Who's being trained here?

Our goal: two calm and obedient pups

Today I finished the book the trainer wanted me to read, On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals. It's quite an easy and quick read and has a completely different philosophy from other dog training books that I've read, mostly in that dogs need positive reinforcement to give positive actions and reactions to things in their world.

In general this seems to be how the Swiss view dog training- no punishment, threats or punitive action, just rewards for positive behavior. I personally find this very challenging. As I sit here typing, Tanner is kind of growling/whining at me and I at least would like to send him a glare to let him know that this is not okay. But no can do…I need to just ignore, even going to the extent to turn my back on him and walking into the other room. And yes, it's hard.

The other part of this is learning what your dogs' calming signals are, or in other words, how they attempt to calm themselves and other dogs/people in their environment down. Over the past few days I've been trying to observe both Tanner and Toby in various situations to determine how they calm themselves and others. Calming signals include moving slowly, moving in an arc, sitting or lying down when approached, freezing, turning their head away, yawning, licking, lifting a paw or licking others' faces. It's actually pretty interesting and you can typically pick up on their signals pretty quickly.

All that to say, we've been working on these things today. I switched to longer leashes so they don't get jerked every time we see another dog (a negative association with other dogs), been giving treats if we pass a dog or human calmly and giving rewards if they ignore noises inside the apartment when they would normally growl or bark. And I have to say, it does seem to be a little calmer in our life.

The other thing I've done since we saw the trainer last week is bring the stroller upstairs. The bassinet part is on the floor in the dining room with one of Baby K's blankets in it and the base is now in her room. I'm not really sure what to do with it now. Outside of the one little misstep below, the dogs pretty much just ignore it.

Not what the trainer had in mind...

I also finished some of my "dog homework" and sent it to the trainer so she could look at it before we meet again on Thursday. I responded to questions like, How do your dogs react to adults; How do your dogs react to children; Do your dogs have problems with resources (are they possessive); What if they don't get what they want; and other similar questions. Hopefully tomorrow and Thursday will continue to improve and we will be given more things to work on.

Can't you just see it now…two calm weenie dogs, me and BK enjoying a sweet Baby K, who has adapted perfectly to the planned sleep schedule, and all is well in the world. Um, yeah…we'll keep dreaming! But hey, I guess it's at least worth a shot!