A Day at the Park

Today Chipper and I went to Stratham Hill Park for a nice walk in the woods. We had a great time climbing the big hill all the way to the top. I was a bit too slow for Chipper in the beginning and he kept turning and looking at me like "HURRY UP!!! I have sniffing to do!"


Once we got to the top of the hill, I sat in the grass while Chipper rolled in the grass and sniffed around.



We continued on down the trails and we found this tree. Chipper must have thought it was as interesting as I thought it was. He wouldn't stop sniffing it!


Finally, we made it down to the lake where Chipper tried to get the ducks.

The most exciting part of our trip today was that we crossed the paths of several children, quite a few fellow hikers, a few dogs and a jogger. Not once did my boy freak out and have a melt down! Including when the jogger passed us within ~2 feet (WHY do they jog that close?!?) and then realized he missed his turn, so he jogged in a U-Turn about 4 feet from us, yelled out to me "Missed my turn!" and jogged right back at us. Chipper was cool as a cucumber the whole time this guy "charged us"! YAY Chipper! I am a happy dog mom and clearly, Chipper is a happy dog:

Tug, perhaps?

Chipper does not play. At all. He doesn't like toys and he doesn't play with any objects at all. In fact, he gets quite put off if play is offered from a human or another dog. But, I have felt that play is something that he needs to learn to do. It's fun to let loose and it's fun to play. Somehow, someday, my uptight little Chow boy will learn to let loose. There have been signs of play creeping in over the last few years as I have worked with him on different toys.

Well, lately tug has been my game of choice.

We have been skipping Chipper's walks lately. I hate walking him in the road salt and he hasn't really been up for his regular walks. So, we have been doing much more training. He's been really jazzed up for training, so I decided to work full on with teaching him to tug. Brad bought him a Kong braided stuffy for Christmas, which is perfect for sharp little Chow teeth. It's soft, but won't fall apart when bitten. So, I started with clicking any time he looked at it. We worked up to contact, then nose bopping and then open mouth near it, then the toy in his mouth over the last few days.

Tonight, Chipper was SUPER feisty. So, I got out the stuffy. He remembered exactly where we left off and started to clamp down on the toy. Once, he was really excited and clamped down, anticipated the click and jumped back with the toy still in his mouth! Click and Jackpot!!!

From that point on, I was getting bite with a bit of pulling! YAY!!!!

Then he started to get too excited and started to cough, so we took a break. I looked at him after a bit and he has little tiny tired eyes, so I called it a night.

I have the day off tomorrow (potential snow day :) ) so I will try a few short sessions with him. Maybe I can get him to tug by the end of the week!!!! Keep your fingers crossed!

Resource Guarding

When we first adopted Chipper, it wasn't very long before we realized that he had what we dubbed "food aggression". He was growly, grumbly, barky and overall grumpy around food. When we finally found our trainer, we discovered that Chipper was not "food aggressive" but an overall resource guarder. He guarded anything and everything that he deemed valuable. He guarded food, treats, chews, space, "his" house, "his" car, "his" leash and collar, and worst of all, me.

With a lot of work from our trainer and a lot of reading (especially Jean Donaldson's "The Culture Clash" and "Mine!") we worked through a lot of his guarding. We started by removing all resources and gradually introducing them back into his life as we established some boundaries, rules and expectations. I was first. I cut off all contact with me. Brad fed Chipper, walked him, did everything. I completely ignored Chipper for weeks while Brad did all the work. Amazingly, Chipper learned that all things good were coming from Brad and just like that, their relationship improved and Chipper learned that I did not need to be guarded from Brad.

We worked on kibble. Chipper was hand fed for months. He worked for every bite of food. It was kinda two birds with one stone. Chipper learned basic commands (sit, down, eye contact) while we worked on his guarding of food. It worked and now he rarely guards his kibble. When he does guard his kibble, I can say "Chipper, all done." and go over and take the bowl away. He guards it, he loses it. Period.

We worked our way up through his hierarchy of food. Biscuits, jerky, bully sticks, pig ears, people food and more all needed to be worked through individually. Each one was a bit easier than the prior resource, but each still required it's own program of work.

I deemed Chipper a "recovering resource guarder" about a year ago. The way I see it is that he will always have the propensity to guard. He will guard any new resource that he deems valuable. When he is grumpy, he will tend to guard. If we allow him to guard, even a little bit, he will fall off the wagon and return to his guarding ways. This has happened a few times and we simply stepped back a bit in the resource guarding program. Usually after a few days of hand feeding, everything returns to normal.

A couple of months ago, I decided that it was time to conquer our Everest; the Raw Meaty Bone. I bought a few from our local butcher and tossed them in the freezer. didn't quite have the nerve to give one to him. As winter approached, our walks decreased. There's only so much training that I can do with him, especially during the week. He does well with Kongs and a few other chews, but it was getting a bit boring for him. So, we started a RMB (raw meaty bone) program.

The bones were a huge hit with Chipper. He LOVED them! But he was not yet allowed to have them on his own. We worked for about a month or so and finally I allowed him to have one all to himself. He chewed on that bone for an hour. I took it away a few times and gave it back. I traded him biscuits for his bone and he was happy to do so. When I decided he was all done, I got his attention and asked him to step away from the bone. I took the bone and immediately gave him a jackpot of cookies. He was quite happy with that and slept for the next three hours!

I am so happy to have worked all the way up his resource hierarchy. RMBs have been a life saver this winter. Chipper LOVES them and he sleeps so soundly after he chews one. Who would have ever thought that my little resource guarder would ever be trusted enough to be allowed to eat his own raw meaty bone! WOOHOOO!

The Beach

Today was my Friday off from work. We woke up, looked out the window and it was a balmy 35F! But the important part was that it was sunny! I cleaned the house a bit and then Chipper and I headed out to the beach. We drove up to York Beach in Maine. They allow dogs on the beach all winter and during restricted hours in the summer. Chipper had a blast and finally learned a few new things!

He waded into the water (I can't imagine how cold that was!) to get seashells. He pounced a couple of them and pulled them to safety, outside of the water. Much to his dismay, all of the shells were empty.

Chipper also learned that seagulls are fun to chase! Almost as fun as squirrels! We chased quite a few gulls, but all got away :(

Here are some pictures from today:

More Snow!

I had the day off from work today. I have a dentist appointment this afternoon and I'm going to give Chipper a little test. I'm going to leave the door of his crate open for the first time while he is home alone! I hope he does well and doesn't have a panic attack. To prepare, I wanted to make sure my boy was nice and tired. So, we bundled up and headed out for a long walk in the snow. One of the fun things about walking him when it's still snowing is that whenever the snow piles fall off the tree branches, Chipper thinks it's prey and pounces it. It's rather entertaining.

Here are some pictures from our walk in the snow today:

SNOW!

We got a heck of a snowstorm today! It started raining yesterday and rained all night. It turned to snow overnight and we woke up to 6 inches of snow on the ground. The wind was howling and the snow was coming down sideways! Chipper does NOT like the snow. I tried to take him out a couple of times, but he wanted nothing to do with a walk.

I decided that it was too terrible out to drive to work, so I did some work from home while Chipper laid at the top of our stairs pouting. I took him out a few more times and he wanted nothing to do with it. I ended up going to work for a couple hours and by the time I got home, Chipper seemed ready for a walk. But no. He could NOT believe that there was STILL snow on the ground!

Instead of walks, I decided to work on something new tonight. Chipper is not a big player and toys are not his thing. But he has been showing some interest lately. I figured maybe I could teach him to squeak a squeaky toy. I grabbed my clicker, a string cheese and a squeaky rubber Christmas tree. I figured the best way to do it was via targeting. He caught on pretty quickly and we made it to the point where he was nosing the toy and he was also pawing it. It was about that time when I was starting to lose him, so I wrapped up our session by running through a few of his best tricks.

Hopefully soon he will be squeaking away! Since it's supposed to snow for the next few days, perhaps he will be squeaking the toys by the end of the week!

Chipper in the snow:

The Way Things Work

Chipper went to the groomer today. While he was gone, Brad and I were talking about Chipper. I am concerned that we are leaving him home too long when we both have to work. It's a long day for him. We discussed changing my hours, but I would have to go in very early for it to be beneficial for Chip. We decided maybe it was worth it and I will see if it is feasible.

I went to go pick Chipper up from the groomer and they had a little form for me. it was a survey to see how they can better serve their customers. One of the questions was something along the lines of "Would you be interested in doggy day care?" Holy cow. These are the ONLY people in the world that I trust Chipper alone with. We did a ton of work to make sure everyone was comfortable before his first grooming. We did something like 6-8 weeks of social visits before I left him there alone. Chipper loves them and they seem to love him. They are very patient with him and they are very understanding of his issues. He gets along with the dogs at grooming, but does play "fun police" with them and busts up the play when things are getting too rowdy (in Chipper's opinion).

I asked if they were looking into daycare. She said yes, if there was enough customer interest. I asked if they would take Chipper for day care and she said "Of course!" Oh. My. God. I am so excited! I hope they do it! She said they would need to relocate since their current place is too small to do grooming and daycare. We chatted a bit about it and I told her I would definitely love to send Chip to daycare a few days a week. It would be so great if he could get out of the house a few days a week! And this would solve our problem of Chippy being home too long by himself.

Funny how Brad and I were just talking about how we hate leaving Chipper home alone and now the only people I would trust him with are considering opening a doggy day care!

Keep your fingers crossed! I know I am!

The picture up top is my boy with his new hair cut.