.

The dog toy store could be a powerful mind bender for a young and playful pup. Think of the analogy of a kid in a candy shop. But our working dogs managed it all with finesse. And here’s Yaxley being all professional and looking pretty darn comfortable.

[yawn] I gotta Jager squeak toy at home.

Back in the food court, we’re done. Training mission accomplished. Time for a celebratory dog biscuit and good ear ruffle for all.

Well done, yeller feller.