Getting To Be a Big Dog

So many cool toys, but...can we go home now?

I love love love that Doppler now goes to the door when he needs to go out. It’s great—as long as I see him do it. There have been a few times when I only saw him walking back from the door area, and then suddenly, piddle on the floor. But for the most part, house training has been going great.

Doppler is growing like crazy. There are days when I swear he goes to bed one size and wakes up bigger. He’s now as long as his current crate. I estimate that he has about two to three more weeks with this crate, maybe an entire month. He’s the big guy of his litter, which I absolutely love. 

Little crate, big dog

His training has also been coming along nicely. It’s funny, though, how you can change one seemingly tiny thing in the environment and suddenly your dog acts like they have no idea what to do. Take Doppler and stairs, for instance. He used to bark several times before going down my apartment stairs. We had gotten to the point where he only grumbled about 50% of the time we went down the stairs at home.

Move to the three short, yet wide, steps leading from the back door at work, however, and Doppler becomes a barking machine. He pulls out his big, tough guy bark for those little stairs before he goes down them. You would think that because these stairs are more Doppler-sized, he would have an easier time handling them. Nope. He has to bark loudly at least two to three times before he’ll go down.

I realized that these stairs aren’t carpeted like my apartment stairs, which makes a huge difference in his world. Carpeted stairs? Sure, fine, whatever, only need to sometimes bark at those. Tiled stairs? WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS?

Amanda, Susquehanna Service Dog’s training coordinator, suggested dropping a handful of treats at the top of the stairs, so it would seem like the stairs were giving him the treats. Well, that didn’t work like I had hoped. I tried it a few times, but it actually caused him to bark more, and since I have neighbors in my apartment complex and people often hold meetings in the room near the three little stairs at work, I couldn’t have him barking every time we needed to go down stairs.

So I decided to shape him to go down the stairs. First, I clicked him just for looking at the top step, then for stepping forward, then for going down the first step. He continued—quietly—down the rest of the steps. Success! He got a jackpot of treats and tons of praise. He went down the little stairs at work quietly once, and so far today, he has gone down my apartment stairs silently every time. Woo hoo! (He’s also getting big enough to go down the stairs like a big dog—one foot on each stair rather than bunny hopping up and down.)

Hamlet is visiting this weekend, so I currently have three dogs hanging out in my apartment. Doppler is slowly learning how to play like a big dog. How do I know this? Fire will actually play with him. Fire will not put up with puppy nips. He asked for—no, demanded—Doppler’s respect right from the get go. If Doppler used his sharp little needle teeth, he growled and barked at him. And Doppler backed off. 

Now, however, Doppler will pay tug with a toy, instead of trying to play tug with Fire’s face. Here's a video of Fire and Doppler playing.

And he plays tug with Hamlet about 30% of the time rather than just trying to nip and pull at the fat on his face and neck 100% of the time. It’s great. Here's Doppler playing with Hamlet like a big dog. 

I especially love that Hamlet can catch a nap without me having to put Doppler in his crate. Since Hamlet is in advanced training and works hard learning to be a service dog during the week, he tends to be extremely sleepy on the weekends. Instead of having to play with Doppler the whole time (because Hamlet will never turn down an opportunity to play), he can catch those extra Zs he needs.

All three dogs sleeping, or at least relaxing

A Study in Self Control

My kitchen supervisors

If Doppler’s day today had a theme, it would be self control. It started first thing at breakfast. Doppler has to sit, un-cued, and wait for me to put his food dish down and tell him “okay.” Only then can he eat. As usual, I had to pick his food dish up several times when he dove for it before the “okay.” But when he did finally hold his sit and I told him “okay,” he stayed put and just looked at me as if to say, “You’re just kidding, right? Nope, I’m not falling for it.” I had to say “okay” several times and point to his food dish before he decided it was okay to eat.

At work, per usual, he alternated between sleeping in the crate and hanging out under my desk. However, today he started putting himself under my desk. I think he’s starting to realize that’s where he’s supposed to be. Now, if only he would stop chewing on my desk chair… (The bacon-flavored bone has been a huge help in deterring his chewing on inappropriate things.)

Hanging out under my desk

And then, a few hours ago, came his biggest test of self control. We joined the big dogs for their puppy class outing to Giant. So many distractions for the little puppy! We spent about 10 minutes right inside the door, just taking it all in. Doppler got lots of clicks and treats for looking at me. At first, loose leash walking was nonexistent. When SSD dogs walk on leash, they’re supposed to stay right next to their handlers, with the leash in a loose J shape. Doppler was pulling all over the place. He was like “Ooo, another dog! Ooo, person! Oooo, smudge on the floor! This place is so awesome!” Finally, after lots of stops and starts, I got him to a quiet aisle to really get him focused. Pretty soon, he was walking on a loose leash like a champ. Sure, I was clicking and treating every three steps, but still, it was great.

I love taking Doppler in public. We’ve only gone one other place, a different Giant, but both times, he was surrounded by smiles. How can you not smile when you see a little wrinkly-faced puppy trotting along on his chubby little legs? Even the people who had that stressed out, long-day-at-work, don’t-wanna-be-grocery-shopping look cracked a smile when they saw him.

We spent an hour walking around Giant, practicing loose leash walking, greetings, and a few sits on a verbal cue. He was very interested in the other, older dogs who were there, but whenever we had to pass one, I made sure to click before he started to pull and then held the treat in his mouth as we walked past the other dog. That way, he didn’t pull and kept his focus.

Of course, since I was so focused on training Doppler, I didn’t even think to take any photos while we were there. I will do my best to get better at that.

All in all, I call today a successful day of self control.

Last night, we had our first puppy class with his siblings and two other puppies who recently joined SSD from Pacific Assistance Dogs Society. These classes, known as early socialization classes (ESC), are where the little puppies learn many of the basic cues, like sit, down, stay, come, and my personal favorite of the early cues: go to bed. Doppler will be in ESC until May, and then he’ll join the regular puppy classes with the rest of SSD’s dogs in training.

At this first puppy class, we worked on attention and started capturing the “sit” behavior. I have to admit, I had already put “sit” on a verbal cue, so Doppler was a champ at that one. Shaping, on the other hand, turned out to be his Achilles heel, at least for right now. Shaping is a training method where you break a behavior down into tiny steps. The dog must master each step before you move on to the next one (increasing your criteria for a click).  For this first shaping exercise, we had to get the dogs to touch their nose to an orange cone.

Okay, sure, we can handle that. I started by clicking and treating Doppler for just looking at the cone. Once he had that down, I clicked and treated him for walking toward it. Okay, great, he walked right over to it. Click, treat. Next thing I know, Doppler is trying to bite and play with the cone. He was absolutely convinced that the cone was a toy. Clearly, we were going to have to work on shaping a lot, because he certainly wasn’t getting it with the orange cone.

So, today at work, I snagged an old coffee mug and put it on the ground upside down. I figured with the extra weight, the mug wouldn’t move if he bumped it and maybe he wouldn’t think it was a toy.

It worked! Doppler was much calmer this time (probably because there were no other dogs around and it was a familiar place). I clicked and treated him for looking at the mug, then for taking one step toward it, then for several steps, and finally for touching his nose to it. Every time I clicked, he looked right at me. I treated him away from the mug so he would have to move back toward it each time. We did this shaping exercise twice while we were at work, and both times he was successful. I think I’ll bring the mug with me to ESC and use it instead of the orange cone. Set Doppler up for success with something familiar.

I’m all about setting him up for success. He’s happier, I’m happier, everyone’s happier. 

"Another photo? Can't you see I'm busy?"