Baffling stories

Hi Kaye,

Here are two baffling stories.

Last weekend we had a couple (business consultants) and their two Australian
Terriers come to stay. One dog was blind from diabetes and the other a red
bitch was reportedly quite the 'top dog' at her 'play group'.

Pep and Red (name changed to protect the innocent) took an instant dislike
to each other. I was impressed when the owners didn't instantly break them
up when they started some pretty vigorous mock fighting. They settled, as I
hoped they would, but remained very mindful of each other for the next few
hours. As soon as Sally arrived home Pep jumped Red and was serious this
time. I broke them up by tossing water on their faces and there was only a
little bit of blood, only on Reds neck.

We growled at Pep if she got too interested in Red, didn't separate them and
has a hilarious and informative evening swapping dog stories and business
advise.

The next day after breakfast, we were outside in the bush house and Pep
crouched down and walked around Red snapping her teeth together in a way
similarly to a greeting she has for us. The teeth were a bit more furious
and I'd never seen that behaviour in a dog before and wasn't sure what would
happen but it looked troubling. They sure had our attention. Red stood very
tall with her teeth bared and head to one side. She looked to me a bit like
a dog will sometimes look when it's bum is being sniffed by a stranger. Pep
was extremely serious when she pounced this time and luckily Sally had her
by the collar before there was any serious damage. We tied Pep up and Red
gave her a very wide berth and look worried for the rest of the visit. She
lurked in the kitchen most of the time and Pep made sure she did by trowing
herself to the end of the lead in her direction, every time Red plucked up
the courage to look out.

The second story is equally baffling. As I told you I walked over Fido on
Wednesday when he was leaning on the lead despite my best efforts to get him
to stay by my side. I'd used reversing direction regularly and also stopping
and asking him to sit for a second or two. Neither helped for more than a
second or two.

I walked over him to see if he would get a bit more interested in where I
was and it worked very well, if getting the desired behaviour is the chief
goal. I suspect I got more than I expected!

You have a summary of yesterdays session. Today I decided to ask a bit more
of him. I cooked up some meat that was on the turn, left over from the week
ends barbe ( Lucky for him our guests turned out to be vegetarians). Fido
was pretty hungry from watching me frying the meat. His pellets didn't look
very interesting, Pep had a bone, and the meat was sizzling with a bit of
fresh garlic.

We went to the School and I was determined to get him crawling following the
end of his target stick. I've been working on that for a little while. He
got the hang of following my hand and then the stick. It is convenient
because he will lie down when I tap the floor with the stick. My little teen
ager doesn't like the game much and gives up on crawling attempts pretty
quick. He will leave after a try or two for any distraction he can cook up.

The meat worked well and he stuck to the crawling pretty well and managed a
personal best. I was happy. Not that I think understanding had anything to
do with his lack of enthusiasm. It is just not a favourite activity, fair
enough......just a little bit is OK with me.

We went on to 'hand targeting'. I can clumsily get him to do figure 8s
between my legs. That went pretty well.

So we did some 'Sit-Come' to a hand target and that was going rippingly
until I asked him to sit with his back to the door. It was like the request
meant shoot off towards the door and he looked suddenly really worried. I
repeated the request three times and got the same response every time. This
has happened before a few times when I've needed to catch him. If he doesn't
want to be caught, because he's having too much fun, sometimes I can ask him
to sit and put the lead on. A couple of times he's run off instead but he
looks mischievous, today he looked worried to me. I wondered if being walked
over has contaminated the sit command and signal. If so why was it working
so well until this positioning near the door. After the third time he ran up
the stairs to the mezzanine and put himself to bed.

I called him. He didn't come. That is impossible! I said we get 90% recall
but that is outside. He always comes when he's in the house. I was totally
baffled. I went up pretending to get a book. Luckily I'd been reading 'A
Modern Dogs Life' by Dr Paul McGreevey. I grabbed it off the desk and though
he'll come down soon. He didn't. I went and got coffee. He stayed in bed,
not responding to the opening and closing of the door, unheard of! I read
for a while and ran out of puff and went upstairs and had a sleep. He did
follow me down when I got up. He looked troubled. I didn't want to leave the
session so untidy so I got him to come a few times from close quarters. That
went well and so I asked for some 'sits' also from close quarters. He was
starting to look more confident so I slowly increased the distance.

It was going really well until I asked for the sit in the same spot. And
again he shot up the stairs looking worried and put himself to bed. I
haven't seen Fido look worried too often and never in relation to me. I went
up stairs and called him to a  hand target which he did tentatively. His
confidence increased to the point where he followed me down stairs. I
barricaded them so he couldn't retreat in that direction and quietly built
up to asking in the same spot. He flew towards the stairs found his way
blocked and went into the foyer and came back and sat in the door way. I
gave him a bowl of cooked meat and waited until he'd licked it clean and
left it. I'd intended to stop the session but he was quite excitable and
seemed to have shifted psychologically.

He just threw himself into the training. Sit and wait, flying to the hand
target, tail wagging, wanting to lick me, immense enthusiasm and only for
liver. Luckily that is the note we finished on. It has been quite a day!

I've been wracking my brain. I don't think it is related to the leading
incident. At least I can't connect it and it didn't seem to worry him much
at the time or yesterday. That was more like what Karen Pryor describes in
her book when the female dolphin swats the youngster so it gets back in
formation to be lead by the male pack out of trouble.

We have had several lots of people staying in the school and a few dogs. I'm
wondering if something happened I didn't see. As I've been writing this at
the desk in the school, Fido's been in three or four times really pleased to
see me; like something significant has happened. Mysterious little bugger!

I guess there is just more dog emerging and this won't be the last riddle;
tricky though!

Cheers,

Richard