Thursday, February 09, 2012

Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium: Wait

The topic for today's blogger consortium, given by Grannymar, is "Wait". I was very tempted to make you "wait" for my post, because I really wanted to post a video this time. However, the only video camera around belongs to my son, and he wasn't interested in helping with this task. It's still on my "to do" list, so the video may be appearing in the near future.

When I think of the word "wait", I think of my efforts in dog training. My dog loves to go for walks, and gets overly excited at the prospect. It's quite a chore just to put on her leash! But I'm very strict, and make her sit still while I put it on. If she starts to squirm with excitement, I make her wait. I want her to be calm before I put it on.

The next hurdle which we are striving to overcome has to do with her learning to "heel". I'm not an expert dog trainer, but I do believe what Cesar Milan teaches, which is that the dog should not be leading the master in the walk. He suggests that the master even walk out of the front door before the dog so that the master is the leader of the "pack". Because of the way my front door is set up, I can't go out first. So I let the dog go out of the door first, but I make her wait on the porch until I step down first. Then we begin walking, but my dog pulls a little on the leash. I am constantly correcting her, and making her stay by my side. It is really a struggle, but she is learning. I know I don't walk as fast as her, but she needs to learn to wait for me.

This part doesn't have to do with waiting, but there is one last behavioral problem that we are trying to correct. Whenever my dog sees other dogs, she goes crazy. She starts jumping up and barking her head off. I have finally got her to the point where I can keep her from reacting to dogs behind fences, but I haven't mastered keeping her calm when there is a dog nearby in sight. For the fences, I learned to watch her body language, and correct her before she could explode. When I hear a dog start to bark behind a fence, I snap my fingers at my dog. Through time, she has learned that this snap is a correction sound. She responds well to my snap. THe funny thing is that I used this same technique with my kids, and it worked with them too. lol My mother used it with me also. When my kids were young, and we were in church, if they started to get out of line, I would snap my fingers at them. Yes, I know it causes a small disruption to the service, but it is far less of a disruption than if my kids got out of control. lol And now I use it with my dog, and it really works!

Well, watch for my video sometime in the future. I will introduce you to my Sally, and you can see for yourself the behavioral problems that we are learning to overcome. But you will have to WAIT for the video. :P

If you can't wait, maybe you can check out what the other consortium members have to say about this topic:
Rummuser, Anu, Ashkok, Gaelikka, Grannymar, , Padmum, Magpie11, andAkanksha,Will Knot, Maria the Silver Fox, Anki, Nema Noor Paul Plain Joe, and Rohit
and The Old Fossil

7 comments:

Nene said...

I was thinking the other day of how much we need to make another video this summer. :0) (IF you will be there.)

Grannymar said...

When we are out walking and meet a friend or friends, we greet each other, start a conversation and maybe laugh out loud. Surely your dog is doing the same thing when she sees other dogs.

What I object to are the people who keep large dogs in small gardens, never exercise them, and leave the neighbours to endure the constant barking for hours on end while the owners are at work all day. I know, I listen to two rottweilers on a daily basis.

Ramana Rajgopaul said...

Training adult dogs takes a lot of patience and yes, waiting!

Maria from SilverFox said...

Lucky (My male Maltese) says to ignore Caeser Milan! His sister, LuAnn states dramatically that you can't replace the Alpha (her in our case) with any human and that humans have to be carefully trained to do the wishes of the family dog or dogs.

Our very wise and very old Doxie says that next to sleep, wait is her favorite word because it doesn't require a lot of energy.

And for me, good luck with your four legged friend. Stay firm and keep clicking those fingers!

Loved your post.

Inklings said...

I used to snap my fingers at my kids in church, too. :0)

padmum said...

Lovely post--reminded me about the time my brothers used to obedience train our dogs.

Maybe you should get one of those uber smart phones that takes videos as well..then no having to wait on your son's time schedules and inputs.

Nowadays phones can do anything...maybe even control your Sally!

blackwatertown said...

At least you're doing the training together. I know of people who send off their dog for training, not realising that they may need it more.

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