May 23, 2003
10:00 p.m.
I've spoken a lot of our training successes, but not as much about the failures (which are usually mine) and the difficulties I've stumbled across. Now that Dusty is moving into adolescence, these problems are becoming more pronounced.
When I started this training thing, I didn't have any lofty goals in mind. Mainly, I wanted Dusty to be in control in public and to be safe. There were probably three main areas I felt were essential to be 'successful' in her training:
- 1) Recall: I needed Dusty to come when called, not matter the circumstances
2) LLW/StreetSmarts: I wanted Dusty to be able to walk politely on a loose leash and understand that the road is offlimits
3) Garbage is not food: I wanted Dusty to have a good 'leave it/drop it' and not eat things off the ground (because in the city, you're never sure what something on the ground might be).
For the most part, her recall has been very good (with some exceptions I'll note later) and I'm really pleased with her loose leash walking. She stops and crosses at intersections with the command 'cross.'
But when it comes to eating garbage, Dusty shows an enthusiasm that rivals any other dog (including the other miniature schnauzers) in the neighbourhood. There's not cigarette butt that's not enticing enough to sample. She's sampled everything from tampons to human vomit and just monitoring her on our walks is exhausting. Seriously, as soon as my back is turned...argh.
Is there hope? Maybe. When I tell her to leave something, she does (even if it's a yummy looking used condom, she generally listens) and if I ask her to drop something, she does (we do an object exchange - "You give me the dead bird and I'll give you a treat"). It's still a problem though, and I'm hoping she'll grow out of it.
Dusty almost always comes when called. When she doesn't, though, it scares the daylights out of me. I think I've mentioned the ill-mannered little dog who walks in our neighbourhood - usually we encounter this canine equivelant of ''
fingernails on the chalkboard' as we're walking. Today, the little dog walked by as we were in the front yard.
Dusty ran over to check things out and, sensing trouble right away, I called her back. She turned and looked at me, but the ill-mannered little dog exploded into a yapping frenzy. I called Dusty, she looked at me again, turned back and started yapping back. I had to walk over and pick her up to remove her from the situation. I was so frustrated!
In retrospect, I can see this situation from my dog's perspective: "A dog walked past my territory, so I walked to the perimetre to give warning. The dog stopped right there on the sidewalk and started barking at me, so I started barking a warning. Mom was calling me, but I was very busy at that moment so I turned back to the task at hand. I couldn't let this dog just bark at me, could I? Then the people who were with the little dog started barking too! This was a dangerous situation! Mom was calling me, but she didn't understand that I had important work to do, protecting our territory from this invader."
It would have helped greatly if these people would have continued on their merry way, but no, they had to stop on the sidewalk and egg their dog on. I can't really blame Dusty - this was a huge distraction.
Training *my* dog would be about a thousand times easier if other people would train *their* dogs.
As the people dragged their yapping dog down the sidewalk, I heard the man remark to the woman "That dog isn't very well trained."
I felt like throwing a dog turd at his head. Grrrrrr...