(90) New Dog, Old Trick

Whew! Short, sweet and wild. We had a great but too short visit with Brad's 'rents. When Brad's 'rents visit they come with their Pecan, Bridget. She's a small mixed breed dog, that is part Pekingese and part Bichon Frise. Get it? Pekon? Anyway, Bridget is a 20 pounds or so of a lap dog wanna be. She has great personality and isn't easily intimidated by the big dogs. However, her favorite past time or entertainment when she comes to our house is to chase Chez, our cat. They are about the same size although Bridget outweighs Chez, and the two are highly curious about one another. It was great fun to watch Bridget chase Chez, and Beeker try to engage Bridget, and Max concerned about all of the activity. Our group of dogs adapted well to each other even though they had not been together for a long while. Dogs are great about remembering scents of others. When we returned from dinner, and had settled down with our night caps, I showed off Max and Beeker's current tricks of "rollover". They are getting so good at rolling over, and they LOVE the sweet potato so much that Max started rolling over when I was working with Beeks. We introduced Bridget to sweet potatoes and frozen green beans. She loved them. Then I got a wild hair and decided to teach Bridget to roll over. This turned out to be more than a 5 minute teaching moment. First off Bridget doesn't just sit when told to sit. So I worked with her to just get her to sit when she was given the command to sit. This took many repetitions and lots more sweet potato bits. She did get to the point that she would sit, when she understood what I wanted her to do.I have to admit that it is difficult for any dog to sit on the wood floor. Then I started working with her on the sit to down part. This was much more difficult. Bridget would get into the sit position and then when I signaled her to down, with my hand moving to the ground she would stand up to put her nose to the floor, trying to get the treat. Usually to get the dog to "down", I either have to move the treat directly down to the floor from the dog's nose, then out, and the dog's nose follows. Or as in the case of Beeker, I had to move the treat down and then back, in towards the dogs body. The dog will then move its head and lay down. Max learned best from the down and forward movement and Beeks from the down and back hand movement. Bridget didn't follow either. she kept standing up. Then I decided to stop talking to her and to only reward her when she got the movement correct. This worked much better for her. I think I was confusing her with all of the talk and switching of commands. After she got the sit, down movement the first time, she got it correct about every fourth or fifth time. This was similar to when I was working with Beeker and the hoop. I was then motivated to continue with her knowing that she could do it. Together we did it about 50 trials and then took a break. She was still motivated which told me she was a quick learner. Her interest was high. She played with Chez some more and then we tried it again, I wanted her to have the sit-down reinforced and this diversion worked well to see if she really remembered it. We didn't get any further with the rollover because she had learned so much and I thought that it was important that she got the sit-down really embedded to start. Roll over will be for another time. I was so proud of her.
When we all said good night and went to bed, guess where Bridget slept? Yep, right with us in the dog pile. She jumped right up on the bed and took Chez's place. Chez was highly put out but Bridget refused to move and well, she was so comfortable with all of the other dogs we didn't have the heart to move her. She hunkered down and that was it. No moving her. As Brad fell asleep he commented, "better a dog then a cat!". He just loves to get me going! Chez finally did come up on the bed and slept near Beeker at the end of the bed. What a dog pile.