Jul
06
Frodo has suddenly decided that he needs to door dart. He used to do this when he was an adolescent, but he is almost five years old and now is deciding to start up again. He has tried it 3 times over the past two weeks. The first time it caught me completely by surprise and I didn't even have time to react. I called him quickly from the porch and he ignored me and continued to sniff the neighbor's grass. I knew chasing him would cause him to run so I grabbed a hot dog out of the fridge and before I was halfway out the door I called his name and he was happy to come running back. I gave him to whole hot dog, though I seriously contemplated flogging him to death with it!
The second time was later that same day and he didn't even make it to the door because I was still on edge from the first attempt.
The third time was two or three days ago. Now, I don't generally use corrections at all with Frodo. He's quite a soft dog and corrections would get us nowhere. Well, the other day when I was heading out the door to work with phone and lunch in my hands, he decided to try this newfound trick again. I was quick enough to pin him against the doorframe with my leg and bellow a furious "NO!" at him. He flew backwards and hasn't tried door darting since. I'm hoping that sudden correction scared him out of trying again. I really do, because right outside of my front door is a road that can be quite busy and people drive fast, so it's as much a matter of safety as it is a bad habit.
There's now a rule that he must sit and wait for me to walk through the door, in or out, before he is allowed to go through. I know this is general manners in most houses, but he's not had an issue like this in YEARS, so I've never had a problem with him going before me when he's attached to his leash.
In other news, we are now moving on to a new set of tricks for Week Three of the Positive Clicks 2010 blog.
This week the tricks are:
1. Spin (either a left or right full circle)
2. Catch (a toy/treat in air)
3. Place (dog circles around to get into heel position on left side)
4. Kisses (on lips/face... or lips/face of another person)
2. Catch (a toy/treat in air)
3. Place (dog circles around to get into heel position on left side)
4. Kisses (on lips/face... or lips/face of another person)
1. I am luring spin because although I think it would be a good way to work on shaping, there is enough tricks this week that I need to move at a decent pace and Frodo and I aren't the best pair at shaping. I would also like to teach him both a left and a right circle.
2. He can already catch, so I don't have to do anything for that except tape it.
3. This I would like to spend the most time on and shape the behavior. I want to use the method that I have seen many videos on recently, where the dog puts it's paws on some type of circular container placed at the front position, and is shaped to pivot to a heel position. We shall see how this progresses.
4. Frodo doesn't do this on his own, but I bet with the help of some peanut butter we can get this one down quickly!
I would really really like to, for the first week, get all the tricks taped and up on the blog. I still need to backtrack and do some work for weeks 1 and 2, both teaching and taping. It is stressing me out that I am not caught up. This is just like college!
good luck on the door bolting thing! I don't care if my dogs go out before me, but I do make them wait sometimes. At the front door and at our backyard gate it's an automatic wait (no verbal cue) 100% of the time. My hope is that since I don't use a verbal cue at these places that if the gate were to be left open the dogs would still not cross if I weren't there. At other doors I randomly ask for a wait.