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