Zipper Adopted, Dogs Coming In and Some Creative Training

So Zipper has been adopted. He went to be cat tested with Meshum, my old co-worker and trainer at K9HQ. Well, he did so well with the cats, the kids, the other dogs that Meshum just had to keep him. He has been there about a week now. He should be starting some sheep training and will get some agility training too. His favorite is that he has a young pre-teen boy to hang out with. He'll have a full and varied life. I will MISS him though. I don't come across them very often -dogs I want to adopt myself- but he's certainly one of -if not- the hardest foster to come through. Good luck in your new home Zipper! His new name is Ziggy :)

We're fosterless and board dog less for the weekend, which is the first time that has happened in a long time. That said, Man and His Dog show is coming to Victoria this upcoming week, so we'll be getting a TG foster sooner than later. That might be fosters the way things usually go. Sign up for one, have two dropped off. What can we say, I'm a bit of a sucker.

As for creative training, I had a little bit of an epiphany today. It had to do with a question -can we have a command or even train a dog to nap? I wasn't sure -I'm still not quite sure-, but I knew where to start for set-up. First of all both my collies have a very good down/wait which we practice every day. For high-energy, fast, smart dogs it is MUCH harder to maintain calm behaviour than it is to teach them new things. So every day I pull out a Frisbee full of kibble -my dogs are also food nuts- and I start intermittently reinforcing their downs. --The nutshell version meaning I chuck kibble at them every now and again if they are in a down. So even the pup can usually down through most of a 20 minute show (getting a cookie at minimum once a minute). Jinks will do 20 minutes for 4 cookies. Yep, she's a cookie nut.

Since they've been doing this for months I wanted to see what else I could capture. When you feed, you feed for the behaviour which is called "Capturing". IE: The down is what I was capturing. But I wanted to know if I could ask for more than just the down. The down had become automatic.

We've shaped eye contact a lot, but the first step to a nap would be.... eyes closed.
So, I decided to start shaping any time Shane blinked. (They don't often actually, they are glued onto me or the food bowl). Have good eye contact already it was easy to start marking when it wasn't happening (meaning the dogs could catch on fairly quick). By 15 minutes of calm, Shane was readily closing his eyes, and boom, treat would appear. Jinks has had a longer time practice eye contact so she was harder to capture.

Things were shaping along quite nicely so I threw on another episode. By the end of about 45 minutes Shane was closing his eyes for 2-3 seconds before I would feed. I'm still feeding Jinks for a blink.

What was neat was that if I can teach them to close their eyes and keep marking that (eventually making it a command), I can possibly teach them to nap -in short periods at first-.

Now that, for a Collie, is a nice command to have "go take a nap". AND I can make taking a nap be work at the same time.

----alternatively instead of closed eyes/blink you can start marking the lowering of the head and eventually putting the head on the ground. This is easier for a dog to understand behaviour wise. I was skeptical I could mark/capture a blink to begin with, and it took both collies quite a while to understand. Many, many dogs would get frustrated and give up long before they would get a blink being the reinforced behaviour.

Anyway, it was pretty cool. We'll fool around more with the concept. It is always amazing to watch brain games being so darn calm. What you get with calm brain games is more work ethic. Especially for a dog who wants to do everything as fast as they possibly can like a collie!

Well, the collies have had their brain games, their couch lazies and now it's time to drain the physical. Updates soon as the arrival(s) come(s).

Cute Boys

More on Zip soon. For some herding videos and quick update you can visit the TG page @ http://www.turtlegardens.org/blog/?p=44732

For tonight, I snapped a few of Shane and Beckett. Both such sweet boys. Shane has very much become Beckett's dog, and vice versa.

Pin-Up Shane

Life of a drunk dog who throws his bone around.

Where I Found Shane upon my return from the kitchen. Hmm... was he e-mailing someone?

Couch potatoes.

Cuddly Boys

All You Need is a Little Spooning

Jinks is going through a "big asshole teenager" week. I don't let her and Shane loose together inside very much as she -typical of a bossy teenage dog- is being a bit of a bully. It works to rotate though since I can bring one to work with me. They get their time together when we are active and doing things so they can focus on something other than each other. Keeps the focus on me which is good. We stopped playing fetch with Shane for well over a week -I had kind of gone 'eh, maybe he's just a herding dog'. Two days ago he suddenly decided to be a fetch-a-holic and he's pretty darn good about bringing it back.

Part of me wishes I had of waited until Jinks was a little older/more mature/less of a brat to bring a new dog home but Beckett is still in his prime for puppies and Shane is "the dog" and he is totally living up to that role. In the end, right dog trumps the ideal time. And Jinks is a material girl anyway. Love ----PAH-, who needs love and affection when you have STUFF, marvelous glorious food and toys.

The boys love me cause I'm mom.
Jinks loves me cause I have stuff.

I'm SUPPOSED to be getting some Lemon pictures soon! I miss that little dog so much I'm tempted to bring her home, so some pictures will do me good.

Emily Out

Christmas List

Jerrad accompanied me to PetSmart today so that I wouldn't return with well over $100 of new dog stuff. We got a couple of glow-in-the-dark balls since we usually go out after it gets dark now, and even in the ball diamond and with two ball addicted dogs within a few minutes I seem to have to hunt the tennis ball down.

We did a tour of the store and put together our pups' Christmas lists :)...
Yah, yah as Jerrad always reminds me they are my dogs, they are my kids in fur.

Beckett:

• Orthopedic bed. He's getting older, so some extra support would be good. Shane is almost housetrained now too and by Christmas should be fully, which means it shouldn't get peed on!
• Blood test. He might not like it, but preventative stuff is a must in his senior years.

Jinks:

• Agility lessons.
• New Frisbee
• New set of Nylabones
• New Wubba

Shane:

• Agility lessons for the new year
• Lots of chew toys
• Puzzle games
• Move to a raw diet!

I'm sure we'll put together a care package for Lemon as well.

As for Zip, a full update tomorrow. We get to go test him on sheep!

For tonight a small update.

He's a good boy, love him to pieces, has a few smaller hurdles to get over, one being his obsession for balls. Ball drive is good, toy drive is good -he has it in spades-, but the non-stop searching for a ball inside the house is pesky. So is when he tries to turn everything into a toy, including dust bunnies. My guess is that he's been allowed to amuse himself at home (with and without people) with a ball so he has a hard time without his toy -it's become a coping mechanism-. The toy does keep him occupied, but it doesn't let his brain settle which is no good in a working dog. We need to be able to switch him "off" so to speak. It took over 8-9 months to do this with Jinks to the point where she can settle in the house for longer than 30 minutes. Give him a few months of weaning (or even cold turkeying) Zip off his ball -at least indoors- and he will start to settle -both mentally and physically-.

Since he's been here I've been weaning. Basically he goes to daycare and then he's expected to last minimum an hour without requiring a ball to keep his attention. At daycare he is in a big group with no toys (any resource guarders are grouped together). I haven't seen him resource guard, but regardless I want his brain to be able to find it's off-switch.

More tomorrow after we get the sheep testing done :)

Crap, I Really Shouldn't Foster Border Collies

Zipper, who I'm pretty darn sure is full Border Collie, was adopted from TG not quite a year ago now, and is back in rescue due to no fault of his own. His dad was in a serious accident. So Zipper came back to TG, and to my place for foster.

Now, kind of an ironic story. We had Jinks all of 2-4 weeks before Zipper became available for adoption. After I looked for over two months for a young, pretty close to full-breed, border collie in BC and went out of province to adopt, he popped up with my main rescue. I kicked myself for months that I didn't just wait, especially since Jinks was more than a handful behaviourally.

Now we've had Shane two months and he pops back into rescue. Now don't get me wrong, Shane is a gem wouldn't trade that pup for the world, but it's like Zipper just keeps TAUNTING me, showing up when I know I can't have him. And now that he's here I really think someone else should have fostered him.

I LOVE this dog. The way he moves, the intensity in his actions, how you can watch his mind work figuring stuff out. He is ball-addicted, greeted over 12 dogs on the ferry and here without a hitch in his step, was a little reserved with strangers but not shy or scared -typical herding dog-. He has a few simple things to clean up -walking on leash the biggest- but this guy is going to make a fantastic sports dog, he would probably even settle for a large yard and lots of ball playing. The potential in him makes me excited to start working with him. I'm going to see if we can try him out on sheep to see if he has a natural instinct. The way he moves it's like he's herding all the time so my gut says he has some instinct.

So yeah, REALLY hoping I can find this guy a home with someone I know or someone into dog sports. He's going to be one of those dogs I need to find the AMAZING home for. Not just GREAT, or AWESOME, but 100% amazing. There's only been a handful of them, but the kind of home you kind of put up against yourself. If they can't give him as much or more than what I could I'd feel like I cheated him.

Trunk, Truffle, Penny were the only three so far I've felt like that. Zipper might be harder.

On the bright side, I'm feeling totally relieved after the last foster experience. Wan-Dou has been assessed by a trainer highly experienced in aggression and found to have not just dog aggression, but people aggression as well -basically general aggression to anything he doesn't like or is uncertain about. He has low thresholds (meaning the point that he goes from being okay to not okay), gives (almost) no warnings and does not hesitate to use his teeth. Using his teeth is how he copes. This is something truly genetic especially in a dog this young.

Dogs (and people too) do one of 4 things when under too much stress (stress is subjective to the individual). They flee, they ignore/avoid, they stick their head in the sand and play dumb, or they fight. If one doesn't work they might go to another mode of coping, but the initial pattern is set somewhere in the genes. Beckett -and Shane too- are complete avoiders. They are dogs that think if they stay really, really still everything will just calm down/go away. This is what we want to be able to teach most dogs in terms of coping and we have to spend a long time raising thresholds (basically slowly making it so that less and less creates stress) and then alongside that we have to teach how to react to stress (with avoidance). It's a long process.

So I'm glad to report Wan-Dou is going to be spending an intensive two months with a trainer and her apprentice. With the initial report Wan-Dou would have had about a 30% success rate to be adopted, even to an experienced home. (Success meaning he would not hurt or injure a dog or person in his lifetime.) With the training, placing him in an experienced home who will follow up on the training he should be approx. 80-90% successful.

Not quite sure who would knowingly take on that much of a project dog, but I'm glad rescue is doing what is best for Wan-Dou and giving him the best chance he has at a normal dog life. It must be no fun having so much stress you out! Good luck Wan-Dou. It might be scary at first but you will be okay. :)

Some pictures and videos of Zipper soon.

Emily Out

Safety First

Well yesterday was a minefield of fun... not.

I picked up our new foster puppy about 3pm or so. Was good being handled at the time of loading up, but when I got him home it took me and Jerrad almost three hours to get him out of the car. Somewhere along the line he turned into a feral, lunging, biting creature. He was fast, frantic, terrified. Eventually with a whole lot of cheese brought him in and kept him separate by baby gate from the other dogs. He spent another hour barking/lunging and screaming at the other dogs who weren't even at the gate 95% of the time. Tried to keep him quiet in another room and he would scream bloody murder without anyone. Introduced very slowly to Beckett in the same room. Would bark and lunge if Beckett even made a step towards him. Beckett's a good dog though, just stays away. Beckett would be the one to help him.

The safety issue came full front and center though when we tried to introduce Shane. If we hadn't of been fast the speed and intensity of this pup's snap would have put some real damage into my puppy. I had to make the decision right there. No matter how terrified this pup was, no matter how good he might be in a few days once he'd had some rest, he was not safe to be around Shane, and it is my obligation to keep my own dogs safe. I was not convinced at all that should I try to intervene I wouldn't be putting my own body at risk.  Obviously new foster wasn't feeling safe either.

So anyway, put Shane away for the evening as even though he doesn't deserve it he's quiet away. Long-line new foster in the living room so if something happens I can take the line -at this point knowing I'd be bit if having to physically move this dog. Beckett and Schwartz (standard poodle, boarding dog) are two of the best at reading body language and despite this snapping, growling dog now in the living room both dogs were snuggled up on the same couch going "weirdo." I stayed planted on the couch, quiet and watching/observing. You'd think after almost another hour with no one moving that he would move into a smelling/observing mindset but no. Circle, growl, circle, growl. Look at him directly even for a second and he'd start growling at me too.

It is not uncommon at all for fosters to have a few days of a hard integration period. I've fostered quite a few shy guys and I'm used to spending a night or two with suspicious foster dogs who take a couple of hours to feel safe with my pack, but I have never dealt with a dog so young willing to deal so much damage.

So I did what I had to. I phoned rescue and let them know I could not foster this dog. In over eighty some odd dogs that have passed though this house only twice before have I given up (for safety reasons) on a foster dog. The other two were two dogs from failed adoptions -Sail and Diesel-. Diesel would have been fine to stay if not for Hank -another foster- who were both out to get each other. Sail was WAY too much dog, overwhelming for everyone at the house.

I gave the pup the weekend. I had to tell myself even if he got better he was not safe for my puppy, he was not safe for daycare. Just because I personally could work with a dog like that doesn't mean I should be. What I SHOULD be doing is protecting my own, especially my baby.

Luckily, his transporters that has adopted his brother were willing to foster him and came to get him at about midnight -once he finally stopped all the rah rah rah but still stared daggers from the corner with teeth curled-.

Being fostered with his brother isn't ideal for him -ideally he would be with someone experienced, with perhaps one older dog-, but it is better for him (and Shane) than him staying.

Now being fair I don't truly think this is a bad dog -he is 5 months-, but it seems like he's going to be a project. He has been through a lot of stress the last few days. He most likely has a fairly low threshold for stress in general and most likely not as much socialization as he really needs. It's highly possible he has weak bite inhibition which is perhaps the most worrisome. What he needs is about a week of quiet, rest, lots of crate or x-pen time (although he hates confinement) and slow, steady exposure. He needs to come off that stress and slowly built up to be able to handle stress.

A big shout-out to Stan who helped talk me through the process and listened to me vent. I have so much respect for the hard-to-handle dogs you guys work and live with. I know with a few weeks/few months of exposure that this pup will be okay.

I will try to live by the words Stan gave me: Don't let one bad apple ruin the barrel.

Still, it might be a bit before I feel brave enough to foster again.