If it’s a good idea to, say, play sports instead of actually fighting others, or
to fetch tennis balls instead of retrieve ducks, or
to move geese off golf courses when you can’t herd sheep, or
to chomp furry squeaky toys when you can’t rid the barn of rats…
then what healthy activity exercises one’s innate inner watchdog when there’s nothing real to guard against, and we don’t want him getting worked into a lather over harmless things?
What’s a watchdog to do, that’s safe and healthy, in place of watchdog work? Think creatively…pretend… I’d need to provide something I could reward him for noticing and barking at, that wouldn’t actually scare him or put him over threshold. He’s really super good at “What’s different?” a regular Encyclopedia Brown of dogs, who would notice the tiniest clue that later when the mystery is exposed, everyone would groan and say, “Well, REALLY, now- who would ever notice THAT?” And he’s not so much into nosework, like Reilly- it’s eye work for Seiji.
I am thinking today about how smart this dog is- Sage will not be fooled by happy talk or bullshit. He is intense, suspicious, cautious. He holds no truck with busywork and tasks- he thinks its a waste of time. There are important things to be worried about. He can look right into your heart - mine anyway- and he reads it easily. You cannot tell this guy that It’s OKAY, because he knows fakery. He doesn’t fake anything himself- you get nothing but 100% intense, sincere Seiji, and once in a while it is completely draining dealing with all this intensity all the time.
I got sick of things Doggish yesterday. As a holdover today, I decided to just Take Him for a Walk around 1 o clock. I was tired of being wary and ON, and trying to spot danger before he does- an exhausting competition. I bought cooked, chopped chicken at the grocery store salad bar and put that in my left pocket, ordinary treats in my right. I allowed him to sniff and investigate the ground and stone walls and piles of sticks, because he is normally scanning for bad guys and I want to encourage anything that isn’t scanning for bad guys. I stopped a moment when he’d balk, but after a count of 5 Mississippis, I’d say, Alrighty. let’s go then! and walk & he’d come along. We walked relatively purposefully, and we had no reactive episodes, but this is because we were lucky and met no dogs at all.
I gave the good treats when he calmed his excitement at the horses and turned toward me. I chickened him when cars passed and he sat. Plain treats for regular attention. He did great and we walked a mile and a half. But it would have gone to hell fast if he had spotted a dog on leash down the road.
The difference between where I walk and Reactive Dog Class is that there is nothing to duck behind to keep exposure brief. City dogs can block with parked cars, big blue mailboxes, etc.. I have nothing much to block us out for long stretches, short of diving over a stone wall into the poison ivy beyond, and that doesn’t exactly communicate to Sage that I am in charge and he can relax. One problem with our training work is the lack of middle level of exposure, I can do level 1,2 or I can do level 9, 10- but I am missing exposure levels 3-8 to practice on.
Maybe I need to drive him to a more obstacle filled place to practice, like the center of Town? Marjie said to do this a long time ago, but I resist because it is probably level 5 or 6, and I need a 3. I will need to think some more on this…
