Monthly Archives: July 2015

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So proud I could bust!

These past couple days have really showed me Hilda’s real potential. Oh, sure, I knew she had loads of potential. I knew she was wicked smart. I knew she was a real people oriented dog. I knew she could really get this whole guide dog thing. I knew all of this was possible, but I didn’t know if I could harness it, unlock it, make potential reality. I hoped I could. I still hope I can. But these past couple days, Hilda’s showing me what she’s made of, and, yep, I believe the two of us might just pull this thing off.

We’re creeping up on seven months old, and Hilda’s gotten big. At least her growth is slowing down. Sharon tells me she probably won’t really get much taller, but I reckon she’s got a lot of filling out to do. I’ve had to let her harness out a little bit, both in the girth strap and in the martingale. I expect I’ll have to let it out more as we go. Mind you, mostly she wears it just so she gets used to wearing it, which she really is. She wiggles a bit while I’m putting it on, but no anxiety about the thing going over her head anyway.

We’ll start with yesterday’s trip. These past couple times, I’ve taken Hilda out on her own. They tell me Leno is sad, and indeed, he’s waiting at the door when we get back, but he seems to be all right about it. Certainly he takes my going out with Hilda better than Hilda takes my going out with Leno.

Yesterday was the first time Hilda rode the bus. She rode the bus like a pro! She sat up for most of the 10 or so minute ride both ways. She looked around with a lot of interest, but she pretty well stayed seated, only sliding into a lie down a couple times, and thankfully, mostly kept her nose (and tongue) off the floor. Anyone who rides the bus knows how scary the floors can sometimes be, and if not scary in fact, certainly scary enough in perception. But she sat up and rode the bus like she’d been doing it her whole life. This is a far cry from the restless, whining pup of just a couple months ago.

During our walk to the bank and otherwise, I guess she was looking around a lot, even behind her. This guy behind us even asked if he could pass us, explaining that he was what she was looking at. OK, no problem there guy. Still a bit of pulling on the leash, but at least, not a couple feet out in front of me pulling. I think we’re reaching a compromise on that.

In the bank, she learned about standing in line. Also, I learned that she must really like babies, because she seemed to be very interested in one that was way back by the front door of the bank. We didn’t go visit the baby, and it was gone by the time we had completed our business.

The theme for the day was diagonal street crossings. I made several of them. I’m not sure if I was thrown off by walking with a dog that wasn’t guiding, or just by, I don’t know, but I made several diagonal street crossings. One, I made, and I’m not sure at what point, but I ended up somehow across a usually busy street, no idea how or when, but the upshot of it was that I was a couple blocks out of my way somehow. Fortunately, a nice pedestrian (who saw us earlier during our rounds) got us straightened out, and we went to this deli corner market kind of place for lunch meat and milk and such as that. By the time we got there, the day was already heating up, and Hilda was getting tired. She was a trooper though! She was so well behaved in the store, even with all the meat in the cooler not far off nose level. She got nothing but compliments on her striking good looks and her behavior. Yes, I was sure to tell people she was in training, and that mostly the exercise was socialization and getting her used to being out and about. No problem from anyone with access, and like I said, I was sure to let people know she was not a fully trained service dog.

Surprisingly, I did get her to eventually drink water out of a plastic bag. As hot as she clearly was by then, I was surprised that it took as much convincing as it did. She did finally get the idea, however. Yes, I do have a collapsible water bowl around here somewhere…the one I usually use, which I kept a baggie dispenser in, has a bit of a worn threadbare spot, but I have another one…but I’ve misplaced it. Besides a collapsible water bowl then, what I really need is a fairly roomy pouch that would attach to the harness, to keep baggies and collapsible water bowl and what not in. I haven’t found just the right sort of thing yet, but someone suggested a small camera bag. That might do the trick.

A trip home on the bus, and a total of, well, lots of walking, left Hilda pretty tired. It left me pretty tired anyway, but I had another errand to do, which I did with Leno. I guess Hilda was energetic enough to complain about not going.

This evening’s trip was the usual walk to CVS. Again, lots of compliments from Hilda’s friends and admirers on her behavior and striking good looks. She only tried to go visit one guy in the pharmacy line. On the way to the store, I had her sort of guiding (I also used my cane) during some easy bits, and I wanted to see how she’d handle the crazy offset sidewalk at the corner. She almost nailed it! I was so proud!

On both yesterday’s trip and today’s, she growled a little bit at a dog. Yesterday, it was a dog we were passing on the sidewalk, I think. Today it was a little dog in a yard behind a fence. In both cases, she stopped growling at the other dog when I asked her to. Otherwise, any dogs we encountered, she breezed past. Well…except one across the street she was a bit fixated on, but we got past that one anyway.

In the store, her behavior was excellent. At the pharmacy counter, she sat quietly for most of our time, and she stood her front feet on the shelf by the counter…bottom shelf…just once, and got off when I asked. I mentioned her interest in one guy in line already. One time, when i was packing up my bag, she wandered off. I had been stepping on her leash, but apparently, not well enough, because she wandered off a few feet. She came right back when i called her though.

She was getting a bit restless and sniffy, and it was obvious she had to go, so out we went. She parked in, well, the parking lot, or anyway, a parking lot beside the store. Not in the store at all, she held on until we got out, and even then, she had to work herself up to it. Good girl!

She’s very definitely learning left and right. She turns left or right when I ask. She also is stopping at most curbs, and very reliably at definite curbs. Especially, and most importantly to my way of thinking, she stops at down curbs if they’re well defined. The blended ones, she mostly stops at, but there were one or two we had to work out, and I expect this will be true again. Still, she’s really carried over my stopping at steps and curbs. Even better, on the way home, I discovered that she really is targeting up curbs when we cross streets. I again noticed on quiet streets I was drifting. She, on the other hand, was very definitely trying to talk me into going the opposite way from the direction in which I was drifting. Following her, I hit the curb. Even the blended part of the curb in most cases. This was definitely an “Aha!” moment for me. She really is starting to understand this thing. I think we may well make a guide dog of her yet!

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Bathing, Grooming, And General Thoughts On Guide Dog Training

This might be mostly a repeat for Facebook, but the blog posts automagically. Sorry.

Oh, the torture! The horror! Brushing and nail trimming. Our little Beastie thinks she’s being tortured to hear her bark, whine, and carry on. We had brushing and nail trimming today, followed by a bath. Interestingly, no problem with the bath. She only tried to climb out of the tub a couple times, and actually stayed pretty still, all things considered, and didn’t shake soap all over me.

I’ve been thinking about training a bit lately. Specifically, the differences between most training and the training that a guide dog must have. I just posted this on Facebook:

My friend Tamara L. Jarvis describes Hilda thus: “Hilda sounds strong-willed but not rebellious. Just got her own mind.” Yep. I’d say that’s the perfect description of her personality, what say you Sharon Entwerfer Haus Gsd? Really, that’s exactly what you want in a guide, or I do: a dog that who has initiative, but will take direction. One major difference between training for a guide dog and most other training is that a working command isn’t a command that must be unconditionally obeyed. It’s more a request. The dog must evaluate the wisdom of obeying a command; thus, “Forward” doesn’t mean “Forward”. It means “Forward, if you think it’s a good idea and there isn’t some good reason why not”. Thus, I don’t expect instant obedience, because Hilda will need to maintain her initiative, but I *do* expect that my requests be acted upon unless there’s a good reason why not. It’s a fine line to walk. Moreover, a dog should be able to recover from a mistake, his or mine, and keep going. I may correct her for a working error that she didn’t actually make, for example, and it’s fine to tell your dog you’re sorry. Both members of the team had probably better be pretty resilient, I’m thinking.

I want to expand on that a little.

It seems to me that “intelligent disobedience”, as they call it in the biz, is the one thing that separates guide dog training from lots of other dog training. I won’t say all other dog training, because there may well be other areas in which intelligent disobedience is a desirable thing. But it’s definitely not something that a lot of training asks for, much less encourages. Yet, a guide dog can’t be very effective without it. Finding a dog that is resilient enough to recover from handler mistakes, strong-willed enough to disobey a directive, but still willing enough to take direction, may be a tall order, but it sure looks like that’s exactly what I’ve got, so far.

Jim Kutsch, the President of the Seeing Eye and another fellow I’m proud to call my friend, says that a guide dog must also have ” a sense of responsibility”. George Eustis, or perhaps Jack Humphrey, depending on which account you believe, put it another way. Paraphrasing, “Make no mistake. This dog does not belong to you. You belong to her.” That means that the dog will feel some responsibility to you for doing its job. Perhaps it sees that responsibility as keeping you safe or “looking out for you”. I don’t know. I don’t know how, or if, dogs process to that level, though I suspect they do. The guide dog who pushes its handler back from an oncoming truck, taking the impact himself, surely didn’t do so solely because it was doing what it was taught. Self preservation has to kick in at some point, right? Surely the dog knows that being hit by a bus is going to hurt some. Does Hilda have such a sense of responsibility? Will she? Not yet she doesn’t, I’m fairly sure, but she is, figuratively speaking, barely out of diapers. Will she? It seems that she has that potential, but we’ll never know until we know. Still, I’m going with “yes” until she lets me know, “Hey, I didn’t sign up for this!” Anyway, I’m pretty sure that one can’t train such a “sense of responsibility”.

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Oops, I forgot

I forgot something!

I finally found something Hilda is afraid of. Either that, or we’re starting a fear period already. I’m not even sure what set her off, but she’s afraid of the garage door. It’s a manual garage door. It’s usually closed, but it was open. Come to think of it, maybe she saw it close once and didn’t forget. Anyway. It was open, because I was grilling, and the grill is in there. I took her outside this afternoon and went to close it. She went running hell for leather, except, well, she only had four feet of leash, so she couldn’t get far. So eventually, when I couldn’t convince her to get within 6 feet or so of the thing, I tied her up so I could close it. She still wouldn’t go anywhere near it. Not for love nor money. I gave her string cheese near it, which helped. Then I threw treats at the garage door (closed), and she went to get those. I think maybe she’ll get over this fear pretty quickly.

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A Long Overdue Update

Wow. I didn’t realize I hadn’t written here in as long as I haven’t. One day blends into the next, and next thing you know, a month has passed.

Well, I think Hilda may well be taller than Leno now, and certainly at least 50 pounds. She’s getting a little bit of that alert/protective vibe going now, barking at people sometimes when they come to visit. She barked at the next door dog, but I think he may have barked at her first. She still wants to be everybody’s friend, and she’s starting to jump less high, and even sort of thinking about not jumping. Slow and steady progress.

We’ve had a few socialization outings. She’s getting pretty good about riding in the car, considering how little she’s been able to do it. We had lots of fun at a picnic, where she got to play with another dog and met lots of nice people and ignore food. She did get a hot dog, but she was allowed. I think she also lost her rabies tag and name tag at the picnic, so I have to see about getting a new rabies tag if possible. At least I do have her rabies paperwork in the folder. We also have gone to the drugstore a couple times, more on that later.

I’ve started putting the harness on her, not necessarily for working, but just to get her used to wearing it. Now, she even has stuck her head into it on her own. While I say it’s not for working, I have exposed her to working in ot. We’ve walked across the house, and she walks fast and enthusiastically across the house and down the walk in front of our house. She’s even stopping at the corner, and we’re reinforcing this on walks when we aren’t pretend guiding. She’s also still very good about stopping at the top and bottom of the stairs here at the house.

On one of these walks, I’ve determined that, indeed, she isn’t noise shy. The day before this, she didn’t react to all the war sounds and hurricane sounds in Forrest Gump, some of which played right over her head on the surround sound speakers. But anyway, we were at the corner. Leno was working, Hilda was walking on my right. We stopped at the corner, Hilda sat. We waited for the light to change. A truck zoomed past us pulling a rattly trailer behind it. Lots of noise, and Hilda didn’t move a muscle. There are fireworks going off now, and she’s in her crate for bedtime, and absolutely not a peep. Nothing. I tell you, this dog is solid.

I’ve decided I don’t like nylon training collars. Specifically, nylon slip collars, and most specifically, the nylon Snaparound Collar. The one I have is adjustable, which is great for a growing puppy, and not so great for action. But I think that the adjustable buckle isn’t the main beef I have with it, even if I got a fixed length, I think I’d have the same complaint…or at least, observation. You definitely don’t get the same sort of tactile feedback from a correction with a nylon slip collar as with a chain slip collar. You also don’t get a consistent action depending on which way you snap. If you snap the leash upwards, you get the best sort of reaction. Any other direction leads to less than satisfactory results, owing, I think, to the small size of the rings used and the flatness of the nylon. I have Hermsprenger toggle collars on order, but in the meantime, I’m using a slip collar I happened to have here. It’s a bit large, but I like its action better than i did the nylon one.

So. Our trips to the drugstore. She only tried to jump on a counter once. That was when I took her on her own with the cane. But she didn’t really try to jump on any people that trip. There were a couple of cool things that happened on yesterday’s trip though, and all of them on the way home. At this one street corner, Leno knew we’d be turning left, and he stopped me at a curb. Hilda tried to take me to the blended part of the curb though. She also sat at a couple curbs without being prompted. (This is something we’re doing to reinforce that stopping at curbs is a good thing to do.) I’m not sure if this going to the blended part of the curb was a coincidence, a distraction, or a conscious act on her part. She also sat nicely, or pretty nicely, to be petted by a couple of people we met. On the trip Monday, we walked past barking dogs without much fuss. Friday’s trip, however, saw Hilda try to turn around completely and try to go back towards a thing that interested her. We kept moving, and she got the idea pretty quickly that this wasn’t going to be a good idea.

Then, a funny thing happened. I’m not sure whether this was Leno being distracted, Leno not thinking about what he was doing, or Leno trying to impart a teachable moment, like, “If you do this, this is what happens”. He ran a couple of down curbs. No biggie, they were quiet side streets, but he ran them anyway, which he does only extremely rarely. When he ran the curbs, we did what we always do: we backed up a few steps and approached them again, and of course he did them perfectly. So. Was his mind wandering, or was he playing instructor? We’ll never know for sure, and perhaps thinking he might have done it on purpose is a bit towards anthropomorphizing. I’m not sure. I can’t say he definitely did, but I can’t say he categorically did not either.

I see more two dog trips, anyway, a thing that I wasn’t sure I’d see for a while yet with Hilda’s exuberance. Pretty exciting stuff.