Training Days

People often want to train dogs for a living because they love animals and prefer their company to that of people. Unfortunately, the trainers soon learn that dog training is less about handling our loyal companions and more about dealing with difficult humans.  (Read: I am that difficult human.)

It took some time to get the financial approval for Missy to get someone to train her besides me who was merely trying to learn to teach via youtube videos. I had told Belinda, “Missy either needs to get trained, or someone needs to train me to train her.”

I had no idea they would take the second option.

It had been my hope that she would go to boarding school. Not because I don’t love the lass, but because I felt she would get excellent training, some socialization, and if I got a job while she was away, I wouldn’t feel as though I was abandoning her. Instead, after speaking with the trainer, David, everyone involved (aside from me) decided that it would be best if she learn and stay in this “perfect” foster home where she didn’t have other dogs around and she could relax.

A dog that needs training isn’t a “bad dog.” She’s not a “evil dog” who is actively trying to piss you off. A dog that needs training is a dog with psychological issues that no one ever attended to. In Missy’s case, she’s hypersensitive. She barks at the slightest noise outside. Her eyes dart everywhere when she’s someplace new. She lacks focus and stability. 

And yet with all that, she’s fucking brilliant.

 

No, seriously, to put it in my native New England speech with a hint of Bostonian, “She’s wicked smart.” She’s been self-reliant for so long with no human to guide her, that she’s developed into quite a genius.

Poor David, who wants to train dogs such as this brilliant pittie, is sadly stuck with my poor excuse of a human brain to mold. It’s evident from the onset that Missy’s intellect to pick up new habits is far better than my coordination skills to lead her into such habits.

Missy had to break some habits to learn new ones, but I had to untrain myself how I had been trying to teach her. This was why I wanted her to go to a professional. I wasn’t doing it right. Granted I wanted to learn, but as a perfectionist, I am quite short with myself when I don’t immediately pick something up. And unlike a dog who might get frustrated and whose only expression of such a little nippiness or grumbling, David had to hear my mouth going.

Which evidently, is one of my main errors: I talk too much. Who woulda thought?

“Just say the command once. Never repeat. People use too many words,” David explained.

So now, rather than repeating a word half a dozen times, it’s more sing-songy as in “Come... Come... Come--Shit!” as I acknowledge my error and try to force myself not to repeat the word.

Missy enjoys the game of learning “Come” which involves me throwing a treat for her to get and then as soon as she gets it, yell, “Come!” and she returns immediately for another treat. I’m supposed to be calling her away from distractions, but being on my own, I have to create my own distractions.

David believes in “The Mat.” It’s not a dog bed, but a simple mat where Missy learns “Go to your mat,” which means she goes and lies down to wait for me to tell her it’s Okay to get up. At first I was a annoyed with this, as my main concern was walking her on the leash, but after a couple of goes on The Mat, I could see that David’s chronology of lessons made sense.

The Mat isn’t just a place to sit and lie down. It’s a Yoga Mat of sorts. Here, Missy gains focus and attention. She must concentrate to stay Down while I walk around and away from her. She must be patient to receive her treat without grabbing it out of my hand.

The Mat is the foundation of focus.  (And yes, she needs to work on her aim for getting onto the Mat.)

I noticed her being calmer after our work on it. Granted, after our first session with David, the girl was more tuckered out than I had ever seen her. David was right: a dog’s brain burns more calories than her body. After our hour and a half introductory lesson where Missy excelled and received a pound of sausage in rewards, Missy didn’t even bother to join me for dinner. 

She zonked out on the couch, and stared glassy-eyed at the TV for the rest of the night.

Subsequent training sessions didn’t elicit such a reaction, but she does seem more focused. That being said, just like me, that doesn’t stop her mouth from going.

David has said that with the focus and training, she should stop being so barky at everything around her. I think she’s just got a lot to say. If we’re about to go for a walk and I pick up my phone to respond to a text, she’ll sit and stare at me for half a minute. Then a little grumble begins to come from her throat. It rises up for the next ten seconds until it erupts into a full blown frustrated “Let’s Go!” in canine-speak.

My instruction to stop the barking is aversion therapy. If she barks, call her to me and give her a treat. “But then she thinks I’m rewarding her for barking,” I said.

“No,” David replied. “You’re rewarding her for coming and sitting.”

“So when she arrives and sits, and I give her a treat and then she barks again with her mouth full (which is exactly what she does), what do I do?”

I’m not sure if David understood, as he didn’t give me a viable solution.

During my first session, I told David that Missy was treat-driven. She did as he said because he had treats. He said, “No, she does what I say because of how I’m communicating with her.”

And yet, without a treat, she doesn’t do crap for me. I told him that upon our second session. He said, “Eventually you phase out the treats. For now, you need them.”

So, my guess is that it is a combination of how we communicate and the treats.

Interestingly, Missy does not allow David to touch her the way I do. He said if she doesn’t Sit, I can gently touch her behind, but he can’t. He showed me, his finger just alighting on her backside, and Missy’s head whipped around, ready to snap.

I, on the other hand, have full reign. I had been fully taking for granted the trust this dog put in me. We’re at the end of a full four weeks now. The longest foster here. All my others moved on within a month (except for the legendary Tia who, had I had this house back when I had her, she probably would still be with me.) It is only now that Missy has finally relaxed enough to sleep on her back—which is how I’m used to seeing my fosters snooze.

Missy’s a tough chick from the streets. When she meets you, she needs to tell you up front and loudly, “Don’t fuck with me, or I’ll fuck you up.” Once she has sufficiently terrified you with her menacing approach, she sniffs, bows her head and then leans into you for a pet.

This is a major problem.

I want to take her hiking, to the coffee house, down the street, but David keeps telling me she must be backyard-bound until she is 100% trained. I disagree. I’m not going to take her out during rush hour pedestrian traffic, but she needs to be desensitized. The girl barks at people on the sidewalk when she’s inside the car and I’m driving. She needs to learn to shut up and accept the world around her. She can’t do that being in the backyard.

If Missy went to David’s for boarding school, I imagine she would get better stimuli. Since I don't have a kennel full of dogs and visitors throughout the day at my disposal, I'll have to make do. I need to be able to have people over and not fear that she’ll be unwelcoming and possibly dangerous. I need her to be able to walk on a leash around the block. I don’t know how far I’ll get before a job will call me away, so I need to do as much as possible as quickly as possible.

I want her to meet new people and show them what a sweet dog she is. I want them to know the kooky girl whose muzzle becomes a waterfall anytime food in her vicinity. 

I want them to know the uber warm fuzzy cuddler she is for me in the evenings while watching TV. 

And I want them to know the highly intelligent and independent canine she is.

Her ad is still not up on adopt-a-pet or petfinder.com. I worry about what will happen when I become gainfully employed. I’m hoping David will take her for a couple weeks of training if she can’t go into a foster home right away. Some dogs know that I’m just a transitional person. Some think I’m their forever home. I can’t get a sense from Missy what she’s thinking. She seems quite happy with her Bunny and her couch and bed and my bed (she’s been sleeping on my bed with me for a couple of weeks and appears to be fully housetrained now.) 

She loves lying in the grass or on the deck. 

She seems content to just be, with no labels or titles. Perhaps it’s best that way. Life is way less stressful when you stop thinking about it.

So while I learn from David how to handle a leash, I’ll try to pick up some Missy’s perspective on life. Not her perspective on the mailman or on squirrels, but at least on how to just be when it comes to the grand scheme.

Missy needs to relax, and well, so do I. David is the official paid trainer, and Missy the student, but I have a feeling I’m going to learn just as much as Missy will, not from David, but from Missy herself. Students always make the best teachers.

Lessons in Life and Love

I’ve come to the conclusion that the dogs with the most to learn have the most to teach me. I had it easy with Norman. It was my pre-school class of life lessons – just getting into the swing of things, and no homework. I thought Marty was a handful, but really he was a breeze. He was Freshman year of high school: at the time it was devastatingly hard compared to junior high, but in hindsight, it was a breeze.

And then came Lucy. Evidently, the universe felt I could skip college and take up a masters degree in life learning.

Lucy was supposed to be just a weekend guest, a reprieve from her current boarding situation at the veterinarian’s office. She had an appointment with a trainer and rescuer on that Sunday to assess her and give her lessons. I had finished a job on Friday and thought a new job on Monday might be available – so it fit my schedule perfectly. But then the job fell through, and I couldn’t rightly see any reason to send the girl back to a tiny cage when I had a whole house to myself. So, before even meeting her, I booked her to Casa de Canine.

Completely opposite from Marty’s frozen state, this fifty pound pit bull was crazed, her eyes and nose darted everywhere and her feet slipped on the floor as she tried to race in every direction at once. Belinda, her rescuer, had said on a video introduction of her that Lucy was “active.” I welcomed that, as I wanted a hiking and walking partner to get me back in shape. But the thing is “active” is one of those words like “cozy” and “vintage.” Cozy doesn’t mean inviting; it means “tiny.” And vintage... try “found in the garage and we’re not sure what it once was.” “Active” in this case, wasn’t a running partner, but an untamed, untrained street dog with two months of pent-up energy.

Lucy arrived at South LA Shelter pregnant. She had her pups there and raised them until they were all adopted. As is what happens with so many pregnant canines in the shelter, the puppies are adopted and the mom is left to die. Lucy was just a pup herself. Belinda (a cat rescuer) networked Lucy, raised some funds, found a foster, and arranged for Lucy to get spayed, have a few days at the vet’s office to recuperate and then be transported to the foster two hours away.

A month later the vet called: “When are you picking up Lucy?”

Errr....

The foster had spoken out of turn; the rescue had never agreed to take on Lucy. That left Lucy sitting at the vets while Belinda came up with a very late Plan B. Belinda had to get this dog a foster and preferably some sort of assessment by a dog-expert so she could place her more appropriately. That’s what Sunday was for: meet down at the LA Coliseum for the free dog training and meet a pit bull rescuer.

Lucy, who didn’t know her own name, was most definitely not ready for this class. The dogs leapt from one bench to another, off leash, following their owners with precession and dedication. Lucy was out of her league with this class, and I was out of my league with her. I knew I could do the basics: sit, stay, come, lay down, etc. But teaching a dog to walk on a leash, teaching her to not lunge at people, teaching her to have some sort of respect for the human world: this was beyond my common knowledge.

A light bulb went on in my head: this is what Amanda was used to; this is why she was so over-reactive to Marty. She had grown accustomed to the out of control, unruly pit bull. She couldn’t believe Marty really was a gentleman.

Lucy, on the other hand, was no lady. She is the first dog to piss in my house. Right in front of me. Only twenty minutes after she had gone out. When I admonished her, she didn’t even acknowledge my existence.

The rescuer we were supposed to meet to assess Lucy did not show. It was probably for the best. You can’t rightly train a dog when she doesn’t even care what you think and you can’t even call her name.

Testing out a few names, Lucy was dropped for Missy. I don’t believe that’s really her name, but she responded to it 50% of the time (which was 100% more than she responded to Lucy.) Her crazed, a.k.a. “active,” personality calmed some after a couple of days. I had construction going on in the house, meaning she had to be either in a crate or outside while it was going on. The crate Belinda loaned me was three times larger than the vet’s office cage she had been in for two months, but it still didn’t feel right. However, not only could I not trust her to not attack the boys working, but I had no idea when she’d just drop trou and take a shit on the floor.

Which is also why she unfortunately sleeps in the crate in the living room every night. It feels so unnatural to not have her in my bedroom, but I can’t risk her having an accident (or, what appears to me to be an “on purpose.”) She is crate-trained, so when I tell her to go to bed, she does just that and I have no worries that she’ll last the night.

While workers tore down my stand-up shower to create a laundry closet, Missy and I worked outside on her skills. She was a bit underweight when I got her, so adding a few pounds in treats for a job well done certainly wasn’t an issue. I watched Victoria Stillwell youtube videos trying to glean how to get her to walk on a leash without pissing me off within thirty seconds.

Most dogs catch on that when they pull and you stop, that to get you to walk again, they back up taking the tension off their leash. Missy doesn’t get this. Much like she doesn’t get boundaries: i.e., the counter is not something to put your paws on to reach more treats; the doors are made of glass, and thereby impermeable to thrashing canines trying to get at the squirrel across the yard; when I say, “It’s okay, stop now,” I actually know what I’m talking about, so SHUT UP.

First and foremost, Missy had to give a shit. Perhaps she had never bonded with a human before. She seemed sweet for the most part, except when she lunged at people while out walking. (After day two, I had to restrict our ventures to the backyard until I at least had control of her on the leash and she’d listen to me.) I informed Belinda that Missy needs to go into professional training – it may be something I can’t solve. By day four, she cared what I thought -- mainly because while I was thinking, I had a treat in my hand. She’ll do anything for a treat. And given her possible street status, I didn’t even need to buy special treats: just plain old dog food was enough to get her attention.

Despite spending two months in an animal hospital, Missy’s health wasn’t top notch. When I picked her up she had a cone on her head and a bandage on her tail. The sad diagnosis was “Happy Tail” – when a dog wags her tail so much in a cage that it cuts opens and won’t heal.

I opted to forgo the cone as I saw her neck was red with a rash from it. Within two days of her being at my place she was an itchy mess, rubbing herself on walls, me, even the stucco. When I took her to the vet, she scratched so hard on their reception desk area that it took the paint off.  And that wasn’t even the main reason I took her in. Last Tuesday night, while I dealt with the aftermath of contractors at my place, she took the bandage off her tail. The side of my house now has blood splatters on it. And, I just realized last night, so does my living room wall.

Missy is distinctly different from Marty in this: she has a benefactor. There is no hassle when she needs health care. Within only hours, Belinda had made an appointment with the nearest vet to me and a credit card was already on file there. My foster was a trustafarian of sorts. Fostercare is by astronomically easier in this case.

Missy got her tail re-bandaged and some meds for her ever-increasing itchiness. Unfortunately, although steroids decrease itching, they increase the need for food and water and thereby also urinating. House-training was going to get even more difficult. But, I wouldn’t be missing chunks of wall from where she scraped her ribs across the corners.

Belinda met me again at the Coliseum this past Sunday, coffee and breakfast in hand. She noticed it right away: Missy was starting to get in tune with me. She listened. She watched. Sure,  a soccer game, a kid running quickly, a squirrel darting across the lawn – all those would leave me a faint memory in Missy’s mind. But, in an average normal situation, Missy cared what I thought; she wanted to please me, or maybe she just wanted a cookie. Either way, she no longer was the wholly independent street momma. She had a human.

I was that human. And she would guard me with her life. She hasn’t been aggressive, but her body language says it all. The way she sits just in front of me, scanning the horizon. 

Hell, she even guarded my laundry center before it was installed. 

Now I have to teach her that I’m here to protect her and she needn’t take all the responsibility.

Any time you bring a dog into your life, there’s a period of adjustment – and I don’t mean for you. Missy has to learn how to live in a house, how to walk next to a human, how to let me lead, not her, and that although I appreciate her protecting me, she needs to know that I reciprocate in kind. A dog is not “owned” by a human. It is a relationship of balance. She protects me, and I protect her. I still need the upperhand; she’s my sidekick, not the other way around. 

I don’t know how long it will take for her understand that. The vet looked at her teeth and assessed that she was a “cage biter.” Her teeth are ground down to the pulp in a few areas where she’s try to gnaw her way out of a cage – and not at the vet’s. This young girl may have never known what it is to relate to a human with humanity. 

Belinda is looking into getting Missy into a professional training program - a two week bootcamp where she will be boarded and trained. But until then, I can only do my best, only just get by in the master’s class. Training isn’t just about command and response. I can do some of that, but mostly what I can do is provide a foundation: the love and bond that it takes for a dog to care; to prove to Missy that indeed we humans do have humanity. Life isn’t about popping out puppies while trapped in a cage. Life is about romping in a yard, cuddling with your person, and most of all it’s about love.

Missy, I’ll do the best I can. Maybe you won’t be able to walk on a leash by the time you leave here, but you’ll at least know what it is to be truly loved.