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Bing Blog #5



				"Progress" -- November 23, 2005 WOOHOO!!!! My last blog outlined Bing’s latest training challenge for me. I think it’s time to update you on his wonderful progress! I had mentioned that I came upon Jean Donaldson’s protocol for “Head Restraint and Mouth Exam Sample Hierarchy”. Interestingly, this 60+ step protocol can be found in her book, “Mine! A Practical Guide to Resource Guarding in Dogs”. While Bing has his own set of weird things he does, resource guarding is NOT one of them! I saw to that from the moment I brought him home; each time he got something in his mouth that was “illegal”, I clapped my hands, got all happy, celebrated with him, told him how proud I was that he had that item, and he brought it to me! I also would trade him the items for a treat. Now, the worst that he does (and it is something we actually think is mostly cute) is to take my shoe to his bed. He doesn’t do anything with it; he just takes it to his bed. Awww! Anyway, I began to implement this protocol for head handling because of Bing’s response to his last vet visit. I do believe that he was going through a fear period, was in some discomfort, and behaved in a manner that kept the ‘mean’ people away. This is NOT a temperament issue, but it IS learned behavior. Now we have to unlearn it, and teach a new response.
	To give you an example of the protocol, here is step 1: “Place hand on dog’s rear for 1 second. Deliver treat to dog with opposite hand, pause, then repeat. Always incorporate pauses and long dead periods to rule out yourself and your smelly bait bag as the best predictors of the goodies coming. Practice in a variety of locations.” As you can see, this is a rather intensive program! Learning is maximized through long sessions. I began the program on Tuesday night. On Wednesday night, we went to show handling class. The instructor was able to run her hand all the way down his back, pet him on the side of the face, tweak his nose, and inspect his testicles. WOW! In addition, he is learning to tolerate my showing his teeth to the judge. That’s my man! Encouraged, I continued the program as much as time allowed. On Monday, I took Acacia to the vet to have blood drawn for her thyroid test, and to get her Bordatella shot. I am not a fan of any vaccine, but this time it’s necessary because I need to board her and Bing. I brought Bing along for the ride, so I could continue our protocol in the ‘scary’ environment. When the vet tech brought us into the exam room, she asked how Bing is doing. I was able to report that he’s much improved! But I also asked her to ignore him, that he was here for the ride. We got to talking about the vaccine, and she told me that they are using the subcutaneous shot now, but that Bing will need two shots, 2-3 weeks apart. Oy. I had just told her that we wouldn’t be doing anything with Bing today, and suddenly that was going to change. We agreed that we were both up for trying to give Bing his first Bordatella shot. Fortunately, I had my trusty squeeze cheese in a can with me, so I took him gently by the collar, offered up the cheese, and Bingo! That was it! He was definitely aware of her touching him on the back, but didn’t turn around, didn’t flinch, didn’t even have large eyes! I was so proud of him!!!!
					I realize that I pushed him early. I recognize that we might have a backslide. But I was so excited by his wonderful behavior that I continue to be encouraged by the work that we are doing. By the way, he happily let the staff pet him while he was there. He was a bit leery of Dr. Draper, the male vet who examined his ears way back when. But otherwise he was one good boy.
		We have progressed to step 21 of the protocol, placing one hand on the dog’s withers and one hand on the back of the neck for 10 seconds. For those of you who think that this is no big deal, or those of you who think that you have a dog with no handling issues, try step 7: place one hand on dog’s back for 30 seconds. The dog is supposed to tolerate it, without fidgeting, and wait for the reward. I would consider it cheating to try this when the dog is lying down, relaxing. No! Try it when the dog is hovering around you, as my dogs often do. Hard, isn’t it? ;0) In addition, Bing is much more tolerant of people coming up to him to pet him. I must admit that I sort of hold my breath now when people reach for him. But my friend Marie came over on Sunday (she hasn’t seen Bing since he was about 3 months old and was unaware of his nip response) and she bent right over, petting him all over, and he reached up and gave her kisses on her chin! WOOHOO!!! Again, I believe that some of this was a fear period, and then he had learned that he could control people by reacting this way, but having done some of this work with him, he is now learning that it’s not necessary. And I’m doing it without any corrections at all! I will continue to keep you all posted on his progress (ups and downs). And, for the record, Bing now travels almost completely silently in his crate in the car when he’s either alone or if Acacia is with him. Acacia is a rather imposing influence on him; all she has to do is look at him and he clams right up. I often deliberate with myself whether this is desirable or not, but since I believe that dogs can communicate more effectively with each other than humans can with dogs, Acacia is doing the right thing by telling him, in no uncertain terms, to STAY QUIET!!! Bing still gets ridiculously barky if he is in the car with Montana, so I have to make sure that those times are still few and far between, and that his Kong is sufficiently stuffed. I also am spraying his crate with Comfort Zone, putting Mimulus in the drinking water, and giving him Veterinarian’s Best Comfort Calm. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but we are all feeling much better about all of our challenges! Ali Jeannette Hawkins responds: You wrote: "Acacia is a rather imposing influence on him; all she has to do is look at him and he clams right up. ...[she] is doing the right thing by telling him, in no uncertain terms, to STAY QUIET!!!" I see no reason whatsoever for you to think that this is something undesirable for Acacia to be doing. The first moment of the first communication may have been a "sit down and shut up" thing, but I'll bet that it immediately morphed into "There's no need for you to panic. I'm here. I'll take care of whatever needs doing." Benevolent leadership. It sounds a lot like what Abby (bullmastiff) used to do with Akbar, who would go into a hissy fit at the fence when somebody walked by, and then go after the youngish Buffy, telling her to keep away from the dangerous kid-with-a-basketball, baby-in-a-stroller, fisherman, whatever. As we know, Abby doesn't mind getting aggressive with other dogs -- she perceives a problem and deals with it, and if she overreacts, it's "Well, oops, gee, sorry, why don't you ask mom for a Band-Aid?" But in this case, Abby started barging in in impeccable bullmastiff fashion (use whatever force is necessary, but no more than necessary), telling Akbar that if he wanted to bite somebody, he could darn well bite her. And what happened was a bit of noise, a bit of spit, but no biting at all. It progressed to a simple coming-between -- this took a couple of weeks -- and eventually to Abby simply touching her chin to his shoulder -- not a sustained dominance thing, but a quick "hey, I'm here," and finally all that was needed was for Akbar to look and see Abby standing near him, and he'd calm down. I try to do my part by calling Akbar to me, away from the fence, and rewarding him when he does. The times that he's come running without being called, and with maybe just one bark, have resulted in big-time jackpots. He's not perfect yet, and may never be, but he's a lot better than he used to be. The bonus is that the other dogs realize that Mom is standing 30 feet behind them, giving out treats to dogs who aren't barking at the fence, and often come running to get some for themselves, and that defuses the whole situation. I don't know if that's training or management or simple bribery, but if it prevents a fight, I'm not about to argue over categorization. Jeannette Hawkins Comment to the Webmaster about this story. Your comments may be posted. Comment to Ali in private. Return to the Main Blog Page.