NaBloPoMo

The journey is the reward

August 1, 2010 by kathi

I should say the journey is the reward for me. The dogs probably don’t see it that way.

A couple of months ago, when Freya and I first started having our training difficulties, one of the suggestions I got was to switch off more between food, toy, activity, and praise rewards. It’s good that I looked into having more reward options in my toolbox, since I also need to know what both dogs consider to be high-value rewards for Susan Garrett’s “The Five Minute Formula to a Brilliant Recall” online course that we’ve just started.

Freya is very food-motivated, so admittedly I was getting stuck in a rut with food rewards. I really hadn’t put much time into experimenting with toy, activity, and praise rewards until then. I found out that Freya’s favorite toy to play with by herself is not her favorite toy for playing with me. And neither of those toys is the one she’ll bring to Dan to play with him. I expected her to enjoy tugging more; maybe it’s just me she doesn’t like to tug with.

Axel is also very food-motivated. He likes a larger variety of toys than Freya does, and definitely responds to them. The problem with Axel and toys is that he is very interested in taking them away from the human, especially if the human is me. If the toy doesn’t have a handle or rope attached, I have no prayer of holding onto it. So I have never used toys much for training Axel.

This reminds me of a Heidi story. Heidi was ball crazy, a great catcher, and a natural retriever. Dan taught her all kinds of catch and chase games. “Heidi Go Long” was always cute. He’d tell her to “go long” and she’d lead out, he’d throw her a mini football, and she’d catch it over her shoulder. We’ve never gotten any of the Rottweilers who came after her to do that.

But as ball crazy as she was, Heidi would not play ball with me. I throw like a girl, and Heidi just did not like that. Even if I threw the ball, she’d bring it back to Dan. If he wasn’t there, she’d go and play with it by herself. If he was not home, or didn’t come outside after a while, she’d eventually bring it back to me. The look on her face made it very clear that I was a last resort. I miss her and that disdainful look so much.

The reward of choice at the moment for both dogs seems to be SPAM, with cheddar and mozzarella string cheese following close behind.

(NaBloPoMo | August ’10: 1 of 31)

I should take my own advice

July 30, 2010 by kathi

The 2010 EAA Fly-in (not sure when the name changed to AirVenture) wraps up this weekend. The 2010 Sturgis motorcycle rally starts on August 9. I have not been to either event in years.

I’ve accepted that I’ll probably never learn to fly, but I’ll still always love watching airplanes of all types, especially the vintage warbirds. Oshkosh is only about three hours away.

This year, the Scorpions, one of my favorite bands through the years, is playing at the Buffalo Chip campground in Sturgis. It’s their farewell tour. I know there’s always the chance that their “retirement” is like so many other music and sports retirements: one of many. There’s always the chance that it’s a real one.

I should pay more attention to the words that I’ve said to others so many times: Do it now. It’s only money and life is too short. Please. Remind me of those words the next time I say something about wanting to go somewhere or do something, and lean on me a little to actually do something about it.

Thanks. I’ll owe you.

(NaBloPoMo | July ’10: 30 of 31)

A new learning opportunity for the dogs… and me

July 29, 2010 by kathi

I’ve had very mixed results in my attempts at independent distance learning over the years. Most of those attempts were independent study projects, some for school and some not, and those were the ones that didn’t go very well. I’m not disciplined enough nor organized enough to keep things moving on a realistic schedule. I have a tendency to push things off until there is major deadline pressure, and then the results aren’t of the highest quality. I need to find something to motivate me that doesn’t involve being under the gun, but I’ve had this problem for so long I think a physical reaction to the adrenaline rush might be involved. Sort of like my caffeine headaches. Yeah, I know I should cut back on caffeine, too.

I’m giving distance learning another shot, though. I’ve enrolled in Susan Garrett’s online course “The Five Minute Formula to a Brilliant Recall.” During the years that I was a listowner and forum moderator for dog-related discussion venues, I probably made hundreds of posts saying something like “you cannot train a dog over the internet.” While I still believe that there are many training situations and behavior problems where you need to see the dog and owner in person to be of real help, I now believe that there are other training situations where the internet can help a great deal. I am about to find out if this is one of them.

Many of us use books and videos as part of our dog training education, and I can already see one benefit of an online course over books and videos: interaction with the course giver. Although this course doesn’t officially start until August 1, there have been a few “bonus” lessons to start us off. Participants can post questions in response to each lesson, and Ms. Garrett and other trainers on her staff will answer, and other course participants can share their thoughts as well. So far, questions from other participants and the trainers’ and other participants’ answers have been very helpful to me. In fact, I have not posted my own questions yet, as someone had already asked them by the time I got there!

I’m looking forward to completing this course. I will consider it successful even if I don’t get perfect recalls from both dogs, as long as they both show progress and improvement from where they are now.

(NaBloPoMo | July ’10: 29 of 31)