Set backs Suck

The past couple of days have been very rough. Ravi has been struggling and I don't know if it is because I am struggling and it's feeding down the leash or if there is some other issue at work. Addressing my mental state is the first step, and recognizing that not all dog training is mechanics and the communication you are trying to do. Ravi is already showing that he is sensitive to my moods which could be a good thing or a bad thing but only time will tell with that.

Part of why I don't often support people owner training dogs for their own psychiatric needs is that it can be really difficult to fight your own mental struggle well enough to give the dog the tools to help you. That is a big key to the next steps with Ravi, he doesn't understand how to help but he seems to want to. That's mixed up with a lot of him just not understanding.

He doesn't understand how to be in a house and be a quiet house dog. He doesn't understand how to settle and how to relax outside of a crate. He doesn't understand how to act and react in a wide range of situations. That is my job as a trainer. And right now I'm struggling to give him the building blocks to figure this out while trying to live with him while he doesn't understand what to do. Ravi is a big very strong dog and my current biggest issue is he really wants me to pet him. He wants constant attention and he also feels like he needs constant reassurance, and to try to get that he is very pushy and physically he is hurting me. I will state now that I do not believe this will ultimately be an issue but I am monitoring the situation closely because it is hard as an owner-trainer to be realistic about a dog you are hanging your hopes on. In some ways having lost Remy, and still very much feeling her loss is helping me with that. I don't "want" Ravi enough at the moment to give myself illusions.

In other fronts Ravi is a very sweet, very smart, and very willing dog who absolutely Wants to please me. Ravi Wants to be with me and do right, these are useful things. He also genuinely seems to be enjoying getting to meet people. Some of my issues with him are just because of rising pain levels both because of the stress and because of the weather. 

I am still working on some of the same things so it isn't very interesting to report. We are still concentrating on loose lead walking, sit, and down and he seems to have more understanding and as he gains confidence these will improve. Until then I can just keep working with him and assessing where we are.

More of the Same, Slow is Steady

The past couple of days have mostly been much of the same. I've started to add verbal cues to his down and when he started offering a sit a day or two ago I started adding a verbal cue to that. Neither of them are ready to move out into the world yet but it's a very solid start. We are continuing exposure training although tapering back letting him say hello to everyone who asks or he shows interest in and started putting saying hello on cue. For me saying hello is partly a cue but more importantly asking the dog if they Want to. I feel like giving my working dogs a choice empowers them to have more of a say on if they want to be touched by a stranger.

I don't believe that every person should pet my dog, nor do I believe that my dogs should have to want to be manhandled by every person who wants to put their hands on them. Much like I don't always (let's be honest I Never) want to be hugged by strangers our dogs also don't always want to. Social behavior in dogs like in people is a spectrum and some dogs Love people, other's are indifferent to 'gosh I'd prefer strongly if you'd respect my personal bubble'. Ravi has no personal bubble with the people he loves which is mostly me and my family but as he's growing more confident with people sometimes he'd rather just hang out with me rather than go say hello. Eventually, as a working dog, he will need to understand that he can't say hello unless released to do so, it's important for working dogs so they don't become distracted. But for now, while working in pet-friendly venues I want him to feel comfortable being touched by strangers.

Right now he needs more work with men than women, I honestly find that to be true of a lot of dogs so I don't jump to conclusions about any reasons. Men, in general, tend to have more forward body posture, they seem to give harder stares and overall tend to be more looming. A lot of dogs have trouble with this so I'm not concerned at this point and he is having less and less moments where he's clearly uncomfortable. I'm not pushing him hard, more encouraging him to stretch his boundaries and realize that people are cool.

Less environmental things are an issue, and they were not much of an issue, to begin with. He needs some work with carts following behind him, and carts in general and Ravi overall just needs more positive exposure. The positive part being the most important. I'm taking care to expose him to new things nearly every day, but I'm controlling it to make sure he is coming away with a positive impression.

We also started harness work in the past few days. This is the big bonus with starting a young adult dog who is already physically mature. I can start harness work parallel to his loose lead walking training. For counterbalance work I largely work with a dog's own oppositional reflex at first to teach them to brace against upwards or sideway's pressure. I'm starting him slowly but encouraging him to pay attention to my gait and slow or speed up as needed as well as to stop if I'm extremely unsteady. Right now it's pretend unsteady so that I can encourage and talk him through what I want. So far he is learning in leaps and bounds and soaking up new information like a sponge.

My short-term goals are to prep him to pass a Canine Good Citizen test, He is going to need additional work in almost all areas at this time but I have started the foundation to build on. I'd like to see him ready to pass a CGC in the next week or two weeks but I won't be pushing him.

We Have Down, and other successes

I've been working hard the past few days trying to install a little bit of control in the house. Settling in the house has proven to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated and for several days Ravi resisted down very impressively. We still don't have a solid sit, and his down is not on voice command yet but he Is learning. I believe strongly in building duration and distance as early as possible and while obviously, it depends on the dog in question and their ability to learn it Ravi seems to be willing to try hard for me. 

His food drive isn't as strong as I'd want and he can be rather selective and picky about what treats he's willing to work for. Still he's decided that the Vera brand treats in beef and chicken are worth eating.  In the house he has started to settle, although he does better if he is loose by himself rather than out with the other dogs. Everyone except the borzoi (predictably) have accepted him. Because Loki is a big male dog with a predictable german shepherd attitude about things I don't plan to let them play unattended but if they're fine with each other in the house while we're home that's good enough for me.

While we were at Tractor Supply today I also worked on some confidence building exercises. I find that Ravi is more than willing to try things for me. It doesn't always work but the more time we spend working on it the more he succeeds. This evening he willingly climbed on bags of feed and I had to get it on video. He wasn't perfect, and there were times he wasn't sure but he did Try which is all I can ask at this point.  

As always we're also working on his loose lead walking. I've also started the begining's of harness work. My short term goals at this point are to get him ready to pass a CGC and get a few tasks under his belt. So far so good however and I have plenty of reason to think he'll do alright. 

Hurry up and Wait

After a whirlwind of 'let's go look at this stuff and meet these people if you'd like to.' we had a day of hurry up and wait.. actually more just wait. Laying down and being calm is one of the easiest or hardest jobs a service dog has to do. And they do a lot of it. I'm fairly sure Ravi has never actually been asked to just lay down and be calm in his life. He really has absolutely no idea what to do with himself in a house or even just sitting with me outside.

In a crate, he's chill and relaxes beautifully, outside a crate he paces and boops me and overall just has no clue what he should be doing. So a large part of today was simply keeping him on a leash with a dog bed beside me and giving him a chance to figure out for himself what I wanted. Which is largely waiting for him to get bored and lay down then verbally praising him. Of course, at this stage, it is much like working with a shelter dog who has had little house time.. and as soon as I praise him he pops back up. That's alright it's a process... maybe a long one. I have to resist petting him during this process which is hard with his big doe eyes and since he's already learned nose nudges. He also tried a wide array of standing on me, pawing at me, laying his head on me, and otherwise just trying to get me to pet him. If I don't want to build a cycle of me constantly petting him or he fidgets he needs to learn this early. I have every faith that he can get there, it's just going to be a longish road to get there.


Yesterday he had his first vet visit with me and received a mostly clean bill of health. He has a bit of a minor ear infection that I have drops to treat him for and we are going to wait and see if his coat improves with better nutrition. There is a chance that his coat won't improve with nutrition, poor coats are not uncommon in dilute Dobermans (or dilute dogs of other breeds at times). I don't think his coat will be a point to fail him over although I'll admit it isn't the most pleasant to touch right now. He did really well at the vet, I worked on teaching him he could put his feet up on things and he started out hesitant but by the end of the visit was willing to walk across the raised scale in the room. I think he needs more work on putting all four feet on objects and encouraging this will increase his confidence overall. He was very tolerant of the handling from the vet and techs even though he got blood taken, a stool sample was taken as well as received a microchip.

This evening I took him for a walk beside my motorized wheelchair after dinner and that is clearly something that he will need work with. I have seen a lot worse but he is clearly concerned about it while it is moving. When I stop his first goal is to lean on me, lay his head on me or otherwise encourage snuggles. He seems a bit more alert at night and I suspect that in the next few days I should find somewhere to sit where he can watch people at night. Likely I'll make a trip up to Walmart and just sit and people watch outside with him. People in the dark are different than people in the light and I need him to be comfortable with them in both situations.

We still haven't found a sit. I honestly wonder if he even realizes his legs bend that way. I am not sure if it's a Doberman trait or if he possibly received some show training when he was a pup but anytime he isn't moving (which is 90% of the time) he is standing statuesquely. I appreciate this and I won't be encouraging him to sit in heel position at this time because his final task work will include harness work where I won't want him to sit when I stop, but rather stand to help me with balance unless I ask him to do something different. Overall I see a lot of things to like and a few things that will absolutely need work.

Meet Ravi

Meet Ravi, a two-year-old Doberman pinscher who is here with me to hopefully be a service dog. How Ravi came to be with me is a bit of a complicated story that starts in a dark and hopeless place for me. On January 17th, 2015 a small black ball of fluff came into this world. She was the culmination of a dream, from a wonderful breeder from health tested parents. She came home with me in North Carolina from Washington state that March, not long before my own birthday. She grew into a quirky, brilliant, vivacious soul who brought smiles to so many people. This October she passed away suddenly. It wasn't fair, it was a horrible hand to be dealt and I will miss that beautiful soul for a very long time.

A couple of days after Remy passed a friend contacted me about a group of young adult Dobermans that had landed with her dog's breeder. Dogs between 10 months and 2 years old from solid bloodlines. They had not been socialized and due to their breeder's health they hadn't had exposure to a lot of things but several of them seemed promising and worth looking at. I wasn't ready for a dog. I didn't want another dog but the reality was that a service dog allows me to live as close to a normal life as my disabilities will allow.

It was almost two weeks before things could line up for me to go look at all of them but when I did one of those young dogs was a stand out both in size and structure as well as temperament and worth a longer look. I took him with me to a pet-friendly location to see how he coped with people and the kinds of things that a service dog will see on a daily basis. It was clear that he lacked socialization and at first, he is hesitant, but overall I would consider him cautiously curious.

Right now he is a blank slate, he has little to no training and has had little to no exposure to people and environments outside of a kennel. But the reverse side of that is that he also doesn't have any bad habits that I'm going to have to work out. He has so far not tried to mark indoors, he has pretty decent natural leash manners and if he's a bit reserved about people he is willing to approach and is tolerant and even enjoys getting attention from a wide range of strangers. So far he hasn't shown any hesitation to one segment of the population than another.

My hope is that I can take two negatives and build a positive out of them, that I can help him and he can help me and together we can help each other and become more than the individual parts.

For Remy, In Memory 

01/17/2015 - 10/10/2018