The biggest lesson I learned from Lilly this week is that you can’t assume any behavior is rock-solid on every single day. It’s all too easy to get complacent or to take our brilliant dogs for granted. We cut back on treats. We verbally fuss on them less. We assume that they are the same minute to minute, day to day. And, that’s simply not the case.
As you may recall, I’m doing a detailed Relaxation Protocol with Lilly. My skepticism continues, but I suspect it has mostly to do with my own potential misunderstanding of the outcome I should expect. I got the impression that Lilly should get progressively more relaxed as the protocol work continued. That is oh SO not the case, so far.
We’ve hit a plateau.
Lilly is more relaxed when we do the protocol than when we started Nov 1, but she’s been at the same level of mellowness since about Nov 6. Today is Nov 30. It’s not a bad place to be — She lays down, face and hips relaxed. And, she doesn’t budge. She doesn’t seem to anticipate anything I do or think that I expect anything from her, but she does watch my every move.
Yet, I began thinking it wasn’t working, and I began wondering if I should even continue.
All this begs the question … Is there a limit to how relaxed a specific dog (especially and intense border collie) can get?
For Lilly, I’m beginning to think so. If I accept that, then I can probably keep doing the protocol without feeling like I’m faking it. In other words, I can keep the faith, the illusion, that it’s helping. That I really am training a relaxed/calm state … much like I would a trick or other very physical behavior.
And, yet, just as I assumed we’d reached a steady state, Lilly suffered a couple tough nights with the protocol. It’s not so much the doorbell, as I’d feared, as me walking out of sight through the front door. When we did the protocol in my office, she didn’t give a hoot about me leaving the room and closing the door — even when I knocked on the door or rang a pseudo doorbell.
Keep in mind that our doorbell never rings. Because we live on a biggish piece of land, which is completely fenced and behind a locked gate (and watched every minute by both dogs), people never get close to the house without us knowing. So, Lilly probably doesn’t have the same doorbell experience as most dogs.
But, the front door is a whole other story. What’s interesting to me is that the first time I did it, Lilly was PERFECT. Didn’t budge, didn’t seem worried.
Then, when the protocol had me do it again and again, we ran into trouble. It took a half dozen tries before she would stay put (if not relax). It’s like the first time was no big deal, but then she got to thinking about it and got worried.
The key? My voice. I’d stopped quietly praising her all the time because she was doing so well with the protocol. At the end of each piece, I just say “gooood girrrl” and give her a treat. If she looks particularly happy, I use our marker word “yes.”
Once I began constant, quiet narrative about her brilliance, she stayed put. But, it was hard — for us both.
The second doorbell night the pattern repeated. I assumed she’d be OK since we worked through it the night before, but no go. She popped up, and popped up, and popped up. So, I tried a different transition, where I let her see me through the storm door and kept up the praising chatter. That helped, I think.
We have a few more days on this second, 15-day round in the protocol. We’ll see how it goes. I may or may not continue after that.
I don’t mind working hard on this, but I do need to see some visible results to keep me from feeling like I’m wasting my time. As much as the popping up frustrated me, I made me realize that there is work to be done … even when the plateau looks like a boring, silly status quo.
Here’s my big revelation. Early on when I tried to build confidence in Lilly, I believed that confidence meant active and revved up. Now, my goal seems to be this: A confident Lilly is calm and quiet, but no less tuned into what I ask.
In the coming weeks, Lilly’s biofeedback training will be put to the test. Our trainer has decided to move the Sunday “pet” obedience, drop-in class to a different location each week — stores, parks, hiking trails, etc.
It could either be a huge boon to Lilly’s confidence to be able to work, no matter where we go. Or, it could be a recipe for a big set-back because it doesn’t look or feel like the class she’s grown accustomed to.
Only time will tell.
Have a great weekend. Thanks, as always, for visiting.
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