Friday, December 14, 2012

New Dog, New Management, Frustrating Times

We adopted a new dog. Gus, a black-brown mutt-dog of unknown origin. He's as sweet as can be, but three medium sized dogs in a small sized house is a lot.

Zen is a pacer, Rumor is a guarder. Until now we have just managed them, or ignored the bad behavior with no real ill effects. Now I'm on a mission. I may fizzle out because I think these dogs have more willpower than I do, but I want to try. I dream of a life with dogs just lounging around on the floor. hah.

Last night I tried for the first time to reward "calm" in Zen. I basically layed on the floor for 30 minutes and ignored all his attempts to get me to give him treats. He whined, he paced, he ignored me, he layed down "at the ready". We got some good behavior in there, which was rewarded, which sent him into another few minutes of trying to figure out what he did to earn the treat. This will be a long, trying journey, but it will make him a better pet in the long run. If it doesn't kill me first.

I figure, if I document this it might keep me interested, at least it'll keep me honest. Heck, through my trials and tribulations I may help someone else.

My goal is to do one calming session per day. I'll be going back through all of my reactive dog books to get some tips and tricks that may be beneficial, but most of this will be winging it. Both Rumor and Zen have a "mat" behaviour as described in Leslie McDevitt's book "Control Unleashed". Our mat behavious is too demanding for me at this point. They are not relaxing on the mat. So I'm going to try getting a relax without the mat, and slowly transferring it.

Going to go do session one for the day. Depending on how long/boring the video is I may post a little.

g13

Gus, 12-11-12

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