Service Dog

'Tis the season for holiday parties, get-togethers, and socializing.

All of these are terrific opportunities for Talos (and me) to measure our progress on basic good manners (walking politely on leash, laying down on his mat, and name recognition to name just a few).

Our biggest test yet came Wednesday night at Frederick City Hall at the Frederick Chamber's Holiday Networking Event.

Over 300 people were making merry! This was Talos' first foray into a big, loud, bustling, crowded venue.

It was shoulder-to-shoulder and back-to-back in City Hall. Talos couldn't walk next to me – there simply wasn't enough room. He had to trust me and follow me, winding around the legs (and rears) of hundreds of (very noisy) people.

Stop and think about that for a moment from the dog's point-of-view. He can't see where we're going. He just has to follow. He doesn't know when I'm about to stop, he just has to slow up when I do. He doesn't know the hundreds of people reaching out to pet him, he just has to trust that they are friendly hands reaching for him. He doesn't know the booming base is from the microphone in the other room, he has to be patient and trust that nothing bad will happen.

He resisted the urge to sample the goodies being passed around (see the picture above) and was polite and social with everyone.

This was a test for Talos. And he passed with flying colors. That's the power of clicker training. Everyone knows you can get lots of reliable behaviors quickly, but I love the residual effect of clicker training just as much — the wonderful trusting relationship that develops between me and the dog.

Talos was occasionally unsure, uncertain. But because our relationship was built with the clicker, he trusted me. And I upheld that trust. If he balked at anything, we took our time and went at his pace until he was ready to proceed. Training is a relationship – not something done to the dog. Never forget that.

Am I the only one who looks for a more complicated explanation than what's really happening? I tried to explain away Talos' lunging and barking behavior by attributing it to his adolescence.

Yeah, turns out that's just not the case.

Well, it could be a contributing factor, but the real reason he's lunging and barking is, well, because I haven't done enough foundation work with him.

Sad, but true.

I took him to class today and while he did much better than I anticipated, it was very clear that we have a lot of work to do. 

The Down Side:

• His sits are very slow. (He's slow to start them after I give the cue, as well as slow to actually execute them. For the dog trainers reading this: his latency and speed are the pits.)
• He doesn't have a very good stay.
• Duration of eye contact is minimal (five seconds or less)

The Up Side:

• His name recognition and "Look" are terrific.
• His loose leash walking is quite nice.
• Downs are terrific.
• His "settle" (go to his mat and lay down) are spot on.
• When given the opportunity to play with another dog, he's got good social skills and takes doggie corrections very nicely. (The Border collie did not appreciate Talos smacking him in the face with his paw and he told Talos by snarling and snapping his teeth. Talos understood precisely what the Border collie said and the paw was not thrown much after that!)

So, while there are more ups than downs, we have a lot of work to do. The morals of this story:

1. Recognize small bits of inappropriate behavior and do something about it before it becomes big chunks of inappropriate behavior.
2. You can never spend too much time on the basics!

Talos is just turning eight months old – an adolescent. And just like human teenagers, we're seeing some behavior changes. Some are good, some not so good.

One not-so-good example: he's barking and lunging at other dogs. He wants to play, but is getting frustrated because I won't let him go to the dogs right away.

I don't let him visit the other dogs for a number of reasons:

1. When he's with his for-good person, he can't visit every dog he sees.
2. Not every dog wants a huge cow-like dog in his face.
3. He can't visit another dog if he's going to pull me to get there. 

That's enough reasons, right?

It's very difficult for me to find a training class during the day. I teach classes every night, but can't take him because I'm working – I've got to work with my clients.

Thankfully, one of my dog-training friends (who is an excellent trainer to boot) offers daytime classes and offered us a spot in her beginner level course on Fridays. So starting tomorrow, Talos is enrolled in remedial good manners classes!

I think it will take several sessions for us to get this behavior under control. But at least we're starting early. If you notice a behavior you'd rather not see in your dog, don't wait to see if it will get better! Talk to a qualified positive reinforcement trainer and enroll in a class or get some in-home training.

Behaviors don't get better with time. In fact, they normally get worse. So do yourself (and your dog) a favor and nip it in the bud before the problem grows into something unmanageable.