Someone Else’s Shoes . . .

Yikes! – I had the best of intentions to keep this blog updated, but life has gotten in the way.  And when it comes down to a choice of whether to spend time updating the blog or actually training Rocket, the latter has to win out.   We’re continuing to work on lots of skills, and now that Rocket is in Big Dog class, he and I are going to lots of new public places to train.  Even though Rocket is learning a lot, I also find I am developing a better understanding of what it is like to have to navigate as a person with a physical disability out in public.  One of the frustrations I have encountered on a frequent basis is door switches placed in inconvenient places, covered up by displays so as to make them almost impossible to find, and even broken or poorly functioning switches.  At the library we sometimes visit, they have a garbage can right next to the door switch – it is always a challenge to get Rocket to focus on hitting the door switch instead of diving headfirst into the trash.  This very same switch has been very hard for him to activate, and even if I try to hit it with my hand it doesn’t work well.  If someone without a service dog were to try to activate the switch who has limited hand strength or function, I can see how it might be difficult to get out the door without help.  So I have taken it upon myself to become somewhat of an advocate.  At this particular library, I went to the counter and inquired (nicely, I hope) who was responsible for the upkeep of the door switches and asked if the switch could be repaired.  The librarian was very pleasant and agreed to forward my concern on, but so far I haven’t seen it get fixed.  I’ll have to be more persistent, I guess.  At least the libraries have door switches.

Changing the subject completely:  It is a temptation to only write about the successes and not the issues we go through in the training process.  Well, Rocket has had a significant issue from the very beginning, and that is rubbing his face and Gentle Leader on the floor or on me when we are out in public and he is in a situation where he is in close contact with other people.  For those of you who may not be familiar with the Gentle Leader, it is a wonderful tool that gives a person super control over the dog; essentially it is a head harness, based on the principle that if you can control where the head of the dog goes, you control the rest of him.  They are NOT a muzzle (can you tell I’ve been asked that question before?), and are not uncomfortable for the dog if fitted properly.  Rocket can wear his Gentle Leader without any problem in most situations; however, when I take him to church, where there are a lot of people, or other stimulating environments he seems to resort to this, and it has been difficult to train him out of it.  It is as if he is so excited to see other people that he just doesn’t know what to do with himself, and so this is an outlet for his excitement  At least that’s my current theory.  At any rate, our teacher, Nancy, has given us the option of trying to wean him off of use of the Gentle Leader by using a limited slip collar instead.  While the Gentle Leader is a wonderful tool, it is, unfortunately, sometimes difficult for people with limited hand function to put on the dogs, so it would be a good thing if he could learn to work without it anyway.  I agreed to give it a try, and we have been working without it sometimes out in public.  The problem is that without it on, Rocket can easily get to the floor with his nose to sniff, and he acts like a vacuum cleaner, with me having to use all my strength to pull him away from whatever it is he is sniffing.  Obviously not the best way to handle the situation.  It certainly has pointed out that we have a great deal of work ahead of us with the “Leave It” cue, and in some ways it is like going back to kindergarten.  We are making progress, though.

Well, here’s Rocket working on the door switches at the local post office – isn’t he getting to be a handsome boy?

New Skills

As of yesterday, Rocket has officially graduated into Big Dog Class!  Whoo -hoo!  I’m so proud of him.  Over the next few months we’ll be working on refining and putting together the various skills he has learned to help get him ready for his future job.

Over the summer we worked on several new skills.  One of the new cues was “hold.”  We began by teaching him to grab a dowel and hold it, without mouthing it, right behind his front teeth..  One of the important aspects of this is that he is not supposed to let go until both of my hands are on the dowel and he is told to “give.”  This is one of those skills that is going to have many practical applications.  If he is paired with someone who has limited hand use, this can help with retrieving dropped items – it makes sure that the object won’t be dropped on the floor before it can be securely grasped.  The “hold” can be used to carry objects, for instance carrying a bag from the store to the car.  And the hold can be used by the dog (paired with other cues)  to pull open and hold a door.    Rocket isn’t to the point of actually opening a door yet, but he has been learning to grab a door strap as a first step.

We practiced with the dowel  for weeks and weeks, gradually upping the ante, requiring him to hold it for longer periods of time, to hold it while he moves from one position to another, and not letting go until he is asked to.  He is making good progress, as you can see:

Ninety-Degree Retrieving

Aack!  It has been three months since I’ve updated this blog, and Rocket has been learning a lot of new skills. He has graduated from Working Wonders class, and we’re now in a transitional class called “Almost Big Dogs, ” getting ready to join Big Dog Class sometime this fall. I intend to take some time to film Rocket practicing some of these new skills, but in order to put at least something on the blog right now, I decided to add a variable to his retrieving practice today – I think he likes it. In fact, he’s out in the pool right now as I write.

It’s All About the Relationship

Rocket and the "Cone of Shame"

The past month has come with some changes in Rocket’s routine.  For a week in April we did a dog exchange in our class.  Rocket went to stay at another foster home (thanks Linda!) and I brought Miss Becca home.  It was quite interesting working with another dog. Becca is definitely wired differently than Rocket. While she was very happy to come home with me and settled in quite well, I did notice that it took her a few days to respond well to me when we practiced our homework. It was as though she needed to know she could trust me before she was really willing to work  in a focused way. But once that began to happen, she became very responsive and fun to train.  There was a TV special on PBS in April called Through a Dog’s Eyes that featured a service dog organization from Georgia.  It documented the process of matching service dogs with their partners, and I could also see in this show how important the human-dog bond was for a partnership to work. I’ve been told that Helping Paws essentially allows the dog to choose the person – that they won’t force a dog to work with someone they don’t want to – and I appreciate that very much.  I want to know Rocket is going to be happy when he goes to his new home.  Oh, yes, I know – he’s only a year old and we have months and months of training ahead of us, but after sending him away for a week, it has been on my mind a bit more.

I’ve also been wondering a lot lately about who Rocket might eventually be matched with and hoping and praying that that process will go smoothly.  Right now Rocket is very attached to me – I’ve found in the past with my own dogs that  training them strengthens the relationship, and in Rocket’s case this has also been true.  He is such an exceptionally sweet dog; I believe that, just as mentioned in the TV show, almost more important than the physical assistance he will be able to provide someone is the capacity he will have to love that person.  And yes, it is going to be difficult for me to say good-bye, but I also think I will be heartbroken if for some reason he is not able to fulfill the purpose  for which he was bred.

A week after Rocket came home he went in to have his neutering surgery.  Dr. Reierson from Elm Creek Animal Hospital graciously offered to donate the surgery, and everything went well.  Rocket had to wear an e-collar for several days afterward because he wouldn’t leave the incision alone, and he hated it at first.  But then he discovered it was kind of fun to push Risa around with it, and he actually didn’t mind at all having it put on by the time he was done with it.

Here are two more video clips.  I took the first to show how he is coming along with his light switch skills, and in the next he is practicing the Really Reliable Recall.  Rocket’s recall is beginning to look really awesome.  This has come with months and months of practice.  Want to know the secret to training a reliable recall?  Here’s how we’re doing it.  First, I don’t use his special recall cue unless I am very, very certain he is going to respond when I call him.  For instance, if he is out in the yard and is extremely distracted by something (say, a rabbit), that is not a time I would ask him to come.  Secondly, when he does come running to me, I have a big handful of his favorite treats,  and when he gets to me we have a 20-second party; he is allowed to chow down on the food and gets lots of praise and petting.  In fact, in class when we practice this we are timed to make sure it is a full 20 seconds.  He gets this big celebration EVERY time I call him.  And it is working.  That’s a big feeling of accomplishment for me, and we’re going to keep up the practice I’m sure.

Funny – it’s about bedtime, and Rocket keeps going into the bedroom to bring me things – shoes, a hanger – I think he’s trying to tell me he’s tired.  So I’ll quit for now.

And here’s his recall:

Progress in Spite of Me

I filmed Rocket a few weeks ago working on some of his newer skills; watching the videos has been educational.  You may recall that Rocket is being trained with a clicker.  When he hears the clicker (or sometimes in the video you may hear me saying the word “tip” -  a verbal substitute for the clicker), he knows that what he is doing at that very instant is what I am looking for.  However, while looking at some of these videos I can see that my timing is WAY off with the click – it is late.   For example, here’s a clip of me working with Rocket on learning to turn on a light switch.  He should be hearing the click EXACTLY  when his nose is pushing up the switch – watch the video and see how late I am with the clicks.  I have come to the conclusion that when I am having frustrations with Rocket learning a skill it may very well be my timing that is off.  Granted, it isn’t easy to catch the behaviors all the time at the exact microsecond it happens, but I need to pay more attention to tightening it up I can see.    In spite of my bad timing, though, don’t you think Rocket is doing awesome with a light switch?  I’m so proud of him!

Want to see how your timing is?  Here’s a game we learned the first few weeks of class.  Find something that will make a clicking sound, such as a pen with a retractable point, and have someone drop a ball and see if you can click the exact instant the ball hits the floor – how did you do?

Retrieving Practice

Last week, part of our homework was to practice retrieving keys from the snow.  It’s a little tricky trying to video Rocket while working with him, but here’s a short demo of how he’s doing.

Play Time

This has been such a long, hard winter!  I’ve been feeling pretty sick and tired of chipping frozen dog poo out of the ice, but today the snow was falling and it was just beautiful outside.  Rocket and Risa went out in the “Big Yard,” and I caught them on video in a little play session.  Even though Rocket and I have been working hard lately on learning some new skills, he still finds plenty of time to enjoy life!

Heaven in Rocket’s Eyes

Yesterday Rocket took a trip to the groomer to get all gorgeous for the dog show today.  Thanks Teresa – he looks great!

Then early this morning we packed up and headed to St. Paul for the Land O’ Lakes Kennel Club Dog Show to help staff the Helping Paws table.  Rocket thought he was in heaven; for two hours he was fawned over by countless dog lovers, not to mention all the dogs.

I was so proud of him! – He exceeded my expectations and behaved very, very well for only a 10-month-old.  He did spend too much time rubbing his face on the floor off and on, an issue with the Gentle Leader we’re still dealing with, but he sat politely to be petted and shook hands whenever he was asked (and a lot of times when he wasn’t).  Everyone commented on how beautiful he was, and Rocket soaked it up.   It is pretty funny because he now seems to think that in addition to meeting people with a paw shake he is supposed to meet new dogs that way, too.  When he is given permission to come face to face with a new canine friend, he throws out his paw and puts it on their head as if to say, “Hi – nice to meet you – can we play?”  I’m not sure the other dogs know what to make of this.

Our purpose for being at the show was to encourage people to consider becoming a foster home for a Helping Paws dog, and it was  a lot of fun – I hope we’ll get a chance to do it again next year.  Our table was right at the entryway to the show by the escalators leading down to the show rings; that meant that the first thing people saw as they came to the show was Rocket and the other Helping Paws dogs, so we got to talk to a lot of people.    It was also fun to see some other Helping Paws dogs who are further along in their training.   Rocket was able to focus enough to practice some retrieves, drops, and loose leash walking.  We visited a few vendor booths after our shift was over, and Rocket “picked out” a new squeaky toy.  As I write this, he is lying on the floor next to me happily chewing on it – all in all, a very good day for the Rocket man.

Christmas Day Bath

Wow – it has been a long time since we’ve posted!  As you can see from the above picture, Rocket is turning into a beautiful boy – the last time he was weighed he was up to 66 pounds, and I’m not sure when he’ll be done growing.

We’re working on some new skills.  One that is going to take a while to perfect is his door greeting behavior.  The final goal is that when he hears someone knocking or ringing the doorbell he will automatically go to a rug, lie down, and wait there until he is released.  You might guess that this is not a natural golden retriever behavior – ha – major understatement.    But we are breaking the behavior down into small pieces, and I can see how it will eventually work.  First he was trained to go lie down on the rug when given the command.   That wasn’t a problem;  he’ll do that pretty reliably.  Then I began by knocking on the front door from inside the house, giving him the “Go to bed” command, and clicking and treating him when he did that.  After a few days of knocking on the door, followed by the “go to bed” command, he began to anticipate what I was going to ask him to do and would go to the rug before being told to when he heard the knocking – so far so good.  Now to raise the criteria a bit.  I  sent my husband outside onto the porch for a few sessions of knocking on the door as if someone were really coming to visit.  This is  a bit harder for Rocket, but he is doing pretty well, and I can even open the door a little bit and he’ll wait on the rug.   However, the doorbell is proving somewhat more challenging – I bought a cheap wireless doorbell so that we can practice  anytime without having to have volunteers to stand outside.  The  problem is that Rocket can tell the difference between the wireless and the “real” doorbell; when I ring the wireless one, he stops, sniffs the air, and tries to figure out where the sound is coming from. For some reason he thinks it’s in the kitchen ceiling when it’s really up in the living room, and he is so interested in figuring out where it’s coming from that he forgets he has been told to “go to bed.”  It took us a few days of working on this for him to settle down enough to actually get him to go to the rug at all, much less doing it without being asked.  We are making some progress, but we’re definitely not there yet.  I have to remind myself  we probably have two more years to work on it.  In the meantime, I’m looking for volunteers to come over and ring the doorbell any time – the more practice, the better.

Another new skill Rocket is learning is to rest his head on my lap or on my feet.  Rocket  LOVES this one, to the point of shoving my arm and keyboard aside while I’m at the computer sometimes so he can plant his head.  Needless to say, he doesn’t get rewarded when he does this!  And it is very hard not to reward him because it is just so darn cute – he is still a very cuddly, lovable boy and it is hard to resist him sometimes.  I suspect that he knows this.

We’re also continuing to work on retrieving all kinds of objects, practicing his  loose leash walking, down-stays, sit-stays, taking off gloves and socks, and pushing the rocker light switch, and I feel overall things are still going pretty well.  We signed up to be at the Helping Paws booth at the Land O’ Lakes dog show on January 9th in St. Paul.  I’m looking forward to it; I haven’t been to a dog show in a while, and I’m also hoping it’s going to be a good training opportunity.  I am not expecting too much from him, since I think this will probably be the most distracting situation he has been in, with all of the noise, dogs, etc., so it’ll be interesting to see how he does.  If you’re coming to the show, feel free to come by and say hello to us, as I’d love to show him off; we’ll be there in the morning that day.

Now, the bath story.  I should have known better.  We let Rocket, Risa, and my daughter’s lab, Tess, outside in what we call the “Big Yard” on Christmas day.  The “I should have known better” part is that we can’t trust the dogs outside alone (yes, we have a fully fenced yard) for more than a few minutes, BUT we sat down to watch my 6-month-old grandson open some presents and forgot the dogs were out.  A while later I walked by the dining room door and saw Risa on the deck chewing on something that looked suspiciously like a piece of the house – it turned out to be some lattice that we had put around the deck in an effort to keep the dogs from getting under there and digging.  How Risa had gotten a hold of this I don’t know, but – uh-oh – this didn’t look good.  So I put on my jacket and boots and went out to the yard to investigate.  I called and called and didn’t see either Rocket or Tess anywhere and had a moment of panic, but I checked the gates and they were still closed.  So I called and called  and called and finally heard a whimper coming from the direction of the deck and discovered both Tess and Rocket under the deck – they had squeezed through a very narrow opening that Risa must have made when she ripped the lattice off – and they couldn’t figure out how to get back out.  I was able to grab each of them by the neck and pull them through and in the process discovered that, indeed, they had been digging in the slushy, muddy ground under the deck and Rocket was as filthy as I have ever seen any dog, ever.  There was no way he was going to avoid it, so Christmas Day evening he had his bath.  He actually doesn’t mind having a bath, but I definitely minded having to give it to him on Christmas Day!  He also stole my cell phone a couple of days after that right out from under me without my noticing it and chewed up the back.  Thankfully the phone still works and I can get a replacement part.  He is still most definitely in the adolescent stage!

Just for fun, I’m adding this little video from several months ago – I think I posted it on Facebook but never to this blog, so here he is at 2 months old after having been with us for only a couple of days.  He had just learned to go down the stairs, and for some reason he was convinced he needed to carry this big toy down the stairs and was SO frustrated, but SO cute!  It was fun for me to watch this again and remember how little he was.  That’s all for now – here it is 10:14 and we haven’t practiced all of our skills for the day, so we’d better get to it.

No Longer Perfect

His "official" photo for the Tail Waggin' Dinner

You might be thinking – perfect? A 7-month-old puppy? Of course, Rocket isn’t perfect. In fact, he has been showing a lot of adolescent naughtiness lately. Tonight he stole my toothbrush off the bathroom counter – I won’t be using that again. And he and his partner in crime, who will remain nameless, have a new game: when I forget to close the laundry room door, they sneak in and make a beeline for what they view as their basket of tug toys (a.k.a. clean clothes), choose an item that looks to be a good candidate, and initiate an intense game of keep away, tug, and shred.  Rocket has never been allowed on the furniture in our house- Helping Paws has good reason for this rule – but this morning I turned my back for a few seconds and noticed it was too quiet – I walked downstairs and found them wrestling on the bed.  All of this isn’t Rocket’s fault, of course. He is only doing what a puppy naturally does. I just need to be more vigilant.

However, that kind of perfect really isn’t what I was referring to. What I mean by no longer perfect is the fact that we received word today that next week Rocket and his litter mates will graduate from Perfect Puppies class and become Awesome Adolescents! Whoo-hoo! I’m excited for us to move on.  One of the differences in this class will be that I can bring Rocket into more public places; for instance, hardware stores, office hallways and the like; and, no, we’re definitely not ready for grocery stores yet; that will come much, much later. We had a little preview on a field trip to a hardware store with our class last week. All the puppies did amazingly well, and I was immensely proud of Rocket.  He did a lot of loose leash walking, sit-stays, down-stays, and walked with me up and down some very crowded aisles. Interestingly, he didn’t pay a lot of attention to the items on the shelves, but scraps of paper or tape on the floor- now that got his attention!

Left to right: Stella and Rocket

Last weekend we had the privilege of watching one of his litter mates overnight – his sister Stella.  It was really fun to observe the different personalities they have.  Stella seems to be more energetic than Rocket -  he really is pretty laid back. Stella was pretty cute – I put Rocket’s rug on the floor to practice his “Go To Bed” command, and she plopped herself right down next to him. I wonder what they remember about their time together in their first weeks of life?

We have a couple of new skills we’ve been working on. You may remember when Rocket learned to push doors and drawers closed a few weeks ago. Now we have a rocker light switch that he is learning to press with his nose. He took to that right away.  And another skill is learning to tug. The first step was to get him to pull on something (an oven glove on my hand) instead of pushing it.  The first time I tried this at home Rocket grasped the concept in about two minutes – I was astonished at how quickly he caught on.  I had been expecting that since we had spent so much time working on “Push” that doing something completely opposite would be confusing to him.  But apparently not.  He continues to surprise me.   He will eventually use the tug  skill to take gloves or socks off, pull open doors, and other things I am sure.  But for now he gets very excited when he sees the oven mitt come out. Before we became a foster family, we visited a Helping Paws class.  After the class was over, one of the foster “moms” came up to introduce herself, and she told me to hold out my gloved hand to her dog. He ever so gently put his teeth over the very tips of my fingers and then carefully tugged off the glove; it was at that moment that I decided, “We’re going to do this,”  because I was so impressed. So now it is really fun to be beginning this skill with Rocket.

Well, that’s about it for our update. This Friday we are going to a Helping Paws graduation – our first. I am planning to bring a box of Kleenex. I am looking forward to it, as I believe it will help put things into perspective.  Sometimes it’s easy to lose track of why I’m doing this, and seeing the end result with other dogs will be good.