Roaring Lamb

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.

Keiko's here

The most interesting thing I've found out about Keiko, is that he's afraid of heights.  This is seen when he bounds up concrete stairs, but balks at the platform stairs which is nothing more than a bunch of slabs suspended in the air on top of one beam.  He's come up a half-flight with lots of "doggie treat" encouragment, but balks at the second flight.  He's afraid, but I also wonder his soreness keeps him from jumping since he got neutered.

He really is very pretty, just my style in black and white.  He looks to be a non-barker and that is worth its weight in gold.  For another setting a occasional barker would be okay, but where I'm living, it is pretty important that he's quiet. 

I've already had to explain to one of the residents in my building that he's an assistance dog.  I also mentioned that if enough owners get together at the Nov. 4 th meeting, the rules against pets could be changed.  It was a relief to see that they already accept hearing dogs and I might be the only dog owner in this 70+ unit condomimum.

He's be a lot of work since there's no yard to just turn him loose in.  He'll always be on a leash and I'll have to pick up his droppings.  But these retractable leashes are wonderful.  Never had one before, but it certainly does the trick.  He's going to be in the crate at night, and I'm hoping he's quiet then too, so he can stay in the bedroom with us.

I got a call from my audiologist, Ken Pugh, and my next mapping will be on Sept 15.  I say it is about time!  I need a phone map really bad.  I certainly loved having my cell phone with me today since I needed directions to the vetrinarian's place.  It really is hard to find.  Turned around at least a half-dozen times.  But there's no markers along the road, you have to know exactly where to get off the highway before you can even find the mailboxes.  I expected a sign I could see from the highway, and that's one of the quirks of living in Kona, signs are limited in size and location.

I'm excited about my dog even though he's kooky about open-air stairs.

Keiko's coming

One thing I've been hoping for a long time is to train a signal dog, or a service dog that will alert me to fire alarms.  I may add other things, but my hearing is so much better that I hear the phone ringing and would probably hear someone knocking on the door, except when I'm listening to music through my head phones.  It is at night where I don't have anything hooked up to a lamp to wake me up if a fire occured. 

I've been watching the classifieds and stopping by the Humane Society dog pound, hoping for just the right dog to come along.  Even with years of experience with animals, it is hard to determine a dog's behavior at a kennel, but two things became clear, he didn't whine (hey I can hear those now) and didn't bark all the time.  Kiko is the name they gave him, but its going to be changed to Keiko, the name of the whale in the movie "Free Willy."  Well I'm freeing Keiko!

He's a Jack Russell mixture, and my main fear is housebreaking an older dog.  That's where crate training comes in, and hopefully he will see his kennel as a refuge rather than punishment.  I'm awaiting his arrival from the vet tomorrow, where he's gone for his neutering operation.

So why get a dog now?  It is for many reasons other than just the hope he'll alert me to certain noises at night. There's companionship, there's the potiential of relating with more people as I'm out exercising him, and hey I'll get some exercise too.

I've just found out that the condo association does have exceptions for signal dogs in their rules, so there's no need to educate them about the laws about service dogs. I'll have to pick up the poop until the day I can afford a bigger place...

I'm excited and know there's a ton of work ahead of me.  There's a trainer in Hawi, an hour north of me that knows how to train hearing dogs.  I'll have to get in touch with her and see what can be worked out.

My hope is to journal the joys and frustrations of training a rescue dog.  He's a confirmed outdoor dog, so I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but his personality makes me think there's hope. 

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