Man Down! Man Down!

Neither my dog nor I is good at breaking down larger tasks into smaller, more manageable ones. We like instant gratification, even if it's messy.

For instance, I know how to spell. I've always known how to spell, though. Words either look right to me or they don't and that's been the case for as long as I can remember. I don't remember studying for spelling tests but I don't think I failed even a one. There are a few exceptions (very few) like commitment and gauge but I've gritted out the learning of them and am forever grateful to computer programs that redline my first instinct so I know to go back and think for a second. Yes, a little piece of my soul dies when people talk about "loosing" "they're" sunglasses or wonder what people in the "dessert" have for "desert" but I don't blame the person in question because I know I didn't work for this. I just know what loose and lose sound like in my head and I spell them accordingly. I love my dessert enough to sprinkle it with that extra s. It's just something in my brain, the same way other people just feel what 10% of a check is or whether that 8th suitcase will fit in the trunk if they just change the orientation of cases 4 and 7.

In the orientation session for obedience class we learned to teach the dog "touch" as a precursor to many things like come, heel and pay attention. We're working with clickers (just like the nuns!) which I've seen done but never done myself. The first step is to take 5-10 tiny treats in your hand, put the clicker in that hand, too, with your thumb at the ready and hide the hand behind your back. Present the other, empty, hand flat and palm forward about 2 inches from your dog's nose. Wait until the dog touches your hand with his nose. Immediately click, take away your empty hand then give your dog a treat with your clicking and treating hand. (Oh yeah, it takes a certain amount of coordination. Oh hell yeah, I'm lucky I haven't smashed myself in the nose with a milk bone yet.)

First off my dog knows where the fucking treats are. So I've got to present my touch hand to him somehow while he's trying to wander off behind my back because he's not an idiot. After a couple of tries, though, he sees that I'm not opening the clicking hand so he'll let it go. The result is that he also doesn't have the noise of the clicker and the placement of the clicker matched in his mind. So I present my empty hand, he touches it, I click and he goes looking for whatever made that funky noise. Hand, touch, click and he looks away. Hand, touch, click, look away. Hand, touch, click, wanders around the living room looking for whatever is making that intriguing commotion! Which, by the way, makes it hard to give a food-neutral dog a treat. He's basically saying, "No thanks, can't stop, I'm looking for something. Looks delicious, though, I'll come back when I'm done!"

He's smart. I'm not knocking that. I'm petrified of it but I'm not knocking it. However, it made our first day of training pretty draining on both of us. I couldn't see the improvements he's made overall because I couldn't manage to get these new activities right. It's not all on him, either, I'm not terribly good at this training thing and I'm petrified that I'm rewarding the wrong behavior, treating too much or too little, giving in when I shouldn't and ignoring where I should be praising. Honestly, Wednesday morning was as discouraging as Tuesday night was inspiring (and overwhelming and comforting and terrifying and...).

So I worked hard to remember all the people in class who have dogs with housetraining issues and unrelenting separation anxiety. I'm lucky. He's so smart he found an unused cat bed and annexed it for himself. He knows that "inside" means get in your crate and he does it. He knows "wait." He has, up to now, been vaguely interested in birds and squirrels but mostly in passing. Today he noticed one a couple of yards ahead near a tree and he moved forward but without intent. The squirrel went scurrying up the tree and, just as we approached the tree (one assumes the better to pee on it), WHUMP! that fat fuck fell from a branch right to the ground not 5 feet from Eddie. We all stood stunned a moment, the squirrel bolted for the tree and made it up again without incident and Ed spent the next 5 minutes circling, circling, circling trying to work out how to make that squirrel fall down in front of him again. With gleeful determination he chased every single solitary squirrel we saw for the rest of the walk. So it only took one squirrel falling down in front of him to teach him to chase squirrels.

He's a genius!

I am still nursing the abrasions on my own sense of adequacy, though, so I'm trying to draw a highlighter across the things I can do. I can spell! I can sing. I've been known to take a nice photo.

What are you good at?