[nagdu] Hubby distraction 2.0 and a question

Daryl Marie crazymusician at shaw.ca
Sat Aug 2 15:21:14 UTC 2014


Hey, Tami,
We've seen improvement in the calmness when we get home from work; but if I am home and hubby gets home, we're still working on her remaining calm. So when he comes home I send her to her bed, and this is improving all the time. She is not allowed to greet him until she's calmed down and stopped wiggling.  Thankfully he will ignore her behavior entirely, so he is not encouraging it at all.

Thanks for the encouragement!  Heck, I'm thrilled that she hasn't been whining at him!
Probably going to go for a walk with her this afternoon and have him meet us along the route unexpectedly. Work with her that way, and just build up from there.
I think the other part of this is that we see him en route so rarely that it's so exciting for her. She does fine if we're all out shopping/eating/whatever together, but if I am at a bus station and he picks me up, etc., then all bets are off.

Pluggin' away!

Daryl
----- Original Message -----
From: Tami Jarvis <tami at poodlemutt.com>
To: Daryl Marie <crazymusician at shaw.ca>, NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 09:14:40 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Hubby distraction 2.0 and a question

Daryl,

Sounds like you're on the right track and can just extend what you're 
doing. Another thing that might help is if you have Jenny remain calm 
and businesslike for a moment or two when you first get home, then take 
off the harness and let her go get her daddy love.

My problem was training the hubby not to encourage Mitzi to get excited 
and jump on him when she saw him in the store. Eeeek! I mean, so 
everybody thinks it's all cute and stuff... We're a guide dog team, not 
a sideshow! /lol/ Now she will wag and wiggle some when she sees him and 
maybe do her soft happy huff, but it's not out of hand. The bright side 
is that when we're shopping for different things at the same place, I 
can always find him again by asking her to find him. /smile/

Keep up the good work!

Tami

On 08/02/2014 06:06 AM, Daryl Marie via nagdu wrote:
> Hi!
> Mi culpa! My husband and I started a bad habit with Jenny - having him bond with her by allowing her to be happy and wiggly when we get home (off-harness). Unfortunately this has translated into spazziness and whining on the rare occasion that we see him out and about in-harness.  Ultimately, this is what caused me to start evaluating whether corrections work for her.
> My husband has been on holidays the past couple weeks, but unfortunately the heat has made it nearly impossible to do training outside. Thankfully by the end of this week, things have cooled down, and I started training her with positive reinforcement.
>
> I was at a store in the mall looking at purses, and was talking with the owner about my dog. I did forewarn her that Jenny might get wiggly when my husband came by to meet me, and she said that was fine, thanks for warning her. Jenny didn't react until hubby was basically right in front of her, but then she got up and wiggled. I was able to get her to sit and go around the other way *which she did calmly and beautifully). Unfortunately for the rest of the excursion at the mall she was more focused on showing her excitement than keeping her head.
>
> So I got to thinking: OK, start small!
> I had her on-leash in our living room and had her walk calmly with me around that area while hubby was in his chair. Took a couple of tries, but she got it.
> That night, we did a little exercise when hubby came out of our friend's house, and Jenny barely reacted at all! She didn't whine (I treated), sat calmly while we talked, then walked calmly to the car.
>
> Then yesterday, I asked hubby to be sitting on the steps in front of the house when I came home from work.  Jenny tried to get all wiggly, so we went back to the end of the driveway to try again. Praised for steady pace and focus, then she tried to run to him. Back to the end of the driveway...
> Take 3: Calmly walked toward hubby, sat down in front of him. I told her to find the steps, so she started to take me around the side of the house (hubby was sprawled all over the stairs). She got loads of praise and a couple of treats! Again, NO WHINING!
>
> I guess my next question is this: where do we go from here? I want to keep working with her on this, but want to do a session or two more before I think she understand what I want from her. Any ideas? I know Nicole emailed me off-list, but I can't find the email.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Daryl and Jenny
>
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