Barking dogs=cookies!

I'm happy with Pro's progress in his reaction to dogs barking in yards we pass on our walks. He totally gets that barking dogs=cookies! Yay! Hey Diane, did you notice that dog barking down the street? I get a cookie for that, right? Yay! Barking dogs are awesome!

We're still having variable success with dogs walking near us, but I think that will come with time.

Basking

Pro proofing

So, Pro loves (?) squirrels. Well really, he's obsessed with them. His obsession didn't really start till the little critters became active in the spring. Once he gets into squirrel mode, that's all he can think about. Outside, he'll run around and around the oak tree in the front yard, occasionally trying to climb it. He is also able to jump straight up onto the stone wall, not to get out of the yard, but to get closer to the squirrels. I was afraid he might find himself outside the fence by mistake. So, I put some piping along the top of the wall, and that seems to keep him form getting up there.

Pro, watching for squirrels.

The piping makes the top of the wall too narrow to jump onto.

In the house, he spends a lot of time looking out the window for squirrels. In the living room, with double sliders overlooking the backyard, it was all just too much. He would run back and forth from the sliders to the kitchen door whining and barking all the way. It's possible to interrupt the obsession by blocking the view out the sliders, but pulling the curtains makes it awfully dark in the living room. So I'm trying some frosted window film.

The weird part about the squirrel chasing is that it doesn't tire him out in the least. Otherwise I might consider it a harmless passtime to burn up some of his boundless energy, though as a general rule I'm not looking to increase his predatory behavior toward small animals. He gets more and more wound up. It really seems to increase his overall stress level, and we're really looking for relaxation and settled behavior. So I try to break the squirrel cycle as often as possible.



Relaxation

I'm starting to notice a new level of relaxation in Pro's body language- ambling along, head and tail low and loose, instead of up on his toes. I think he is finally getting comfortable with the routine and what is expected of him around the house. This is not to say that he is always calm- half the time it's still like having a hurricane in the house. But there are definitely more moments of relaxation. My worry is that is will take this long (he's been here five months) for him to get comfortable in his new home once he's adopted. I'm afraid a new family won't have the patience to wait five months to see the real Pro.

Door manners

Now that Pro spends most of his time hanging out with us in the living room, we have discovered his appalling door manners. When someone comes up the stairs and knocks, we get intense over-arousal, barking and barging toward the door. It definitely could be dangerous for him to go careening toward visitors like that, so we're starting to work on his door manners.

My plan is to have his default behavior to be to go into his crate when he hears someone at the door. He already does this when he hears the word "chewie"- that's where he gets to have his rawhide chews. We had a funny incident last week where Pro managed to get into the unlatched bin where we keep the chews. He grabbed the whole bag of chews, ran to his crate, dropped the bag outside the crate, and ran inside to get his chew handed to him! So he has lots of good associations with is crate and is used to going in on his own.

Tonight we tried working on htis, but I hadn't put together any kind of plan, so it didn't go especially well. At first, he started out off leash, so when Mark knocked, he tore out to the kitchen all in a tizzy to see who was there. So then we tried the same thing with him on leash so I could guide his behavior better. We also started with him in the living room, and Mark knocked softly. Pro still went way over the top, but of course our first awkward repetition got him revved up and he stayed revved. We did a couple more reps, but it had gotten off to a tough start so we stopped. We'll definitely have to work on this more. Also, he needs to have his harness on for this- pulling on his collar doesn't help his stress level.

Sharing the couch (or not)

It seems like, little by little, Ziggy and Pro are getting to be friends. Or rather, Ziggy is liking Pro a little better- Pro has always liked Ziggy. They have started sometimes sharing the couch, but it's interesting to see the negotiation body language happen.

Last night, Ziggy was on there and Pro wanted to get up. Usually if the first dog is on one end of the couch, it's no problem for the other dog to get at the other end. But last night Ziggy was in the middle and didn't want to move over. Pro approached so that their two heads were about even, and Ziggy got pretty still. Not super tense, and no hard eyes, just still. Pro just held his position, hoping I guess that Ziggy would relent and soften his stance to let Pro up. But Ziggy held his position so it was an impasse. At that point we called Pro away and suggested he sleep on a blanket on the floor, which he did. But he really, really wanted up on the couch, so he tried the exact same thing a couple more times. Neither one escalated, it was all very polite, and then we would call Pro away. Finally he gave up and settled on the floor.

Pro's higher energy level and still rather oblivious manners can be wearing on Ziggy, so Pro will continue to be excluded from the upstairs so that Ziggy has a quiet peaceful zone.

Town Forest and PetSmart today

It was a beautiful day for a walk, so we went to the Town Forest.

Pro wore a snazzy new backpack, actually it's not new, it was Ebony's. Maybe if I fill it with rocks it will use up some of Pro's energy! But today it was empty, just getting used to it. Pro took it in stride.

Handsome, eh?

Now that the weather is nicer, there are a lot more dogs at the Town Forest, and it didn't go super well. Most dogs are off leash, and don't really listen to their owners, so all in all it is way too uncontrolled for Pro at this point. A couple of times dogs ran up to him, and his behavior was way too over the top, not paying attention to me at all, not good for him to practice. Though each time, once the other dog moved along, he settled right back down. But for now, we'll need to work somewhere more below threshold. Hence, our trip to PetSmart:

As you can see, we're starting a loooong way from the store. This was actually the perfect distance to start. You can tell by Pro's big wrinkly forehead that any closer would have been too close:

I think we'll be spending a lot of time right about here. He actually worked quite well here, some loose leash walking and hand touch, and just lots and lots of hanging out and looking. Pro really seems to need a lot of looking time. I just read a good article about taking things slow with training, and just letting your dog learn to do nothing with you, it fit in perfectly with the training place we're in right now. I think at first I did well with taking it slow with Pro, but I've started moving a little too fast. I think it is because he acts so normal most of the time now, I forget that he still has so much to learn.