THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

There is a new book that just hit the book shelves, John Bradshaw’s Dog Sense. I just started reading it and think it is a book with a lot of value. Here’s a summary from the back of the book of some of its messages: “Don’t be an Alpha,” “Dogs can feel love but not guilt,” “Avoid punishment,” “Look beyond breed,” Respect your dog’s sense.” All good, absolutely. The question, of course, is what does the book add to the conversation, there being a good number of books on the market that say the same thing.

Here’s something, from just the first chapter that I think makes the book worthwhile: Bradshaw begins with a valuable discussion about the genetics of canids and the derivation of the domestic dog. I love his inclusion of the entire group of canids (not just grey wolves) and his important point that just because two species share most of their DNA doesn’t mean they behave in a similar way all the time. Case in point: Common Chimpanzees and Bonobos share 99.6 % of their DNA, yet their social behavior is very different. The social system of chimps is based on male-male coalitions and no small amount of coercion, force and fighting. Bonobos tend to resolve social conflicts through sex — pretty much everyone has sex with everyone else. A primatologist once said it’s like Sweden on steroids (I’m just quoting!). Obviously, individuals of the two species share more than they differ behaviorally, but they are not clones and look and behave more differently than you might expect with a .4% difference in DNA. He uses this information to remind us that wolves and dogs may be the same species, but they are not behavioral clones.

Bradshaw compares the canid genome to a “swiss army knife,” a wonderful way to describe a flexible set of predispositions and tools that can be taken and used when needed (e.g. “faculatively social” coyotes who can live alone or in groups, depending on their prey base.) If you are interested in comparative behavior, this is a valuable section. The book includes chapters titled “Why Dogs Were–Unfortunately–Turned Back into Wolves,” “Stick or Carrots–the Science of Dog Training,” “Canine Brain Power,” and “Emotional (Un)sophistication. I’ll keep reading away, and let you know what I think. Sorry I can’t provide a full book review now, I’m a tad behind what with personal issues, grading exams and finishing up the new book.

Anyone read it all yet? Any other good books you’ve discovered of interest to us all?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I gave the word to the vet and sitter to put my ewe, Brittany, down on Friday evening.  There was simply no saving her, she had “twisted gut” which is not treatable in sheep (it is in cows, but not sheep and goats) and so my great sheep vet (Dr. Jeff Kunart) came out and eased her away. The farm sitter, vet student Anna, said she was ready to go. A dear friend who raised dairy goats for years brought out goat milk for the lambs (thank you Donna!)  but as we expected they would have no part of being bottle fed. They’re just too old to learn a new way of feeding. But they had become partially weaned as Brittany declined, and they are just cutting their teeth, so I have hopes that they’ll make it. Other dear friends came over and disposed of Brittany’s body so that Jim and I didn’t have to come home from a funeral and bury a body. Thank you Barb and Dave, we owe you one. It takes a village. And thank all of you for your kind comments about the death of Jim’s sister. The services were beautiful and heart breaking and very special.

Brittany’s orphan lambs won’t grow at the same rate as the other lambs, but they are eating “creep” feed (an area in which the lambs can enter but the ewes can’t) specially designed for young lambs. I’m thankful that I still had some of the ‘baby lamb’ food; they seem to love it and are also eating grass well. I let them out with the flock on Sunday, and they seem to be hanging around my old, noble ewe, Dorothy. I doubt very much she’ll let them nurse, and even if she did, she has barely enough milk for her own twins, but at least they have a ewe to follow.

Willie is wonderful, seems brimming with health. I’m gradually weaning him off his medicine and gradually introducing regular food back into his diet. No sign of GI trouble yet, all paws crossed because his surgery is next Tuesday. The farm is gorgeous right now. I admit I yearn for more time to enjoy it, but I’m savoring every minute I get. The birds and flowers are ridiculously colorful, the yard looks like some 1960′s psychedelic Beatles movie.

Neither of the photographs below are high quality, I had to shoot them through the kitchen window (okay, so it’s not all that clean), but you can still get a sense of how much color there is at the feeders now. There have been as many as 15 Goldfinch, 4 male Indigo Buntings, 6 Rose Breasted Grosbeaks plus Cardinals, Blue Jays, Chickadees, House Finches, Titmice, Wh Breasted Nuthatches, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, White-Throated and White-Crowned Sparrows, Orioles, & Red Bellied Woodpeckers at the feeders at the same time. I suspect I’m leaving some out too… After a long winter of little but white, brown and grey, you can imagine what a joy it is to see color again. Between the birds, the tulips and the daffodils, the farm is saturated with color. A magical mystery tour all on its own.

Here are 3 male Indigo Buntings, one of my favorite birds. They are common here in Wisconsin, but tend to sing high up in trees and often don’t look that colorful without the sun on them. The two gold birds are, not surprisingly, Goldfinches. I don’t know why, but our yard is seems to be Goldfinch magnet now.. . we’ve never seen so many at one time. I expect the numbers will dwindle when they get serious about their territories.

Here’s Mr. Flashy Boy, the Red-Breasted Grosbeak with a male House Finch in the background. The RBGs are gorgeous in person, with high contrast black, white and red radiating around the feeders.

I know this has nothing to do with dog training or behavior, but may I mention how relieved I am that Barbie FINALLY had her lambs?

I just happened into the barn a few minutes after she had her first, and was there while she had little ram lamb number two:

Here they are about 20 minutes after the first one was born, perhaps 5-7 after the second.

Here’s the first attempt to stand from lamb #2, about 10-15 minutes after its birth:

MEANWHILE, also on the farm: Poor Willie is bored silly, I’m working all the time or traveling to visit my ailing relative, and he can’t work sheep, play with toys except on a limited basis or run around outside. Poor Willie; I do keep reminding myself that this too shall pass. I wish I could tell him that. (But thanks for the comments from those of you whose dogs have had surgery and made great recoveries. I wish we could do it now and get it over with, but as we all know, life (and death) has its own agenda.) But it is sunny and springy outside; the older lambs are frolicking, the daffodils are dancing and the earth is coming alive. Sweet. Cherish the moment.

I’m cherishing the feel of the spring breeze on my face, the smell of Willie’s fur when we cuddle at night and watching Rosebud’s triplets leap in their pen. Maybe for only a few seconds, but isn’t that all we really have? One second after another?

What are you cherishing right now?

See the dog, not the story. This is a quote from one of your colleagues, a blog reader who sent this in as a comment about dogs in rescue. (And who I should credit, but because I’m in a time crisis, I can’t right now, but THANKS! and I will find your name when I can get more time.). I was reminded of the value of that saying by Kathy Sdao at Clicker Expo last weekend. She did a presentation on being a truly good observer of your dog, something we all know the value of, but she made it special for me by suggesting that we toss away our ‘stories’ about our dogs, and work with who we have. I truly took that to heart. I have a story about Willie, about how he was such a mess when he was young, about how he had projectile diarrhea and was pathologically afraid of other dogs and so sound sensitive I couldn’t socialize him, etc etc etc. There’s value in knowing that history, and in acknowledging how far we have come together.

But there is also value in being able to let it go, to look at who is standing or sitting right in front of you, right now. Not the dog as a container of all he or she has been, but simply who he or she is now.  I’ve been doing that with Willie these last few days, and I can’t report any clear and obvious change in our relationship, but it does feel like there is a subtle shift in my perception of him. It’s almost as though I feel a little bit lighter, in some vague, hard to describe kind of way. I think I have to mull on this a few more days to be able to articulate what I’m feeling.

And so, as I so often do, I’m reaching out to you to ask what you think of this, what “looking at the dog, not the story” might do for you. I’ll be off line quite a bit in the next 4 days, spending time with family during a difficult time, but will check when I can, and am extremely interested in what you have to say. I suspect many readers will be interested as well . . .

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Scrambled all last night to find a house sitter so that Jim and I could leave town. I have 5 possibles on a list and all five are out of town. What are the odds? But at the last minute I found a wonderful couple to sit, and I’m simplifying things for them by bringing Willie with us. He’ll spend a lot of time in the crate in the car, no way around it. Last I checked most hospitals aren’t going to welcome him into their ICU. Another dear friend will check on Rosebud. She is the ewe due to lamb on Friday, that is if Rosebud has read the chapters on when she should deliver.

Here’s a photo, that I snapped in New York with one of those throw away cameras (having forgotten my own) on the edge of Central Park. [And here was a fun surprise: I knew lots of people in NY had dogs, but dogs were EVERYWHERE!]. But here’s a shot of one of the horse drawn carts, during a quiet moment on a sunny day.

I mentioned earlier that Willie has re-injured his shoulder. He’s going in for a consult with my “sport medicine vet” on Wednesday, but meanwhile I am playing the not-always-so-fun game of keeping him quiet and not stressing his shoulder. Our two most challenging times are when he is waiting for his dinner and when he is greeting someone he loves. Otherwise it’s not too difficult. Leash walks outside? Trivial. Around the house? Harder, but very doable, (though not so good for my getting things done, but I sure have caught up on a lot of television lately!) I lie down on the living floor and rub Willie’s belly for several hours every evening (when we would normally be playing with toys in the house, after our walk or sheep work outside.) Otherwise he’s chomping on food out of a hollow toy or bored silly in his crate. Not fun, but not too difficult. But meal times and greetings are more of a challenge. Here’s one of the things we are doing now to keep him from straining his shoulder (and me from going bonkers).

At dinner time, Willie normally copes with his excited anticipation by grabbing a toy, shaking it with enough vigor to put life INTO something initially inanimate (I’m thinking Toy Story 4 here), and then tossing it up into the air before leaping up to catch it. I think of it as Willie’s “I can play fetch by myself” game, and it normally works well for both of  us. He plays in the living room while I fix his meal in the kitchen. But of course, now he needs to stay quiet and not stress his shoulder, so it’s either put him in the crate, where he is spending way too much time already, give him a stuffed toy (which he is getting lots of already) or take a handful of kibble and sling it across the kitchen floor. Ha ha! I call it Trisha’s little helper. .. who cares if the floor is clean after he licks up the food? It works perfectly: he spends 5 minutes finding and each eating piece, while I finish the rest of his dinner. His dinner is usually a mix of high quality kibble (normally not very much) and the rest canned and home cooked, but I’m happy to increase the percentage of kibble now when I need it.

This is also a great method for dogs when they are outside if you need to slow them down, get their attention, or take their attention off something else. I first learned to use it from Trish King, who uses it to distract problematic dogs who run up to you and bother your own dog, and have found it super useful in a variety of situations. Of course, it won’t work if the other stimulus is more powerful than the food, but you gotta love how long it takes a puppy to find small pieces of food scattered in the grass.

I’ve always been amused at trainers who label a relatively simplistic (and oft used) method as their own, but perhaps it’s time for me to join the bandwagon? Maybe we should call this the “McConnell Method?” Should get it trademarked? Throwing food on the floor?  Kidding aside, I’d love to hear if you’ve used this yourself, and if so, in what context. I suspect it might help quite a few of our readers who have their own challenges. By the way, I’m going to try this too when Willie is saying hello to me or Jim. He doesn’t jump up (Willie, not Jim), but is ecstatic and spins in tight circles, throws himself on the ground for belly rubs, and basically moves his body in every possible way except up to your face. Picture a four-month old Golden Retriever in a tuxedo. We bend down to him and he washes our faces, then he dashes off and gets a toy, which he tosses and shakes… you get the idea. I’m not sure it will be as successful in this context, I’m working on other alternatives now. I’ll keep you posted. FYI, his leg is indeed getting better (no visible limp when walking once he’s taken a few strides), but this is most likely an old injury that keeps coming back.  (Partial tear of biceptal or supraspinatus tendon?) If he does have surgery I’m going to have to find ways to keep him really, really quiet. But then, maybe we’ll decide surgery is not the best option? Paws crossed.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I need to get out to the barn and start cleaning it up, in preparation for lambing. The first lamb is due in 3 1/2 short weeks (first due date is actually March 25th, from Rosebud). This Saturday we are welcoming students from the Small Ruminant Club of the UW Vet School to learn how to do ultrasound pregnancy checks from Repro Specialist Dr. Harry Momont. The shearer will also be coming, so the ewes will first be sheared and hoof trimmed, and then be vaccinated to jump start the lamb’s immune system. We’ll move them to another pen where they’ll get a quick ultrasound. They are far enough along that we’ll probably know just by looking at them once they’re sheared if they are bred, but the ultrasound will be great practice for the vet students. Then we all retire to the farmhouse for chili and home made pie. I’ll be baking most of Friday night, but what could be more fun? I love meeting the vet students… so smart and inquisitive and dedicated to helping animals.

Here’s Mr. Will gobbling up kibble from the kitchen floor. Of course, I had to throw more out when I made his dinner (instead of taking a photo)… He thought that was just fine.

About to meet up with some dear friends, and leave for a visit to a Gannet colony, nature center, vineyard and sheep farm, but here’s a photo from the Shangri La where Jim and I are staying for a few nights. Ummmmmmm, yes, it really is this gorgeous.

Can’t wait for the Gannets and the sheep farm, hoping to meet some “Heading Dogs” (a NZ Border collie derivative–do you Kiwis agree with that description?) and Huntaways, an exclusively NZ breed that moves sheep 100% differently than BC’s, lots of movement and barking.)

Last comments about the seminar: Thanks Karen for bringing me over and being such a great host. And thanks to the participants–what a great group. There were some truly great observers in the audience, we had a truly interesting and fruitful time with the demo dogs, and I loved working together with the audience on treatment plans. All the dogs were wonderful –thanks to their owners for letting us learn from them, and to the dogs, Lani and Harlem and Tepo and Nicki, and to  Forest, our stable, stalwart stimulus dog. And to Tepo (sounds in Kiwi like Tapoor!) … you’ve especially got my heart mister, good luck.

Just found out from home that two of my ewes, the two that didn’t get marked as bred by Redford, had lambs. Surprise. Holy moly, they must have been bred at the end of June. My poor house sitter has done brilliantly, and boy do I owe some of my good friends a favor for coming over and helping with mid-winter lambs. Ah my, never a dull moment on a farm.

But back to NZ — Here’s the view from a few feet from our B & B – Wow is right! Yes, you really do want to try to get here on vacation some time . . .

Thanks for the discussion about the use of Body Blocks for teaching Stay, and to re-iterate a comment I made, they work equally well with dogs of all breeds and sizes (but you have to be a bit quicker with some breeds and with small dogs).  If your dog is getting around you to the left or right, then you might be too close. It’s herding dogs that taught me that you have more control at a bit of a distance than if you are right up close. I got away with being quite close in the video in the last post, because the dogs were relatively easy to block, but if you are having trouble, try backing up a bit. It’s also a great way to learn to read dogs (what body part moves first when a dog starts to get up?) and to perfect your timing.

I mentioned in last week’s post that the video showed me working with dogs who had already been taught the first stages of Stay. Someone asked if I’d go over those, so here is me working with a Husky puppy, Anastasia, who has been taught to sit, but not to stay. The steps are simple:

- Be the best game in town with great treats and a lack of distractions that might overwhelm the dog.

- Ask for a sit, give clear visual and verbal signals to the dog to stay (note the drop in my voice) and then release before the dog has a chance to get up. Sometimes I’ll give a dog a treat as it is staying in place the first time I ask, even it is only for half a second, but often that distracts puppies, so with this pup, this first time, I released right away.

- The next times I asked Anatasia to stay I gave her a treat as she was sitting, and made the release boring. The key to a good stay, in my opinion, is to make staying fun, and getting up boring.

See either Family Friendly Dog  Training or  The Puppy Primer for a lot more on this topic, including the importance of working through what I call the 3 D’s: Duration, Distraction & Distance (from you.) Only work on one at a time, and do all you can to set up wins for your dog.

Here’s the video:

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: The trial was great fun. Good dogs, good people, wonderful hosts and a nippy wind that kept us all on our toes. As predicted, Willie and I suffered a bit from trial-itis, and our runs were much sloppier than when we practiced on the same course all by ourselves a few days before. I’d say we did well, but not great. We did get the highest scores of the runs in the Ranch class, which included a 150 yard outrun, a drive and short cross drive and a pen.  (I ran non-compete though, because in a moment of foolish optimism, I ran in Open 15 + years ago with Luke).

The Good: Willie got 30/30 on his outrun and lift for both runs, with a break-your-heart perfect outrun, way back around the sheep, stopping perfectly on balance, and lifting them slowly and carefully toward me. Several times during the runs I was able to whistle quietly and get instant responses. He was brilliant at the pen, doing everything I asked, instantly. We almost penned the first group (thought we had, and so did the crowd, until a little red lamb fooled us all and lept out, practically on top of me), and didn’t have a chance with the second, but Willie never put a paw wrong. (Out of 30 runs, there was only one pen for the entire day!)

The Bad: The Fetch on the first run, when the sheep are to be brought to you through two free standing gates, was not so gorgeous. On the first run Willie didn’t listen well, and the sheep drifted far to our right. This is a common problem with novice dogs: they are absolutely fixated on bringing the sheep to you, and check out mentally until they’ve had more training and experience. He did much much better on the second run, and brought the sheep directly to me, listening when I flanked him, and we made the fetch panels. We messed up too on the cross drive of the second run: Willie panicked and ran around to twelve o’clock rather than stopping at nine, clearly afraid he’d lose the sheep (who wanted to bolt toward the barn, which was a twelve o’clock). But I knew he did it because he was over his comfort zone, and I know what we need to work on next. For a first trial, he really didn’t mess up much at all. Okay, I’m a tad proud of him. He tried his hardest, and I give him lots of credit.

The Ugly: Happy to report I can’t think of anything in this category, except perhaps the one second in which Willie wasn’t listening and I yelled “Lie Down” three times in a row, until I realized that I could have set off fire bombs and Willie would have kept bringing me the sheep. I’m happy to say that I came to my senses early on, and most of our runs were relatively quiet and controlled. Not perfect mind you, but no chasing of sheep, no rodeos, and many moments of the sheep walking quietly around the course, with Willie listening and pacing well. [I'm laughing as I read this: working a dog on flighty sheep at a trial does not feel, internally, "quite and controlled." It feels like playing chess with fighter planes. Everything goes so fast you can barely think. The sheep are like deer and every move you and your dog makes is exaggerated ten times from normal. Me and my friends came off the course with our hearts going a mile a minute.]

Here’s Willie at his best, bringing the sheep to me on the fetch. Notice how quiet and slow the sheep are — just the pace you want to get the kind of control you need at a trial. Good boy Willie boy.

Ah, lucky me. Last week I had two half hour lessons with Alisdair McRae, who I used to call “the Tiger Woods of Herding,” but well . . .  you know. Alisdair won Open on both Saturday and Sunday at the Portage Trial this weekend, which is pretty much par for the course with him. He is also a clear and kind teacher, and he understands herding dogs as well as anyone in the world.

I write this because my lessons reminded me of the universal importance of creating a win for our dogs, and the universal difficulty in always knowing how to do that. I wanted to work on my timing; Willie and I are doing nice outruns and fetches, but our drives look like zig zags instead of the lovely straight lines we are all attempting to achieve. I felt like I was always one step behind, and never able to react fast enough to turn the sheep back to where I wanted them to go.  Alisdair said the problem isn’t your timing, you just need to slow down the pace. Miracle of  miracles, in a few minutes Willie and I were doing so much better, but not just because we had slowed the sheep to a walk, but because Alisdair had made it easier for both of us.

He set out traffic cones in a lane that made it easier for my mind to see a straight line, and he made the drive very, very short, to make it easier for Willie. Once a dog gets too far away from his  handler he begins to worry he’ll lose the sheep, begins to panic and either speeds up or flanks around to the other side and brings the sheep back to you, while you call and whistle yourself silly. He also set up a mini-trial course; I swear it looked like a trial course for a doll house, and told us to practice it until we were both comfortable at that distance, and then make it a bit larger overall.

“What’s important,” he said, “is that your dog is having fun.” And part of having fun is being capable of doing what is asked, yes? Such wise words, and true not just for dogs but for owners as well. I’ve found that so much of my consulting work was helping people understand the difficulty of what they were asking their dog to do, and helping them find ways to break it down into manageable pieces for the dog. But it was also my job to create exercises that were fun for the owners; things that they too were capable of, that made training fun for them as well as for the dog.

But it’s not always obvious how to break something into manageable pieces, is it? I knew to try short drives with Willie, but it never occurred to me to help my own brain with creating an alley-way, and the drive that Alisdair created was much shorter than I had been attempting. I drove home from the lessons thinking about the universal application of “setting our dogs up to win.” (And us too.) I’m curious now: Is there something that you’ve been working on that would profit by backing up, making it easier for you and your dog? Or do you have a story for others to help them find ways for both them and their dog to win? (I’ll be you do!) I’d love to hear ‘em.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I saw Hope this weekend at the Portage Herding Dog Trial, and it was wonderful. First off, neither he nor Willie barked or lunged at anything, not a thing. Hope was a happy little puppy and Willie greeted dogs and people alike beautifully. You would never know how they had been behaving weeks ago. Secondly, Willie wanted nothing to do with Hope. I was amazed at how clearly he expressed this: he sniffed Hope, Hope put his front paws on top of Willie’s shoulders, and then Willie turned his head as if to ignore him completely. Willie would not turn his head back in Hope’s direction after that or even to sniff him the next time they met up. Hope was happy to see me, and I loved seeing him, and then he was equally happy to go back to his new humans and lick their faces. I left feeling thrilled about how the two dogs are doing.

I also loved watching the Open runs. What these handlers and dogs are able to do is ridiculous. The outrun is 450 yards long — imagine asking your dog to listen four and a half football fields away. Here’s Alisdair and Star, beginning their winning run of the day. (And yes, those tiny little dots are the sheep, and they are actually almost halfway through the fetch!) (more…)

I promised the people who keep an aging hippie social worker like me in business that I’d mention that the summer 1/2 price DVD sale is on. Okay, I did that. Good Trisha.

Sweet day today. Jim’s and my 10th anniversary. Making, as I write, a cherry/blueberry/strawberry/rhubarb pie for Jim. I will eat some myself to keep him company and prove that I love him. Greater love hath no woman.

I had planned to write a post yesterday about the correlation (if any) between testosterone and aggression, but got overwhelmed with speech preparations. I’ve got 6 separate talks to give in the next 2 weeks. Oh my. Giving a Keynote address to the Int’l Society of Human Ethologists on Monday, then off on Thursday the Best Friends Forever in Pennsylvania (giving 3 talks there, soooo looking forward to seeing my friends and colleagues and learning lots and lots from other speakers) home on the next Monday then off to Toronto after that to talk about Dog-Dog Aggression & the Biology of Play. So bear with me, I might be tad less productive than usual, but I’ll do my best to keep up. So many things I’d like to discuss with you all . . .

Time to take out the pie and go up the hill and feed the rams before we get the straw out of our hair and go to town to celebrate, but here’s Mr. Hope, all 5 months of him, eyeing the sheep. Notice how his tail is starting to go down (from up over his back). That’s a good sign, means he’s starting to think about herding rather than chasing. He won’t get a chance to do either until he’s much older, but it’s fun to watch the progression.

Here’s my pie for Jim, and here’s what I always sing when I make one, straight out of the movie Waitress, one of my all time favorite movies:

Baby don’t you cry

Gonna make a pie

Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle . . .

Lucky for you, you are not able to hear me sing it.

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!

A dear person sent me a book titled American Lambs, by T Yamamoto. It’s subtitled “Poems and Stories about Working Border Collies, Sheep, Family and Life on the Land.” The author explains that it is a mix of real life and fiction, but is all based on a real island off the North West coast in which sheep were allowed to graze the pastures and beaches until the rural land slowly, inexorably, evolved into a landscape of urban dwellers who, in the author’s words “didn’t realize that they were changing the exact things they loved about the land.”

But don’t think this is a sad book. It is a rich and moving celebration of our connection to animals and the land. I loved it, absolutely loved it, and I don’t think you need to have sheep or herding dogs to love it too. I read it in one night, and was sorry to turn the last page.

I also just finished The Art of Racing in the Rain. It’s a best seller, gotten rave reviews, but I was, uh, well, not equally impressed. Have any of you read it? It’s a novel primarily about a man and a dog, told through the voice of Enzo, a lab-terrier mix. I’ll be the first to agree that the story is gripping–a race car driver’s struggles to maintain custody of his child–but the use of the dog as the speaker comes across to me as just weird. I can see that it’s a handy literary device to describe the action from an “outsider’s” perspective, but there’s just nothing “dog-like” about what the dog says or thinks. Enzo’s dream is that he’ll come back as a person when he dies if he is a good dog now. Perhaps I’m taking this too seriously, but presenting dogs as little more than a stepping stone on the path to being human just doesn’t work for me. Can you spell  egocentric?

In the book, the dog Enzo seems to have no problem understanding the most complex of human interactions and intentions, and yet does nothing dog-like himself. You’ll  have to  look hard to find a reference, for example, to the sense of smell, which surely is the foundation of a dog’s perception of the world. Enzo is an interesting and endearing character, I just can’t find the dog in him.

I am clearly in the minority. Publisher’s Weekly and Entertainment Weekly loved it (every author’s dream), and its site on Amazon is full of raves. Is it just me? Am I getting churlish in my dotage? Did you read it, and if so, what did you think?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: How could it be mid summer already? Where did June go? Time seems to speed up as we age (my mom said just wait: in your eighties it goes by so fast you get dizzy), but this is ridiculous. I think between my knee and Jim’s arm and a puppy who has to pee every 10 minutes (better now), we lost time-related consciousness for a month. But it’s glorious here now. The endless rains have paused, and it is Ireland-green and lush and now cool and sunny. Sweet.

We are surrounded now by food, growing and ripening all on its own. As a woman who grew up in the  Arizona desert, this still seems miraculous to me.  Luscious food that just appears by itself and waits for you to pick and eat it? Is it a trick? Is there a witch behind the berry bushes?

The existence of free, wild food is amazing enough, but now? Wait, isn’t it still May? I can’t believe that the black raspberries are already ready, and that the wild plums behind the house are ripening. Dozens of stems of wild mint has been picked and dried, and I’ve managed to get 6 quarts of strawberries and 6 bags of rhubarb into the freezer. It all seems too early and I want to tell the summer to slow down please.

This afternoon I take Hope in for his last vaccination. Cross your paws for me. I’m not willing to skip his last shot, parvovirus is a constant threat around here and it is fatal far too often. I’ve done what I can: Hope is on chinese meds and lots of cooked greens (and has been a very sweet boy lately, more on that later in the week.) Wish us luck, I am hoping to skip the 24 hours of frantic, growley dog that Hope turned into after his last vaccination.

Here’s some berries I photographed this morning, waiting for me and the birds to gobble them up. Tonight I’ll pick another quart or two. It’s so kind of them to ripen in stages!