Keep on keepin' on

Two years after completely giving up on all away-from-home activities, Ida started going to rally class.  The first set of classes we took were really just to work on working in a new space where there are sometimes dogs, and helping her feel safe about being there.  I kept things easy - rotating around a pivot disk or sitting on cue were things she had down-pat at home, in the yard, and in an empty park, but could she do them after a car ride?  With another dog working at the other end of the room?

She could!

At the end of one of our classes, the instructor mentioned that Ida was doing great, that she was happy and clearly having fun.  In the car afterwards, I teared up.  I was so happy to see her happy and filled with hope and excitement for the possibilities in our future.  Maybe we'd actually be able to trial some day.

We continued going to classes, and they got easier with each week.  A couple months later, on a class day, I got home from work much later than usual.  I was in time to make it to class, but just barely, and I didn't give Ida her situational medication before leaving (they would've kicked in towards the end of class, anyway).  She'd been doing to well that I didn't think it would be a big deal.  I expected she would struggle a bit more than she had been, but I figured things would be fine if we just took it easy.

It was not fine.  Clearly stress from the car ride and the disrupted routine were too much.  She was nervous - conflicted - going into the building.  She would settle in her crate when other dogs were working, and couldn't focus. By the end of class, even an easy exercise like Choose to Heel was too much for her.  After a minute of sniffing the floor, tail down and ears back, she chose her crate over me and cookies.

I cried in the car all the way home.  I felt so defeated, so heartbroken.  It didn't matter how much work we put in it would never be enough for Ida to do the things that dreamed for her.   Some dogs finish championship titles in two years.  We couldn't even play easy games in a familiar class setting.   What was the point?  Why was I putting in so much work only for it to not make a difference?

I dreaded the next class, but I am cheap and hate missing classes that I've already paid for.  I made sure Ida got her Xanax on time, and we got to class early enough to walk around outside and sniff around inside before others arrived.  I had my happy worker back.

It was a hard lesson about my own resilience in the face of unmet expectations and a reminder that progress is not linear; a single session without the context of those before and after it, is not representative of the direction you're heading in.  Sometimes when things go bad, you really do have to just... keep on keepin' on.  Maybe you take a step back, a look at what happened before, and if those circumstances were unusual or a one-off you just try again next time.

But one bad day doesn't make failure.  It's just a bump (or sometimes a lake) in the road of progress.

I have a confession. I buy books with no intention of reading them.

As a kid, I was a voracious reader.  I was nearly always won the "how many books can you read" competitions held in many elementary classrooms; in Grade 6 I even won a prize in a province-wide contest sponsored by the Calgary Flames.

My love of books has carried over into adulthood, and followed me into my (re)discovery of animal behaviour and love of dogs.  Instead of running to the YA section of Chapters to find the latest adventures of Ashleigh's Wonder, now I go to the used bookstore to trawl for R+ and science-based dog and animal behaviour books.

Sometimes the only dog books on the shelves are Cesar Milan or Dogs for Dummies or generic breed books, and I walk away a bit disappointed.  But sometimes... Sometimes I get lucky.  Sometimes I find a gem (or two).  I gleefully hand over my money, even knowing full well that as an adult I just haven't made the time to read like I used to as a kid - those books will come home with me and sit on my bookshelf.  Watching me walk past them every time I feed the dogs.  Feeling their little i's watch me as I pointedly avoid their gaze.  What is the point of buying books if I am not actually going to take in their knowledge? 

"Why have you forsaken us?"

For 2019 I set myself a goal to read one shelf-bound dog/behaviour book per month until I get through the collection.  Except the textbook that I bought on a whim, which I will aim instead to read one chapter of per month.  And just to really motivate me, I am going to let myself buy a new book for every 3 old ones I read.

This month I've been reading The Genius of Dogs by Brian Hare, but I'll save my review for when I've finished. 

How about you?  Do you collect vessels of dog knowledge?  What are you reading right now?

Progress is not a Finish Line

Whether it's teaching a formal retrieve or to tolerating the existence of strange dogs, setting specific goals helps me think through what the desired end behaviour is and the steps I need to get there.  But to be useful, and not just a giant boulder hanging over our heads waiting to crush us, we need to set goals that are practical for both the dog and the handler.  Sometimes it's difficult to reconcile our dreams for our dogs with what is possible.  I am going to need a new car soon. No matter how much I'd like to replace my 1998 Honda Civic with a 2019 Volvo XC40, my bank account says it's just not going to happen.  Not this year. 

Some day, you'll be mine.  But not in 2019.

When setting my car-related goal last year, I feel I made one major mistake: I was focusing too much on a specific achievement - being able to ride in the car for 30 minutes - instead of the process needed to get there.  While finish line-type goals are definitely useful, for a dog like Ida, the "finish line" (her tolerance of riding in the car) is kind of intangible, pretty difficult to measure, and fluctuates constantly.  It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking of "progress" like a finish line. 

While you can't really go backwards from a Q, title or ribbon - they are yours forever - "progress" changes from day to day, car ride to car ride.  Just because Ida could tolerate 20 minutes in the car today doesn't mean she will be able to handle it tomorrow.  There may (hopefully!) come a time when she can handle 20 minutes in the car without batting an eye day after day, but I know that for us, focusing on a specific target like that will put me off track the next time she can't handle 20 minutes in the car.

Seemed relevant, questionable attributions aside.

So, instead of setting a finish line for Ida's goals this year, I am setting them based on taking specific, measurable actions.  I want to outline the things that I will be doing, rather than the places I want to be going.  That way I will feel like less like failure if things don't go as expected.  With that in mind, here is my biggest goal for Ida for 2019:

We are going to take one car ride per week of any duration to do a fun thing - Nosework or rally class, squirrel watching - and at least one car ride per month that goes on the highway.  We will aim to increase highway rides by a few minutes at a time, or until she starts to either pant or refuse food, at which point we'll stop as soon as it is safe to do so.

And so far, week into the new year, we are on track - 2 car-rides down, only 50 more to go.

Revival

Hi!  If this is your first time here, welcome.  If you've been following Ida's story from the beginning, thank you and welcome back!


When I adopted Ida from the local shelter 3 years ago, I had no idea that our journey would be so twisty-turny.  At the time, I was at the top of Mount Stupid; having successfully rehabilitated a leash-reactive dog, I thought I could tackle any behaviour problem.  In hindsight, that was incredibly naive.  (I also am not sure I was wrong, but that could fill its own post).


All stories have their ups and downs, but sometimes the extent of our downs were, well... extreme.  When I met the cute, playful puppy in the shelter, all I saw was the classes we'd take, the agility courses we'd run, and some of the ribbons we might take home.  That she might not be able to do those things never even crossed my mind.

When I first noticed she was so anxious in the car, wide-eyed and shaking just sitting in the parked garage, I struggled with what to do.  I really wanted to keep playing agility, but every drive felt like I was torturing her to do an activity that was really for me.  I didn't know how to handle the baggage that came with it.  I felt guilt constantly.  And I felt like a failure because I wasn't able to train my dog to be comfortable in the car, which millions of dogs can do without any special training at all.  So more than 2 years ago, I started this blog to externalize the struggles that I was having with a young dog who stole my heart while also breaking it.

Well, Ida and I have come a long, long way since then.

Some of our accomplishments have been documented here.  And they are accomplishments, even though many dogs can do with ease the things that we've worked towards for years.  But since I started this blog, I found my tribe - a group of dog people with a shared philosophy, and I have been celebrating with them more, and posting here less.

Ida's journey: from rolling to rally.

But the more time I spent with "dog people", the more I see people going through what we are.  I think back to how I have felt - and still sometimes feel - on this journey with Ida: it can be incredibly isolating to be a "dog person" with a dog who can't do "dog things", even with an accepting, supportive tribe.

So, I am reviving this blog.  I want better document our journey and what it's like to live with and love an anxious dog.  I want to write about our failures and our successes, but also about my thoughts and self-discoveries made a long the way. 

Maybe other dog handlers who are also struggling with their difficult dogs will find it; and maybe it well help you feel not quite so alone.

Even when you think you're finished - it's not over yet.

A side-trip to impostor syndrome

There seems to be a disconnect between human and veterinary medicine, at least in public discourse.  For sure, human and veterinary medicine are not identical, if only because every species has anatomy and physiology that makes them their own species.  And it irks me when, for example, physicians for humans make informal recommendations in public dog-discourse based on what they know about drug action/affects in humans.

As an epidemiologist, I have been trained to evaluate reports of health/medical studies for biases that may hide the true relationship between a disease and an exposure.  I am perfect at it, but I have more training in evaluating sound medical science than the average person.  And I have always felt that this training carried over into veterinary medicine.  The features of a high quality study remain the same whether the subjects are human or canine!  If anything, there are a lot of parallels between canine epidemiology and pediatric epidemiology (especially in babies/toddlers): both dogs and toddlers rely entirely on their caregivers to meet their physical and emotional needs, to teach them how the world works, and make appropriate health decisions with their best interests at heart.  In addition to all of the biases that normally come along with observational studies, both pediatric and veterinary health studies are prone to placebo-effect affecting the caregiver.

There are very few reasons why my training in evaluating human literature should not apply to veterinary literature as well.  I am not an expert in human physiology or anatomy either; lack of expertise in veterinary physiology/anatomy is not the difference here.  In fact, I have more training in animal physiology/anatomy than the human equivalents.

Despite my internal inadequacies, it was really nice to get some validation in this area.  It came in the form of summary notes from a workshop put on by one of the biggest names in veterinary behaviour (that I wish I had attended, but that's another story).  It was nice to see that we had the same conclusions in a lot of behavioural treatments, based on the evidence in the literature.  And it was a good reminder to myself that hey, even if I don't feel like I know what I'm doing, and even if random internet people who don't know my qualifications tell me I'm not qualified because I'm not a vet*, it doesn't matter.  I'm not out to lunch on this stuff - the training holds true.

*Vets are really great professionals and I have a lot of respect for them, but - like human physicians - the focus of their training is on diagnosing and treating disease, not designing studies or evaluating study methodologies.  But that is a rant for another time.

Detours

If you're already at a destination, one that you go to routinely, it's easy to not think about how you got there. Think about your commute to work this morning. Chances are this is the first time since arriving at work that you've thought about how you got there. And probably, unless something unusual during your drive - a crash or stall that caused you to change your route, for example - you didn't even really think about your commute to work while you were commuting... and even then, since you've travelled the route so much, chances are that any detours are easy, short affairs because you still know exactly where you're going.

On the other hand, if you're taking a trip somewhere you've never been before, if you're like me, you spend every few seconds checking for markers that provide assurance that you're on the right route to get where you're trying to go. An unexpected detour may, or may not be stressful - depending on whether you already know a clear path how to get from the detour back to your original route or not.

And I think the same thing can happen on our journeys with our dogs. Whether it's a sport-specific problem - like bar-knocking in agility or dumb-bell chomping in obedience - or deficiencies in regular life-skills like leash pulling or fearfulness, it can be really easy to fall into the trap of thinking of your dog mainly in terms of those problems. If you're actively working through those kinds of problems, then that's what your brain is putting its cognitive abilities towards when you think about the dog. You don't think about the things that aren't a problem because... that's just not what you've been working on.

Sometimes its okay to take a step back, soften your focus, and appreciate the good things about your dog. Whether that's how pretty she is, or how good she is at playing fetch, or how fast she can run. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it is something that you love about your dog.

It has been really hard for me to work on Ida's car anxiety this year. It's been over a year since I first identified that it was becoming a problem, 10 months since she started on medications and stopped going for unnecessary car rides, 6 months since I sat down and wrote a clear and specific training plan, and four months since I put a system in place.

And I needed every single one of those to be in place before we could make progress: so that I had a step-by-step plan, so that I knew what I was looking for, so that I could put my own anxieties about the process aside, and so that I could keep myself accountable.

Over the fall, we worked on rolling down the driveway with the car engine on before I bit the bullet and decided to try moving powered by the engine.  We went slow, only a little bit at a time, she was relaxed, ears up, tail up, happy the whole time.  We're not finished yet (she is not happy always), but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm pretty sure it's not a train.

Although it was a super long, drawn-out process, I really wanted to make note of the key points that I think have helped us be successful this far, so that when something else catastrophic blows up in my dog training, I can come back to this post and remind myself that I can in fact fix it, and here's how I did it last time.

Identify the problem
Remove the trigger
Develop a plan
Hold yourself accountable

This time, the first two were hardest for me.  I tried to hard to identify the specific thing about driving that was bothering her, and it turns out that it's all of it, which resulted in trigger stacking.  But the hardest thing of all was pulling her out of classes and not driving anywhere we didn't have to.  I know now that my difficulties didn't really have much to do with Ida, but training classes are a safe space for me to geek out as much about dog training as I want without worrying about people thinking I'm strange for being so enthusiastic about dogs and training, and it turns out that's a really important thing for me to have in my life.

After I stopped all car rides, I played around with behaviour modification for the problem.  It got a little bit better, but without having a plan and system in place, I frequently made mistakes that set us back.  It wasn't until I sat down and wrote out a plan that we finally made consistent progress.  I started by identifying the specific senses that were involved in a car ride - from putting on her harness in the house to the actual driving - and then the individual stimuli that affected each of those senses (e.g., the sound of the radio, the feel of the vibrations of the car, the smell of gasoline burning, etc.).  Once I had a list of what to work on, I also planned out how I was going to work on it.  I needed to structure my training plan in a way that would set both of us up for success: removing barriers that prevented me from working on the problem, and ensuring that we could progress steadily without falling into the "one more rep" trap that frequently catches me.  I would aim to do at least one session every day, and that sessions would only be 10 dried anchovies long.  Limiting the session length was really important so that "Finding time" didn't become a barrier preventing me from working on it.

Even having a concrete play laid out, I still didn't do as much as I felt I should.  I was doing about one or two sessions a week, and things felt tedious because we were not making very much progress.  I also happened to be learning about human behaviour change techniques as part of a project at work, and decided to set up a visual cue and system of accountability.  It is not very complex - I printed off monthly calendars and bought some stickers, and voila.  When I work on a thing, I get to place a sticker.  It's not a perfect system, but it's definitely helping to keep me motivated, or at least prompting me to work on it!

A Dilemma

I have been thinking a lot about how much Ida enjoys obedience/rally work, how much it makes me feel like we're really a team, and what that means for her car issues. I don't really know how to proceed going forward. All of the options I cam come up with have questionable chances of success and the potential for real negative consequences.drawbacks.

I could try giving her xanax for every training session that involves the car moving, and try DS/CC that way, while she is medicated to prevent her from being re-traumatized every time. But that seems like over kill and since the Xanax should be on board for about an hour beforehand, means we likely won’t have many opportunities for training and/or if I do make the effort to work it every day, run the risk of creating a physical benzo dependency.

After our last experiment with the Xanax and the drive just around the cul de sac being a pretty okay success, I now question whether she might have some car sickness. Which means trying gravol and/or ginger…. But because she already has a CER- just to getting in the car, even if an anti-emetic fixes her car sickness (which I have no evidence that she has, other than she stops eating and shakes when the car moves for more than a few seconds), I still need to be able to create a CER+ to riding in the car, which means riding in the car and something amazing happening, over and over again, to break down that old CER- and build up a new CER+. Part of me wants to put her in Rally classes in the next session at the facility 10 minutes away (and no highway driving!), just to see what would happen – that 10 minutes of driving to go to something that will be awesome and fun (there is inherently potential for a much higher ROR in Rally training than in agility) might start to counteract her previous CER- to the car.

I could try a Control Unleashed approach utilizing a mat as a “safe space”. I do not know how Ida will respond when her “safe space” (the mat) becomes also the scary moving thing. Or maybe I just need to condition her to moving on the mat = okay?

I could also try crating in the car. But Ida does not like being confined when she is left alone (i.e., in isolation - she is fine confined to a bedroom with our other dog). She will escape if she is confined by herself while we are gone for more than a few minutes. She won’t truly be alone while crated in the car, but I have put quite a bit of work into making crates a safe space so that she can chill in crates for if we ever trial, and using a crate in the car may wreck that. Or it may not, since she’s not always great at generalizing, and maybe the close quarters will be comforting to her, since as a puppy, small spaces (like under our bed) were where she sought comfort/safety.

I am just…. stuck. Choice paralysis is a real thing, and in this case, the consequences for fall out for all of the choices are pretty serious to me. What do you do when every option before you has a real possibility of ending in punishment?

Ida was in a moving car today.

Ida chose to stay in the car when the door was opened.

Ida jumped right back in when I lured her out.

We have a long way to go still, but at least now I'm pretty sure we can get there.

An Ode to Snowball

Snowball's first morning in our home

This blog is primarily about Ida, but Snowball and I have been spending a lot of time together, taking Rally Obedience classes, and it's really brought me awareness about how lucky I am. I started typing this up as a FB post, but it's really too long for that. So I'm posting it here instead. Today, I am grateful that you have been my first dog. You're the reason that became interested in dog behaviour and training, and how I ended up with R+ right from the beginning. Although I had planned to take a dog training class when we got our first dog, classes at the shelter (which uses R+ training methods only) were a requirement with your adoption. Although I learned a lot about learning theory, the quadrants, and counter conditioning, in those classes, I left with some questions still; they mainly served to whet my appetite about dog behaviour.

From those classes, we went on to many, many walks together, all over the neighborhood. And eventually, to the off-leash parks around the city. You've always been up for a walk, rain, snow, or shine (but not in wind, it messes up your hair too much), and although you've started to slow down in the last year or two, it's still clear that you love going out and about, checking the pee-mail.

I wish I could've seen you as a baby puppy. Certainly at 8 years old you were no slouch, and I can only imagine how much energy a younger, more athletic you would've had. I'm sure you were a ton of fun. You "eskie grin" is contagious and always brightens up my day.

I hope our journey together will serve as a guidebook for all of my future dogs. I have made mistakes that would have ended much differently if you were larger, younger, or more determined. I hope that I never forget that even though some days I felt completely hopeless and inadequate, and that you surely would be better off somewhere else, that we still achieved our goals. It just took time, patience, and consistency. I am also lucky that you have been so forgiving of my mistakes and haven't put too much effort into training me. 🤣

Whether it's driving to Calgary to prove that yes, you are in fact a good dog, or hiking 10 km up a mountain, or just laying around the office while I help less fortunate doggos, you go with the flow. Sometimes you don't understand why I want you to do a thing, but (most of the time) you do it anyway. I'm sorry that I can't make you getting older any easier on either of us, but I hope that you're around for a long time to come. The house is going to be very lonely when it's not furnished by your borks. <3

Dreams and Goals - Update

I am just reviewing and revising my dreams/goals for each dog and myself.

Snowball's Dreams

- TEAM1 Title

- "Compete" in rally and/or scent detection

- Get his intermediate trick dog title (strikeout)

- Get his advanced trick dog title

Ida's Dreams

- Be comfortable around traffic

- Be comfortable around other dogs

- Get her CGN

- Title in agility

- Have running contacts

- Title in Rally

My Dreams

- Build a career that involves dogs

- That's really the only one that matters

	Goals	Progress
	Submit the papers for his Novice Trick Dog (NTD) by Friday, January 13, 2017	Complete!  Snowball received his NTD certificate February 22, 2017. New Goal: Film and submit ITD before December 31, 2017. Selected tricks: Go around a cone Close a door Leg weave Perch work Roll over Shell game (nose=1, paw=2) Back up (2) Cross your paws (2) Distance work (Sit, down, stand; 2) Place (left finish)
	Enter the Barnhunt fun match in Red Deer in March 2017.	Complete! Snowball “passed” the instinct test with the second fastest time in his category; we did not Q for either Novice run, but we had a lot of fun anyway.
	Hind end conditioning with the end goal of pain relief for his arthritis (and improving his sit)	Ongoing. Regular perch and pivot work New goal: Continue perch/pivot work on both sides, and work on building a stronger sit/eliminate him walking backwards into a sit.
		New Goal: Fade out rewards during rally sequences in preparation for trialing in the future.
	Submit papers for her NTD title by Friday, January 13, 2017.	Compete!  Ida received her NTD certificate February 22, 2017. New Goal: Film and submit ITD before December 31, 2017. Selected tricks: Go around (“fly”) Jump wraps Baton jump Jump through circled arms Perch work Place (left finish) Sit pretty Soccer Go to mat Directional casting Back-up (2) Directed retrieve (2)
	Attempt TEAM1 by May.	We have cleaned up several components; and are starting to do run-thrus. New Goal: Film TEAM1 by December 2017.
	Learn weaves and teeter by Summer 2017	Ida has 6 weaves in easy situations (low distraction, low-medium arousal). New Goal: Work towards 12 weaves and building fluency with high arousal, from different entry points, etc.  Will be put on hold when snow flies. Teeter work on hold until I have access to equipment.
		Car conditioning. I aim to do at least one session per day.  Sometimes I do none, and sometimes I do three, c'est la vie.  We have made notable progress - she is no longer bothered by the sound of the car being started (when she’s not in it), but she is still nervous of the car when the engine is running.
	Take Snowball for a walk every day, even when the weather is bad* *walking a circle around the cul-de-sac counts in really bad days.	Write out cue dictionary
	Train at least 5 minutes per day with each dog.  Seriously me, 5 minutes isn't that long, set a timer if I have to.	The amount that I train has significantly increased.  I have also added an easy limit on Ida’s car desense - 10 dried anchovies per session - which has made it far less intimidating for me.
	Drink at least 1000 ml of water every day for the rest of January.	I failed at this.  New goal: work on a more creative solution.
	Take at least 7500 steps every day for the rest of January.	I have been keeping up with this.  I won’t say I’ve been perfect, but I have been adding in small things, like taking the stairs down instead of the elevator and parking my car a bit further away and walking to my office.

Tonight I am initiating a hiatus from Facebook.  It will be hard - it has been a part of my daily life for the last 10 years, a way to connect with the kind of people I've struggled to meet locally, both in terms of philosophy and shared interests.

But it's become too much of a habit, and a draining one.  There is too much judgement, too much ignorance and hate.  And I know going off facebook won't eliminate that hate, but it is extremely hard for me to constantly expose myself to those attitudes - especially in a context in which I can't do anything to change them.

It has also become my main displacement behaviour.  Unsure what to do?  Check facebook.  Bored in the car?  Check facebook.  Finished writing a work e-mail and not sure whether to send it or not?  Check facebook.

It needs to stop, and it's not stopping on its own.  My goal is to build a new displacement behaviour - one that's a bit healthier and not as easy to get sucked into.  I also want to spend more time just... in life.  With my dogs.  With the cat.  And connecting with people more meaningfully, which is not something I'm good at doing online.  I hope someday I can return - there are a lot of things I like about it and a lot of people that I don't have any other way to connect with.  I'll miss having a resource for nearly immediate answers to question, but I won't miss the word vomit that spouts from my fingers, seemingly out of my own control.

I know that this won't magically fix all of my problems, but it's something that I can initiate by myself, entirely on my own terms.  I hope it gives me back some time, and also some of my sanity.

FE 345 - Immitation and Mimicry - Week 1 notes and homework

Behaviours on verbal cue

• Sit
• Over
• Hup/Up

Behaviours almost on verbal cue alone

• Drop
• Spin
• Kiss?

Behaviours not on verbal cue alone that are likely easy to put on verbal cue

• Left (paw)
• Right (paw)
• Fly
• Touch

The rest of the homework for this week is proofing stays/waits, and thinking about how to demonstrate the behaviour so that the dog will recognize the human motions as analogous to dog motions.

An eventful week

Two amazing things happened this week.

1.  We have started working on consent cues, and a nose-touch on the car door is how I've been teaching Ida to ask to get into the car.  A friend was dropping my husband off from a day-trip yesterday - Ida came outside to say "hi" and hang out while they unloaded the car.... and during that time Ida offered several nose-touches on the back door of our friend's car.

This is huge, mainly because first, she's offering the behaviour outside of the context of training, and second to be it indicates that she actually wants into the car, which would never have happened a month ago.

2. We also have started going to a the nearby community league property, which has an outdoor rink that is almost fully enclosed, and is grass and therefore disused in the summer.  We've just been going there to hang out in a new place.  What I didn't realize is how many hares live around there (although I probably shouldn't be surprised, since there is a large community garden plot less than 100 m away from the rink).  We were just hanging out in the rink, Ida was sniffing some stuff and started wandering over to the open door.  I called her back no problem and we kept sniffing... she started wandering over again so I put her into a down stay and went to close the gate just in case, and wouldn't you know it, there was a GIGANTIC hare just laying in the grass about 20 feet away. Good girl Ida (and thank goodness the hare didn't decide to take off because I have no illusions about how well she'd recall while chasing down a rabbit).

This weekend there was a regional agility championship held in my city.  I knew a few people running; a friend, some former shelter staff/volunteers, former instructors, former classmates, and even a shelter dog who I worked with briefly years ago.

After my friend finished running her dog, as I pulled out of the parking lot, a bunch of things hit me all at once.  How awful it is to explain to people that you can't play the game that you love because your dog can't leave your home.  How everyone I know is progressing so well and I'm stranded behind them by myself.  How, even if I get a puppy, it will still be years before we actually get to play (and then what if the new puppy can't play either?  Then what?)  How unfair it is that I have this great, fun, smart little dog and no one else gets to see how amazing and smart she is.

I'm just throwing myself a pity party, but I had to get it out.

I took my first Fenzi Dog Sports Academy class last August.  At the time, I didn't realize what an amazing community was behind the online dog training center, but with additional classes, I discovered the support and encouragement of other people embarking on the same training journey to improve the lives of their dogs (and themselves).  I have online, R+ dog-friends from other corners of the internet, but something about the people in FDSA has been incredibly inspiring and uplifting to me.  Reading others' stories and successes with their own dogs - some with very similar issues as Ida - has been been very encouraging for me and I am incredibly grateful everyday for having found a community that focuses on using R+ as much on its people members as on its canine ones.

But there has been something else that I didn't expect from joining such a large online community.  Even though there are thousands of people, it is quite tight knit, and the increase in support and motivation and encouragement has also come with heartache, as people who I previously had no connection with say goodbye to dogs that have taught them so much about themselves and the way they view the world.

Sometimes it feels like I've known the dog personally.  They've become fixtures in my online world, seemingly infinite and ageless, even as I see the numeral marking their years increase in online posts. Others I have never read about until their owner posts a heartfelt goodbye that reminds me how little time we get with our dogs.  It doesn't matter if it's one year or ten, it's never enough.

I failed my dog today.

But she did great anyway.

Patrick and I took Snowball for his morning walk. Ida was VERY insistent that she come with us. I don't know if its because she wants to be outside, or if it's just because she wants to be with us, but she does this thing where she howls at us when we're leashing up Snowball, and then she stands at the front door, pointing out, like she's ready to go.... I caved, and harnessed her up.

It was pretty early still (about 7am) so not much traffic on our residential streets... but I forgot to check the bus schedule - Ida's nemesis! Sure enough, a city bus roared right past us to pick up passengers at the stop only 50 m from where our cul-de-sac opens onto the main street.

And you know what babydog did? My baby girl - who used to panic and try to run as far away from the bus as possible and continue to freak out for several minutes after - came over to me when I called her. She ate the cheese that I furiously shovelling into into her facehole as fast as I could. And once the bus was gone, she continued trotting along, tail up, checking out the new smells on the boulevard ahead of us, for all intents and purposes looking like a normal dog out for a normal walk

<3 <3 <3

Monthly Assessment - May

How she is in the home: Ida has been getting into even fewer things this past month.  She is very eager to play ball fetch outside.  She also runs to the front door, tail wagging, any time I put a collar (she's normally naked in the house) or harness on her.  When my husband was a way for a few days, she was very mopey for the first day or so, but settled down.  She clearly loves him the most. :p

How she is with meals: Still ambivalent about meals.  She'll finish most of it if she starts eating before the house empties, but she frequently ignores her food dispenser if there's no one home. Better about working for kibble than she has been the last couple of months.

How she is outside (of the yard): Still eager to go outside.  She walks along the street without retreating from loud cars going past.  The last walk we took, she mostly ignored the traffic and easily took cheese when cars went past.  We're still only doing short walks; she pulls more as we approach home and visibly relaxes when we walk into the cul-de-sac.

How she is during training sessions: Eager to work.

How she is with the car: Started working on the driveway with the car running (radio on) last night.  At first, hesitant to approach car.  Relaxed when I remembered to incorporate personal play; much more eager to hop into car although still showing some hesitation.  Instead of launching all four feet into the car at once, she was more frequently sticking her nose over the seat, then putting two paws up before jumping all the way in.  (Although she was jumping into the car within 1-2 seconds of putting her paws up, I need to reward more for putting her nose in and for putting two paws up.)

Ida has a vet appointment next week, so we'll see how the drive there goes.  I'm nervous that it will wreck all of our progress.

Small brags from last night.

Ida was pushing me to get into the car.  Not hard, but she was pushing.  Using some personal play for rewards/breaks, and as soon as the play stopped she was heading to the open car door.  May not seem big, but its nice to have an indication that we're moving in the right direction.

Later, we went for a short walk.  We went a bit earlier than normal (8pm instead of 8:30-9pm).  As a result, two things happened: there was a pretty constant stream of traffic on the road that our cul de sac is on, and we encountered a dog.  The traffic barely phased her; there was only one very loud truck to which she showed any kind of aversion.  For all intents and purposes, the other cars didn't appear to exist to her.

When she saw the dog, Ida was well beyond threshold and reacted, which was expected.  I also handled it poorly; I should've turned around as soon as I saw the other dog, instead of waiting for it to come into Ida's line of sight.  She kept barking as we backpedaled, but as soon as the dog was out of sight she was easy to interrupt using food alone and focused on me right away.

That would never have happened pre-medications.  Before, she would've ignored the cheese and remained hyper-focused on the spot where the dog disappeared until well after we kept moving again, and likely would've ignored the cheese for the rest of the walk.

In other news, my college roommate asked me to dog sit while her family went out of town for the weekend.  She got along well enough with both of the dogs (I knew she would), no major issues, but I was surprised at how disinterested she was in Ida's invitations to play.  Molly's not the first dog to be disinterested, but I don't have a huge sample size either; I wish I knew whether it were the visiting dogs or if it's something about Ida's invitations that makes them not want to play.

Ida also got a new bed (which I bought originally for Snowball but of course, he hates it).  Ida is loving it.

Awesome Training Habits Pre-Challenge Challenge

1) Picture your ideal outcome with your dog(s). What do you envision? If you had a magic wand, what would you make happen for the two of you? What are you wanting from your relationship with your dog?

Ideally, Ida would be happy and excited to ride in the car, looks forward to car rides and is pushing me to let her into the car so we can go places instead of running from the car.  In an ideal world, we'll compete in sports like Rally-O, Agility, and Nosework.

I want to see her happy and able to enjoy things that I know she likes without being afraid. I want a partner to do fun things with.  I would love to be able to do those fun things outside of our home, but I am never again going to put Ida in any position that causes her to shut down if it is just for fun. 

2) Make a list of at least 10 things that you have accomplished towards this above vision.

- Started implementing cooperative care protocols to build trust
- Along with that, giving both of my dogs more autonomy in things where it's reasonable.
- Stopped unnecessary/uncontrolled exposure to triggers
- Started building positive association with "outing" gear
- We're now doing once-a-week BMod walks.  They are short, and full of lots of treats, and at times of day where there are few other dogs out in our neighborhood.
- Started working on titles that we can do completely at home, like DMWYD trick titles, and Fenzi TEAM Titles.
- Trying to improve my communication skills, such as using different marker words consistently for different things.
- Rewarding for the behaviours that I want, even outside of formal training sessions.  The intention is to reduce ambiguity about what to do.
- Started taking measures to help her develop coping mechanisms.  For example, she gets worked up when Snowball runs to the back door when I get home from work, and used to chased/bite/jump on him when they were let outside.  I started restraining her when I let Snowball out to prevent her from racing outside after him; she could do whatever she wanted at the door for 15-20 seconds, until she was able to offer a focused hand-target, and then she is let outside.  We now have this ritual where everyone races to the back door, I open it and Snowball races outside, and Ida waits patiently inside for me to crouch down so she can give me a "hug" and shower me with kisses. She still races him to the back door, but she doesn't body slam or jump on him, and she waits patiently inside when I open the door to let him out.
- Started anti-anxiety medications to help level out her mental state to improve her resilience.


This question really stumped me, because I feel like I haven't done enough.  But I'm glad I had to think through it.

3) Make a list of five key challenges you still face.

1. Overcoming her fear/anxiety of travelling in the car.
2. Creating a calming ritual for when I take Snowball out the front door (for walks, to go to class, etc.).
3. Nervous/hesitant in new places.
4. Nervous/hesitant around new dogs, especially at a distance.
5. Poor engagement in places outside of the house and back yard.