BMod Academy Part 2!

Okay, I promised you a follow-up blog with our remaining four dog/human student teams, but first this visitor to our farm this morning as I walked down to feed our barn cats:

In case you never heard me say it... I LOVE our farm!!!

So - our second half of student teams are the little Pittie, Miss Honey Biscuit and her human, Emmy; the mostly Labrador Retriever, Julian and her human, Heidi; the what-looks-to-me-like a Retriever mix, Josie and her human, Kimani; and the Sheltie, Hamish with his human Kimberly. Here they are:

Miss Honey Biscuit is not comfortable with handling and has had some ear issues - off-and-on ear infections, and lately a hematoma in her right ear - perhaps from scratching at her ear and shaking her head due to the recurring infections? (By the way, Dr. Karen Overall informed me years ago that recurring ear infections are almost always due to food sensitivities, so Biscuits humans will be exploring this further with her. Here's our girl, with Emmy working on counter conditioning and desensitization to touch. She's using a handi-wipe on the shoulder here, with the intent to work up to the ears when Biscuit is ready for that. (https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/behavior/touch-restraint-desensitization-protocol/ ):

Julian's human is actually Patrick, but Heidi is the one doing great work with him this week. He is a lovely dog - and has some impulse control challenges, including a very strong desire to sniff, even pulling his human over to whatever the object of his attention might be and then stalling out there for long periods of time. Heidi is working with him on a lovely call-away "Touch" behavior, with the very clear understanding that sometimes he does get to sniff. So she is also using Premack (doing the less fun thing allows you to do the more fun thing) to sometime allow him to return and sniff after she has called him away. (https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/training/beyond-basic-dog-training/):

Next we have Josie, whose real-life human is a client of Kimana, her Academy human. Josie is a sweetheart of a girl whose primary focus for this week is polite greetings (and counter conditioning and desensitization with new stimuli - kie horses) - she likes to jump up on people. Josie's situation is compounded by the fact that one of her humans encourages this behavior while the other would prefer she not do it. When I have clients like this I tell them to put the jumping up behavior on cue, and only reinforce it if you ask for it. My cue for my wonderful dog Josie was to get down on my knees and pat my shoulders. Not a cue that's likely to happen accidentally! Jumping up is often an impulse control behavior, and often resolved by highly reinforcing an incompatible behavior (like "Sit"). We have, by the way, recently come to realize in the dog world that not all jumping up is poor manners attention-seeking. It is often comfort-seeking for a stressed dog and if that is the case we need to meet her needs by providing comfort, rather than turning away from her as has long been suggested: (https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/training/dog-impulse-control-training/)

Last, but by no means least, is Hamish - a beautiful blue merle Sheltie with considerable neophobic challenges (fear of new things). Kimberly does Collie rescue (and apparently Sheltie rescue too) and Hamish was one of an unsocialized litter of rescued pups - and the most challenging of the litter, so he ended up being a foster success. No - I do not call them foster fails - I look at it from the dog's perspective. Hamish is a happy playful guy at home - he takes comfort from his other canine family members and runs sound with his tail wagging. Here he is pretty fearful of pretty much everything. Kimberly is taking it very slowly, working with him outside where he is more comfortable and some distance away where the other students are working. She is doing some counter conditioning with him, as well as Leslie McDevitt's Bucket Games - as patterns and routine are very helpful for fearful dogs. ( https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/behavior/reducing-your-dogs-anxieties/ )

Graduation is tomorrow - feel free to comment!!! Then on to new projects... and another Academy the following week - Advanced Training and Behavior!!!

Warm Woofs,

Pat (and Sunny)