I’m pretty sure Ashley has never seen snow before (she’s not quite 8 months old), but she seems only mildly interested. Pretty unimpressed, actually.
2022-11-15 08:31
Tag: dog
Dog barking
I heard a tip some years back about how to handle dog barking. It made sense, and so I’d always planned to go with it if I got a dog. Trying it with just one pet isn’t much of an experiment, but it seems to be working, so I thought I’d describe it.
The basic thesis is this: You cannot teach your dog not to bark. Your dog has 10,000 years of evolution saying that an approaching stranger is a potential malefactor who must be barked at. You cannot train them out of this.
However, you can train them that they only need to bark until the pack leader has been made aware of the intruder, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
When Ashley spots someone who needs to be barked at, I hurry over to where she is and praise her profusely: “Good dog! You have alerted us as to the presence of a potential malefactor! That is exactly what you’re supposed to do! You’re the best! Have a treat!”
During the time that I’m praising her, Ashley will quit barking. She’ll also not bark while she’s eating her treat. Usually by the time the praise and treat are over the potential malefactor will have moved along, so there’s no need for more barking.
Occasionally (especially in these days of cell phones) the potential malefactor will still be in view outside the window, and Ashley will go on barking, but I try not to respond further. The essential lesson here is that she only needs to bark until I have been alerted, and that further barking is pointless.
Ashley has barked at any number of potential malefactors, but she has not barked so much as to be annoying to us or our neighbors. So, it’s looking like a win so far.
2022-11-09 08:38
One of the many advantages of living here at Winfield Village is that we have a dog park!
2022-11-08 11:44
How it started: Ashley got up from the sofa and came over as if she wanted to sit in my lap in my chair. There really isn’t room though, so I thought I’d move over to the sofa, where we could more easily sit together.
How it’s going:
2022-11-08 7:54
That bag will never be the same, Ashley.
(We could have rescued the bag before it was destroyed, but we’d already rescued many other things, and this one just didn’t seem worth the trouble)
2022-11-06 05:04
No doubt foolish of me, but when I adopted a puppy of a breed mix reported to be “high energy,” I expected more in the way of long brisk walks, and less in the way of having my hands and feet nibbled while I tried to do useful stuff.
Checking all the things
For years now, I’ve had a procedure that I go through just before going to bed, in which I check that both the front door and the sliding glass door are locked, that the toaster oven is unplugged (we had a near-catastrophe some years ago when the controls in the toaster oven got caught in a string bag that had been put on the counter), that the stove and oven are off, that the downstairs windows are closed and latched, and that the thermostat is adjusted to the proper nighttime temperature. I call it “Checking all the things.”
Last night, as I was getting ready to go to bed, Ashley (our new li’l pupper) wanted to go into the patio, so I opened the sliding glass door. She ran out, and then ran once around the perimeter fence, and then came right back in again. It didn’t take much more than 15 seconds.
My insight into dog brains is limited, but it sure looked to me like she was “checking all the things” out on the patio.
A very appropriate activity for a dog.
2022-11-03 06:16
Jackie and I now have a new li’l pupper. Meet Ashley, a 7-month old black lab mix from the Champaign Humane Society:
