From a training perspective, I’ve got to say that the Relaxation Protocol and ideas from Leslie McDevitt’s book, “Control Unleashed,” helped me give Lilly some context for what I was asking during our video interview for this Power of Paws campaign.
For example, lay here on your mat and no matter what happens, you’re fine. Yes, I know there are men talking and moving in the dark. Yes, I know that bright light is shining in your face. Yes, I know that you’re used to me looking at you all the time, but I need to look at them right now. Look how calm Mommy is (liar!). You’re just fine.
Heck, I even got her to put her chin down a few times in that sweet, I’m-just-relaxing way.
I also played a bit of the Look At That game, where I can cue Lilly to look at something “scary” (the microphone over my head) or at the crew (“look, boys”). The trick there is that we don’t train that for duration, only for a glance, so it’s not like I could automatically get her to look at them in a sustained way.
Generally, the only way to get that behavior is for me to look intently at whatever so that she looks too.
Overall, I have to say that our recent training (the last 6 months or so) using the book and also from Gigi’s new roaming classes, where Lilly is asked to work in a variety of situations, helped prepare us for this opportunity to play media girls.
Two funny things happened:
They needed to record about 20 seconds of ambient noise in the room because her collar and tag jingled a little or something. So, I made a Shhhh face to Lilly while we waited for the time to pass, and just near the end, she got frustrated and groaned. Ah, well.
They also wanted to shoot a couple minutes of me just petting her. I don’t think it mattered if I talked or not, so I told her what a good girl she was. I rubbed her head. I massaged her neck a little. Maybe it was the dark room, but Lilly got super relaxed. I used my Relaxation Protocol voice, rather than my action-training voice, and at one point the director said, “Man, you’re going to put ME to sleep.”
I’m assuming that was a compliment and not a commentary on us being boring.
I’ll talk more about her tricks tomorrow, but they also asked me to get on the ground and rub her tummy.
I must have made a face or something because the director said, “Or, just get down there with her.” See … I don’t rub her tummy that much. Sometimes when Lilly sprawls in an un-lady-like manner on the couch with legs all over, I’ll rub her tummy while she sleeps, but Lilly isn’t really that goofy-luv-bunny kind of dog that goes belly up at the sign of any attention.
Still, we *are* talking about a dog with a long training resume, so I asked her to LAY FLAT, which means flop over on your side. I had to use this as an interim stage in ROLL OVER. We don’t do it often, but with some coaxing she flopped. And, I proceeded to rub her tummy, which she allowed … and even lolled her head back toward the camera. I can’t imagine what that will look like on video. From my vantage point, she looked drunk.
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