A light goes on

Kenzie is 7 months old now and she was actually of assistance!  Other than walking and scooting around, so far most of the training has been games and set up situations.  But a real situation requiring assistance came up!  Kenzie and I had been out to an appointment.  I had loaded us all into the car and settled myself into the drivers seat only to find that I was missing the car keys.  They were in the back beside Kenzie.  So I told her ‘get my keys!’ and she nosed them once or twice and then picked them up.  I told her ‘bring them to me, in my hand’, and sure enough she reached forward and dropped them into my hand.  Actually assistance.  It seems like a small thing.  But it is the first. 

We have been working hard on the issues Kenzie has with children, barking and rushing towards them.  Kenzie and I have spent time lurking around the local schools and daycares, sometimes just watching sometimes playing ourselves, always outside the fence.  

And then we had the BIG practices of 2 large family events this weekend.  Thanksgiving at a house with 5 children, from ages 4 months to 4 years, 4 of them were mobile.  Kenzie was pretty good considering it was a very very long time.  We broke up the time by giving her breaks and play outside, and we mostly let her sit removed from the crowd when inside, with shorter times sitting in the crowd.  The culmination and biggest challenge came at the end : a glow-in-the-dark party.  The kids took out a bunch of glow sticks and bracelets, turned out the lights, put on music and started jumping, spinning, and swinging the sticks around.  And Kenzie was GREAT!  She just stayed where she was and watched even when they were right beside her. 

The second events was even crazier, a birthday for a 1-yr old, with about 10 small kids (all under 5), more adults, and another dog.  It was planned for outside but with rain we all had to be inside; it was described as human sardines.  We kept Kenz in a side area off the main room where all the kids were.  She was reasonably well behaved.  Of course, both these events required V or I to be sitting with Kenz and holding her leash and reminding her to lay down and be quiet.  (And telling her how great she is.)

And today we graduated to being inside the schoolyard during lunch hour.  I positioned Kenzie between a planter and my scooter so that she could feel protected and not see in all directions at once.  She was again, pretty good.  One little girl came up and said ‘It’s her first day inside!  She’s doing really well.  I remember when she used to bark at us.’  This was coming from a 5 yr old.  It’s nice that the kids recognize us and know what we’re doing but it’s the adults I worry about, that they’ll think I’m a pedophile hanging around the schoolyard chatting with kids.  Maybe I watch too many crime shows.

And … The light goes on!  Kenzie has had a lightboard to practice on since Monday night.  It is a board with a light switch on one side and a big red ‘easy’ button on the other side.  When you hit the button it says “that was easy.”  Dogs are supposed to hit it with their nose.  Now, we have a problem with this.  Yes, Kenzie can touch the button with her nose.  But she also knows that she can make it make the sound with her paw.  Since she has learned her paw isn’t what we want, it’s her nose, but we do want the noise, she has decided to hit the button with her paw and her nose at the same time.

Today, while I was writing this, for the first time ever, Kenzie came to lay at my feet while I was on the computer.  She has been with us for 3 months and she has never been so inclined before.  Even when I have tried to get her to stay under my desk to practice for a work environment, she has really resisted and left as soon as I would let her.  She’s a bit slow to warm up, my Kenzie.

PS – 2 days later.  We ‘un-graduated’ back out of the schoolyard because Kenzie was having a particularly barky day.  But on the good news front – when walking on a leash Kenzie seems to be able to walk past other dogs who have been left tied up on the sidewalk outside of stores.  She just walks right on by!  And we’ve tried the light switch section of the light board and she got it in the first session.  She still doesn’t want to hit the easy button with her nose and prefers to just touch it with her nose while hitting it with her paw.  She gets quite perturbed when she knows she’s made the sound but I won’t give her a treat.  And that’s all for this week!  I should post this before I have to add another post script…