Find it!

Conker plays the "Find It!" Game.

This game is simple. Take a handful (or just one piece) of food, throw it and say "Find It!" as you do so. The dog will search for the food and be instantly rewarded for finding it. The level of difficulty can be increased by playing in grass of varying heights. The dog will have to use his or her nose to find the now hidden food. In the process, the dog will learn how to use their nose more efficiently. It can also be used to slow down hasty eaters, or to just give the dog something to do for a few minutes.

Somehow, this thing passed the CGC

'Ey

Conker the Shiba Inu is now a Canine Good Citizen! It's just a certificate, not anything special (and I think that titles mean just about nothing anyways) but for Conker, this is a pretty big thing.

I never really talked (on the blog) about just how bad Conker was when I got him. Think Shiba Inu puppy, that is four months old, with absolutely NO bite inhibition, terribly food aggressive towards anything that moves, not house-trained, has no manners, and is afraid of everyone but me... Basically, he was part-feral (I truly mean that), and he was a big project right from the get-go.

The worst bit was the stranger fear. It is still an ongoing process, but Conker has made some pretty big improvements in the last few months.  Conker had gotten to the point that he was good enough around strange people, where as long as they didn't bother him, that he was fine with them being close to him. As in standing right beside him. That was HUGE for Conker, and I took that as a sign that he might be ready for CGC.
He was not overly fond of the training classes we took, but by the end he would accept two of the trainers with no issue, and one of the others with only a small amount of shying away. (One of the trainers and several handlers he still would not allow to pet or groom.) Conker was even okay with being left alone for 3 minutes with some nice elderly ladies, one of whom just adored Shibas.

Anyways, I'm glad that Conker was able to pass this thing. I still have a few things I need to work on him with but I really did not think that he would be able to pass the CGC this soon. It's been just shy of two years that I've had him, and in that time he's gone from being a wild, snapping, biting, fearful, maniac to what the AKC conciders to be a good citizen.

I don't think he'd have passed if they saw how he can be at home though... He's still got a bit of that feral side in him.

CGC class week 4

Today was the last day of CGC classes. Conker did good again, still was a bit nervous with the friendly stranger thing, but the trainer thinks he will pass. We'll see how he does this Saturday.

Not much else going on today. We didn't hike because of the class, and my sister and her fiancee are in town.

CGC class week 3

Conker did really good today. We did the usual heeling, then we worked on greeting a friendly stranger and supervised separation. Conker was, like normal, shy of the friendly stranger, but he did GREAT with the supervised separation. That kinda shocked me. No whining or looking for me, just chilling with the lady in a lawn chair. So, that's really good.
He did some very nice heeling, good recall, stays, downs, sits, etc... He wasn't so fond of the noise distractions, but he was good with the crowd. He also did good with the thing where two people with dogs walk towards each other and say hello, but the dogs don't. (Can't remember what that's called.)

Anywho, one more week of class to go, then after that is the CGC test! Hopefully Conker will be ready for it by then.

CGC class week 2

We did a lot of the same stuff that we did last week. Mostly heeling, with some sit/stays and down/stays. Conker was very, very, very bored, and ended up having some digestive distress in the middle of it. (We left the ring and hid behind some bushes for a bit when that happened.) I don't know what caused that, so I will have to investigate and find out.

Anywho, as promised, here is a picture of Jane, the Chinese Street Mutt.

She's a little bigger than Conker, maybe something like 30 pounds or so. Super cute and super sweet.

CGC class week 1

Today was the first day of the free four-week long (4 sessions) CGC training class in Riverside Park. I did it last year with Sasha, who was pretty great, and earned her CGC at the end of the classes. It's Conker's turn this year, and so far he's done pretty darned good.

The trainers recognized me from last year (they all still think I am a guy) and many of them said I was the "star pupil" last year. That was, kinda, wow, unexpected, really. I did not think I was that good, but apparently they believe I am quite a good dog trainer.
After the introductions and blah blah blah about what we will be learning, we worked on some heeling. Conker has never been good at heeling on-leash, or anything on-leash, so I knew there would be a couple problems here. I was right, but Conker worked through them very quickly and by 10 minutes in, he was heeling very nicely. Not perfectly, but a lot better than I figured would happen. We worked on sits, downs, stays, and come, as well. All of which Conker aced.
During the "down time" when the trainers were explaining something or talking to an individual, Conker and I worked on stays, but instead of calling him to me I walked back to him and around behind him to his side. Sasha always had big problems with that and would break her sit and follow me, so I had to return directly to her. Conker would swivel his head around and watch, but did not break his sits or downs.
Anywho, I was thinking Conker was not going to like the "friendly stranger" part. I was mostly right, but also wrong. He was a bit nervous, but allowed the trainer to pet him and examine his feet. He was not enthusiastic, but relaxed when I talked to him and scratched his chest.
That's basically all we did this week. I think we will work more on the stranger bits and distractions next week, which is more of what Conker needs to do.

A funny part was one of the trainers spotted Conker and said "Ooh, you have a Shiba! Well, good luck." Which I thought was a bit funny. I guess she thought Conker was going to be difficult. While he did lose interest a few times and totally spaced out on me, he was one of the better dogs in the class. This must have surprised the trainer since she said to me later "Whatever you are doing, keep it up. I was not expecting him to be so good." That was amusing, and goes to show that breed stereotypes don't always match up.


We met a nice couple who'd lived in China and got a mutt while they were there. The Chinese mutt, who's name I have already forgotten, was really fricking cute. She didn't understand a lick of English, but knew everything in Chinese. It was funny watching her try to learn the commands in English, then see her perform in Chinese. She looked like two completely different dogs.

Down

A funny thing has happened quite a number of times in the past. I will call Conker, he will ignore me, so I call him again. When he looks at me, I will say "Conker, Here!" And point to the ground beside me, like an angry parent does with a disobeying child. I expect him to come to me promptly, and to the side that I am pointing at.

He lays down.

Other times he will he trotting over, and he may look at something or slow to a walk, so I will call him again to be sure he comes over. "Conker, Here!" And point to the ground by my side.

He lays down.

I get annoyed, because he just laid down instead of coming over. I told him to come, not lay down. What part of "Conker, Here!" Sounds like "Conker, Down."?
Then it hits me. I told him to come, but right after, I told him to lay down. By pointing at the ground.

Duh.

Updates for the next two weeks

Pictures (new pictures) will be absent on the blog due to the camera being in Hawaii. So, in order to make up for that, happenings will be just text and some postings will be stuff that's occurred in the past (like finishing up the Arizona Adventure series) that will have pictures taken during them. I'm probably going to do a couple more reviews too, since I've got some drafted up and are bored with them sitting around doing nothing.


Conker is spending more and more time out with the Girls at night. He does come in to sleep on the bed with me after a while but I'm starting to think he might decide to spend a full night out there. No worries, I'm not upset about that. Glad, actually. I'll have more room to myself if he does.

I'm going to start re-training him. Not because it's supposedly "train your pet month" or whatever, I'm a bit late to get on that bus. But simply because I think he could use some real obedience training. He's already pretty good about some things but due to his issue with being indoors and strangers, I haven't been able to take him to a class where he doesn't begin to shut down.  He's moderately okay in petshops but as soon as someone looks at him, that's it.
So I'm hoping that training him some more will help with the other problems if I can get him to focus more on me instead of what's bothering him. It will be slow and take a while, but I've decided to quit beating the rug and...
I have no idea where I was going with that.
To quit "dealing with it" and face the actual problem and find a way to remedy it. Like I've stated in the past, I don't want him to love every stranger or building he sees. I just don't want him to flip his shit.

I've had Conker for over a year. He is one and a half years old and I haven't done very much to combat this issue. Issues. I'd rather not just keep him where he is if there's a possibility of getting him more comfortable with strangers and being inside buildings. And I'd especially like for him to not get worse. I have seen that happen, and quite recently too. (Talking at you, siblings of great aggravation. You know who you are.)

I think if I can get him to earn the CGC this September, that will be a really good step for him.


In other news...
The internet continues to crash my computer with increasing frequency. It's not fun browsing the net with a 10 year old machine that can't run the latest updates (for about 3 versions or so) of required software and plugins due to it's ancient-ness. 

Re crate-training The Emperor.

I have decided that I would like Conker to put up with being in a crate, just in case the relatives in AZ don't want him out and about all the time. 

Instead of using his a-bit-too-small wire crate I have been using one of the Girl's pop-up crates which has plenty of room for him to move around in.  It's made out of the same materials as those annoying windsheild covers that if you don't close them right they'll explode in your face.  Which means I have to be extra careful about corner digging since I don't want him to ruin it.

So far he's been quite obnoxious about it.
Conker wouldn't go into it at all.  He does that with his normal crate but can usually be coaxed in with a treat.  Not this one.  I stood behind him tossing treats into the crate until there was a large enough amount to practically count as a daily meal before he decided to put one foot into the crate and give an unsure sniff.  Then he backed out and looked at me as if to say, "If this things is so great, why don't you go in there and get them!"
So I did.  I got the treats and he got booted in.

Shiba is contemplating murder.

The first thing he did was try to dig in one of the corners.  He got a quick verbal correction "Hey!" and stopped. As soon as he stopped he was given a treat.  But he tried again a couple seconds later. Another verbal correction, another treat when the digging stopped.
This happened about five more times before he was given a bully stick to work on.

The bully stick lasted five minutes.
But instead of digging when his chew was gone, he began to chirp.  It's the worst sound he can possibly make since it's sharp, high-pitched and just loud enough to drive you up a wall.

More verbal corrections and treats when he's quiet.  This time I hacked the treats into itty bitty bits so I wouldn't waste a ton of them on my thinks-he's-a-bird dog.

Shiba is in ignore mode.

The next day I decided to leave the door open and just toss treats in every few minutes if Conker was quiet, to keep him quiet.  This time he went in okay when offered a correctly sized treat but promptly went into ignore-the-slave mode.
When I tossed him treats for being good, he wouldn't look at me but instead turn his head and avoid my gaze and lap the treats up with an air of snobbery.  He eventually decided that he was done and got up and left the crate.  But he quickly realized that when he left the crate the treats were bagged up and put away.  So what did he do?  He walked into the crate, leaned his head out and grumbled at me as if to say, "Okay, fine.  I'm in the damm crate.  You can give me some more treats now."

So he got treats, and eventually he fell asleep for a few minutes in there.


I did this for a couple days and while he isn't trust-worthy in the pop-up crate yet, he's getting there. Today he was fed in the crate.  Before he gets fed he is usually told to get onto the bed and sit, but instead I pointed to the crate.  He looked at me with a harsh glint in his eyes then jumped down and walked into the crate.  He got his food, and he ate it, then left the crate.  But at least he went in without me having to barricade the escape route and toss a million treats in first.


Conker's meal consisted of some Honest Kitchen Keen, a bit of cooked quinoa, a turkey tail and a chicken heart, as well as his usual supplements.

Food fit for The Emperor.

Whats going on lately?

Not much.

I am attempting to teach Conker how to pull open my door with a piece of rope attached to the handle.  So far he's just grabbed it when I flap it in his face then drop, but today he pulled slightly and got the door to open enough that he could go out.  I hope that with a bit more work I won't have to stand there and wave the rope for him and that he'll grab it and pull on his own.  The whole point of this is so I don't have to let him out of my room, which I keep the door sitting shut but slightly open to retain heat.

Conker doesn't seem to much care about getting dirty.

He makes dirt fashionable and dignifying.


In other news...
I can jog a mile!  Not consecuatively, unless it's entierly downhill, but I am slowly getting back in shape.  It's neat though, that when I first began I couldn't even jog a half block and now I can go something like 7 before I need to slow down and walk for a block or two.
Also, Conker didn't like jogging at first.  But now, after the warm-up walk (about a half mile) he doesn't want to slow down once we begin jogging!  I'm glad he's finally decided that jogging on-leash is fun (he has no problem zooming around on hikes) and he kinda encourages me to keep going. 

Rules:
When walking, we go at my pace.  If Conker wants to stop and sniff something, we do that.
When jogging, we go at Conker's pace.  If he wants to slow down we will, but he rarely does.
Always look both ways before crossing a street at a jog.  If there are any cars, slow to a walk.
No chasing anything, including cats.

Speaking of cats...  Conker chased one across the street the other day and completely ignored me.  The dumbass cat was on our property (so it deserved it) but when it saw Conker it took off across the street to it's house.  The woman who owns it came out and yelled at Conker, "Git! Git you!"  Which I don't think she realized that "git" means "get", as in attack to him. So that didn't help at all and he didn't break off from chasing the cat until the woman stepped after him and he finally heard me bellowing at him.  He comes trotting back like nothing happened... at least he did come back, and at least there were no cars.
So now Conker gets zero off-leash time unless properly enclosed and is gonna get some serious no-chasing-cats training.

CGC Training: Week 3

So!  Today's class went well.  We did the 3 minute separation thing, some distractions and brushed up on anything the trainers noticed we were lagging at.

Sasha, as usual, did great again.  One of the trainers, during the meet thing said to me:  "I really like this dog, I really do."   That made me feel better about Sasha's less-than-perfect downstay which she'll break at random times. She's getting better but still needs some work. 
She is pretty good with other dogs walking by, even sniffing at her.  There was a playfight between to dogs beside us and she ignored them the whole time.
So as long as you don't go waving a steak in her face she's great with distractions.  In a class setting that is, I still need to take her out a bit more and work on real-world distractions.
Sasha has also almost gotten heel down.  She will still stray or stop to sniff things but she's at about 80% right now, and that's very good.


I still would have liked to have done this with Conker instead but I know the friendly stranger and supervised separations parts are what would really get him. Unless it's a calm, quiet woman he don't want nothing to do with them.  And even then it normally includes touching, which is also required.  In the separation part I know he'd flat-out fail, and I don't want to stress him with that sort of stuff right now.
I'm hoping that I can find an actual class for this to take with him, one where there are less dogs so the trainers can focus on the problems of each dog instead of just go with a general survey of everybody.  I'd be even better if the class were for shy or fearful dogs, but I still haven't found one yet.

CGC Training: Week 1

My local Kennel Club is holding Canine Good Citizen training at the Riverside Park each Wednesday for four weeks.  It's free and open to anyone, so I decided to take Sasha down there and give the training a shot. The test can be taken at a dog even the weekend after the training is done.
I want Conker to get his CGC more than Sasha, but he still has stranger issues while on-leash and I'd like to know what needs to be done in to get the CGC, so I figured I'd take Sasha since she's the most mellow of my three.

There was a good assortment of dogs there, most of them common breeds.  Labs, Golden Retrievers, a German Shepherd and a couple mixes, Rottweilers, Dobermans, too many to count Poodle-oodles, some Doxens... And a couple lesser seen breeds, like the Ridgeback I'd met before, a pair of gorgeous Afghans, a long-haired Corgi, a Newfoundland... It was neat seeing all those dogs there in one place.

The class is taught my some really nice older people, the group I was in anyways.  They used a combination of negative and positive reinforcement.  Meaning, if you dog isn't heeling, give a "pop" so they do, but praise and treat if they listen.  If they don't sit, pull up on the collar or lure into a sit with a treat and praise well afterward.  I don't have a problem with this kind of training, it's actually almost the same as what I already do with Sasha. 
They do want you to use a prong or choke chain until your dog is good, but they let me use Sasha's chain martingale without a problem.

We basically learned what to expect from a CGC test, what they will do with the dogs then learned how to get the dogs to heel, sit and stay.  I guess we'll be learning longer stays, long come and laying down next week.
Sasha did great with everything but when I had to tell her to sit.  See, whenever I'd get her to move so she would stand she's sit before I even told her to, so I was walking around trying to say "sit!" before she did.  The teacher lady laughed and said Sasha was fine, and it was good that she kept sitting automatically this soon in the class.


Anywho, that's all for now.  I'm going to work on Sasha's stay and get her to learn "down" before next week so I'm ready for it.  Next update on the CGC training will be Wednesday the 31st.   

Clicker = loose leash

So as you may or may not know, I clicker train Conker these days.  He walks at a perfect heel, normally, because of the clicker.  I don't care if he ranges out a bit but he chooses not to, since he knows if he sticks close, he gets treats.


In the past, pre-Conker past, I've tried almost everything to get a dog to heel or even walk with a somewhat loose lead.  This was before I knew better, and here is my summary of these methods.

Stop n' go:  Every dog I've done this with gets phyched up and runs/pulls harder or frustrated.  Doesn't work.
Stop n' direction change: Same as above but more intense. Doesn't work.
Stop n' ignore:  Dog will ignore me as well, range out to sniff and pull.  Doesn't work.
Choke chain:  Just flat out doesn't work.
Flat collar/normal corrections:  Dog doesn't notice light corrections, dog doesn't like normal corrections, dog gets nervous or doesn't understand why they're getting pulled around. Doesn't work.
Clicker:  Holy shit how come I didn't try this first?


So if you can't tell, the clicker is the only method I've gotten to work where a dog will reliably heel and keep a loose leash.  I might have been doing the other methods wrong, I doubt that though, and while I've gotten loose leash before none of it was reliable and the dogs would break it if they wanted or got psyched up. 
I use the loose leash method on this site and thankfully Conker and the Girls are all food motivated.  If they weren't I don't know what I'd do.


Conker LOVES Zuke's treats and will do things he doesn't really want to for one.  I don't even really need to click with him anymore since he just sticks to my side like glue now.

Juneau... She really likes TOTW so I use that.  And while she wants to please, she gets riled up REALLY easily and tends to lock onto things and completly shuts me out.  Very frustrating, but we're working on that.

Sasha... Click + food = I'll do whatever you want just keep the clicky thing working.  I got her to heel on the first try where Juneau still wants to shoot ahead.

Click

Anyone use clickers?  I'm thinking of giving that a shot.  For a while I've been against them no real reason, but now I kinda want to try it.  Conker is already pretty good about coming and sitting but everything else is hit or miss.  He doesn't know down very well, wait he's good with but stay, not-so-much.
I also want to just train him more and better so I think using a clicker might help.  He's recently been getting somewhat problematic with pulling on walks especially if the other dogs are there.
I'm not interested in tricks at all, just obedience.  I might teach one or two tricks if Conker ends up being good with this but for the most part, no.

Tomorrow we're gonna go to the petshop (where I saw the Ridgeback) and pick up some treats and a clicker.  And maybe a few bully sticks or a pigs ear, I dunno.

Re-learning to walk on a leash.

Conker is looking more like an adult every day.  After a session of play and running around the apartment like mad and also, for the first time, jumping on the bed, Conker seemed to have gained more weight.  I may not have noticed until then, but I'm convinced he's at least a good 5 pounds heavier than when we got him. (12 pounds 11 ounces.) He is also acting better, for the most part. 
He seems to have given up on barking at us when we are eating.  His silence gets him a small nibble of whatever dinner may have been.  (Provided it's dog-safe.)
Conker gets a small spoonful of plain yogurt once or twice a day and his stinky farts have almost completely vanished.  He eats faster and more when there's yogurt involved so I watch to be sure he doesn't eat too quickly.

Today after a fail-walk where Conker did nothing but running around, chasing his tail and biting the leash I tried something different.  Whenever he did something I didn't want to happen on a walk I'd stop dead and completly ignore him.  He continued to be a moron for 20 minutes before he calmed down and sat on the sidewalk.  5 feet later he was at it again and we went nowhere for another 20 minutes.  It must have looked quite odd for the people driving by to see my little Shiba Inu going at it with the leash around my legs while I acted as if nothing was happening.  We made several more stops, each one progressively shorter than the last and finally made it to the treat store.  He wouldn't take a treat from the employee's hand, probably because there were several other people in the store but he was more curious than last time and sniffed at everyone when they ignored him.
I bought his food and a few treats then we headed home.  We only made a few more short stop-and-wait-until-he-sits-then-continue maneuvers before we were back at home working on targeting and waiting.