Exercise Pens Are Wonderful

Stryker has outgrown the "extra large" plastic crate for the most part but it is the largest one I have so we make do. Lately she's been more agitated in her crate at home than I would expect. The more I thought about it today the more I went "duh!" She's been in her crate a lot, she doesn't have any room to stretch out, and she's only been getting out of crate time for an hour or so a couple times a night. (My poor creatures just can't take much of her outrageous enthusiasm for life, so it's not fair to anyone if she's out a lot and I can't manage the situation completely.)

Tonight I hauled the exercise pen up from the basement, set it up in the living room, put her favorite chewies as well as dinner in food toys in there. She was SO MUCH HAPPIER (and quieter than she's been in days). She was able to stretch out, chew on a cow hoof, her bone, her kong, empty the food toys of dinner, and oh... yeah... stretch out while doing so! When I took her out for last pee and asked her to go into her crate again, she was more than willing and settled right in.

Duh!

Watching Dexter.

She is still here tonight. She seemed to show the prospective family her worst and best sides in a matter of 45 minutes! They're going to think about it and sleep on it for a couple nights.

 

She was a HUGE flirt with Dexter!

It was great to watch the two GSDs play together! For once, Stryker ended up covered in as much drool as the other dog after a playdate! Dexter makes Stryker look like a midget even though she measured in a 24" and 63# at work this week!

Stay... what?

Normally I'd say Stryker's lack of understanding regarding the cue "stay" is me being lazy. However, I have a reasonable explanation this time. Stryker came into rescue with one very reliable behavior, "sit." It has continued to be her most reliable behavior and it vies with "platz" as her default behavior at this point. My number one goal when she came into rescue was to teach her to think. I wanted her to think about her surroundings and how she could control them.

From there we learned how to shape things together. I learned how to work with a new dog and she learned how to think. One of her favorite behavior chains is "rise/jump/bottom" (front feet/all 4 feet/rear feet) using a pedestal. She's done it on the fitpaws peanut, the hatbox, and a large plastic storage container. I needed to get a picture of her last night and knowing that "stay" is not reliable enough for me to step away, I cued a behavior that has a long history of reinforcement for duration.

"Rise" while sporting a ThunderShirt.

All this is to say that "stay" hasn't been very high on my priority list. I'm okay with that and feel justified explaining that to her potential new owners. Instead, she has the skill set to watch a toy being thrown and offer a sit or down in order to be released to chase it.

She has a default sit in her crate until released. 

She will offer a sit and wait for water/food bowls to be set down. 

She's able to be tethered to a human while walking and stick pretty close to the left side. 

She'll put her nose into her gentle leader.

She can relax in her crate and out of it.

And, she's learning to pick up a toy when greeting someone, rather than chew on their arm.

Tim much appreciates the toy in her mouth!

Stryker has someone coming to meet her tomorrow, if it's a good match for everyone involved... this could be her last night here. If it's not a good match for everyone, she'll have interacted with two people and their current German Shepherd, and I'll have more information about new/improved/more reliable skills she needs for her home.

I'm pretty sure her tail continues to grow...

Work

Most of the readers of this blog know me personally and have likely met Stryker. If you do not fall into this category, however, here's a little bit more about her life currently.

I work as a veterinary technician, typically 4 days a week. Stryker usually comes with me at least 3 days because then I make time to work with her. I can fit in a training session before work, at least one on my lunch hour, and more often than not we go on a public outing after work. Lately she's been getting playtime with one of my bosses young labs at lunch. I was a good trainer and didn't even substitute that for a training session today (I brought my camera with us outside only to realize my battery was still on the charger, whoops).

When I first started bringing her to work, I'm pretty sure my co-workers were ready to kill me. She was noisy, she beat her crate door, and oh yeah-she was noisy. I've always left her with an assortment of toys, chews, and treats. In the beginning she didn't know what food toys really were so they were often left untouched by lunch time. I brought them out with us at lunch and she started to enjoy the food toys in my presence. She's quite good at food toys by now and they're worked on immediately!

I've been changing the location of her crate somewhat lately, usually rotating between two spots as well as giving her some time in an outside run if the kennel dogs are inside. While it's added to the initial barking if a dog walks by, she's still settling pretty quickly after the episode. 98% of the time people can walk by without much more than a tail wag, a huge improvement over 0% of the time in the beginning (I assume she hoped each and every person walking through would release her).

She noticed another of my bosses dogs, Cappy, on the other side of the gate.

All this is to say that all but one of my co-workers were able to be in the break room, eat lunch, watch tv, and socialize without Stryker uttering a single noise. One even commented... "I had no idea there was a dog back here!"

She'd just met Cappy through the baby gate!

After her play session with Crow, she accidentally met one of the other Labs, as well as the Greyhound. (Due to the gate below being open. Thankfully both of those dogs are incredibly low-key about meeting other dogs and are Good Dogs in general.)

Ram is really good at sleeping. He's also got wonderful dog-dog skills.

Not-so-little Stryker was wonderful and wanted to keep playing with everyone. Today is the first day I asked for impulse control exercises during play. There was some initial vocalizing (whines) but she quickly learned the faster she sits and offers eye contact, the faster she gets to go play again.

She slept well the rest of the afternoon and we even visited Tractor Supply tonight on the way home from work. This is the first time I've taken her out in a store and she was absolutely thrilled by all the sights/sounds/smells. She was incredibly confused by the giant broom a worker was pushing so we watched it together and "talked" our way through it. She never stopped eating, she always turned to me after the click, and never went over the top trying to get people to pet her.

She should be tired, but she's not... :)

I AM the cute!

Fetch

(I'm posting out of focus pictures... ohnoes! I did NOT have my camera settings right tonight... I'll have to work on that some more!)

Tonight we took fetch "on the road!" She came into rescue understanding the "chase after it" but not the "bring it back so it can be thrown again" part. It's been a work in progress, a successful work in progress.

I started by shaping a retrieve. We either use a hunting-dog bumper or the wonderfully PINK Planet Dog "Fetch!" ball. Tonight's outside session was the ball, as she seems to enjoy the erratic bouncing of that more.

Camera Fail. Puppy Win.

She's been wearing her Gentle Leader while we do exciting things more often because I want to continue the "THIS MEANS FUN" associations. She's usually quite good about wearing it these days. That's why she's got a gentle leader, collar, and a Sure-Fit Harness (with long line attached) on at the same time.

The most important fetch rule is that she must be lying down before I throw it, and it must be an offered "platz" (lie down from a stand, not from a sit). She doesn't always get it right...

You throw ball now?

Sorry pumpkin, let's move over here...

Oh, right, you throw ball NOW!

Good girl!

I have a ball!

Fetch tonight was mostly a success. We still had some errors (they're mostly dropping the ball on the way back to me) but the successes were great! If she made it back to me with the ball, every one was a delivery to hand!

Silly puppy on leaf patrol!

She's a puppy.

We trained today, we always train to some degree. I even have video of training, but I was so happy watching her be a puppy today. She interacts with my dogs quite regularly now. They don't play with her, but the three of them can definitely co-exist.

She makes me laugh on a daily basis. The video is of Stryker, being a normal puppy. Enjoy!