It’s been a mixed week for Venn and I, with steps both forward and backward, and with a bit of poo to tread in along the way.
On the down-slope The week did not start well from a training perspective. The lessons we were doing seemed to stagnate and by midweek nothing seemed to be working at all. I couldn’t hold her focus for long enough to try anything, and the “sit” command, as suspected, had become (through misuse) a very much optional command. I feared that perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew, or worse still, that Venn was not going to be up to the task.
To compound the gloom over training, the barking and separation anxiety seems to have at least remained if not got worse. We have followed some of the suggested strategies regarding ignoring it and rewarding the silences but have yet to get on top of it.
In the midst of all this we took our first overnight trip to stay with friends in their new house. Suffice to say that the house-warming gift provided by Venn on the lounge carpet was indeed warm but certainly had no business being in the house.
This week also saw Venn’s first proper trip to the vet for her next set of vaccines. It was hard not to reflect sadly that the last time I made the journey and saw this particular vet, I travelled with Tess and came back alone. Later the same day the poor mood was compounded when I was doing the accounts and came across an invoice from last month: “1x follow-on consultation, 1x euthanase dog.” We’ve always tried to take a pragmatic approach to the care of our dogs and if the invoice had instead said “1x trip across the rainbow bridge” then we’d be using a different vet by now, but it felt hard to see all that Tess was compressed into that one line of text.
Enough time on the downslide. Time to refocus.
Moving forwards again I had a long conversation with a very knowledgeable dog behaviourist from SARDA (the search dog people), and he talked me down a bit. “You knew what the dog needed to do before she was born; all you have to do is get to know her. She on the other hand has to get to know you and then work out what you want her to do at the same time as trying to make sense of everything else in her world. Don’t expect too much too soon” was one bit of good advice that struck a chord. Another point was that dogs learn best in a familiar environment without distraction.
I was encouraged to hear that many of his recommended best ways-forward were things that we were already doing. We just needed to do them better.
So, it was back to basics with Venn, but this time in nice quiet familiar environments with few distractions and away from Kip. We went back to shaping the action and associating the command (e.g. waiting until she was lying down then saying “Down”), and retrained “sit” using a different command. By the end of the week in these quiet spaces we could probably muster five different commands with a degree of confidence.
We also introduced Venn to her new harness, and though not an immediate winner, she seems to be getting used to it. If she makes the grade, then she will be working in one, so we figured the sooner she associated it with exciting and interesting things the better.
We have also started laying short food-trails to encourage her to use her nose. I’m not convinced that she isn’t just looking for the next bit rather than sniffing, but it is a start.
Today, we spent a good 10 minutes playing fetch, including actually bringing the toy back to me; something that none of our other dogs ever fully mastered.
Probably the best bit of news is that she is now sleeping through the night without needing a break, and although the 6:00 a.m. start seems to be a more fixed position for the time being, the extra sleep is very welcome.
So, on balance, the week probably ended a little further forward than when it started. Lets hope for more of the latter stuff and less of our early-week experiences.
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