Training Azza is an exercise in one step forward, one step back. A lot of treading water, in other words. She is about six months old now and still gangly as a new-born fawn. I call her the noodle dog since I'm not sure she actually has solid bones, only partially cooked pasta in there.
I walk the dogs daily for at least 20 minutes in the morning and at least 30-45 minutes in the evening; weekend walks can be as long as an hour. That's a lot of loose lead practice and a lot of time being exposed to the environment. Azza will now walk past most parked cars with hardly an ear flick. Parking lots don't seem to be places of terror anymore. She will also walk past most of the centralized garbage can pens without dropping to the ground in fear first. She will now walk across metal grates on the sidewalk albeit extremely reluctantly (still, no more dragging her across them). She will walk past groups of small brown, jumpsuit-clad workers without growling (but she has to be a good distance from them). She is only about 50% reliable when walking past other people; she still lunges across my path and toward them at the last minute. This isn't done in fear but as a preemptive submissive gesture. Unfortunately, Saudis and Asians interpret her movement as aggressive so this is behavior that absolutely must be eliminated. I've returned to making her sit next to me whenever anyone is coming towards us.
I can get her to sit in cardboard box but I can't get her to sit on a small wooden stool. She is so terrified of the stool that if I even look at it while doing a training session with her, she shuts down completely. So I despaired of her doing anything with the agility table. Still, I figured today was the day to give it a try. This afternoon I built a PVC frame for the table that puts it up to 12". The frame and the table are quite stable. Of course Harry and Mimi were enthusiastically jumping on and off like terrier popcorn (yes, old man Harry still has quite a bit of pep in him!). I had to pick Azza up and put her on the table several times (she was on lead because at the sight of the table, she ran and hid in the kitchen). Her pupils enormous, her ears pasted back on her head, she glued her belly to the table each time I dumped her up there. But a tiny little light bulb went off in her tiny little brain after about the fourth drag and dump onto the table (I was not being terribly gentle) and she actually put a front paw on the table, then jumped up on it all by herself! Jackpot!
I fooled around with all three dogs on the table for a bit, then put Harry and Mimi away (to their great disappointment). With some work and lots of treats, I was able to get Azza to drive to the table on her own from about four or five feet.
I then decided to make it a bit harder. A few days ago I had introduced her to an orange cone. She was terrified of it. If she brushed it by accident, she dropped to the ground in fear. If I bumped and it made a sound as it scooted on the floor, she dropped to the ground in fear. But at that first session, I was finally able to get her to walk past the cone with me on one side and her on the other. My objective was to teach her a wrap and an out. I never got that far of course. With Azza, the first few training sessions are always spent dealing with her fear of new objects. You can't actually do any mechanical training (over, under, through, around, etc.) until she gets past that fear.
But back to this afternoon. I put the cone about 10 feet from the table and started to play a new game: I stood in the middle of these objects and sent her to the table for a sit or a down then release from the table to run to and then out and around the cone, finally returning to my hand for a treat. I worked her on both left and right sides and was able to keep her moving pretty fast. It was extremely successful and was the first time she showed a lot of drive in a training session. She was starting to get the out concept too but I decided to finish on a high note and not push that.
Restrained recalls are a method of building drive in a dog. You gently hold them by the chest or neck, rev them up, then release them to a toy or an object or an obstacle. I discovered that since Azza was already pretty stressed from dealing with the objects (table and cone), any contact I made with her caused her to shut down (drop to the ground in a submissive posture at my feet). But during our daily toy play times, she's been playing tug with me and letting me slap her sides and get a bit rough (she growls and gets excited) so I think she will eventually learn that my touching her can be fun and exciting in other contexts as well.
I did a very quick and not very thorough search for stats on salukis doing AKC agility and turned up information on...only one! Azza is only part saluki but she is very much a desert-type sight hound. Clearly these types of dogs present a huge training challenge to others as well. I've heard anecdotally that they are usually not strongly toy motivated. But Azza plays tug with me and is learning to fetch. She is learning to drive away and return to me. She can respond to both verbal and hand signals only. For a six-month old puppy who is almost certainly wired all wrong in the head, I think she is coming along very well, despite our treading water most days!
I walk the dogs daily for at least 20 minutes in the morning and at least 30-45 minutes in the evening; weekend walks can be as long as an hour. That's a lot of loose lead practice and a lot of time being exposed to the environment. Azza will now walk past most parked cars with hardly an ear flick. Parking lots don't seem to be places of terror anymore. She will also walk past most of the centralized garbage can pens without dropping to the ground in fear first. She will now walk across metal grates on the sidewalk albeit extremely reluctantly (still, no more dragging her across them). She will walk past groups of small brown, jumpsuit-clad workers without growling (but she has to be a good distance from them). She is only about 50% reliable when walking past other people; she still lunges across my path and toward them at the last minute. This isn't done in fear but as a preemptive submissive gesture. Unfortunately, Saudis and Asians interpret her movement as aggressive so this is behavior that absolutely must be eliminated. I've returned to making her sit next to me whenever anyone is coming towards us.
I can get her to sit in cardboard box but I can't get her to sit on a small wooden stool. She is so terrified of the stool that if I even look at it while doing a training session with her, she shuts down completely. So I despaired of her doing anything with the agility table. Still, I figured today was the day to give it a try. This afternoon I built a PVC frame for the table that puts it up to 12". The frame and the table are quite stable. Of course Harry and Mimi were enthusiastically jumping on and off like terrier popcorn (yes, old man Harry still has quite a bit of pep in him!). I had to pick Azza up and put her on the table several times (she was on lead because at the sight of the table, she ran and hid in the kitchen). Her pupils enormous, her ears pasted back on her head, she glued her belly to the table each time I dumped her up there. But a tiny little light bulb went off in her tiny little brain after about the fourth drag and dump onto the table (I was not being terribly gentle) and she actually put a front paw on the table, then jumped up on it all by herself! Jackpot!
I fooled around with all three dogs on the table for a bit, then put Harry and Mimi away (to their great disappointment). With some work and lots of treats, I was able to get Azza to drive to the table on her own from about four or five feet.
I then decided to make it a bit harder. A few days ago I had introduced her to an orange cone. She was terrified of it. If she brushed it by accident, she dropped to the ground in fear. If I bumped and it made a sound as it scooted on the floor, she dropped to the ground in fear. But at that first session, I was finally able to get her to walk past the cone with me on one side and her on the other. My objective was to teach her a wrap and an out. I never got that far of course. With Azza, the first few training sessions are always spent dealing with her fear of new objects. You can't actually do any mechanical training (over, under, through, around, etc.) until she gets past that fear.
But back to this afternoon. I put the cone about 10 feet from the table and started to play a new game: I stood in the middle of these objects and sent her to the table for a sit or a down then release from the table to run to and then out and around the cone, finally returning to my hand for a treat. I worked her on both left and right sides and was able to keep her moving pretty fast. It was extremely successful and was the first time she showed a lot of drive in a training session. She was starting to get the out concept too but I decided to finish on a high note and not push that.
Restrained recalls are a method of building drive in a dog. You gently hold them by the chest or neck, rev them up, then release them to a toy or an object or an obstacle. I discovered that since Azza was already pretty stressed from dealing with the objects (table and cone), any contact I made with her caused her to shut down (drop to the ground in a submissive posture at my feet). But during our daily toy play times, she's been playing tug with me and letting me slap her sides and get a bit rough (she growls and gets excited) so I think she will eventually learn that my touching her can be fun and exciting in other contexts as well.
I did a very quick and not very thorough search for stats on salukis doing AKC agility and turned up information on...only one! Azza is only part saluki but she is very much a desert-type sight hound. Clearly these types of dogs present a huge training challenge to others as well. I've heard anecdotally that they are usually not strongly toy motivated. But Azza plays tug with me and is learning to fetch. She is learning to drive away and return to me. She can respond to both verbal and hand signals only. For a six-month old puppy who is almost certainly wired all wrong in the head, I think she is coming along very well, despite our treading water most days!
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