Learning About Cap

I was walking around the back yard today picking up poop, trailed by five of the dogs, when a page of a newspaper suddenly blew against the fence. Cap went ballistic, jumping back and puffing up like a cat and barking his head off. Mimi and Jack ran to the fence barking because Cap was barking, saw that it was nothing but a piece of paper and immediately lost interest. Cap stalked up to the fence all stiff legged, barking and growling, and streeeetttched out his nose to take a tentative sniff. Oh, he realized, it wasn't a monster trying to get in the yard, it was just a piece of paper. He watched me pull it inside the fence and went off sniffing again.

I thought this was interesting because I've not seen him in a stressful situation like that. He overreacted at first but recovered quickly and was able to investigate the scary thing, decide it wasn't such a threat after all, and move on. Incident entirely forgotten. I like that resilience.

I'm still trying to figure Cap out. He is so soft. Almost everything I've learned about handling terriers has to be tossed out the window because none of that works for Cap. He's incredibly smart but I'm searching for that right motivating factor when teaching him new skills (or teaching him about things he shouldn't do, like dig in the yard or chew on my shoes! Yes, that's right, to my horror, he chews on shoes.).

I've become consistent about playing with him with balls and tugs. His retrieve (indoors and out) is getting much faster and more enthusiastic but I have to watch him carefully and stop the game before he gets interested in something else, while he still really really wants that ball.

I often tug with him on one hand and Harry on the other. I continue to struggle with his bite inhibition--it's a fine balance because I want him to tug vigorously but I simply can't let him bite my hand when doing so. I had to use some positive punishment the other morning--I offered the tug and he jumped up and grabbed the part nearest my hand, and my hand, not the part of the tug hanging in front of his face. It hurt like hell! I smacked his nose and yelled OW! very loudly and removed the tug from his reach. I had repeatedly tried much softer methods (like just yelling ow!) but this hand-biting behavior was becoming a regular pattern--he wouldn't go for the tug end, always my hand. That just had to stop.

He most certainly did not like the nose smack and shut down on me for a few minutes. I continued to play with Harry and ignored Cap but I did put away the "bad" tug and get out a new one for him, which he stared at for a while before deciding it was okay to play with. Something like that wouldn't have fazed the terriers for a second. A nose smack? Come on, hardly even a distraction!

Now before you get all wound up thinking I'm beating my dogs (although the terriers do get daily beatings per the Terrier Owner's Manual), let me say that I used that nose smack carefully. I did try other methods and he persisted in undesirable behavior. I am not yet a good enough dog trainer to figure out how to replace the bad behavior with a good one--what I want him to do is grab the tug end, not my damned hand--so I chose to shut down the bad behavior.

Since that event, when I offer him a toy or a tug, he LOOKS at my hand and the toy and evaluates where he can grab it, and only then does he do so. So the result is that he is hesitating a bit before acting but he is making better choices. I believe the hesitation will fade as he gets rewarded for those correct choices.

Cap is not much of a snuggler--because he has so much more fur than the terriers, he gets warm quickly and doesn't like to be in a pile of blankets and dogs. But he does like attention and makes it very clear when he wants to be pet and fondled. When we play retrieve in the house, sometimes I sit on the floor, and when he comes back with the toy or ball, he runs full speed into me, jamming his head and the toy into my stomach while throwing himself in my lap. I tickle him and roll him around and he just loves it. He's not shy about physical contact and I can touch him anywhere.

I had to teach Harry a "in my hand" command as part of his refocusing for flyball. I had to do this to keep him from running around erratically after getting the ball. He comes to the tug and when I drop it and say "put it in my hand!" he focuses on nothing but me and my hand. It took quite a while for Harry to learn this even though I was explicitly teaching just that specific command. Cap has learned this behavior in a more organic manner without so much fuss and drama. I never set out to teach him this particular behavior. Unlike Harry, Cap has no verbal for this command. I simply drop my hand and he shoves the toy into it. He does this reliably because he reliably gets rewarded by my grabbing the toy and throwing it.

Cap also had an annoying habit of grabbing my hand with his front paws when I grabbed his toy. Even though I keep them trimmed, he has dewclaws (they are removed in the smooth fox terriers) and he was scratching my hands and wrist. I taught him not to grab my hand with his paws simply by tapping his paws with a finger and waiting for him to remove them. Again, no verbal at all. Once he dropped his paws, I'd throw the toy. He sometimes forgets and puts a paw up and all I have to do is tap it with my finger--he drops it down right away because he knows I won't throw the toy until he does. No clicker, no treats, no verbal. Just a finger tap. Never would happen with a fox terrier.

My relationship with Cap is a work in progress. He's so smart but emotionally so different from the terriers. Soft is not the same thing as weak or scared. I think if I can figure out how to train this little guy, I will have really accomplished something.