THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

We’ve been talking about secondary reinforcers and markers, and the good question has come up about the difference between them. On the one hand, we know that a click or a “yes” can be used to communicate to a dog that a specific behavior is what is about to be reinforced. Clicking or saying “yes” at exactly the right moment is incredibly powerful in that it is a precise way of communicating to an animal exactly what it was doing that will elicit the reinforcement (clicks are more precise than words, by the way).

However, you could also call a click or “yes” a 2ndary reinforcer, since to be effective it is paired with a primary reinforcer like food, and the animal learns to associate the click/marker with the treat, right? So which is it? Ah, you gotta love the English language: sometimes it helps us understand things, sometimes it makes things more confusing.

Let me answer that question from a different perspective. Ethology, the study of animal behavior in its natural environment, spends a lot of time studying communication. One of the traditional ways at looking at communication is to distinguish between the Message and the Meaning. The Message can be thought of as what the sender is trying to convey, whether intentionally or not. The Meaning, on the other hand, is the information the receiver gets from the signal. As every human who has ever been in a relationship knows, those aren’t always the same thing. So in this case, the Message  of a click or other marker is clear: “THAT, what you JUST did, is what will get you a treat!” [I first inadvertently wrote "meaning," thanks to an alert reader for noticing the mistake! Jeez]

At the other side of the signal, we  don’t know what the receiver makes of it–do they have any idea that we are intentionally ‘marking’ a behavior?  Are they consciously aware that the click/yes leads to a treat if they do that exact, specific thing again? (They don’t have to be to perform brilliantly, as a matter of fact we’ve all seen animals perform perfectly and then have it all fall apart, often when they start thinking about what they are doing!) Are they simultaneously or uniquely becoming classically conditioned to the sound of a marker (I think they are being CC’d, no matter what else is going on)… It seems reasonable that our dogs, if we could talk to them, would define the Message of a marker as both a marker AND as a 2ndary reinforcer. Perhaps what is most important from our perspective is how we define it, because that is what drives how we use it.Does this make sense? I have to admit sometimes I worry less about labels and more about actual behavior, but still, it’s a fun intellectual inquiry.

Question for you: I’m curious: How many of you use markers, of any kind, at all? Did you consciously decide to use a marker and follow it up with praise (sometimes, as a 2ndary)…? If you use a marker in the strict sense of the word, what do you use? Click from a clicker? A word?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Over 6 inches in the last 24 hours. No kidding. Another 1 to 3 today. Eeeeeps. Last night there were many small tornadoes reported in the area, one not far at all from the farm. I take these babies very seriously, the infamous Barneveld tornado (9 people killed, the town 90% destroyed) freight-trained just one valley away from my farm, less than a 1/2 mile away, and I will never forget the impact of the first view I had of a close neighbor’s farm, metal roofing blown over a 1/2 mile into tree trunks, 5 buildings destroyed, the ground littered with siding and bricks and fertilizer and corn and thousands of things in tiny pieces too small to identify.

I was in town with friends during the worst of it, and we were all happy to return home to find the structures still standing, the dogs, cats, sheep, etc. fine. Sorry, no pictures yet, it was raining, again, so hard this morning when I left that I didn’t want to take the camera outside.

But here’s Hopey-boy (don’t you love knicknames?), a  helpless victim of Sherman the Sheep, who somehow developed a wound in his neck and is attempting to blame it all on an innocent little puppy. Tall two-leg female is not upset, however. Sherman has been played with, tugged upon, bitten, and thrown around every day for a long time, and has shown an impressive amount of stamina. Besides, we just got in Polly the Pig (seriously) to sell on the website, and Tall Two-Leg is forced to take her home for the dogs to try out. Poor dogs.

I wish the world could have seen Ken’s seminar on Sunday in Worcester MA, it was fantastic. For those of you who don’t know his name, he is the Training Director and Senior Trainer at the Shedd Acquarim, has trained exotic animals for over 30 years, and could train just about anyone to do anything. I left inspired and crazed to train something, anything, and had to stop myself from trying to teach the flight attendant to scratch her head on cue.

When I got home, close to midnight, I sat down with Hope and taught him to flip his hips sideways while lying down to “Settle” before I even walked upstairs. Took five minutes. Scary easy, and extra fun because of being inspired by Ken.

However, in order to get home Sunday night, I had to miss the last hour of Ken’s videos. I heard they were great… anyone care to tell us what I missed?

Here’s what I didn’t miss: some excellent points about what are often called “Secondary Reinforcers.” [Note to training geeks: there are some details about terminology that Ken went into that I found fascinating, but it would take a couple of posts to explain them, and you're better off going to see Ken in person if you are interested in terminology.] But here is a summary of points that I think are  relevant to all of us:

First, many of you know that “Primary Reinforcers” are things that are inherently reinforcing (that automatically cause an animal to increase the frequency of a behavior). Strictly speaking, they are things that an animal needs to survive: food, water, etc. When you give your dog a treat for sitting on cue, you are using a primary reinforcer.

Secondary reinforcers are things that are learned by an animal to be associated with Primary Reinforcers, and thus eventually elicit a similar response through classical conditioning. For example, if you repeat “Good Dog” and follow up it with a treat enough times, eventually your dog will work to hear you say it. But here’s what I learned from Ken:

It is critical to continue to link a secondary with a primary  part of the time, no matter how long you’ve been using it. In his experience with his animals (who have to perform perfectly in shows and when being treated medically), even if the animal inherently enjoys the secondary reinforcement, it has to be maintained with a primary if you want a totally reliable behavior. That’s true even if the animal loves the secondary reinforcement. For example, at the Shedd, Beluga Whales love having their tongues rubbed, it clearly feels good to them and they seek it out. However, Ken considers it still a secondary reinforcement, and is very careful not to over use it.

He advises that you condition ALL secondary behaviors as if they were a behavior. In other words, rub tongue, give treat. Rub dog’s belly, give treat. Even if your dog likes it inherently, initially reinforce it with food if your dog likes food. That makes it much more powerful in the long run.

Once your dog is clearly thrilled with what you are doing, then begin to use it as reinforcement by asking for a simple behavior, then use your 2ndary R, and follow with the primary R. After that, for a long time, use the 2ndary by itself only twice in a session, and never in a row. Gradually increase the use of the 2ndary, but be very careful not to overuse it. (By the way, he is NOT talking about a click for those of you who are clicker trainers. He considers that a marker, not a reinforcer.) Clearly there is a lot to talk about here, but this is enough for now to get us all thinking about the issue.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm, I had a chance to think especially  hard about all this the day after the seminar. I loaded up the dogs, the plastic bags, the treats, the water, the camera and the leashes and drove over to a wonderful place to walk the dogs. Hope has been there off leash 5 times before, but I am very careful because in the beginning it is close to a road. In the past he’s gotten lots and lots of food treats for coming when called, and for checking in with me on his own.

When we arrived I looked for my bait bag and discovered I’d left it on the counter in the house. Whoops, no food. No primary reinforcer for a young pup who was going to be off leash for 45 minutes. I pondered keeping him on leash the entire time (I always start with him on leash) and thus him getting less exercise, but decided to forge ahead because 1) the path has a natural boundary of high grasses 2) Hope tends to follow Will, who always stays on the path 3) Hope has had 5 lessons there and had done very well and 4) I DID have a primary reinforcer: water. It was hot, and I knew the dogs would be thirsty after not very long. So I decided to risk it, but here’s what I did:

1. Unlike our other trips, during which I called him back to me often for training purposes, I decided to call him back only when absolutely necessary. I knew he wouldn’t always be thirsty, and wanted to have the water retain its power. I ended up calling him to come five times in 45 minutes. Every time he came he got water, but I didn’t let him drink his fill. The last time he drank one quick lap and moved away, so I immediately leashed him up. We were close to the end anyway, and at a place I have always put him back on leash, because it gets close to the road.

2. I used Willie to move Hope around in space, calling Willie (by name “Willie Willie!). This helped a lot and meant I only had to call Hope 5 times total. I also used clapping to get the dogs to come. Clapping is not trained as a recall, but is used to motivate the dogs to speed up, sometimes when they are playing with each other, sometimes when running to me. I could use it without polluting my “Hope, That’ll Do!” cue.

3. I managed to keep my hands to myself and never pet Hope when he came back, because he behaves as though he hates it when he is active. He only likes petting when he is sleepy and tired. Petting would have been punishment. Most relevant to Ken’s talk, I didn’t fool myself that “Good Dog” or any other 2ndary R was going to be effective, at least not for long. And I didn’t want to take away its power, so I said “Good Dog” only twice before he started to drink, and kept my mouth shut the rest of the time. Please send chocolate, this is not easy for me.

4. I was ready at any second to bail and put him on leash if I saw the slightest sign that he was going to get himself into trouble. Most of the walk was a long, long away from the road, and there were plenty of scents and sounds to keep him occupied. If he had put his head up and started air sniffing, or completely ignored any signals from me, I would have leashed him up in a microsecond.

Here he is, coming when called, Goooooooooooood Boy!

And here I am Saturday night in Masssachusetts, after a lovely dinner with our host Dana Crevling from Dogs of Course!, another trainer Carolyn whose last name I have rudely forgotten, Ken Ramirez and Karen Pryor (how great that she was there too for the entire weekend!). We ate at a restaurant with a giant crab balloon on its roof. Seriously. And I only had one Corona for dinner,  honest.

Lots of dogs go through a “what’s in it for me?” stage (and this stage lasts longer in some dogs than others, right?). Mr. Hope is dancing around it right now, especially when I ask him to come into the house. Several of you asked about ways to handle it; not surprising, since most dogs aren’t like the Lassie on television and don’t automatically do what we want just because we love them.

Here are some of the things I’m doing right now to get Hope to come back into the house from the yard. Of course, “But I don’t wannnaaaaaa” is going to occur in different contexts, but many of the principles here apply to all situations, they just need modifying to fit the problem.

COMING IN MEANS GOING OUT Hope loves loves loves to be outside. He’d happily stay outside all day long if he could. So, sometimes, his reinforcement for coming inside is . . . wait for it . . . going outside. It’s the perfect example of the Premack Principle:  using a high probability behavior to reinforce a low probability one. I can count on him always going outside (high probability) because he loves it there, so I can use that to reinforce him for coming inside (right now it’s a low probability that he’d do it on his own). That means that sometimes when he comes in when asked, I say Good Boy! and dash outside again for a few more minutes.

JEALOUSY IS YOUR FRIEND This only works if there is some other living thing in your house that loves food or toys. But if you do, it’s powerful stuff. When Hope started pausing 20 feet away when I called him to come into the house, I began calling Willie and giving him a treat when he came. Will always comes when called, and I can give him a treat for coming and entering the house whenever I need to. As soon as Hope saw Willie getting a treat,  he instantly came running, only to discover that treats are only available on a limited basis. “Oh, too bad” I say, with sincere sympathy. “You missed the treats this time!” Right now he isn’t getting a treat for coming to the door ‘late,’ but if he then enters the house I’ll give him a treat once he’s inside.

UP THE ANTE I always have a mix of food treats available, from pieces of kibble to real meat. Right now he gets a jack pot of real meat if he comes, first time, when I call him to the door to the house.

MIX IT UP I’m very conscious with Hope of the importance of varying not just the reinforcement schedule, but what Hope gets as a reinforcement. You want to mix it up with any dog, but for some reason it feels more important with Hope than with others I’ve had. He’s pretty independent (okay, for a BC), and I want to condition him early on that if he does what I ask he’ll feel good (versus the more narrow “he’ll get food”). Although I use high value food most of the time for coming into the house, I also use play, effusive praise in which I get down on the ground and laugh like a loon while letting him leap all over me and lick me like a popsicle and again, getting to go back outside.

IF HE WON’T MOVE, YOU SHOULD If all else fails, don’t stand where you are and continue to call (and pollute your cue!) The few times that Hope simply plants his feet and won’t move toward me, or turns and goes farther outside to dig or look for sheep poop to eat (a favorite), I stop saying anything, ensure that I have a great food treat in hand, and go to him. Moving quietly, never scolding, I’ll show him what I’m holding and lure him toward me and back to the house. I’ll shape this, giving him a treat for just a few steps if he was overwhelmed with a distraction (New stinky sheep poop! Fox poop even better! Do you get the pattern here? … there is a reason the word for dog in Navajo translates: “eater of horse poop.”). If the distraction was only so-so, I’ll expect him to come further before I give him the treat.

Are we done yet? Oh my no, he’s just beginning adolescence after all. I expect we’ll work on these things for at least a year. However, he is already much improved; I haven’t had to walk to him more than once or twice in the last 4 days.  Now he comes voluntarily when we move from outside to inside about 75% of the time, even when I don’t call him to come, we just run into the house together. That’s an increase from — I’m guessing here — about 20% of the time, so that’s great progress.

What about you? Tell us your stories of your free spirit, and what you’ve done to work through it. I can’t wait to read what you send, and will be sure to have Hope read them too.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: We had 2 days of hateful weather on our short vacation, but thankfully the weather cleared and we were able to enjoy Perrot State Park in western Wisconsin for a few days. Jim got to take off his hateful Iron Man brace for part of the day and I even hiked up a steep bluff for a little bit, although it was a far cry from what we intended. But we got time off and a sweet visit with my niece and her new husband. Ummmm, so good to visit with such wonderful people. And we’re related! Go figure.

We returned home to a dying lamb, spent Friday night trying to save it, but to no avail. Turns out, even though we have wormed the sheep on a careful schedule and have alternated wormers, that worms all over the world are developing resistance to worming medicines, and that’s what is happening here.  The little white ewe lamb, the one I bottle raised, took a dive when we were away and was too far gone to save by the time we got back. The next day we started a new worming protocol, aware that no matter what we do it might not be enough. Seems so strange to lose an animal to worms — that just doesn’t happen in dogs (yet) but I understand it’s becoming a problem in horses as well. Gotta give those parasites credit, but I hate losing a lamb to something that it seems like I should be able to prevent. There are 2 lambs I have my eye on, one looks especially thin, but all the others are thriving, and clearly are inherently resistant to worms. I’ll pay special attention to which ewes have resistant lambs when I breed next year.

On a lighter note, here’s the small prairie at the foot of the bluffs at Perrot State Park (on the Mississippi flyway). It’s a beautiful park and a lovely little restored prairie. Hard to imagine that there were 10,000’s of thousands of acres of this across the midwest.

And here’s a happy scene to any farmer: a winter’s worth of hay being delivered to the barn. Thank you Gary, Gus, Gordy and Brad for doing all the work while Jim and I felt guilty (but cooler) in the house!

While we’re on the subject of books (and ooooh, I love the suggestions from so many of you about books you have loved. Oh boy, can’t wait to check them out. . .), have you seen Sophia Yin’s Low Stress Handling, Restraint & Beh Modification of Dogs and Cats? This is not a cheap book, as a matter of fact, it’s problematically expensive ($117 on Amazon), but it’s a great book to encourage your library or shelter or  vet clinic to get. It has the best, clearest photographs I’ve ever seen of how to, and how not to do just about everything you need to do around a cat or dog: enter a kennel, pick up a cat, restrain a dog, etc. If you are feeling flush, it’d be a great donation to your local humane society. Would that all shelter volunteers had a chance to look at it.

Pages 46 and 47 have the best illustrations of I’ve seen of what greeting an unfamiliar person would look like to a shy dog. Best is the photo that shows that up close, a dog might only see the bottom portions of your legs and not be frightened UNTIL you lean forward and your  huge and scary face descends upon them like doom. (The person in the book’s illustrations has on a scary Halloween mask. What a perfect way to get the point across!)

You don’t need to be a vet tech or shelter worker to profit from looking at this book though (although every one in a clinic or shelter should have access to this book). I page through it sometimes when I’m eating my lunch, always comparing the “Correct” versus “Incorrect” photographs within the book. There are hundreds of color photos in the book and they are remarkably clear and easy to follow. There’s also a great section on behavior modification, with photos illustrating, for example, the difference between de-sensitizing and sensitizing (a woman looks at a spider in a glass cage with cautious interest, versus a woman being restrained while someone thrusts a spider in her face). The use of putting people in the positions into which we put dogs is brilliantly done. Here here Sophia!

I’d be curious how many of you have seen it. I’m thinking of calling my local shelter and asking if they have a copy. Maybe you could do the same, and if they don’t, helping to find a way to get it for them. Many won’t be able to buy it themselves, but hey, we’re creative, right? Maybe do some fund raising among your dog lover friends? Get your vet clinic to buy two, one for them and one for the shelter? Any other ideas?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Hope showed no visible reactions to his last vaccination, good news for us. I’ll never know if it’s the chinese meds, the cooked greens or that he just wasn’t going to react anyway. It could also have been because  I separated out the Lepto vaccine, which is famous for physical reactions (allergic–swelling, breathing problems, rashes) but not necessarily for behavioral ones. But we seemed to have dodged that bullet anyway. He still needs another Lepto (a big problem in this area, or I’d skip it), his Rabies vaccine and neutering. I’ll be so glad when all that is over.

However, adolescence appears to be starting early. Mr. What’s in It For Me? just showed up, and is now learning that ignoring recalls means that Willie gets all the treats cuz he arrived on time and Mr. Teenager did not. (4 months seems a tad early for all this, but then, they just don’t read the books, do they?) Most of the time he just makes me laugh, although last night I used my sweetest voice to call him some names that shall not be repeated here. This too shall pass; I can’t imagine what this feels like if you’re not expecting it! He is doing beautifully on so many things though; he loves walking in town now and can’t throw out downs, sits or “get backs” fast enough when I ask for something. And Willie and Hope play so well together, with Will always seeming thrilled to see Hope if we’ve been gone anywhere. I remind myself of that when he begins to push my buttons.

The high pressure beautiful weather has held, resulting in puffy cloud skies and cool evenings. Gorgeous. High summer is coming back though, hot, humid and rainy weather is right around the corner. We’ll be on vacation next week, an honest to goodness-not-taking-the-laptop-not-checking-email vacation. We had planned one earlier, but spent it taking care of Jim’s surgery and my smashed knee. We’ll try to keep our body parts intact this time. We’re supposed to be hiking on the Mississippi River bluffs; Instead I’ll be strolling for a bit and then waving goodbye to the rest of the group as they hike up the hills, and going back to the room to read novels and do my leg exercises. Sounds darn good to me, no complaints. I’m going to take some more pictures this weekend to post next week, hope you enjoy them.

Speaking of pictures, I took this yesterday afternoon on the way to the farm from the office. Gotta love those Kleenex clouds and that corn well over “knee high by the fourth of July!”

A dog’s love of a good chase is both a blessing and a curse. It makes playing with them extra fun; what a joy it is to play fetch and chase with some dogs! And it’s got a dark side too–chasers love to chase cats, cars, joggers and bicyclists, and that doesn’t tend to work out so well for all involved.

In an earlier post I talked about teaching my new pup Hope not to chase Sushi the cat, and several readers asked how I am doing that. Here’s a summary of both a generic plan and how it looks in detail in one home, with one dog, and one cat. Obviously, the details vary tremendously, but the basic plan is relatively universal.

1. MANAGE AND PREVENT: What could be more fun than chasing something if a dog is so inclined? Dogs are, after all, cursorial predators (meaning they run things down for a living), and that tendency is still very strong in many of them, 12,000 + years later. (And admittedly, not so much in others.) There is little more reinforcing than a great chase to some dogs, so once you know it’s an issue, job #1 is to prevent it from happening unless you can use the situation as a training session. That means leashes, gates, etc.. whatever you need to do to keep your dog from getting reinforced by a super fun chase game.

At the farm: Once I knew Hope loved to chase Sushi (happened once outside and once inside), I used leashes, gates and management to prevent it from happening again. If Hope was outside loose, then Sushi was inside.  If Hope was inside, Sushi was in her kitty suite if I couldn’t be on “cat duty.”

2. MASTER at least one incompatible behavior. While you are managing the situation, work on teaching at least one (more is better) behavior that inherently prevents chasing and gives you a chance to give your dog a whoppingly wonderful reinforcement. You could use “Watch” (turn away and look at me), sit down, lie down, turn away and chase you, go get a toy, etc etc. Your choice should be based on finding something that replaces chasing (or even focusing on the chasee) and is something that is easy and fun for your dog to do and for you to reinforce. Don’t choose “Sit” if it’s hard for your large breed dog to sit down, or “Lie Down” if your dog is nervous outside and he likes to chase cars. Fighting fire with fire is often a good idea, so if you have a dedicated chaser, you could teach him to look at you when you say “Watch” and then let him chase you as a reinforcement.

When I say “master,” I mean to teach the behavior (again, more than one is better, gives you more flexibility) so that your dog will do it even when she is distracted. Start, as you would with all cues, with no distractions, and then work your way up to mild distractions, and then strong ones.

At the farm: We were already working on turning to me when I said his name, and sitting on cue, so I used both of those. When we started this, I had only had him for 1 week, so I didn’t want to get too elaborate. I probably said his name + reinforcement 25 times a day, and asked him to sit about the same number of times. For reinforcement he got great treats (kibble for easy responses, cooked pieces of  steak for ones when he was distracted), cooing and belly rubs (he appears to adore them) and chasing me when I ran. Well, I can’t run much, which is truly cramping my style. I hobble along like Chester dragging his bad leg while calling after Mr. Dylan (any one else remember Gunsmoke?!) But I speed up as best I can, and have  friends and Jim use running as much as they can, because herding dogs like Will seem to love little more than a good run after a friend.

3. ASK FOR A BEHAVIOR in the presence of the chasee. Use the behavior(s) you’ve been working on and give your dog a chance to be right or to be wrong. Only do this when you have some control. Don’t start with the dog and cat loose outside, or a loose dog who can see cars passing by right in front of him. Do what you need to do to create a ‘win’ and avoid a ‘loss’… if you need to use a leash, then start there. Perhaps you ask your dog to look at you when he sees the cat behind a gate (no leash necessary there) or when you let them both into the same room together (leash might help here!). If your dog chases cars, be thoughtful about how difficult it will be for your dog to respond to your cue, the one you’ve been working on so hard in other contexts.  Perhaps you start just on your front porch, not walking any closer to the street, and jackpot your dog for any positive response before going any further.

If your dog doesn’t respond to your cue, show them some great food and lure them away from the object of interest. At first I’d give the food (assuming that’s what your using at that point) even if you had to put the food beside their nose and use it to lure them toward you, but after a while you might want to use “negative punishment” and show them the food (right to their nose), lure them away from the car or cat, and then say “Oh Dear. Too bad… you would  have gotten this if you’d been good, but you missed your chance. I’m so sorry.” (It’s really fun here to eat the food yourself .. not sure it affects the dog, but boy it feels great! Unless the only food you have is Liver/Fish Chunky Yunkies or something, Yuck.) If this happens several times in a row (no response), then you need to go back to Step #2, or set up the situation so that the chasee is farther away.

When your dog does respond to your cue, Whooooo Hooo! Jackpot (10 treats in a row, one at a time, while you wax eloquently about how brilliant she is, or run like crazy, laughing and clapping, throwing yourself down on the ground and letting happy dog lick your face.. etc etc…). Give reinforcements based on the difficulty of the exercise. Once you’ve gotten several good responses in a row, start asking for a bit more from your dog (cat closer for example).

Continue this at least 3 times a day if you can, more is better. Don’t exhaust your dog (or cat!) by asking for a Watch, for example, over and over and over again in a row. Ask for one or two good responses, then move on to something else.

At the farm: I began letting Hope and Sushi together in the house and asking for him to either look at me or sit on cue as soon as he saw the cat. (Once Sushi learned she wasn’t going to get chased she stopped running away, which made things a lot easier.) This went very well, partly because I’d worked on it so hard, and partly because Hope is a relatively responsive little pup.  Once I was at 95-99% inside, I started letting my guard down outside and not worrying so much if they were both outside together (after about a week). Then, every time he saw the cat I’d say “Hope” or “Sit” and give him my best and most wonderous reinforcement.

4. USE MILD Positive Punishment when necessary if it’s relevant and suitable. This would only be applicable in some situations, not in others. Try body blocking between a dog and a cat for example (see my farm example below). Perhaps if you had a car chaser you could get between the dog (on leash of course) and the car, and back him up in space a few paces (I love “space corrections” — you’re not mad,  not raising your voice, just ‘taking the space’ back away from your dog.) I am always very cautious about positive punishment, but as I said in an earlier post, I do not think it inhumane in the least if it is done thoughtfully and carefully. After all, as defined, it is adding something (the ‘positive’ part) to decrease a behavior (which is what makes it ‘punishment’ as defined by Skinner et al). The trick is knowing your dog, what you can ‘add’ to decrease a behavior, and doing it with the right timing.

At the farm: A few times Hope ignored my cue, and was about to start another chase. Because chasing Sushi is SO reinforcing, I just couldn’t let him get away with doing it. (In many other contexts I would just let it go and go back to reinforcements… but you just can’t do that when the problem behavior is inherently as reinforcing as anything you can provide.)

Before he could start chasing, I got between them,  facing Hope, and backed him up in space a few feet. While I was backing into him (to back him up), I spoke very softly, but with a low voice, disappointed voice saying something like: “What are you doing Mr. Hope? We don’t bother cats in this house.” Okay, full disclosure, sometimes I used other words, and sometimes they weren’t quite so sweet, but I always try to use a quiet, disappointed, but still benevolent voice.

However, two times I was behind Hope, he was about to chase Sushi and I had no way of getting between them. I said his name and got nothing, and I knew darn well the chase was about to start, so I tossed my bait bag (handily in hand) such that it landed right in front of Hope. I said “no” right before it landed, and glory of glories, the timing worked out perfectly. Hope is a relatively soft dog, and it had a big effect on him. Ever since then he’s responded to my requests to look at me or sit down around the cat, but I don’t think it all would fit together if we hadn’t worked on a solid foundation of what TO DO (versus what NOT TO DO). (In other words, just saying “no” rarely works unless you teach the dog what you DO want him to do first.)

5. BE PATIENT AND HAVE STAMINA. Everything else is the easy part, this is the hard part! What can I say? This is going to take time. How much depends on your dog, you and how much he has chased something he shouldn’t in the past. If he’s been doing this for years it’s going to take a lot more time and stamina than if you can get it turned around early on. Do keep one thing in mind: Research shows that it takes 21 to 28 days of consistent practice to turn around an old habit and learn a new behavior. It turns out that most people are really good at trying something new (exercise for example) for 10 to 14 days. Do the math. Whoops. So think about your behavior around this issue, and remember that you’ll need the most support and help around day 11 to 28!

Hope is doing well, but it’s only been two weeks. I’d estimate we need at least 6 months of work, but overall things should continue to improve, with the predictable set back occurring every once in a while. Right now he still goes over to Sushi, tries to interact, and I have to ask him to sit or look at me. He’ll do that right away, but Sushi is still irritated by his very existence, and Hope still thinks it is fun to get close enough for her to swat at him. Cross your paws for poor Sushi: we finally got stalking out of the picture and now she has a dog who wants to play with her. Maybe she’ll read the blog about all the cats who like to play with dogs?

If you have a chaser that you’ve worked with, I know readers would appreciate any other ideas and tips you have for them.  I’d love to hear too how you are handling it.

Meanwhile, back on the farm: True confessions: between my smashed knee, Jim’s exhausting brace, a puppy who has to urinate ridiculously often (checking on ‘puppy vaginitis,’ will have chinese med appt soon) and now Will having oral surgery as I write… things have been a tad challenging at the farm. Will broke his root canal tooth last weekend, so he is having it extracted. (More on that soon, including some serious grousing, but I have to go check on him now.)

The best thing that has happened all week (besides a delightful visit from my nephew and his wife) is that the toys we ordered came in. We’ve been testing toys for months, and have put the winners on the website. (Along with the coolest tiny Kong keychain you can imagine. We are all stupidly entranced by it. Check it out.) We did have a bit of a surprise: we ordered a tough, stuffed sheep that we pictured as being, oh I don’t know, toy chihuahua size, and it came more corgi size. We have an entire flock in the back room. Luckily, Hope and Will think it’s too cool for words . . .

A reader asked for an update about Will and Sushi, so I thought it was time to fill you in on how it is going. I’m happy to report that things are going extremely well. (Whew!) The entire story would be a chapter in a book (and probably will be!), but here’s the summary:

Problem: Willie stalking Sushi the cat. As I said in earlier posts, this is very different from “chasing the cat.” Cat chasing can be a serious problem, don’t get me wrong, especially if it is predatory and not initially motivated by play, but “strong-eyed” herding dogs who automatically go into a stalking posture around a cat are a real challenge. Using positive reinforcement for, say, looking at the cat and then turning to look at me for a treat or a toy wasn’t working.

The primary problem is that once a strong-eyed dog makes visual contact with an animal it sees as something to be herded, it is extremely hard for the dog not to begin stalking. I’ve read so many books that describe Border collies as “mesmerizing their prey” with their intense stare, but in truth it’s the exact opposite. It’s the dog that goes into a trance.

Super “strong-eyed” dogs are not favored by the top handlers, because they literally become “stuck” once they make contact with the sheep. They just stop moving altogether and stand like statues while you whistle yourself silly trying to get them to move. I’ve worked on that with Willie, having been encouraged by Alisdair McRae  to keep Willie moving and simply not let him stop or lie down for months and months during his early training. (I used to call Alisdair the “Tiger Woods of Herding” but it no longer seems like the compliment it is meant to be!) Willie still can get stuck sometimes, but it doesn’t happen very often at the farm and I’m grateful for the advice that Alisdair gave me early on.

But that strong-eyed predisposition made working with him and Sushi especially difficult. All the techniques you would use (and I did use to cure  him of bark/lunging at other dogs) don’t work in this situation. Teaching him to look at the cat on cue made things worse, and teaching him to get a toy as soon as he saw the cat didn’t work either. Once he saw the cat, he was lost in stalking-land. I tried telling him to lie down every time he saw the cat, but that just kept him in herding mode. (You can read more about what I’ve worked on in Willie & Sushi Part II, 12/9/2009).

We made big strides when I switched to asking for a Sit rather than a Lie Down (not a posture a herding dog takes when working, unless they are a tad confused). Once he had sat down, I reinforced him with play. That helped a great deal. But the next break through was serendipitous: I sent Sushi to a boarding kennel for a few days when a cat-allergic house guest came to visit. Sushi was gone for 3 days, and when she returned I made a decision to use (cover your ears here if you believe in 100% positive reinforcement and consider even mildest of punishments a sin) positive punishment when he focused on Sushi. Three times I threw something soft in between him and Sushi when he lowered his head toward her (twice it was my bait bag full of treats!), then we ran in the living room and played with his toys. Ever since he has been great. I think the combination of the work we’ve done before, the break from having Sushi in the house and starting over anew by stopping the behavior before it could start again was the key.

Granted, it  doesn’t hurt have a puppy to play with to keep his attention off the cat, but the problem was handled before the puppy came. Willie still focuses on Sushi if he sees her in the window, but as soon as she comes in he turns away from her and grabs a toy. GOOD BOY!!!

None of this would have worked if I hadn’t had a good foundation laid beforehand, but it sure feels good right now. Of course, it’s also summer and Sushi is outside a lot, so the big test will come next winter, but right now the Willie/Sushi problem is history. Of course, now I’m working on teaching Hope not to chase the cat (more on that later, but it’s going really, really well…).

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Will and Hope are playing beautifully in the house together, lots of tooth fencing and wrestle play. Every once in awhile Will seems to get a tad irritated and end the play session with a snap and an offensive pucker, but it’s rare and probably appropriate, given that shark-tooth Hope isn’t always mindful of the arsenal he is carrying around in his mouth. I also am quick to let Will go upstairs to take a break if he tells me he is ready, and I suspect that makes a big difference. Who doesn’t need a break from a puppy every once in awhile?

Their play outside is still driven by Willie’s nerdy and rude herding behavior. He just can’t figure out why Hope doesn’t want to play “You be the sheep and I’ll smash into you every time you move forward!” Sort of like the big brother who wants to tie his little brother up to a tree so he can play pirate and his little brother plays the captured victim. But Hope is figuring out he can play as long as he has somewhere to hide, like the edges of the wading pool:

The next photo is Will and Hope in a ‘road training’ session. Hope is learning to automatically lie down every time I walk toward the road. He is not allowed to go within 30 yards of the road, and he is learning to lie down if I move over that invisible barrier myself. This does NOT mean that he wouldn’t go to the road if I was behind him (on the house side rather than the road side) and someone appeared on the road that he’d like to meet. That is a completely different concept, and one we’ll work on once this stage has progressed. This is his 3rd session, and he will now lie down to a visual signal and stay until I come back parallel to him. Once I do, he gets enthusiastic praise, belly rubs (he LOVES them) and sometimes a piece of the cheapest steak I can find in the market. I also think it helps greatly that Will knows the drill and he has big brother beside him doing the right thing. (It’s very controversial whether dogs can truly ‘imitate’ others, but I do believe that at minimum it helps in the sense that Will is not moving around causing a distraction, and I do wonder often if Will’s behavior doesn’t also directly influence Hope’s… Food for thought.)

A short post today, but I hope a helpful one. It’s inspired by the “mud luscious and puddle wonderful” nature of spring, and the need to wipe off Will’s paws as we enter the house when it’s wet outside. As I was drying Willie’s paws a few days ago, I thought about how much easier it is now that I say “Ready?” right before I pick up each leg. Since I started communicating my intention (“now I am going to pick up this paw”), he is beginning, on occasion, to pick up a paw himself, but more often he will shift his weight so that it is less awkward for him. (Yep, I could train him to pick up each paw on cue… also a potential solution, but keep reading for some potential benefits of a more generalized cue.)

Keep in mind that this is the dog who, as an adolescent, growled at me  when I picked up a paw to dry off the mud. That was 3 years ago, and I remember saying something like “Oh, don’t be silly” and continuing what I was doing. He growled one or two more times, but we worked through it and I haven’t heard him growl at anything in years. However, he doesn’t enjoy his paws being cleaned, as most dogs don’t, and the process got me thinking about how little control a dog has over having his/her body moved around, even gently, without any say in the matter. That’s especially difficult if there is any pain involved in putting more weight than usual on one limb. I’ve always been aware of Will’s bad shoulder, and have always been extra careful about picking up the other paw, but a few months ago I started saying “Ready?” right before I picked up a paw, giving him a chance to shift his weight himself.

It’s made a difference to both of us. I lean down and put my hand close to a paw and say “Ready?” and he either shifts his weight or picks it up. Paw cleaning is not only faster, it feels like Will and I are moving down the same path, instead of trying to go in opposite directions. This is a cue that has so many applications; Will’s structural troubles require acupuncture and chiropracty, and he’s not the kind of hail-fellow-well-met who takes being handled lightly. I would bet the farm (and, hey, I have one) that handling Will with force and punishment would have created a severe aggression problem within a few months. In both cases, we give Will lots of options, using patience and communication during the treatments. He adores both practitioners, but he literally hides behind me when the greetings are over and it’s time for treatments. But we work through it, sort of like a dance; sometimes asking, sometimes quietly insisting, but always with an awareness that Will desperately needs to have some say in what is happening to him.

I know many others use cues like “Ready” for a variety of reasons. I’ve heard similar cues most often in obedience, meaning “Okay, time to start working together”. But I’ll bet there are many examples from your own experience of using a cue to communicate your intentions to a dog. I’d love to hear them. I think we’d all learn something from hearing about all the ways that concept can be used. (By the way, signals like “Ready” are called “meta-communication,” meaning “communication about communication.” A play bow is an example in dogs, meaning “Everything that happens next is in play, don’t take these bites and growls seriously!”

Meanwhile, back on the farm: The new fence is working beautifully (more on Will and the fence soon), the bottle lambs have learned to use the self feeder, though they still mug me relentlessly for more, and Snickers has stopped looking for her 3rd lamb, the one I had to take to a friend because 1/2 of Snicker’s bag dried up. The tulips and blossoming trees are in full bloom. Here are Tulip’s tulips, the flowers I planted over my Great Pyrenees grave, her body deep in the soil, nestled onto a bed of of hundreds of tulips, warm and safe in the small hill in front of the house, where she’d stand strong and tall, and bark out her great, white presence to the world.

One last comment, for now, about our relationships with our dogs.  I had mentioned in the last post that I believe that dogs do better if they see us as what I call “benevolent leaders,” in the sense of good parents or good teachers. Here’s my thinking:

Dogs are dependent upon us, granted some more than others, but most of our dogs have no control over when and what they eat, where they spend their time and who they spend it with. They can’t open the door to go outside, they can’t leave their social group to go find another one that they like better, and they can’t provision themselves with their preferred food. They have to know, at some level, that we hold most of the cards. We are able to open doors, we are the ones who can open the cabinets and get out the dog food and we decide who makes up the “pack.”

Because of that, at least in part, dogs know that we have more “social freedom” than they do, and much of their life is dependent on how we use it. Let me be anthropomorphic for a moment . . .not always a good thing, true, but sometimes useful. If you were dependent upon someone else, how would you like them to behave? Think of a great boss, or a great teacher or ideal parent. Wouldn’t they be a person who 1) was clear and consistent, 2) established clear and reasonable boundaries  and 3) saw you for who you really are, and acted in ways to bring out the best of you and inhibit your dark side?

I think that insecure dogs especially are in need of people who teach them to be patient and polite, who help them learn to inhibit impulsive behavior, and to establish boundaries in a fair and clear way so that everyone knows what to expect. We know that part of what makes a social animal nervous and insecure is a lack of ability to predict what is going to happen to them. And more than that, I think insecure dogs need a sense that their human is someone that they can count on, to take charge and get them out of trouble when necessary, and to create clear and fair boundaries that help them learn emotional control.

I have seen so many dogs in my office whose owners adored them, but who were afraid to deny them anything. No boundaries, no rules beyond “please don’t pee in the house.” I had one client whose dog began to growl at her because she didn’t get up out of her chair and go across the room to pick up a toy for the dog. This particular dog had taught his human, literally, to fetch for him, and if she didn’t pick up on his cues fast enough to pick up his toy and hand it to him, he began to growl and threaten her. And yet, I got no sense that this was a happy dog. You might think that he was in heaven, living in some kind of canine fantasy with a person who waited on him hand and foot.  But he was nervous and insecure, and after we started using positive reinforcement to teach him other ways to behave, and decided on some reasonable boundaries, he not only stopped bullying  his owner, he seemed like a much happier dog.

And so, although I have concerns about what the word means to some people, I still use the term “benevolent leader,” in the belief that most dogs are relieved to be able to count on their human to, as one dictionary defines “to lead,” to “guide something along the way.” That’s not a bad thing to do for the animals who are so dependent upon us. We just need to do it with love, patience, benevolence and most of all–a good sense of humor.

Meanwhile, back on the farm: It’s exquisite spring weather, 60’s and sunny and all emerald green grass and liquid bird song. Here are 2 of the 3 bottle lambs that Truffles doesn’t make enough milk for. They are just starting to frolic after getting their bellies full of goat milk.

And here are the 3 ewes who lambed most recently. The rest of the flock has dashed up the hill for 2 acres of clover and grasses, while these 3 stay closer to the barn. That’s Truffles, the ewe with the problem udder, on the left. Her 3 lambs are the ones on the left too, although the one with the most black is in the foreground. Dorothy is in the middle with her twin lambs, while Snickers is on the right with her all white triplets. Snickers and Dorothy are especially cautious about leaving the safety of the barn. Dorothy is so cautious that I have to feed her separately because she is hesitant to leave the barn to feed with the others. Her lambs are tiny, tiny tiny tiny, but their little bellies are full when I check on them. I gave Dorothy extra grain last night because I’m a tad worried that she isn’t getting enough food.

As I write this they are all at the top of the hill on an Irish green pasture. I can almost hear them tearing the tips of the grass off as I write . . .

I’ll start with the bottom line. I don’t use the word “dominance” when talking to people about training their dogs. There’s just no profit in it. Even given that dominance is about “priority access” and “social freedom,” but not about how to get it, I still see nothing but the potential for confusion and misuse. Given that in general parlance dominance means “total control,” and that it is so often it is equated with force (completely inappropriately), I avoid the term as if it were toxic.  Which is exactly what I think it can be in this context.

Look at all the absurd uses of the concept sent in by readers. “Expressions of dominance” include: A dog sitting with its back to you, forging in front on walks, jumping up on people, pulling washing off of a clothes line (one of my personal favorites), acting scared when someone approaches, a “refusal to be potty trained,” (did the dog hire a lawyer?), using signs of fear or appeasement to manipulate their owners (no kidding), and another personal favorite–dogs who are good retrievers as youngsters should be avoided because they are acting as alphas by provisioning the pack (bringing back a chicken in this case) and are thus predisposed to be dominant. Oh my. Oh my my my.

Thank you all so much for adding fuel to my fire that we need to drop the concept of dominance in relation to dog training. However, if we put aside the issue of training, and take an intellectual look at the issue of social relationships in depth, the waters can get a bit muddy. Independent of issues related to training, the questions still remain: How DO dogs perceive us? Is there any possible relevance to social hierarchy in our relationship with dogs? One reader responded to an earlier post that if dominance is about priority access to resources, we need to acknowledge that most of us inherently have that. We control the doorway, the food, the toys, when dogs potty, etc etc.

There are good arguments on either side of this question. On the one hand, social hierarchies are always between individuals of the same species, so how could they relate to relationships between people and dogs? On the other hand, why do dogs use the same social signals to people that they do to other dogs if they don’t see us as part of their social units? Why do some dogs grovel with appeasement displays, and others go stiff and hard-eyed when we go to pick up their bone? How do we describe those dogs? Because I think the issue is so complicated and so easily misunderstood, I tend to use terms that avoid the D word.  I might describe a dog as being “on offense” if it goes stiff and presents what is called an “offensive pucker.” I’ll talk about a dog with an appeasement display that includes flattened ears and a retracted commissure or “submissive grin” as it is often called. (I realize, as I am writing this, that I am still more likely to describe a dog’s posture as ’submissive,’ perhaps because I find it so descriptive and because I don’t see people abusing that term like they do “dominant.”)

Personally, I do suspect that there are some aspects of social hierarchy that relate to our relationship with our dogs. However, I also think it is exceptionally complicated and easily misunderstood. I think we have a lot to learn about how dogs perceive us, and how they categorize us in relation to other dogs. We clearly are not dogs to them, but then… we clearly are members of their ‘pack.’ I have no definitive answers to this question, but I love pondering the question. It’s a little like thinking about how many stars there are in the sky….

Soon I am going to write about another aspect of our relationship with dogs that I think is important, and that’s the concept of “leadership.” I know that some of you will disagree, but I truly believe that because dogs are so completely dependent upon us, they are happier and more secure if their humans exemplify the best of what we think of as being a good leader. You know: the person everyone wants to stand beside, and automatically wants to be chair of the committee even though he or she never volunteers for it. I talk about being a “benevolent leader” in some of my writings, although I deeply regret that even the term “leader” has been co-opted by some to be equated with “dominance.” I don’t think it is, any more than good parents or good teachers are ‘dominant.”  Stay tuned for more …. but I gotta go now and get more milk for the bottle lambs.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, and speaking of bottle lambs, it is still all about the lambs at the farm. Explodo ewe is still holding out, and Truffles bag is still full and hard and giving almost no milk. Her triplets are bottle junkies now, and feeding them 5 times a day is getting a bit tiresome. I’m leaving now to go get more milk and set up a self feeder, which will help tremendously. I was hoping my Chinese medicine vet could come out, because western medicine has not been successful in clearing up Truffles’ udder, but my vet is booked solid for the next 10 days. Still have my paws crossed though, optimistic that I am. Truffles triplets are flourishing, at least the 2 Bl & Wh ones are. The little white ewe lamb is a fussy eater, and isn’t getting as much milk as the others, but she’s hanging in there. I tried to get a picture for you, but I can’t get them far enough away from me to get much beyond this:

Apologies, I seem stuck on pictures of lambs and spring flowers: Here’s another spring ephemeral, called Pasque Flowers, from Walking Iron County Park outside of Mazomanie. A gorgeous set of prairies and native wild flowers….

I’ll be working on a post about social status and dog training this week, keep your eyes peeled. Meanwhile, something happened on Saturday that related to our discussion about fears . . .

I mentioned last week that Willie has become fearful of being in the bedroom with me at night. He is better, although he still leaves the room when I get into bed, but he is not slinking out anymore as if he saw monsters sitting on my shoulder. (And yes, by the way, it appears that whatever scared him is associated with me–all of his tongue flicking and slinking was directed toward me, but only once I get into bed. The issue seems to be specific to Trisha + Bed = Scary. (Oh lordy, one could construct a lot of jokes out of that. Sigh.) Speaking of unexplained fears, here’s an explained one that might shed a little light on the ones we can’t figure out.

On Saturday a dear friend came to visit from northern Wisconsin, and after driving 4 hours let her Akbash, her Golden Retriever and a Lab she is babysitting out of the car to relive themselves. Unbeknownst to us, my cat Sushi was sitting on the porch, and the Akbash and GR took one look at her and began lure coursing with her as the rabbit. Luckily she was only about 30 yards from a tree, and she got up it when the dogs were only a few feet away. She must have climbed 25 feet up, but got herself down within a few minutes once it was safe. (We didn’t see her come down, we were busy rounding up loose dogs at that point.) We found her soon after, shaken up and with what looked like a minor eye injury, but otherwise still intact. However, she clearly had been terrified, and for the next 48 hours she panicked every time she saw Willie. Now, Willie had been in the house, and had no part in chasing her. But he’s a dog, and apparently that was enough to set her off.

Fears are like that: When we, or any mammal, is truly frightened, the change in neurochemistry in our brains creates a state of hyper awareness. It is as if the brain is saying “I need to pay attention to everything, because I don’t know yet what it was that related to the danger, so I’ll take it all in and sort it out later.” In the famous story told in all animal behavior classes, an entomologist who was struck by a car in a pedestrian cross walk can still tell you the species identification of all the insects plastered onto the grill of the vehicle that hit him. Apparently he’s never felt the same way about moths again. The downside of this hyper awareness is that we can develop conditioned fears to things that had nothing to do with the actual trauma or injury. In Sushi’s case, it made some sense: Willie wasn’t anywhere near her when she was being chased, but he is a dog after all. But the association can be illogical and meaningless, and still have tremendous power. We can get nervous when we hear the song that was playing on the radio when we had a car accident, or our dogs can associate us with something that happened in our presence that had nothing to do with what scared them. But we were there, and sometimes that’s enough.

As readers have wisely commented, it could be related to smells (I think that is often over looked in dogs, because we as a species are so oblivious to scents), or sounds that we can’t hear ourselves. I think it often has to do with pain; I’ve seen many clients whose dogs had an abrupt injury and associated their owners or another dog with it. I also wonder about barometric pressure, stray voltage (I had a case of “Separation Anxiety” that turned out to relate to a huge power surge by a nearby power generating plant right next door) and who knows what else. Temple Grandin talks about a horse afraid of anyone with a black hat on, because the man who beat her wore a black hat. I’ve had clients whose dogs were afraid of anyone who smelled like pepperoni (abusive pizza delivery man), anyone with bushy, blond hair (who knows why!), and Hereford cows (not Holsteins) because the dog was looking at Herefords when he got hit by an electric fence. Sometimes we can figure out the association, sometimes we can’t, but it does help a bit to remember that the association is often illogical.

Meanwhile, back in the barn: Lambs lambs lambs. On Saturday morning, Truffles had triplets. She’s a 4 year old ewe who has always had 2 great lambs every year, but this time she had triplets, 3 little lambs, with 2 of them marked like Border Collies. Her cousin Snickers looked like she would lamb too, having an udder that blew up like a balloon on Saturday morning, and she became less and less interested in food as the day went on. Sunday morning it was clear she’d been digging, a sign of early labor, and she even left a rare chance at fresh grass to run back into the barn as if her babies were imminent. But, then . . . nothing. Hour after hour, nothing. Sunday morning it was also clear that Truffles wasn’t producing any milk. Her lambs were hunched and cold, and her bag was hard as a rock. Thus, much of Sunday was phone calls to the vet, visits to pick up goat milk, teaching the lambs to nurse out of a bottle, picking up medicine at the vet clinic, herding the flock with older lambs onto the front lawn for their first fresh grass in weeks, herding them back into the barn and taking the lambless sheep onto the front lawn (pasture isn’t grown up enough, needs to be rested), massaging Truffles’ bag with warm towels, feeding the lambs every few hours . . . (Don’t take any of this as a complaint. Except the worrying part, I love lambing season and was so grateful that I was home and not needing to work most of the weekend!)

Late Sunday afternoon, just when I was getting truly worried about Snickers and her blank-eyed, listless look and lack of any signs of labor, Jim, bless him, drove to the vet clinic to get oral calcium that might help her along.  I went into the barn to do another round of cleaning and feeding, and there were 3 little lambs with fat, full bellies, all standing beside Snickers. She had had them all in just minutes, cleaned them up and got all 3 fed in about a half an hour. This morning Dorothy (finally!) had twins, 2 lovely little boys (but wouldn’t you know that’s who I wanted to keep a ewe lamb from, she is my best ewe hands down….), one white and one grey & white. That’s 17 lambs out of 7 ewes. Holy moley. And there is one more to go, Explodo Ewe Barbie. Still no milk from Truffles though. She doesn’t have mastitis, and I actually wish she did. Then I could give her antibiotics and milk her out and use warm compresses and probably pull, her udder and her lambs through. But this hard bag is worse–the bag is full of fluid and the ducts are blocked, and the milk can’t get through. It might resolve in another few days and it might not. If it does, she still might not be able to provide enough milk, even for twins much less triplets. Looks like I’ll be constructing a self feeder soon.

Here are some of the older lambs, with the front runner impersonating a Border Collie.

Here are the 9 older lambs (there are 8 others in the barn), checking out Willie. Notice that Lady Godiva, whose lambs are the two in the front on your left, has come over to lure her babies away from the wolf lying in the dirt. She came a little closer, nickered, and her black lamb followed her away. The black and white ewe lamb ignored her completely, and continued to check out Willie, who bless him, stayed quiet and calm throughout.