She was doing so well. We had default sits going all the time. She was checking in regularly and her recall was bang on. What happened? Why is she backing away when I try to recall her? Why won't she come anymore? Is there something wrong with my puppy?
Grab a glass of wine, we need to talk.
The problem, of course, is not the puppy. The problem is the people. Yep. We got lazy. When we first got the puppy, we were working with her multiple times a day. The husband had her out socializing at every pet store within a 10 mile radius and we worked the training over and over and over and then life happened. She was so good, we stopped training. She stopped getting rewarded for recall and so stopped leaving whatever fun thing she was doing to come to the human who was not going to let her go back to the fun thing she'd been doing.
Public enemies 1 and 2.
Now, the only problem above that is mostly a deaf dog issue is the recall. Since she currently does not have a drop it or leave it command, we have resorted to recall to get her out of dangerous (as far as we're concerned, fun as far as she's concerned) situations because she was so good at it so she started associating recall with that thing she does that ends whatever fun she was having. Can't say I'd blame her for not coming. The fact that we'd stopped using treat rewards, didn't help the situation either.
All is not lost, of course. We go back to the beginning, rewarding all those great behaviors and trying not to use recall to get her out of trouble unless we have something fun to reward her with when she does it. It doesn't have to be food. I've used recall when she was trying to get on the bed to torment her big brother who was teasing her and then when she came, I picked her up and plopped her on the bed where she could annoy him to her heart's content.
Laugh it up, human. Your slippers are toast.
But all jokes aside, there is a lot of going back to the basics for us. We know better. We did this same thing with Steel when he was a puppy and we swore we weren't going to do it with her. I guess old habits die harder than we thought.
We also came to the rather startling realization that she doesn't know how to go potty on leash. We've never leashed her for potty because she was always in a fenced yard or the xpen in the garage. So now that we're taking her on longer trips and she's bold enough that putting her down unleashed is not an option, we've realized that if she's on leash, she has no idea what she's supposed to be doing. Wow, total training fail. We should have followed more of Sofia Yin's book.
The point of this is that what's happening with us isn't unusual and we don't suck because we got lazy. Especially with intelligent dogs, it's easy to say, they've got it so you don't have to work on it anymore. The solution is simple. Get back to basics and do what you started and don't stop before you're really done.
Rogue is over 16lbs now and all legs. She has never met a human she doesn't like and finally has good dog greeting manners. I was even able to take her with me to evaluate a dog for rescue. She was a champ.
She has a temper. You can always tell when she isn't getting something she wants because she has a very frustrated bark. She has a ton of unusual vocalizations because she can't hear the sounds other dogs are making to imitate them. She knows what making sound feels like even if she can't hear it and she knows that certain physiological activities get her specific results. She doesn't realize she's making a sound because she has no concept of what a sound is but she does know cause and effect. She has an adorable little croon we want to try to get a recording of.
Seriously, she's a giant puff ball of evil.
Still, she is a very sweet puppy and loves to snuggle. She has never met a human she didn't like and people are constantly stopping us to ask if they can pet her. I can let someone she doesn't know hold her with no real fear of her doing anything more than giving them a good licking and maybe a nibble on the nose. I guess we'll keep her.
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