Mom & Dad?

My husband asked me a shocking question last night - one I never expected to hear from him! (And no, it did NOT involve Fredrick's of Hollywood.....sheesh!). He was petting our beagle and suddenly turned to me and said, "Do you REALLY believe that our pets can come back as people we've known? Do you think it's possible?" I was shocked! I never thought he'd become so enlightened! I said, "Well, sure, why not?" "Well," he continued. "The cat reminds me a lot of my dad and he did show up the weekend after Dad died. And this beagle reminds me a whole lot of my mom and you know how she loved her beagles. And look at the relationship between GrayKitty and Jelly." He paused to chuckle. "Jelly takes no crap from GrayKitty and she's the only animal who can make GrayKitty cringe and skulk away quietly." HA HA HA That's absolutely true!! GrayKitty IS like Harry - taciturn, prone to small hissy fits when things don't go his way, determined to always get his way, thinks he's totally in charge! Jelly's a lot like my mother-in-law, Nellie.....she welcomes everyone lovingly into our home, she's short and a little stout, she's very strong - physically and emotionally - she's forgiving, and she puts GrayKitty (Harry?? LOL) in his place with nothing but a dirty look or a short bark! Oh, and she had a GRAND sense of humor and certainly would have worn the reindeer antlers pictured above! She would have plunked them on her head and struck a few funny poses while laughing uproariously! John and I got laughing as we talked about the similarities between the animals and his parents. Sorta makes me wonder...........................

"The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew - it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

She Shoots! She Scores!

Well, not really, but Jelly is really catching onto our soccer ball game!! After she got the hang of touching the ball with her paw, I began withholding the treats in order to encourage her to offer another behavior. Naturally, she went to the ball several times, touched it with both her nose and paw and returned to me for a C/T. She would cock her head and look at me, asking, "Well?" I waited until she "batted" the ball with a paw and then clicked and treated her. Of course, as round objects are wont to do, the ball rolled away. This provided an interesting scenario! Once she received her treat, Jelly returned to where the ball WAS, looked perplexed for a second, then ran back to get her treat! LOL I was wondering if she'd figure out that she had to look around for the ball but apparently she hadn't made that connection and she continued to turn around and look at the spot where the ball had last rested! I finally went to the ball and nudged it with my foot so that she could see where it was and then returned to my spot by the counter. Jelly looked at me, looked at the ball, and then went to the ball and pushed it with her paw! C/T! From then on, she knew she was to find the ball, go to it and bat it with her paw. This has been a fun game and one that Jelly seems to really love! Her tail starts wagging and she has this big, ol' beagle grin on her face! I'm not sure what our next game will be but my daughter's fiance asked me yesterday, "Could you ever teach her to bat it into a little net like a goal?" Hmmmm..........Well, of course!! I'm thinking I could cut the bottom out of a box and make a square goal...........
100 Things To Do With A Box...and a ball!!! Clicking really allows us to use our imaginations. If we can imagine it, we can click it!

"I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs." James Thurber

Yeah.......me, too!!! 

Pony Manners

The other day I decided to clean the stall area of my barn while Split and Jingle were enjoying their meager handful of hay pellets. Split's pellets always go in the old wooden manger; Jingle's go in a little rubber tub on the floor. For some reason, Jingle will only poop and pee on Split's side of the stall.....right in front of his manger! Some sort of statement? Who knows........Anyway, while Split was tuckin' into his pellets, I grabbed the manure fork and started scooping up the piles in back of him. He turned and looked at me, clearly saying, "Seriously? I'm eating here." Ooops. I guess I wouldn't want the waitstaff vacuuming around me while I was dining, either. "Sorry," I apologized. What a funny pony! He shook his head as though saying, "Geez. Humans!" And he turned and walked away and stood in the stall doorway with his butt to me! I started laughing and he turned and communicated, "Please. Just get on with it so I can get back to eating." I quickly finished the job at hand, stepped aside and called to Split, "Ok. I'm done." He looked at me and I bowed slightly and motioned toward his manger. "Your pellets, Your Majesty." Without a word, he walked politely back to his manger, snorted slightly, and resumed eating. What a hoot!!!

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Perhaps that's true of horses as well?? 

Watching The Paint Dry..........

Yeah, that's pretty much what clicker training is all about.....watching the paint dry or the grass grow. Ho-hum....at least to the casual observer. To those of involved in the process, it's really exciting to see those little, tiny steps toward success. And sometimes they're so microscopic you think, "Did I just really see that?" Take Jelly and that soccer ball........
So...I bring the soccer ball into the kitchen and place it on the floor in front of Jelly. She glanced at it, walked around it and sat in front of me. I nudged the ball with my foot. Jelly gave it a cursory glance and went on staring at me. No interest whatsoever. I got out my treat-filled fanny pack and suddenly those little beagle eyes lit up like high-beams and her tail started wagging "to beat the band" (my grandmother's expression!). She knew then that she was in for some fun! 
Jelly hadn't yet associated the ball with the treat at that point so I gave her a little help. I nudged the ball with my toe again and when Jelly looked at it, I clicked and treated (C/T).
It took several minutes for her to associate "look at the ball" with getting a treat but once she got it, you could see the wheels start to turn. She looked at me, cocked her head, glanced at the ball, and then looked at me again, clearly asking, "Is that it?" I then added lavish verbal praise. (I tend to be quiet when I'm clicking for a new skill because I don't want to confuse or distract the animal. Occasionally I will add a quiet "good, good.") When "look at the ball/CT" was established, I stopped C/T for looking at the ball and simply waited to see what Jelly would offer once she figured out that just looking wasn't working anymore. She looked at the ball and then at me several times - not receiving a treat - and then stood up and looked at the ball - C/T! She remained standing and looking at the ball. We repeated this loop several times. Because Jelly was clearly enjoying the game and wasn't frustrated by it, I decided to add another criteria - would she go to the ball and put her nose on it? I helped her out a bit by pointing to the ball and saying, "Touch it." As soon as she did, she got a small "jackpot" treat (3 treats instead of 1). She caught onto that right away! I probably could have gone right to "touch it" from the get-go since Jelly has targeted a box before but I thought I'd try starting at the beginning. Anyway, after 10 successful nose touches, I again extended the period between clicks, wondering what other behavior she would offer. She touched the ball with her nose several times and returned to me for the treat. She never gets disappointed when the treat is not offered.....she simply stares at me (and one must have a lot of patience at this juncture! LOL). I smile and wait, hands behind my back, smiling and waiting, smiling and waiting.......She finally went to the ball, touched it and tentatively put a paw on it!! Exciting stuff!! I immediately clicked her and gave her lavish praise and a jackpot. When she had completed 5 successful paw touches (being C/T after each one), I called it quits for the day. I have no idea how long that all took us. I've discovered that when you're first teaching or wanting to shape or capture a behavior, you should take off the watch and just allow things to develop on their own. If I'm pressed for time, I find I WANT IT NOW and that just makes things more difficult so I choose a time during the day when I know I have "all the time it takes."
We're doing more with that soccer ball and I'll fill you in as we go along.
Remember.........

THE BEST WHISPER IS A CLICK!!!!!!

100 Things To Do With A Soccer Ball

Jelly and I attended our final agility class for 2011 last Thursday. It was a MOST WONDERFUL experience thanks to the warmth and positive attitude of trainers Cathy and Glenn. We'll resume again in mid-January, somewhere inside - place to be determined. But what do we do til then????? 
Neither Jelly nor Lucy have ever shown a bit of interest in dog toys. How odd. The first time I presented either one with a squeaky toy, they literally shrunk back in horror! "GAAAA! What IS that thing? Take it away!" No amount of fooling around, tossing it, or even holding it in my teeth and growling could get them interested. I was used to my old yellow lab who, when presented with a new toy, would virtually turn herself inside out! "For me? For me? YAY!!! I can toss it and bite it and gut it? YAY!" 
My theory about Jelly and Lucy is that they spent all their "formative years" in cages as part of puppy mills - their lives were to produce litter after litter. They don't know what toys are or what to do with them. In fact, they were afraid of lots of things when they first came into our lives - snow, grass, loud noises, TREATS! Yep, the first time either dog was presented with a hand-fed treat, they pulled back, then stepped forward and sniffed cautiously. They nosed it, licked it, and finally - reluctantly - took it in their teeth. They spit it out and walked around it suspiciously. Once they actually ate it, however, they were HOOKED! LOL But I digress.....(what else is new?)
So here we are - Jelly and me - with no agility class for 2 months. What to do? Karen Pryor has an exercise she calls (I'm paraphrasing) "100 Things To Do With A Box" and it's about capturing and shaping behaviors with the click. I was in the garage the other day and spied a soccer ball left over from the days when my kids tried (and failed miserably) to be soccer players. ("A speeding ball? AAGGH!! Get it away from me!") I had a light bulb moment - we could play with that ball! 
I brought the ball inside and set it on the kitchen floor in front of Jelly. She looked at it, looked at me, and then went off, sniffing the floor in search of crumbs. Well, clearly this was going to be a challenge! I donned ye olde bum bag full of treats and thought, "Well, let the games begin!" How's it working out, you ask? I'll let ya know..................

"Men cannot think like dogs.... [There exists] a sharp difference in the mental capacity of humans and canines. For example, a human who is given an intricate problem will spend all day trying to solve it, but a canine will have the sense to give up and do something else instead."

Corey Ford

Yeah.....ain't THAT the truth??

Under where? UnderWEAR!!!!!!

I found this very strange creature in my laundry basket! Is it a rat with mutant ears? Is it a zombie dog? Is it a grannypantsasaurus?
Oh, wait! It's just Lucy the minichi! LOL
I love this picture and just wanted to share with you. Lucy loves to burrow down into my laundry basket when she comes for sleep-overs and sometimes I even forget she's here until I go upstairs into my bedroom and notice that the laundry is....aliiiiiiiiiiiiiive! Sometimes I bring laundry up from the cellar, warm from the dryer, set it down in the hallway and leave it. Imagine my surprise when I go to pick it up and fold it and instead of grabbing hold of socks or shirts, I reach in and grab..........Lucy! ha ha She always gives me THE LOOK - "Excuse me. I'm trying to SLEEP HERE, MADAM!" I'm way past worrying about a little dog hair on my clothes. It's a given around this place.

“Even the tiniest Poodle or Chihuahua is still a wolf at heart” Dorothy Hinshaw Patent

Yep, that's true! That little Lucy.....she's all wolf! Well, until she sees the cat staring at her and then she runs for the hills...............and hides. Under where? UnderWEAR of course!

OOPS.....A Daisy!

Kathleen Kelly: I love daisies. Joe Fox: You told me. Kathleen Kelly: They're so friendly. Don't you think daisies are the friendliest flower?

I love the movie "You've Got Mail." And I love daisies! In mid-summer, the entire perimeter of my paddock is covered with daisies! It looks like I deliberately planted a border of thousands of daisies. And they ARE the friendliest flower - they're always so sunny and bright and they make me smile every time I go out to the barn. I miss them, especially at this time of year. BUT.........I was riding in the paddock last week, just 2 days after the big snowstorm, and I looked down and THERE WAS A DAISY! I took a picture of it because I thought, "No one will believe this!" I got down on my hands and knees and just relished looking at its bright, yellow, smiling face! I thought, "What a wonderful gift!" This little daisy popped out just to brighten my day! It was only there for a day or two and then............gone again. I'm sure he'll come back next summer. Maybe he missed me, too!

"Daisies are like sunshine to the ground." Drew Barrymore