Snarlfest 2010 update

We talked to the trainer about their little "affectionate" spat and he doesn't seem to be too concerned. He told us that we did the right thing by letting the dogs sniff outside first and that this is something they will grow out of. Right now, they are still getting used to living together.

We had guests over for dinner on Saturday night following their spat. Our friends brough two dogs with them - a shitzu and a shitzu-cairn terrier. We were prepared for this. Before our guests arrived, I walked Guinniess and Basil a couple of times around the block. Keith had Basil while I had Guinness on leashes. We kept them several feet apart.

Our guests rolled up. The dogs Dante and Comang arrivead and hopped out of the car. Basil and Guinness did the usual pulling on the leash to go towards the new arrivals. We reminded them to sit and tried to get them calm. Basil was fine. Basil got to go sniff the dogs first. Guinness was really jumpy and whining. After he was calm, he got to go sniff the dogs. We walked all of them into the open space of our back yard and one by one, we let the dogs off the leash.

Guinness was last to be let off the leash, but it didn't take long before he lost all interest and wanted to sniff and eat grass instead. I let him off the leash. He paid no mind to the other dogs. He and Basil sniffed and greeted the other dogs and there were no incidents for the whole night!

In addition, I'm training the boys to "Stay" reliable. Guinn knows "stay" but Basil doesn't so much. However Basil is better at staying once he sits while Guinn can't seem to focus on it. I'm training them to go sit in their "Spot" (in the corner away from the front door) so that I can approach the front door without crowding. I'm training them to not bark or jump at the front door when the doorbell rings as well.

Basil is really starting to get it. YAY! I ring the door bell. Basil barks "bark bark bark". I signal him to "go to your spot" and sit. Gets treat. I command him to "stay". I walk away, walk out, come back in. Basil is still sitting in his spot. I tell him "good boy! come!" He comes. He gets a treat. BOY, it's a lot of work! It's a constant process. I have to maintain that "I'm boss" all the time!

After 3 days of doing this repeatedly (15-20 times), Basil's "bark bark bark" became "bark". Once, he didn't bark at all!!! I was so proud. He even stayed put in his spot!

Basil vs. Paper

Interesting:

I mentioned how Basil doesn't like the sound of paper. When I read and flip a page, he gets very startled and begins barking and he's on edge. I always thought that I just startled him while he napped on my lap.

Another time, I was swatting some flies that got into the house with a magazine. I had the magazine in my hand and was waving it back and forth in the air. Basil got very nervous and ran inside his crate and was hiding out. :(

After that I realized why he didn't like the sound of paper. :( Being that he's a rescue and we don't know his full history I wonder if Basil got hit with a paper in his past life. Makes me so sad.

So to turn things around, I got out a bunch of small training treats. I sat with him and crunched paper and rubbed the paper in between my fingers over and over while I gave him little treats. Since then he hasn't jumped once at the sound of paper.

Bad Habits

It's funny how dogs can learn things from other dogs. I just never thought about it. Maui barks and growls at the front door whenever someone approaches. Basil has picked that up. I hope to break him of that habit because it's very ungentlefrenchielike (and annnnoying!)

Maui and Basil got into a fight over food two days in a row. We can see that Maui is trying to assert his dominance. He drinks all of Basil's water from Basil's water bowl but not his own. He also intentionally blocked Basil from drinking water from his bowl. I caught him doing that.

After their tiff over food, Basil wouldn't rest and seemed anxious. However Basil is still kissing, licking and wanting to play with Maui. Maui usually gets up and moves away from him, but he hasn't been aggressive. Today, we saw Maui likc Basil. I guess they are kissing and making up.

Basil is very playful

For the last couple of days, Basil has been very playful. I wonder if it's because I'm home due to the snow storm or because there's just been a lot of activity with people coming in and out working on our bathroom. He is always playful, but today he's especially playful running in circles and doing jumps in the air. He's also really exercising his freedom - testing his boundaries, going for my personal items, flying onto the bed from the love seat, flying off the bed, mouthing things he normally doesn't. We have to reel him back a little just to make sure he doesn't do anything that could hurt himself. He knows the house is our place and the yard is our place. But ever since he found out there was food over at Carmel's house, he's been taking the liberty of walking over there if we try to go for a walk and just hang out on their porch. When he is in Carmel's house, Keith and I are no longer pack leaders and he doesn't listen to us. He's just tracking their home and becomes alpha over Carmel (surprising for a big dog!).

Another thing we want to do is make him an area where he can go sit and lay in front of the window, so he can people watch. I found him sitting on our bed, ears all perched up looking out the window. There wasn't anyone outside, but he was just watching. Dogs like to do that. It's better than sleeping on the couch and staring at the floor.

Basil running away with the table cloth

This is too funny!

I guess I made the mistake of teaching this to Basil. I had an old sheet that I was getting ready to throw out the other night. I threw it over Basil and we started wrestling with it. I took video which I'll post soon. Well, we threw down these table cloths to protect the floor while we had our bathroom done this week. We look over and Basil is dragging this cloth away and playing with it as we were playing the other day with the old sheet.

DOH! I can't blame him for that!

No Barking - Success!

It's been a while since I have worked with Basil on not barking while in the car. The other morning, we were getting coffee at our usual watering hole when I implemented some advice from Cesar Milan's dog psychology.

• Remain calm and assertive. Clear your mind. Don't feel nervousness or anxiety.
• Anticipate the reaction and prevent it before it escalates.
• Keep him in check the whole time. Stay on it. Follow through.
  

So before Basil could start, I just kept an eye on him and as he eyed people down (with the anticipation to bark) I broke his concentration by making the "tsch" sound and a firm touch with two fingers to the shoulder. I gestured for him lay back down in his dog bed in the back of the car. He listened and was obedient the whole time. No barking what so ever! He did start growling and that's when he got the fingers. I was so shocked. There were a lot of men walking near the car including an SUV which seems to get him upset. He didn't bark at any of them.

In addition, Basil has been really good reading my body language and hand gestures. The hand gestures (commands) are really useful for me because my voice isn't deep like Keith's. When I say things, he doesn't listen so much. He does react to my hand gestures though. He and I have also been walking a lot and he definitely knows he suppose to walk next to me now.

Updates: Vacuumn, Blankie, Heat & Kisses

Some new things we discovered about life with Basil:

• The vacuumn! He's obviously unsure about the vacuumn and we know many dogs who are afraid of it. He's nervous and tried to attack the vacuum once. We don't want to encourage this behavior but we do need him to get used to it because I love/need to vacuumn. First, I left the vacuumn running for a while as white noise for him to get used to it. Then I turned it off but left it in the middle of the living room for a day. He played next to it and gave him treats but he was still avoiding it like the plague! He feels threatened when the vacuumn is going back and forth TOWARDS him. So now I vacuumn and make my way across the room walking backwards with my back to him instead of going forward across the room. He feels far less threatened with me between him and the vacuumn. Yesterday, he went up to it when it was on and tapped it with his paws like he's going to grab his toy or something. So I stopped moving it and let him sniff and test it. He's still very alert when the vacuumn is on, but at least it's progress.
  
• He's been sleeping in bed with us for 2 weeks now and he's getting "better" - less snoring, no licking in bed and he's found a comfy spot to sleep that doesn't bother us...too much.
• He sleeps against me most of the time. He lays with his butt on the pillow and his head in my neck and shoulder right up against my cheek.
  
• He still loves our peach silk comforter and we've found him going underneath it in the middle of the night! We wake up in a panic like "Where did he go? Did we smother him?" We find him rolled up like a doggie burrito making the comforter into a sorta cave for himself.
  
• He likes to bury his face when he sleeps which makes me nervous because of their snouts.
• We found that he'll stop whatever he's doing to go lay in front of the register when the heat turns on in the house. He'll lay on his side and fall asleep.
• He knows when we're leaving to go out. I put on lotion with a fragrance so he knows I'm gettin' pretty to go out without him. I read that it also acts as assurance that I'll come back as well.
  
• We gave him a new water bowl. It's a deep mixing bowl and he seems to like that more when he was at Maui's house. He can drink more easily and water doesn't splash everywhere.
• I'm teaching him to "heel" and to walk beside me at all times. I read it should take only 15 mins a day to train him to do this. It's been frustrating but by the 3rd day he was getting it. I used little salmon treats and I have to have his full attention. At times, there have been too many cars and children around. I'm thinking of changing up our route so he doesn't "know" where we are going so he has to follow me instead of leading.
  
• We found out that if Keith and I are laying on the couch together he stops and has to get in between us and licks both of us and must be involved with "the play". The same way he was when all the foster dogs were here with Debbie. If one dog ran to Debbie for attention, they would all go up for attention. So now we'll tease him and sit together and hug and make kissy noises and he'll jump right up and do the same!
• He wasn't very happy during new year's. The fireworks and loud noises really scared him. He was nervous and shaking! For the past 2 days, he's been on edge. Any noise like the paper bags, garbage, etc. he's jumping up and barking. We've put music on and we've been commanding him to not bark (the way we do in the car) so hopefully he'll get over this phase.
  

Tough Love: Barking II

We take Basil out with us as much as we can. We go for coffee or pop into the store to rent a movie. One of us always stays in the car with him, but when the car is idle and people are around that's when the barking starts.

Of the 5 Tips for handling barking, this is what Cesar says that we think applies to us:

"Correct and follow through! Tell your dog to stop barking using a look, a sound, or a physical correction. But don't stop there. Your dog may pause and then go right back to what he was doing. His body relaxed, but his brain was still on alert. Be patient. Wait until your dog completely submits before you go back to what you were doing."

We decided to park at a Shop Rite. There's enough people, but no one would think I'm crazy for being there. I left the car running because it's freezing out! As men walked by, Basil jumps up and begins barking, then it winds down to a sound that an otter makes and then into a whine.

Immediately, we threw him a fierce look and made a "tsch" sound. That's the sound to get him to stop whatever it is he is doing and that we don't like it. Right away he backed down. I stuck with it, continuing to look at him in the face, and then commanded that he sit and lay down in the car. We kept doing this as another person went by and another. Keith left the car. Someone came by and he was "ferociously" barking and jumping all over the back seat following the person from window to window. Again, I made the "tsch" sound, stayed calm, and quietly told him to sit down and I stuck with it continuing to face him. He wasn't as quick to calm down as when it was with both of us in the car. I had to use the "two fingers" and tap him to get him to chill out. When he laid back down, I praised him.

It worked! 4 more people went by and he didn't bark at them. A man came right next to the car and Basil was really upset by that (understandably) and began barking. Again, we just repeated what I mentioned above. We forgot to bring treats with us so next time we'll do it again with treats. Betty's mom gave Basil these training treats when he came to join our family and he LOVES them! It's real pieces of salmon too!

Next time, we're going to run him around and give him lots of exercise before going for a car ride and see if he still barks at people. If barking is pent up energy then we'll see if this makes a difference.

Tough Love: Barking I

Tego's parents are big believers in Cesar Millan's methods. We've learned quite a few things from them and they work! So I began listening to Cesar Millan's tips on youtube through my phone while I'm at work. One of his big things is "Being the Pack Leader". Be a leader, be alpha and don't forget that your dog is a dog, not a human. Basically, Cesar Millan tells you the dog's perspective so you can understand where they are coming from and you can treat/train your dog accordingly.

Our latest priority is getting Basil NOT to bark at people while we're in the car. He loves his car rides! He knows the word "Ride" and he gets very excited about it. While we're driving he "sits" or curls up into a ball and doozes off. But once we're parked and one of us leave the car, he barks feriously at anyone who walks or gets too close to the car. At first, we thought he was being protective of me (which can still be part of it), but then it just got annoying and frenchies don't typically bark. If they are barking, then there's something going on. We don't want to be THOSE people with the annoying dog.

One method: My friend S trained his 13 week old German Sherpard this way. GS are a different type of dog all together. They are incredibly smart. It takes S 30 minutes to teach his dog anything! Amazing! He said to cover the back windows of your car, then allow your friends or whomever is crazy enough to help you to walk by and when your dog barks, hold up a sheet or towel to block his view. Then bring it down, let him see the person again. Repeat if he keeps barking. When he finally stops barking, give him a treat. This takes a great deal of patience! And I don't have any friends willing to stand outside in 32 degree weather right now.

Another method: Simply make a sound or a look to let your dog know this behavior is unacceptable. Stay calm, don't yell, but take control of the situation. Repeat. This is what Cesar suggests and what Tegos parents suggested as well.

This is what Cesar says about Barking.

We are going to try it out and see how it goes. To be continued.

Super Basil! Healed By The Sun!

Click here to view this video