Safety

As we are getting prepared for a major cross country trip for us and the dogs, I started thinking about safety.  Last year, we had several high profile dog sports folk lose one of their beloved family members post auto accident and then the 2011 study came out  showing (graphically with dog crash test dummies) how all of the (at the time) commercially available dog seat belts performed in a 35mph crash test.
http://centerforpetsafety.org/research/

I also had a little personal incident where a slightly more aggressive tap on the breaks sent my own dog crashing into the dashboard.  Yipe.   What's a dog owner to do?

Note:  There is no advertising on my page so everything I show that I own, I bought.  Nobody is paying me to advertise their stuff.

The good thing about the above test is that it was only a matter of time before someone did create a seatbelt that was crash tested.   The one we own is the Sleepypod Clickit, a three point harness that attaches to your LATCH system like a child safety seat.  I have to say, the customer service at Sleepy pod is also awesome.

  













Correctly fitting Sleepy Pod harnesses



                                                                                                             Not so correctly fitting harness

Eventually, Rogue will fit into that harness, but until she does, it's not safe for her to use.

Pre-harness, we used and still do use crates.  Our smallest car actually perfectly fits one of our two soft sided crates.  It fits so snugly, that there's no way that thing is going to move even if we have an accident.   We can fit two crates in our larger car.

Which crates to use?  I admit, I use the soft sided crates.  They're easy to put up and take down and easy to carry.  Other options are the metal or hard plastic ones.  

 Our three crates by (left to right) Nature's Miracle, Top Paw and Noz2Noz

I couldn't find any type of research to support one type of crate over another as far as dog safety in the car.  The only one I know of that has been tested and is designed specifically for dog safety in the car is the Variocage.   I'd have one if they weren't so expensive.  Don't get me wrong, if I was a hard core dog sport player who spent more weekends than not with my dog in the car traveling hundreds of miles, I think I'd probably invest in one.

 http://www.mightymitedoggear.com/MIM_Variocage_crash_tested_Dog_Car_Crate.html 

 How do I want thee?  Let me count the dogs.

But how is Rogue doing?  Her UTI is pretty much gone (pending test results) and the number of accidents in the house has plummeted.  A future blog is going to bemoan the fact that she's tall enough to get her paws on things and how we're handling it.

And she's still growing.  These two pictures are ten weeks apart. Where is my puppy going?

 

I can't believe she was ever this small?                                                            No, I don't love this puppy at all.

Big brother is watching

I have to say I don't know what I'd do without him.  Our 3 and a half year old male Aussie, Steel has been the marvelous big brother a puppy could want and when that puppy is deaf, he's priceless to the humans in the equation.

Steel:  He really is all that.

Now, getting a second dog will make more work for you, not less, no matter what anyone tries to tell you, however, having an adult dog when you are getting a puppy can actually help.  It's still more work than just one dog, but a well socialized adult dog can teach your puppy things faster than you can.  Now, when that dog is a smart herding breed, not only can he teach her things (some of which you didn't want her learning),  but he can also provide some crowd control as well.

For example, we Rogue is not allowed off leash anywhere other than our fully fenced back yard and the house.  Her recall just isn't good enough and she's really fond of the come chase me game.  Our other three will happily go from house to car and car to house pretty directly but we have to let them out in a specific order or Ruby will get in the car first and then prevent anyone else from getting in.  So, I let Steel out first and zoom, out goes Rogue with him.  Panicking, I run into the house to grab a really good treat and start to hear Steel barking.  I look out the door and he's darting back and forth in front of the garage, preventing Rogue from leaving it.

Of course, as soon as he saw me heading toward them, he decided that it must be all right and let her go.  Thankfully, she adores her big brother and with only a brief thought about seeing if I would play the chase game, she followed him into the car.  (whew!)

Even a puppy who can hear can be a problem when they don't have solid recall, but often, if your adults recall, the puppy will follow.  I don't recommend you depend on this but in an emergency, it can be a literal life saver.

Best... big brother... ever.

 I mentioned Rogue's current fondness for the chase me game.  This is especially fun when she has something she knows she shouldn't.  Unlike a hearing dog, you can't giver her a verbal correction and we don't quite have drop it down with her yet so what do you do?  Unless it's something dangerous to the puppy, don't chase them, even if you're sure you can corner them and get them.  Why?  Because then they know they can get you to play the game with them and they love that game. 
 

So what do you do?   I have two methods that I switch between depending on the situation.  If Steel is around, I call Steel.  Rogue will see him heading for something fun and usually trot along behind him to see what's fun thing is going on.  Steel's recall is damn near perfect so this works really well when he's around.  If he's not around, I run, if possible, and walk if not AWAY from the puppy.

I know, this goes against every must-keep-the-puppy safe instinct.  Go away from the puppy who is running away from you?  Go further instead of closer?  It's INSANE!!!.  The puppy wants to play, so you play, but you play chase the human.  With herding dogs, this is particularly useful because they like to control the situation and they need to know where you are.  They're perfectly willing to play the chase game if you're the the one being chased.   I can't tell you how many times this totally non instinctive reaction to one of my dogs running from me has brought them running back.

These are not things to rely on though.  These are for that emergency when the puppy gets out or slips her collar.  A good, solid recall is the single best safety precaution for your dog.  If they come to you before they get to the street, they won't get hit by a car... and neither will you.

With a deaf puppy, they have to have a solid recall and a solid check in.  If they aren't looking at you, you can't tell them what to do.  So rewarding your deaf dog/puppy when they look at you is important.  They need to want to look at you for direction.  

But teaching check in and recall in a high distraction environment isn't easy and how do you know when you can trust that puppy off leash?  That is where big brother gets to help me again.   My hubby has started teaching Steel to 'Fetch the baby".  Steel loves to fetch so he started with a small tug toy.  Then he tied the tug toy to the handle of a leash and had him fetch that for awhile.  The final stage, of course, is to put the leash on the puppy and have Steel fetch the leash and bring him the puppy.

Excuse the condition of the basement in the video, but I DO have a puppy.  :)

As for the rest of us, Rogue had her first rabies shot on Thursday and had a mild adverse reaction to it.   The vet is aware and we'll see what we can do next year to prevent it.   This is why she never gets more than one shot in a visit.  Had she gotten them all at the same time, we wouldn't know which one caused her to react.  Thankfully, she enjoys the vet and had fun 'riding' the examination table up and down.  Of course, we'd spent our time waiting for the vet in training go to your mat while the table was in the down position.  

Come on, one more time?  Please?

She's getting so big.  She's over 20lbs now and today is her four month birthday.  It seems like such a short time ago that she was 8 pounds of cuteness I could pick up and snuggle at will.  Now, she's a heavy hellion and I'm going to put my back out picking her up these days. 

 

 Thankfully, Rogue has her big brother when she can't get the humans to play with her.

Why yes, all that practice does help

So, accidents in the house have plummeted since we taught Rogue to ring the bell to go out.  She picked it up in a day.  Now, she will ring the bell if she just wants to go out and play in addition to when she has to potty, but that's okay. 

And really, who wouldn't want to go play?

She and our adult Aussies are enjoying each other's company and Steel will even go out of his way to get her to play with him.  

 

One of the problems with teaching your dog shaping is that your smart dogs will figure out pretty quickly  that they have some control over their environment and you can get a kind of terrible twos stage as they decide that no, they don't want to do that, thank you very much.  This is your puppy trying to figure out what they can do to get you to do what they want.  All dogs do this, but it varies how early and how well.   

 

Currently, Curt is working on getting her to walk beside him on leash and we're both working hard at solving the jumping problem.  She doesn't jump on us because we don't allow it but she's so cute that anywhere we take her, people love on her when she jumps on them and she's now big enough to knock small children down.  And she loves kids.

 

Kids are actually easier to teach this to as they are so thrilled at the idea that they can make the dog sit, they aren't petting her while they're giving her the hand signal.  Adults, usually reply, "Oh, I don't mind."  Well maybe, but I do.  She has learned now that some people won't allow her to jump on them so she will try it a couple of times to make sure they're not going to pet her until she sits and then sit.  

We did finally teach her a negative marker.  No, I don't mean any type of punishment but a sign for no.   We had to in order to deal with her being in hell puppy mode which is the only time she still tries to grab out pants and such.  Redirecting helps, but at some point, we had to reinforce that certain things just aren't acceptable.

Now, I managed to stop the licking the dishes in the dishwasher behavior without resorting to no.   I just reinforced something I'd started with Steel and Ruby which was laying down in a certain area of the kitchen while I'm cooking and added Rogue to the mix.   She will stay in that spot reliably for 5 and ten minutes at a time with regular food reinforcement right now as long as one or both of the other dogs is there with her.   If she's alone, I am still reinforcing every 15 seconds or so to get her to resist temptation.  

The go to your mat command is so very versatile.  I might need a bigger mat.

 

When Ruby isn't shaking that small rug to vent her anxiety, I can pretty much put it down anywhere in the house and have all three dogs sit or lay on it.    I am going to try to use this the next time we take her to another house to see if that will make her relax.   She's fine in her crate in the car.  She still protests a little crated at night but she will howl like she's being murdered if we crate her anywhere else unless she's sharing the crate with Steel.

 

She has two doggie friends that she sees semi regularly.  There's Evie who's an adult terrier mix.  Every time we go over there, they romp and play, but the hard part is getting them to settle down.  Rogue has a really hard time if there's ANYTHING going on because she's so visually distractable and since she refuses to be quiet in the crate....  It's something we can work on but when hanging out with friends, how long do you really want to let the puppy scream in the crate?  It's a work in progress as we try different things to get her to calm down and sleep because an overtired puppy is just as bad if not worse than an overtired toddler.

Rogue's other friend is Staley an Australian Cattle Dog puppy who is 2 weeks older than she is.  Watching the two of them play is like watching professional wrestling.  They launch each other off furniture, jump on each other form above and dive under chairs and tables.  I'm getting video the next playdate because it's hysterical.  And not only that...  tired puppy.

Staley, after Rogue has been over to visit.

 

I can't stress enough the value of a tired puppy.  I get all kinds of things done when she's worn out and just wants to chill and nap and maybe snuggle a bit.   I will not miss her hell puppy days one bit.

 

And it's another reason why early socialization is so important.  Steel and Ruby taught Rogue that different dogs have different play styles so she alters her play to match her playmate.  But it's also important to  know when they're getting overtired so the happy playmate doesn't become the evil worst enemy because someone looked at someone wrong and they were both tired and the fight started in earnest.   We watch the puppies carefully because as intense as their play gets, it can get over intense and we need to stop it before it goes too far.  

Right now, we really need to work recall.  We've been spending too much time picking Rogue up to do things she doesn't want (like go into her crate) and so she is avoiding us partly for that reason and partly because she really likes the chase game and thinks it's fun to make us chase her even though we don't.  We know better.   But we need to work recall a lot more than we are.  Until her recall is solid, we won't dare to try anything off leash without a fence, even with Steel and Ruby to play puppy goalies.   

And now, she's in puppy snuggle mode so I'm going to go and snuggle my puppy.

The tintinabulation of the bells, bells, bells...

So we continue to struggle with potty training, mostly due to our own laziness and the hubby's variable schedule which makes getting the pup on a schedule a challenge.  Another thing that contributes to our laziness and thus, our difficulties getting Rogue potty trained is the dog door.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Why blame the dog door?  Because it's lazy . We just assume that because the puppy goes potty outside and because she can easily go in and out the dog door that she will potty train herself.  Well, she doesn't. In fact, she'll go out there and romp her little heart out with Steel and Ruby and come running back in and pee on the floor.   Why?  Because she was having fun outside and didn't think about going potty until she came in and then, well she hasn't really been rewarded for pottying outside nor has she been punished for pottying inside so hey, anyplace convenient will do.

Bad dog parents.  Bad, bad bad.  No cookie.  The dog door makes it easier for us to be lazy and trust me, after one or the other of us has been at work all day, the last thing we want to do is stop whatever we happen to be doing to relax and let the puppy out.  So, potty issues continue to plague us at home.

Interestingly, when we're elsewhere, if Rogue has to potty, she will go and stand next to whatever door we came in and look at us to let her out.  Any place, any door.  That's generalization and that means she's a pretty clever girl which makes us even more lazy asses for the fact that we haven't gotten her potty trained at home.

Interestingly, when I asked my husband to pose for me holding a sign that said, "I'm a dog trainer and haven't house trained my puppy and she's already 3 months old" he refused.  Can't imagine why.

 Thankfully, I know how to improvise.

  

I can train my dog to jump over my arm but I can't potty train my puppy.

And thankfully, my husband has a good sense of humor.

So, even more frustrating is the fact that when I am in the kitchen, Rogue will stand by the door and look up at me when she wants to go out.  So she does at least have an idea of what we want so what's the disconnect (besides the lazy dog door)?

Well, Rogue is deaf which means that she doesn't know how to communicate with someone she can't see.  She doesn't know what sound is.   She knows what it feels like to bark, and whine and make those adorable crooning noises but she has no idea what it sounds like or that it can be heard outside her range of  vision.   Now, she has some concept of that because her crate is completely covered at night and she still knows that if she barks and whines, we will come and get her out.  

What does this mean?  Well, it means expecting to teach her to bark to be let out will require us to teach her to bark on command and then get her to do it before we let her out.  Did I mention we're a little lazy?   Yeah, so the husband bought bells for the door.

 

I have no idea how much he paid for this but I could have made it for $2 with stuff from a craft store.

Now some of you may be wondering why bells.  After all, the dog is deaf, how does she hear the bells?  She doesn't have to.  All she has to know is that if she paws at them, we will come and let her out.  Easy peasy.  We used bells with Steel after we had the same problem for the same reason (dog door and lazy asses)  We stopped using it after Steel started using them as a summon human spell.

Stay tuned to see how this works.

Rogue continues to grow and has more than doubled her size since we got her.  She continues to fear nothing and love people.   People love her too but I wish they'd stop petting her when she jumps up on them because now we have a jumping puppy problem.  (grrrrrr)

 

Honest, she's just as cute with all four paws on the floor.

Keeping everyone busy the past week has been hard since a heavy rain turned our back yard into an ice rink and we don't want any torn ACLs.  So there's been a lot of ball and toy chasing in the house.  Rogue isn't really fetching because Steel always gets to the toy first so she just waits for him to head back and then gnaws on him until it's time to throw the toy again.   He's a very patient older brother.

So, I leave you with two pictures of the evil little imp taken 6 weeks apart.  Wow!

Look at that itty bitty puppy                                                                  She's getting so big!!

  

  Teh end

 

 

What happened to my perfect puppy?

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.

 

 

I don't have time for that.

A well trained dog is a lot of work.  A deaf dog is no different, though I have to say that Rogue is not nearly as much additional work as I thought she'd be.  Since we often use hand signs or body language cues to teach new behaviors with our hearing dogs, it wasn't a big change in teaching Rogue.

But back to the time thing.  Training takes time and time is a precious commodity these days so how do you get all that training into a busy schedule.   One great way is commercial training which is using those annoying commercial breaks during your favorite show as a time to do a little bit of training.  It's actually a perfect amount of time for a dog/puppy's attention span.  You can teach come, sit, stay, off, on, and just about anything else without taking your butt off the couch or missing a moment of your favorite show.

Potty time is another great opportunity.  Sit or lie down before you open the door, stay before you let them go outside and a nice recall to bring them in (assuming they're not running in the moment they're done because it's freezing outside). Make your dog do something for their dinner.  You know they want it.  Make them do something for you before you give it to them.

Figure one hour of TV (8 commercial breaks), two meals and four trips to potty has given you 14 training sessions in one day at no additional time cost.

Cold paws, cold paws cold paws!!!

In last week's puppy class, our homework was to work go to your mat. This is an easy trick that has all kinds of uses.  So, while I was cooking this weekend, I put the mat where it was out of my way and got Rogue to sit on it.  I would periodically give her kibble while she was seated on the mat to the point where she just stayed on the mat.  This works really well to keep dogs out of your way in the kitchen by the way.  I can't wait to show her off in class tomorrow.

Speaking of class, one of our teachers is Belle.  Belle is a deaf double merle Aussie who is a Master of Tricks, has one nosework title, and has her therapy dog certification.  The only reason she doesn't have any Agility titles is because the AKC won't let deaf dogs participate.  Belle does practice agility, she just can't compete.

The lovely and talented, Belle.

I understand Belle and her human, Roxanne are now working on their Champion of tricks. Here is one of my favorites.Belle Go Hide.  

Yeah, I'm thinking that took more than one day to perfect.

As for our evil little imp, I know a lot of folks have had issues with the cold weather.  On the few nights that she gets me up in the middle to potty, we still use the potty pen in the garage, however, for the most part, she keeps busy with Steel and Ruby.

Yup, even on the coldest day, they're out there chasing each other and a toy around.  Now, we keep play time to about fifteen minutes but she's loving the bigger two dogs even if she isn't quite big enough to catch them and this makes three tired dogs which makes me a happy camper.

Rogue also had her first disc dog practice over the weekend.   To our surprise, she's not the only deaf dog in the Midwest Disc Dogs organization.   

 

This is Storm.  Isn't he beautiful?  There are multiple disc dogs around the country who are deaf and two that I know of who only have three legs.   How cool is that?  Dogs are amazing and kudos to the humans who let their 'disabled' dogs do what they love.  

And to finish off today's entry, here's Rogue with her first experience with a disc.

 

Clicker training the deaf puppy

Clicker training is an awesome way to teach your dog.  Thinking dogs especially love to figure out what it is you want them to do and the mental exercise is just as tiring as physical.  I'm not going to go into too much detail about the hows whys and wherefores of clicker training since Karen Pryor already does a heck of a good job on her website and has lots of cool books and videos as well,  http://www.clickertraining.com/

Having a deaf dog creates challenges for clicker training since a deaf dog can't hear a click.  Now, the click is just a marker.  The fact that it's a noise isn't as important as the fact that the dog knows that the marker means that they did something right.  What you need for your deaf dog is some kind of visual marker that does the same thing.  Enter... the flicker.

Why yes, mine is the color coordinated one.

Now I know some folks use a laser pointer because you can use the dot to direct the dog, however we've seen some bad OCD behavior come out of frequent use of them and don't recommend them.  We are having our vet look into seeing if there's any actual research on the subject other than our personal experience and I'll let you know if we find any but suffice it to say, we don't use them.

 

What we DO use is one of the little LED keychain lights ($10 or so at Home Depot) with  a ping pong ball (color optional) glued on top of it.  We made another version with an LED Christmas light bulb on top but we liked this one better.

  LED keychain light              Ping pong ball

We add the coiled wrist strap because it's not that easy to juggle flicker, treats, hand sign and puppy with just two hands.  Why the ping pong ball?  The ball makes the light bigger and easier to see and completely avoids any type of beam or spot that can cause the OCD behavior.  

There are still challenges with the flicker over the clicker though.   A hearing dog can hear the clicker whether its in their line of sight or not.  The flicker has to be in their line of sight and since puppies spend the majority of their time with their noses on the floor looking for that one thing you forgot to pick up to chew on, it's harder to get it in their field of view.  Thankfully, that field of view is quite a bit larger than ours.  

Once you get past that, though, the principals are the same.   Mark behavior with the flicker and give the dog a treat.  Rogue gets great focus when the flicker comes out. She knows it's time to work.

 

As for our newest addition, she got a clean bill of health from our vet on Friday and was a whopping 12.8 pounds three days before her 11 week birthday. Considering the fact that she was only 8 pounds at 8 weeks old, she's growing like a weed.  

These two pictures were taken exactly three weeks apart.

 

This past weekend, she went to socialize with local kids at the sledding hill, even going down the hill once with me.  (It wasn't pretty for me, that's all I'm saying)

I want to go again.  Can we go again?

She played ball with my two other Aussies, Steel and Ruby, and was as determined to get that ball as the others, no matter the fact that she is too small to keep up.

 She is learning our two dogs' body language so even though she can't hear warning growls, she knows when they are not pleased with her behavior.  This doesn't mean she won't push it, but then, she's a bratty little sister.  Even Ruby, who is a little on the high strung side, will play with her and Steel will actually take toys and initiate play.   The only one who is not thrilled is our 13-year-old, Allie, but Rogue has learned not to bother the old dog... most of the time.

Coming up next time, Rogue's hero, Belle.  A deaf dog who does agility, therapy and a whole lot more.