Well today has been pretty productive puppywise. I emailed Cherie earlier this morning about how Kylee is doing and when the puppy's are to be expected. It's 10 days before they are to be born. Here's what I recieved:
Hi Melissa,
Unfortunately I'm working so I can't enjoy the sun today :-(
Kylee's belly is growing bigger everyday. She looks very healthy and is still fairly active considering she is scheduled to have her litter in 10 days. We are all anticipating the big day, hoping and praying that is goes well, and that mom and pups are all healthy. I will let you know when the big day arrives, and I will also snap a few pictures of the expectant mom and forward them to you in the next day or so.
Enjoy the sun...
Cherie
I'm super excited about this. I'll be bouncing around for the next 10 days. The other thing I'm a bit worried that there won't be 4 puppies. We don't know until the day but it'll be exciting. Cherie seems pretty positive about it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Also I got a few comments about my proposed training schedule for the first few weeks. I've got to say both Hannah and Christine have been very helpful and supportive. I think Hannah's ideas about a noise other than 'No' might be most useful. Either an ah-ah sound or something might work better. Which brings me to my next topic of discussion.
I've just finished Paul Owens Online Video Seminar on Habit Training. I've got to say for those of us who have read the book this video is a great way to solidify all of the information that we learned throughout the pages of the text. I've got to say that I like Paul Owens more and more each time I read something of his or see him teach. His main principles in training are Kindness, Compassion, and Respect.
"If our goal is peace then our means must be peaceful." Martin Luther King Jr.
The education process should be a positive one, especially for those dogs who are sensitive to so many things. Training shouldn't be a chore to be done but rather it should be gradually incorporated in one's life so that it become routine. Paul Owens also teaches based out of a substitute behaviour method. That means we typically answer the question :
What do you want your dog to do?
With less than reasonable answers such as:
"I want him to stop bolting out the door." "I want her to stop tearing up the cushions."
Instead of answering the question like this:
"I want my dog to sit when I open the door." "I want my dog to live freely in the house while I am gone". "I want my dog to come when I call him".
The key to prevention is often our response. We must respond pro-actively to what behaviours our dog is eliciting and forget about reactive.
There are 3 aspects to training a dog based on habits. 1) Contextual Learning- this is where we learn to speak dog. We must be aware of the signals our dog is giving us when learning a behaviour. Once we have trained a behaviour it can only become a habit if the skill is practiced in various combinations of contexts. It takes 21-28 days to form a habit. It also takes 1-3 years to reach emotional maturity as a dog. So, even if you think a dog is perfectly trained you must be aware that correct behaviours must be consistently rewarded until the animal reaches maturity. 2) Latency- We must also allow the dog time to think when we train. "Honey, honey, honey, honey, honey" is not beneficial to allowing a person to think, therefore "sit, sit, sit, sit, sit" will also be distracting to the animal who is trying to figure out what you want him or her to do. 3) Displacement Behaviours- once we work closely with our dogs to train them we must gradually attain a sense of what the dog is trying to communicate to us. For example, a dog may blink, yawn, sniff the ground, or paw when he is trying to think about what it is he has to do. Over time, we learn this signals and notice when they are communicating with us.
The seminar also did a load of demos with some shelter dogs such as leave it and boundary training.
Communication seems to be an important factor in training. For example, nobody should repeat commands, yell, or give conflicting signals (i.e. sit-down, sit-up) when training a new habit so we must be careful of what we are asking our dogs to do.
It's recommended by Paul and other trainers to spend a week without talking to your dog to get him to do something(no commands, no verbal praise, nada). Instead, just focus on what the dog is doing correctly. Giving a high value treat or reward for all correct behaviours that are done naturally by the dog. Lying down is one of the big ones. Paul recommends that this act should be highly rewarded as it is the one position that relaxes the body and mind of a dog. Acknowledgments should be given for natural sit position, down position, if your dog looks at you (this is like a check in where the dog is saying "how am I doing?", brings you a toy, or goes to it's spot.
Another very important task to reinforce is the dog's job. All dogs need employment or otherwise they are prone to self-employment (tearing up your cushions, drapes, tipping your plants over, or barking excessively). There are 3 games that Paul recommends. First, simple find it, then a nose-hunt find it, and finally peek-a-boo. The peek-a-boo game in particular is very good for emergency recall. If you didn't want to use the verbal cue "peek-a-boo" then you could use any other word "cookie" "bingo" "Here I am".
Paul then continues his seminar by explaining more complicated topics like the hierarchy of rewards, How to form a habit, and How to stay motivated when training. His motivation techniques really sing home for me who's just recently gotten back into a regular yoga practice routine (I'm also blogging about that see
yogahereyogathere.tumblr.com). It's all about balance and if you aren't centred then training your dog would be much more difficult. Get happy, then Train happy!
