We had a Schutzhund helper / decoy come over from Idaho to work with us this weekend. When we were out at tracking this morning, I told him about my troubles with Rusty and the socks this morning. Well, let’s try him with a rag and see what he does! he said.
And, Rusty was great. Like he was born to it! The following pictures tell the storey of Rusty learning to bit the tug. What a good boy!
So this morning I was up way too early to go tracking, and came into the kitchen to put my shoes on. I lay my socks on the kitchen table, and turned to make coffee. In a heartbeat, Rusty stole a sock and was off running. I chased him down and tried to get my sock away from him, but he hung on like a maniac, growling and tugging. I finally had to lift him up by his collar to get him to drop the sock.
I sat down and put the (now damp!) sock on my left foot and then (being early and thinking slowly) I realised “Wait! I need Rusty to have prey drive! Don’t fight him, work with him!”
So I got the other sock and started playing tug with him. Again, he hung on growling and tugging for all he was worth. Cool! I played until my poor sock was stretched out of shape, then finally managed to get it away from him.
I sat down and tried to put my shoes on, but by this time Rusty was attacking my feet, biting my ankles, and doing everything he could to get that sock back. I had to crate him to get my shoes on.
Once fully dressed, I let Rusty back out and got a lambskin tug down off the top of the refrigerator. Rusty was tugging like he was born to it. We played hard for a few minutes, working on outs and re-tugging. Unfortunately, the toy going dead doesn’t mean much to Rusty at this point. We’ll have to work on that!
I finally got the toy away from him and put it back on top of the refrigerator. Rusty immediately started leaping against the side of the fridge, leaping and slamming and knocking all the magnets off, trying to get to the toy. Who put the malinois into this little Aussie body?
Rusty is wicked smart.
We’ve been working on coming out of the crate quietly, which is not in his nature! Rusty blasts out of the crate at a gazillion miles per hour. It appears that people have tried to grab him as he comes out, and he’s fast and slippery! Then, since he’s in running mode, he continues running around the room at high speed.
So I open the crate door just a quarter inch, and close it immediately. Open again… and close it. Open it, and wait to see if he’s going to come forward. Any forward motion on his part gets the door slammed. Occasionally it slams on his nose, but that’s not my fault — the door is just not safe, and it’s better to sit and wait to be invited than to rush out and chance having the door slam on your nose.
He’s a smart boy. After just a few repetitions, he now waits back away from the door. Then I can quietly say “OK” and invite him out. Since he’s not charging out, his mood is quieter when he gets out as well.
We’re continuing to work on zen, and now doing zen for attention. He quickly learned (after the first episode of biting hard!) that to remove himself from the food was the key to getting the food. Now I’m waiting for eye contact. He picked that up in just a few sessions.
We also started sit & down, and again, he’s smart. Sit is a no-brainer, and down is coming along nicely.
Over the next few days I’ll introduce the “gotcha game” to him, where I grab his collar and give him a treat. It’s apparent that he’s been grabbed a lot in his life; now we have to teach him that grabbing is good!
Oh, and I took Rusty and my elderly mother to downtown Bozeman today, and he was a very good boy! He’s friendly with people and other dogs, didn’t care about my mother’s walker, and showed no shyness at all in the bustle of down town.
Rusty came to us from Wyoming Australian Shepherd Rescue. Here’s his description from their website:
Rusty is an 18-24 month old neutered male Australian Shepherd. He is outgoing and LOVES everyone. Rusty gets along with other dogs, cats [not so much], people of all types. He is fairly [!] exuberant so he may need to learn some manners before being around very small children. Rusty appears to have a great deal of athletic ability and drive. He will be an active dog and will need basic obedience training. Rusty would be a great agility, obedience, tracking prospect for someone looking. He will for sure be a great companion for an active family or individual.
He’s been here a few hours now, and I don’t know how much drive he has, but he definitely lacks impulse control! I’m calling him “T”, short for rusT, Trouble, Tornado and Tenacious!
So far he’s met all of our dogs nose to nose with the exception of Dax. He’s great with other dogs, and naturally knows social behaviours that make the other dogs comfortable. He’s bold and curious, and while slightly noise sensitive, immediately recovers. He was very happy to explore the yard on a long line, go in the creek, and run circles around Zappa.
He’s pretty self-sufficient and doesn’t have much pack-follow-hang with people behaviour (of course, he doesn’t know me from Adam!). But when we happen to be in the same vicinity, he greets me with a soft expression and eyes, and whizzes his ears back sweetly.
It was in the house that his T names were born. The moment he came in the house he became a whirling dervish, investigating everything at top speed, jumping up on the counter and stealing a plastic spatula, dropping that and stealing a sponge out of the sink, giving that up to run in the bathroom to investigate, then run back out and try to interact with a bronze spaniel on the top of a bookcase.
Crated, he’s very unhappy. He chews on the wires, barks, paws, and otherwise demands to be let out. I’m trying to wait for a moment of silence to go reward him with a treat for “good quiet”. If you open the crate door, he blasts out like a maniac, so we’re starting self control exercises immediately.
Right now he’s finally asleep — do I wake him to tell him how good he is, or let him sleep and enjoy the moments of silence?
The short term plan:
Here’s a photo from the family that adopted our foster Malinois Baley. She looks pretty happy! Check out the Malinois needing permanent or foster homes at Malinois Rescue; the Aussies and border collies at Herding Dog Rescue of Wyoming or Wyoming Australian Shepherd Rescue; and German shepherds at Montana German Shepherd Rescue.
Baley and her family at the Grand Canyon
Since Samie had to go get ready for the GotDog agility trial, I got to track Dax this morning along with my girl Lexi. I laid about a 100 pace serpentine in dirt for the boy, and he got all but about 8-10 food drops, worked at a consistent focused pace, and needed only the slightest bit of help at the article. He also tracked the last 10 paces to his breakfast with no help.
And then there’s Lexi — she’s been a little wiggy at articles this year, nothing totally crazy, but some confusion. So I thought I would simplify things by laying an article track in grass. But of course, after the 6th article in the grass, I got bored and put in a fairly sharp turn (no food until after the turn) into the dirt and then a couple more articles and a turn in the dirt. So when I went to run it, she downed on every article very calmly and without any overt signs of stress. Really what I was looking for. Then she just drilled the turn into the dirt, picked up the dirt track and when she got to the next article (now in dirt) she did everything she could to avoid it. Track around it, ignore it, etc. Finally got her to indicate it by just taking her back 5 paces and starting again.. about 5 times! She made the turn and a serpentine through a bunch of plow tracks that went every which way, and then got to the last article. You could see her standing there debating… “do I do this or not…. ooooooh it’s scary….. OK, I’ll indicate it…” which she did, and got paid handsomely for it.
What izzit with these malinois? Articles in grass are OK, articles in dirt are scary…. sheesh.
GotDog? is hosting an agility trial at the Circle L Arena in Belgrade, and the K9FUN Store will be there!
Dax should be hungry today, but because I’m a sucker, I decided to use hot dog pieces (cut up very small) instead of his kibble. I do want success!
When I got Dax out to get ready to track, he completely ignored several baggies of food and tried to find his ball. Ah oh, probably not hungry enough, hope this goes OK…
I laid an 80 pace serpentine track with food in almost every footstep (several footsteps on the arc did not have food) and — wonder of wonders — Dax tracked slowly and methodically, stopping to eat almost every hot dog. He even took the time to check the empty footsteps thoroughly before continuing on. Hunger really does make food on the track relevant!
His only article was an altoids tin filled with kibble, which he happily ate. The track ended with 12 or so paces to the rest of his breakfast. Good dog.
Let’s see how tomorrow goes…
Today I laid a serpentine track for Dax of about 80 paces with kibble in each foot step. Some foot steps had only one piece; others had several pieces. I brought Dax up to the start flag and he immediately bounded off the scent pad, going the wrong direction. I brought him back and restarted him — I probably should have let him lead me off the track and taken him back to the car, but really, you hate to waste a good track! So I brought him back around to the start flag and started him again.
He hurried down the track, not stopping to eat a single piece of food. He was fast and inaccurate, with many stops and starts and turning back, and casting sideways off the track. We made it to the first article, but it sure wasn’t the picture I was looking for. He restarted like a rocket, and missed an arc of the serpentine, going completely off the track. Al’right OK, time for some consequences…
I took him by the collar and said “we’re done”. I brought him back to the track, but held him back away from the track with his head up. I picked up pieces of food from each footstep, showed them to him, and put them in my pocket. “Look what you missed.” I walked down the track, picking up food and pocketing it as I went. When I got to the second (and last article), I showed it to him as well and put it in my pocket. We walked back to the truck with him on my right on a short leash, and crated him. No food until the track tomorrow.
Good dog Rusty
Today I took Rusty to the Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter. No, not to leave him! My son and I were doing a presentation to a bunch of kids there for summer camp, and I thought Rusty (along with Corbie) might make a nice demo dog. Turns out he loves kids! He said “hi” to every single kid by laying his head in their lap and very nicely wagging and cuddling. One little girl threw her arms around his neck before I could stop her, and he gave her kisses.
How did a dog get so well socialised to people, environments, events and other dogs, yet have so few manners and boundaries as to be practically wild? A maniac and a lover in the same body!