Dog Intro

Arya, "Stark's Needle in a Haystack RN" (AKC #MA01094401) is a whosawhatsit, possibly border collie/lab mix. She was born sometime in the Winter/Spring 2004/5. I adopted her in December 2005 from the Tacoma Humane Society in Tacoma, Washington. James and I had just gotten an apartment that allowed pets and the dog I had previously adopted a year before, Kaimery, had bonded with my parents. I decided to go down to their kennels and take a look.

Kaimery and Arya sharing a stick at the dog park in 2006.

A shy girl in a cage up front caught my eye. There's a look, a feeling, something I can't describe to someone who hasn't experienced it. I knew in that second she was my dog. I quickly filled out the application and handed it to the volunteer. She tried to push me off saying I was too young and didn't have enough stability.

Luckily, 2 summers before I had spent the entire summer volunteering for them and knew the volunteer coordinator very well! I marched right up and told her the situation, she came back down and talked to the volunteer. Begrudgingly she did the apartment check to confirm we could have pets and we were off to meet her.

As the volunteer pulled her from the kennel and we walked to the meet and greet room, she let a gem slip. "I don't know why you're interested in this dog, plenty of people have been interested but she's too shy... no one wants her." I bit my tongue, it was a fight just to get to that point!

In the meet and greet room she was shy, quietly said hi but was fairly detached. Here's the thing - border collies are extremely sensitive dogs. Many dogs, not just bc's, are not themselves in a kennel situation. The noise, distraction and general situation shuts down them down. I just knew in my heart I wasn't taking no for an answer. My Dad came down to meet her and said, "well your Mother is going to need to come down".

Taken in 2008, shortly after we bought our first house.

We arranged to have my Mom come the next morning and I put a hold on her. We came back and my Mom, knowing how her kids when we get into these moods, said if I wanted her she didn't see a problem. We finished the paperwork and deliberated a name - we were recently obsessed with the Song of Ice and Fire series (now the TV show Game of Thrones on HBO) and decided on the small, shy female character who later becomes a total badass, Arya.

Right after she was adopted in December 2005.

She had been raised by a girl and when she went to college, handed over to her parent's. When they couldn't break her of chasing horses and killing chickens she was put in the shelter. Another person adopted her, but they kept her in a kennel at work and then returned her. I'm sure they had good intentions, but she just was not ready for that.

She was scared of people. Mostly men, she could recover more quickly with women but with men she would alert bark and do her best to seem mean. The truth of it was she was scared spitless. After about 2 years we got to the point where she could be comfortably out in public without needing to alert bark. Nowadays, you would not know Arya had a somewhat dubious past.

Stalking Kaimery 

She is Ms. Social Butterfly, she loves to greet people, especially kids! They're the right height for kissing. And if you lean in just right she will give you one too. I often get asked why she doesn't do therapy - I have to admit part of it is her past.

Taken back in college, she's always known how to relax!

Arya is also my working dog. So far she's earned her RN but I realized after our first attempt at an RA that we had some retraining/training to do. Not bad considering we started taking performance seriously in Fall 2010 and finished her RN in January 2011! We've spent just about a year retraining and I think it will be about 6 months until I'm ready to go back in the ring. If we can finish her RA and RE, I'd like to take a shot at the various obedience titles. We've also been working on agility, I hope to finish her agility titles before she's not able to compete!

For more infromation on Mochi, please visit his blog! http://mochithecorgimonster.blogspot.com/

Helo is the newest addition. So new he's not even here yet! Back in 2008 when we picked Mochi, I had been dead set on getting an Australian Shepherd. Some things got in our way - namely, the breeder I was obsessed with was in Indiana and we were kids not far out of college (a year for James, less for me). Obviously, we ended up with a corgi (James' choice!). I held fast that I still wanted an aussie in my life in the future.

7 weeks old

I watched, planned and pondered. I fell in love with Helo's Grandma, Nita. This led me to Dawn. I saw in 2011 Nita was having her last litter but the timing was all wrong. James was at a 1 year temporary job across the country, we still had debts to pay off. Later in the Fall, Dawn announced Nita's daughter, Ellie would be having her first litter. I thought about it and realized we were on track to settle debts before the puppy would be here and I jumped on board!

The litter was born on January 3rd/4th (they were born late at night so some on the 3rd, some on the 4th).  5 boys and 2 girls, they were the "smurf" litter. At 7 weeks and change, Dawn did their final evaluation and decided on placements. She kept back one of the girls and one of the boys, we took the first pick boy. I chose the puppy that tows the middle line in personality and drive but was Dawn's first pick for conformation. 

2 weeks old

I leave on April 4th and get in late, we'll meet on Thursday and decide if he's going to spend 1 more night with his breeder or at the hotel with me and then on Friday I fly home. The following weekend of April 14-15 I am going to a seminar with 2 days of working spots with Arya. I'm sure I'll be posting a lot more about Helo once he's home!

7 weeks old, showing off his show side

Human Intro

I have tried to start a general blog several times. Each time I'm never happy with some nitpicky detail of the blog. I think I finally have a name I like and lots of reasons to post, so here's to hoping this works out!

First and possibly most important an introduction. I always like a place to reference when I "meet" someone new on the internet. My name is Christina and I currently live in Tri Cities, Washington State. I like it here, though I was raised most of my life in the Tacoma area (there: green, wet, gorgeous; here: dry, brown, not so gorgeous). I've definitely adjusted to desert life. I am married to James, who works as an engineer for a big construction company. We will very likely be moving in the near future, so that the location is due to change!

This is a picture from 2008 of James, Mochi, Arya and my parent's dog Kaimery. Not that he's changed much in the years since but most of my pictures of him are just silly!



I volunteer as the training director for my local dog training club and spend 3-4 days/nights a week either teaching or taking dog training classes. I am aspiring to become a professional, I would like to attend Karen Pryor Academy and/or The Academy for Dog Trainers. There are a few other groups I'd love a chance to be a part of, but education is quite expensive when you're working as a volunteer!

I am a member of the the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (#78699) as well as the Australian Shepherd Club of America (#130968). I plan on joining my local ASCA club once I know where my husband's job is going to be and possibly the Pet Professional Guild. Community is very important to me, I can read books all day but having someone to guide you is important to the development of a career. I hope someday to be a mentor to up and comers, but that is a long way off as I need quite a bit of guiding myself now!

I have 3 dogs: Arya, Mochi and Helo. If you'd like to read about Mochi, he has his own blog here. This is his introduction post. He gets his own blog because he has a set of special behavioral issues and keeping a log on him is important. I will introduce the other two in a separate post!

Walking away as a functional reward follow up

I have to say, it's working brilliantly! Today also marks 7 weeks of prozac. Crazy how time flies! We had a huge wind storm last night and I didn't even notice until I went to bed (my desk sits on the quiet part of the house, my bedroom on the windiest).  He's gone back to hanging out at his chair, with sprinklings of Mommy snuggling. He also asks fairly a few nights a week for snuggles in my lap.. and not in a panicked "I need reassurance" way. He hangs out, I tell him out handsome he is and then I put him back down and he goes on his merry way.

As for the topic: the functional reward of walking away. He's also getting a primary reward (food) but I'd say in this getting to leave to social situation is probably the primary reward. He's done it with the dremel, with just me sitting on the floor (one of his signals it's training time and so one of the social situations that puts pressure on him) and with Arya present, either sitting next to me or actively working. For the working part, he hung back and didn't bother her and then I would ask for a hand touch (entering our space politely) and then throw the treat back. Repeat.

His relationship with Arya is changing dramatically too! One thing about Arya is she loves to kiss. People, dogs, she'd probably kiss a cat if one gave her a chance! I've noticed he's tolerating her kissing him a lot more and even seeking her out to "touch bases". I'd say for comfort but that doesn't quite describe it. He's also much more tolerant of her being in his body space. A huge issue since about 15 months of age.

I've caught them practically cuddling when I wake up and this morning he jumped up on to the bed on request right after her and laid right with her. He doesn't just tolerate her in his body space in an open area, he's letting her come up to him while he sits on his chair (see below) and kiss him.

So good news! In  a week the puppy will be home about this time.

Thank you, Leslie McDevitt

Every time I read a dog training book I have what's often described as a "light bulb moment". Probably self evident, but it's when you have an epiphany of sorts about something in your life. I've had them from other types of books, but due to the dog training books I choose to read from authors experienced in the challenges I face who train in a way similar to me, they happen most with them.

I picked up a copy of Leslie's Control Unleashed: The Puppy Program at Clicker Expo in January. I had store credit for volunteering and referring and needed to spend money. What a good choice this ended up being! Leslie deals a lot with performance dogs with various problems, not the least of which is anxiety. While the book is bent towards performance issues, I'm finding it has a lot of application for Mochi.

Last night I was reading a chapter where Leslie describes a dog who was scared to come out of it's crate. Leslie rewarded the dog for coming out by sending it back in with a treat thrown in the crate. The dog learned it could go back in it's safe space and *bad things would not happen*.

Premack: Premack's principle, or the relativity theory of reinforcement,^[1] states that more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors.


Leslie used what the dog wanted (being in it's safe spot) to reinforce working with a stranger and continued on, rewarding the dog after longer stints outside and eventually working with her. She talked a lot about social pressure and allowing dogs to escape it as a reward, which is the ah-ha moment: I can shape Mochi to do things by rewarding him away from me.


You see, I've always had this idea that I have to reward him closer to me to bring him in.. but Leslie is saying exactly the opposite. By allowing a dog to escape the pressure it feels, you encourage it to make the decision to turn on the pressure. Facing Mochi is pressure to him. When he was a puppy I had the "why doesn't he work with me even though I have treats?" complex and, though not using force, pressured him in situations that made him uncomfortable. 


That anxiety has bled into anxiety about training.


So we played a game today! I sat down and the instant he walked towards me I clicked threw a treat behind him. Repeat. At the end of the game he was turning and very quickly walking back to me, coming in close. We've been doing dremel desensitization and counter conditioning, so once he was coming into my personal bubble without hesitation, I put the dremel out. First I just clicked for walking towards it, still rewarding behind. 






By the end of 4 reps with the dremel, he was coming back to the dremel and nose touching it (one of the exercises we've been working on). Good boy!


I plan on later today repeating and then tomorrow I will ask him to come in while the dremel is turned on. I'm very happy with my revelation and thank you Leslie! I cannot say enough good things about her book, I highly recommend it.

Week 6!

There hasn't been a lot to post, I'm happy to report, for a few reasons. For one, the only training he's been getting is 2 sessions a day of dremel makes yummy things happen. Either the sight or the sound. I'm not sure totally sure he's ready for this counter conditioning but he's showing signs of relaxing and I desperately need to do his nails soon so I'm giving it a whirl. He's no longer hiding under my desk when it comes out and generally I can get him to engage (no thundershirt) in under 2 minutes.

If that sounds like pittance - consider before that he couldn't do a normal training session, dremel or no, without a thundershirt on and that still usually involved a lot of avoidance/anxiety. The prozac is helping his anxiety quite a bit!


The next stage is to start flipping him on his back and reinforcing, then turning the dremel on and so on. Hopefully I'm doing this right and I won't have problems after this, his nails need weekly dremeling. He does a wonderful job of wearing down the backs, but his front nails have always grown insanely quickly.

The new puppy arrives in a week and a half! I find out sometime in the next few days which puppy is ours, then I leave on April 4th to pick him/her up. I expect to be doing a lot more blogging then as we adjust. On Thursday, I will start the DAP diffuser in the center of the house which will give him a week to get it in his system. I also plan on coming home and putting his shirt on before we meet the puppy. First greeting will be between a baby gate or a pen.

Depending on his reaction we might try some time outside together leashed.. it will depend on what help I can get from the roommate or my in laws. Mochi always does better with dogs outside, I think in part because he spent the majority of his time with his breeder outside.

Wow!

We hit week 6 yesterday. It's been windy and he's been really good. I even played music last night and he just kept napping across the room from me! But the huge wow came yesterday. Arya had to go to the vet for digestive and pain issues, when we came out I let them out per the norm. Arya came back in and I was talking to her about this getting sick thing (I caught her eating poop after the vet visit and suspect that is the culprit), Mochi came wandering back inside.

Mochi has serious issues with this area. One, it's the door to the thing he loves - the backyard. One of his anxiety issues is barrier frustration, which means he can feel the need to guard areas. We've done a lot of work in this area, lots of desensitization and work with his resource guarding (because of course this is the only place their food fits as well...) It can still be problematic.

This is the best picture I could find, Mochi's food is the left and Arya's is a few more feet to the right. I'm thinking of putting the food in the bedroom and feeding Mochi in his crate, then the puppy will get fed in it's crate. The only problem here is Arya doesn't have a crate so I'm not sure what to do with her food bowl. 

Anyways, on to the point. Mochi came back in and was not doing his usual avoiding body language. I grabbed some treats and did some tricks. He was being really cute! Then.. he looked at her and looked back at me. Then he kept offering to look at her and back at me. Very good boy!

We got new tugs! I bought them from Woolie Dog on Etsy, who sent a friend some freebies to review on her blog. I've been looking for something that will withstand tug but have a good mouth feel for the dogs so they'll want to tug. Mochi is less particular, but Arya is fairly specific about what she likes to tug with. So far, Arya seems to be favoring the one pictured and Mochi was kind of blasé about both, but he liked the one not pictured better (it is the size smaller).

But what really became blog worthy - I started off just seeing what Arya thought of the tug and playing. Normally this would be where Mochi would butt in, she'd stop tugging and give him space because he's giving her "the eye". Instead he walked up and didn't move her off and politely sat down next to us. I told him to sit to my side and played about 30 seconds more with Arya. 

He patiently waited and then I told him good boy and let him see the tug. Then it was his turn to play. After that I told him "all done" and played with Arya again. Mochi was much easier to photograph for this! Arya kept getting distracted when my phone camera would flash which ended with lots of blurry photos and no tug in her mouth until the one below!

Either way, I'm very pleased with his decisions today!

And not to be left out:

Week 5

So Mochi has been on prozac nearly 6 weeks (on Friday). This past week hasn't been extremely eventful behavior wise. We had people over, all ones he is familiar with and I didn't notice a hugely noticeable difference aside from no pacing. He greeted them (after they sat on the floor) and was noticeably disturbed by the amount of ruckus as we ate pizza and played a board game. He had his thundershirt on before anyone got there.

I guess it is a good note that he didn't pace, he just kind of hung around us and occasionally solicited the rare pet.

Over the past week, Arya hadn't been feeling so good so she was getting more attention. He was pretty collected about the whole thing. A few incidents which might have involved a more serious warning from Mochi to Arya, like her trying to go out when he wants in, for the most part resulted in him waiting for her and then one time a shake off. She's good about just going straight out/away from him and not pressuring him.

I was gone all day Saturday and he was Mr. Cool when I got back, but definitely needed his Mommy time. It's been extremely windy the last 2 days (Sunday/Monday) and he's had moments where he wants to be disturbed by it. He has actually been able to collect himself and get over his frustration and anxiety. He actually sat outside in the wind for a few hours yesterday! Despite being windy, the days have still been fairly warm.

Right now it's trying to rain and is a bit windy and we just finished more dremel counter conditioning. His nails are getting so long I would just die if anyone but me saw them.. but I don't want to dremel them until we have more progress in the cc&d. I'm thinking of taking him into a groomer just to knock the tips off and have it not be me doing it but I don't know if that will set us back.

Well, that's something new

The only "problem" I have right now is I can't tell what is the medication and what isn't. I don't want to get overly excited and attribute things to it that shouldn't be! But I also don't want to say it's not working and these things are just natural progressions of training. It's definitely both.

Mochi really struggles with work time. He wants Arya to back off and have me to himself. You can probably guess by now he doesn't say so politely. I used to try to teach him to stay back and he would still wander and be a jerk. It was never really successful - either my criteria (stay) wasn't clear or sans medication it wasn't possible due to anxiety.

Work is so hard

Either way, we've started working again on "leaving us alone during training - lots of reinforcement away from us". So for him not bugging us, I throw him a treat behind him. I usually stick him somewhere that the criteria will be clear - the hallway which opens into the living room has a pillar where it meets the living room and he's not supposed to pass it when I ask him to stay behind it. Today, he had to stay near the fence and let Arya work on her weaves.

We have 1 lip lift when he approached me to work after he'd done his work. That's the other thing I do, he works first when I know a situation might be extra stressful to help get some energy out. Today we did heel/choose to heel. For how little I've done with him formally working on heel, he really wanted to offer the heel! Being in close proximity can be difficult for him if he's worried so it was nice to see him working hard.

After that I cleaned up the yard and went back inside. All had been quiet for a while, which is when I start to worry. I called and he didn't come so I went to the bedroom, which looks out on a part of the yard I can't see from the back door. There he was napping in the grass. That's new!

He was napping just behind where he's rolling in this picture, away from the photographer. The door inside is behind me. He normally won't hang out that far away if he's not fence running!

Puppy Mochi

Bo was a very funny puppy. Extremely expressive, particularly when he was unhappy about how something was going. He never lost that, but he lost how funny he was about it. He knew how to get a laugh and that it was a good thing. I got lots of good pictures of him when he was younger... as he got older his expressions got more sour. Truly, he took on the personality of a grumpy old man.

 These were all taken around when Mochi was 6 months.

So what brought this up? Mochi was being really funny on Thursday. Like he hasn't been since I can even remember. He desperately wanted to go outside to bark at the neighbor dogs and I was ignoring him. He ran over and pounced my on my chair and whined in his best "I'm so neglected" cry. A few minutes later my roommate came home and we were both sitting at our computers. Mochi sat a few feet from both of us and started glaring at me.

Whenever either of us would talk to him he'd start turning his head (I put that on a cue, best training choice ever) and looking cute and if we stopped, he'd look over at me and glare again. I can't describe it well, but I can say it was hilarious, adorable and totally reminded me of Mochi way back when.

Today he's been good but unfortunately my speaker cord is not the best and I had to adjust it. You know that sound your bass makes when you plug it in/out? Yea.. stupid cord will make that loud pop sound if you move it. I was trying to adjust it and he started panicking so I just left it for now. He's passed out at my feet, at least he's not clamoring for my lap!