New year, new hip, new tricks

Busy again.  I missed posting on Rogue's first birthday and even on the anniversary of her first day home.   Part of it was laziness, I admit.  Part of it was the hip replacement (mine, not hers).

Any wonder I had a spectacular recovery with these nurmaids taking care of me?

Rogue continues to bond more with us and play with us.    Separating her from Steel works best not so much because of her, but because Steel doesn't believe that any play should happen without him.  It's a challenge.

As I've started working with her more, I've realized how much we've lost training wise with everything that's been going on so in many aspects, we're back to square one.  The big difference is that I am well aware that I have a very willful, very sensitive girl with a low frustration threshold.  This has changed the way I approach things.

it's especially important for training with her to be in short bursts.  If she gets frustrated, she shuts down so short bursts lets her end training successfully, not in frustration and makes her more interested in the training and more inclined to want to do it.  The first time she fails to figure out what I want, I go back to something she knows and end on that.

This training thing is exhausting.

We've had two really important training breakthroughs:  We want her to be a disc dog but we've had some issues with her toy drive.   She's far more interested in playing with someone than something and fetch isn't something she's been interested in....  until I bought the dryer balls.

Rogue has been obsessed with those dryer balls since the moment I brought them home and all I have to do is turn away from the dryer for a second and she is in and out of the dryer with one of them in her mouth looking as proud as anything and daring me to chase her.  Cute but annoying.   One day, she grabbed the dryer ball and dashed up the stairs and out the dog door.  I was in the middle of laundry and decided that I was just going to finish and then go out and try to get it back when I was done.  

But the next thing I know, Rogue is back downstairs with the ball still in her mouth.  She comes up to me and drops it at my feet as if to say, "Oh, chase isn't your game?  How about this?"

Needless to say, there was much puppy loving as I picked up the ball and threw it for her.  She brought it back.  Again and again she brought that dryer ball back to me and we played fetch.  I was ecstatic which she picked up on and we had a short round of fetch.  I stopped the game while she was still interested.  (I also bought new dryer balls so that I didn't have to put the dog slobbered ones in with my clothes)

What happened?  Rogue wants to engage me enough that she's willing to try what I want to get what she wants which is play with me. This wasn't going to happen until our bond was strong enough for her to be willing to play my game instead of hers.

I've been taking her with me on errands when I can take her inside because it's been brutally cold. Still working on her jumping on people and it's hard for me to get her into a sit before someone praises her for jumping on them.   (sigh)

So, when I had to take the car in for new tires, I brought her with me.  The mechanic and staff love my dogs and hadn't met her yet.  I put her in a chair and had her stay there and worked stay bursts,  I'd walk away from her (we're at very short distances) and walk back and treat.  I'd do this a couple of times and then call her to me.  By the time we were done, I could duck very briefly out of sight.  This is HUGE for a deaf dog because if she can't see me, she doesn't' know where I am.  She can smell me and knows that I'm still in the area, but she can't hear me move.

She sat in that chair being occasionally treated almost two hours (the tires took longer than I anticipated) which meant as people passed by, she wasn't' jumping on them.  I had a couple of people come over and pet her so that she knew she could get that reward there as well.   All in all, a very productive training day.

 

Can I please get out of the chair now?

As I said,it's been brutally cold here and we've had quite a bit of snow.   Training becomes more important because while they do love the snow, we have to watch them when it gets too cold and training is a safe, warm way to tire them out.  When it's not brutally cold, however, they've been having a great time out in the snow.  At one point, I was able to take them to our favorite trail park.  The snow was up above the girls' bellies so though I only hiked 1.1 miles (not bad tw months post hip replacement), they were totally exhausted from romping in the snow.  They slept the rest of the day.

But things have not been all fun.  Rogue is an Aussie.  She does not like unstable dogs and wants to correct them.  She stares at other dogs and if she doesn't like the look they give her, she barks at them.  This has nothing to do with her deafness and everything to do with the fact that she's an Aussie.  Right now, I'm working on getting her to focus on me and on ways to get her attention.  Verbal cues and correction aren't going to work on her and if she's focusses on something else, she won't be looking at me to give her cues.  It's why I'm taking her to people places most often.  

We had some guarding issues when I was on crutches for my hip but those have gone with the crutches.  She does get overwhelmed with too many people or when people approach her too quickly.  She likes to approach people and the jumping up is still there but lessening.  Yesterday, she let two young boys love on her for quite awhile.  

I think she'd make a good therapy dog but I also understand that she has some challenges to overcome.   Because she can't hear, she gets frustrated and barky when there are too many people to keep track of visually.    But she's still young and we're still working on it.  As our bond and her confidence in me grows, I'm hoping she'll be less inclined to feel she has to take care of things herself.    Some maturity will probably help as well.

And with Disc Dog season coming up in a couple months, she still has no interest.  I'm hoping that our daily play with the dryer ball is the start of some interest.   We just got our best new tool for disc and I recommend it to anyone who wants to try the sport. 

Great book by a great couple of disc folks and full of beautiful photos illustrating various moves and training tips.  There are videos and more on their website Pawsitive Vybe. 

Looking back over this past year plus, I can see a lot of the successes and failures we've made with this little girl.  My husband started #goddammitrogue which has become a bit of a running gag.  She is a destructive force of nature when she's bored but an adorable little snuggle muffin when she's tired and calm.  She's got a lot of growing up and maturing still to do and I still have very high hopes for the little rascal.

That day in Canada seems so long ago.  I'd change some things we did and didn't do with her training but I don't regret for a moment that 10 hour drive in pouring rain and fog to go get her.