Ruby is now loose in the house all day, except for popping into her crate when I’m feeding or training Able. She’s had literally zero accidents inside the house (there are advantages to starting with an adult dog!) and there haven’t been any major scenes of destruction. She does like to collect up dog-approved things she finds lying around – cow hooves, balls, empty Kongs – and amass a hoard of them on the back deck, her favourite sunbathing spot.
A New Approach to Measuring
Ruby was, like many dogs, quite worried about the measuring stick when she first saw it. I’ve played around with a few things to build her confidence to have it looming over her and touching her:
- Middle position – just a couple of sessions, using a treat to lure her into position at first, and then she started offering it. At first I had to stand with my legs very wide, but I gradually closed them up until it was a tight squeeze for her to fit between my legs.
- Crawling under a chair – a fun game to get her offering behaviour, as there are many different paths to choose from. Also quite applicable to measuring, as she’s going underneath something and making contact with metal chair legs.
- Back and forth under the stick – I held the stick with the far end of the crossbar touching a wall to make a little hoop for her to walk under. This is quite a confined space with the wall on one side and me on the other, and I had to set the crossbar very high at first for her to be happy walking through the gap.
- Cuddles with the stick – Ruby is very cuddly, so I’ve also just been sitting on the ground with her, with the stick nearby or in my hand. We’ve made good progress over the last two weeks, but she is still a little twitchy at first.
Through our cuddling sessions, Ruby and I have come up with an interesting way to stand still for a measuring session. I sit on the ground with my legs straight in front of me, and she stands with her front paws between my legs, rear paws by my left side, and head by my right hand. She’ll hold this position for 20-30 seconds if I hold a cookie out beyond her nose (this took a few sessions to build up duration!), and I can move the stick into position on the other side of her body and take a rough measure.
I wasn’t sure if this would work for an actual measure, so we tried it out with Lucinda’s help on Wednesday night. It went really well! She didn’t mind Lucinda approaching and looming over her, she didn’t mind the stick, and she stood nicely without leaning against me.
The verdict? She’s taller than she looks but still within the 500 range (around 500-510mm).
Sits and Downs
Two of the major themes of this week have been getting a down on verbal cue, and trying to build a sit stay off the bed.
At the end of last week, Ruby could “down” on cue when I was sitting on the couch, but that was the only place. This week we’ve tried it with me standing up, and in lots of different places – the kitchen, dog club, the vet clinic etc. I’ve also introduced her to the idea that she can “down” directly from a stand, as well as from a sit.
Now that she knows that sits and downs both pay off with lots of cookies, I can mix things up and help her learn that she needs to listen to my verbal cues. For example, when we did our happy vet visit I would throw some reset cheese for her to take, then give either a “sit” or “down” cue as she was approaching me. When she got it right I reinforced her in position a couple of times before throwing the next reset. When she got it wrong I just paused for a couple of seconds, didn’t feed, and threw to reset her. She was pretty good, but I caught her out by doing four “downs” in a row and then asking for a “sit”!
Sit stays are quite a challenge for us. I taught Able that when I say “sit” I expect him to stay in position until he’s released, without any other cues. I would like to do things like this with Ruby, but this is apparently not how she originally learned “sit”! She is getting really good at staying on the raised dog bed while I move around, but if I ask her to sit on the ground she will move as soon as I start moving away, even if I just lean my body. This week we have been working on sit stays on a foam pad as an intermediate step, and she seems to be cottoning on. We’ll try something smaller next week (maybe a towel) and then see if we can get a sit stay happening on the ground.
Other Adventures
Some other things we’ve been up to this week:
- Walking with unfamiliar dogs. We were walking around Knottingley Park when we encountered a group of dog walkers with two Tibetan terriers and a rough collie. All the dogs were friendly so we were able to join them for the rest of the walk. After a few minutes of grovelling, Ruby calmed down and happily explored all the sights and smells with her new friends.
- Animates. This was quite a challenging environment for Ruby. She was quite startled by a reactive dog sounding off at her as soon as we walked in the door, and later when a staff member suddenly emerged through the plastic curtain. She thought the big tall shelves were a bit intimidating, but she was very interested in the pallets of chicken bedding on the floor.
- Street walks. Ruby is pretty confident with traffic and the random loud noises that town life brings. On one of our evening walks we found a house that still had its Christmas lights up, though, and she was not at all sure about that!
- Wing wraps. This week Ruby learned to wrap a cone and a jump wing, sort of. She isn’t very intense about it yet and she needs me right there next to the wing, so we still have some more work to do here.
- Taking turns – grooming. With Rik and Able, I used my two raised dog beds as parking spots on grooming night to avoid dog fights happening right on top of my lap. They were both very good about staying on the beds until called (although Rik would start barking if I didn’t reward her often enough) and going straight back to bed when I asked them to. This week I did the same setup with Ruby and Able. Ruby had a couple of little turns for nail trimming and measuring practice, and in between she was perfectly happy to settle down and snooze on her bed.
- Taking turns – training. This weekend I’ve done a couple of sessions where I have both dogs present in the room on their beds, and they take turns coming off and doing some training. We started with pretty calm stuff (practising sits at my side) and then it went so well I tried some cone wraps. Ruby was perfect at staying on her bed until I released her off. Able was very happy to be involved in training rather than shut away in his crate – but if I went too long betweeen rewards he just couldn’t resist joining in.