So far, it’s been a darn-cold winter around here. We’re not getting hammered with snow, like the mountain areas on the other side of the Continental Divide, but it’s been windy and c-o-l-d. I must be losing my tough, mountain girl barrier that usually protects me enough to go outside and play with the pups a few times a day. There was, however, one day of tolerable temps, so I performed an experiment with Lilly on our walk. …
We used our one remaining group class (advanced pet dog obedience) from a punch card purchased over the summer for an outing on New Year’s Eve. Typically, we pay $90 for 6 classes, and get one free. So, that comes to $12.86 per class instead of the $15 per class cash rate. To keep our training accounting tidy, I wanted to use up our last class I’d already purchased. Lucky for us that the weather was decent and the location was a spot where Lilly sometimes does well. Plus, the usual Wednesday classes are typically smaller than the Sunday classes …
Due to weather constraints and limited availability of dogs as training partners, much of Lilly’s work is being done in public. In a typical week, I only go to town once, so I’ve begun (again) taking Lilly with me when I run errands. We, then, take a walk on a popular trail and sometimes through downtown Golden as our training ground and as her reward for tagging along. We often have runners pass us or come up from behind. The same with bikes. We also see a fair number of dogs (both on and off leash) and many …
Until last week, Lilly and I had not gone to a group class since June 22. That’s 5 long months of slogging through our behavior modification work alone. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, however, I had major turkey on the brain, so we braved the drive to Boulder and joined some long-time compatriots for a group class/hike. Here’s how it went. …
Last week, I finally got brave enough to email neighbors/friends to ask them to play the “stranger” in Lilly’s people desensitization work. As I’ve mentioned before, this is particularly tough due to our somewhat remote location. Of the 16 people I asked, 4 people volunteered and even scheduled an encounter right away. So, first of all, our most sincere THANKS to Sheila, Heather and Patrick, and Carol. Here’s how it went:
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While chatting earlier this week with my friend JoAnn, whose lab (MACH2) Chaos has moved from #29 to #14 in the country, I realized a point of progress. Let’s call it the Three-Step Rule. …
In our ongoing efforts to resume Lilly’s behavior modification, which got sidetracked by her rattlesnake bite to the face Labor Day weekend (and weeks of prez campaign work), we conned Tom once again into playing the “stranger” in our training scenarios. Sometimes Tom’s creativity and independent spirit overtake our work.
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While it’s tempting to dress Lilly up and post photos for Halloween, I won’t put her through the drama. Instead, I’ll share just one interesting experiment I did this weekend with Lilly’s training.
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I’m sorry to report we had a couple of setbacks this week. Here are the challenges we faced. …
We continue to struggle with our work exposing Lilly to people in a controlled way. Because we live in a somewhat remote area, because it everyone is busy, it’s hard, bordering on impossible to find participants to take part in daily training sessions (even though they only last about 10 minutes). So, I’ve resorted to creating a cast of thousands at home.
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