He now looks forward to hopping in the car each morning for "dog school" and he shouts, "Yay!!! Dog school!" whenever he sees the 4 Paws sign in the distance. Today was a little different because there were special guests at 4 Paws. The Iams food company is donating a HUGE amount of dog food to 4 Paws, which came in on two giant semi trucks this morning. There were some fun photo ops (and lots of distraction training for the dogs) which Si enjoyed being a part of. He even got to meet the Iams spokesdog, Griffin.
Today we learned some good information about keeping dogs healthy in extreme weather. In hot weather, get the dog out of the car last to minimize the time his paws are on the hot cement. The dog's tongue is the temperature gauge. If it is deep red, long and wide, the dog is too hot! Dogs in Ohio typically do not need protective booties, unless you are going to a lengthy outdoor event, like several hours at an amusement park or zoo where there is not cooler grass for the dog to stand on. The ice in Ohio typically will not be sharp enough to damage dog paws, but if you are going to have them standing outside for hours in January, you would want to put some booties on them. Basically, you can treat them the way you would treat your kids. In cold January temps, you would not have them play outside more than an hour or so. In the summer, you make sure they come in and get cooled off every hour or so and watch that they are hydrated. Speaking of hydration, we are keeping an eye on them right now with the hot temps. Si drank 4 "Roaring Waters Hi-C" pouches just during class today! The man plays hard! :)
Each day at the beginning of class, we have a Q&A session and get lots of good tidbits. One important thing is that, if a dog breaks a command (say, "Down") we do not correct them if they broke the command to do another command. For example, if Abbot was in a down, but goes to disrupt a negative behavior, we would reward that. Along the same lines, if a dog does not follow a command, we need to figure out if he is being defiant or if he is confused. Then we need to help him understand or correct him.
One funny story Jeremy told was about when people tell a dog "No bark!". Bark is a command that Abott knows and that we reward because that is what he will do to let us know Si is having a seizure. So let's say Abott starts barking at the mail carrier. If we say "No bark!", to him it sounds like, "No . . . bark!" So in one two word sentence we are telling the dog to stop and then do it again! Poor dog! So, like I mentioned before, we have GOT to keep it to a simple "No!" Oh, and to really correct a bark, you put your hand around their muzzle and say a soft "No."
Today's main lesson was on "heeling". So far, we had just told the dogs "Free!" to let them out of their down or sit command, and then let them kind of loosely walk with us. Heeling means they stay on your left side with their shoulder directly aligned to your left knee. You hold the leash pretty short, but with slack. You do not want to be dragging the dog-- it needs to be the dog wanting to pay attention and stay with you. If the dog starts to go ahead of you, do a 180. We are encouraged to practice heeling while walking slow, so they really learn to watch us rather than run ahead. This is the type of walking we will always do in public. Jeremy gave the example of being in airport or at the mall at Christmastime. You want the dog right next to you to avoid any entanglements with passersby.
Some dogs, when we stop walking while heeling, will automatically sit down, and that is a-ok. For seizure alert and mobility dogs, which Abbot is both, they must stand when we stop. This is to provide balance support (like a cane) and to help should a seizure strike. This is a little tougher for the dogs, so we worked a while on that command. "Stand" uses a gesture of an upside-down peace sign, with the palm facing the dog. You can put a treat under your thumb at first. You move the peace sign from their nose out about 12 inches while saying "stand". They only get the treat if they stand up and stay standing. Sometimes they will army crawl to the treat-- no treat for that! We also have to be careful not to pull up on the leash, as the dogs know this to mean "sit". If we need to correct them, we should tug parallel to the ground.
Another thing we learned today is how to get them from a "down" to a "sit". This gesture looks like a scooping movement, sort of like when you tell someone, "No, after you!" You put the treat under your thumb and scoop the hand with the palm toward the dog and say "Sit". The last thing we did today was practice all the variations of down and sit while standing in different spots around the dog. Imagine the dog is the center of a clock-- we stood at 3, 6, 9 and 12. The dogs would often turn as they did the command, so they could see us, and that is not a bad thing at all. We just want them to get used to doing them no matter where we are.
So the big big excitement of the day was that we got to take Abbot back to our hotel room. Si was so pumped to have Abbot sitting next to him in the car. We are really happy with their bonding so far!
We got Abbot to our room and let him be free to sniff around for a bit. Si loves to throw a toy for Abbot and we were able to capture a little video of that. Hopefully it will be viewable here!
The day ended with cinnamon rolls, a swim in the pool, and snuggling with his pup. I don't think any little boy could ask for more!
Mike, this is sooooo cool! I have made it part of my nightly routine to stop and read on Si's progress with Abbott. Thanks for sharing.... neat process I wpuld have known jothing about if you weren't sharing. Good luck!
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