Roaring Lamb

7th mapping

Getting a map that makes great improvements is not an easy task.  I've got two new maps on my auria, and can't seem to tell the difference between them, except one is louder.  I do use the phone, and stumble over phrases, which isn't helping my confidence any.  But there's lots of time when paying attention to people talking around me, that I understand what they are saying sans lips. 

I have one more appointment on Dec 15, and a specialist from AB is coming.  If I can get more volume without more twitching, it might give me the edge.  I already got that improvement at a previous map, but still crave to turn this thing up some more...but then there are certain noises, like the road traffic about 100 yards away is already pretty noticeable.

I love my Auria, and would like to get another cochlear implant.  I'll give it a couple years, then pursue it with whatever insurance company I happen to be with. The main carrier is Medicare, so I don't know if others have had much success in getting a second CI with them.

Clicker training for down

Teaching Keiko to go down on command was the hardest one after conquering the fear of the stairs.  After reading training information from the internet, it talked about getting the dog to first sit, then extend the treat just far enough to require the dog to stretch out his nose.  If the dog moved his rear end off the ground, he heard "oops" telling him he didn't get it right.  If he moved either front paw any distance, he heard the click and got a treat.  This took me about four days of repetition and stretching him further out before he got all the way to the ground.  But once he did it, I stopped and gave him a extra helping of treats and praised him with much excitement...he didn't forget it.  He does down mainly on hand signals rather than voice, so that's the next step, to teach him the voice command along with the hand signal. 

His treats are varied.  He did work with pieces of dog food, but grew tired of it quickly.  His favorite?  Tiny slivers of wieners.  I'm trying other food, because wieners are so greasy.

Getting over fear of the stairs

Last week, the trainer told me that Keiko needs to have his obedience training down pat first before moving into the alert training.  From scanning the internet, I've come across the clicker training, and the results are astounding.  First I need to post a journal entry from two weeks ago, so you can see how far he's come in a short time.

Training a new dog is challenging. With the right encouragement dogs do things that normally terrify them. Most dogs fear being off the ground the way certain people fear heights. Training dogs to walk over a moving seesaw in an agility class takes lots of time and more than just encouraging words. Dogs need something that excites them so much that it overcomes the fear. For some a squeaky toy works, for others only the reward of food will entice them to take a step of faith.

My new dog feared walking on the stairs to my condo. As long as the stairs were solid concrete and didn’t show any daylight between them, he was fine. If the could see daylight, he would not budge at all. If the food reward was within a few feet where he could stretch out his neck and eat without moving his back feet, he’d climb two stairs. Only when he trusted me did he climb additional stairs with tidbits of food on each stair—up, but not down.

Now that it was time for him to walk down the stairs with me, he balked. He ate every piece of food within his reach and ignored the food if it meant he must move his back feet off the top stair. Why didn’t he trust me now when he just learned that going up the open-space stairs would not cause him to fall? I clapped, clucked, snapped my fingers, spoke kind words, hung food in front of his nose, but he wouldn’t move. It was time to do something more drastic.

I picked him up and put him right in the middle of the stairs where he would be terrified. After a few minutes, he walked upstairs, knowing he could do this safely. After two more repeats of this, he finally chose to come down with me—another fear conquered. He got rewarded with food tidbits, hugs and praise. Now he’ll be excited about getting to go to new places because of overcoming his fear of stairs.