Look at That! (Round 1)

Today, I had my Mom pick Mia up from my house and once I got off of work I headed over to her house to do some training with Mia.

For the "Look at that" exercise we needed to start with a dog that she likes. I enlisted the help of my Mom and her terrier-mix Emma. Mia and I positioned ourselves in the doorway to the bathroom. There is another doorway (to my old room) directly across from the bathroom. I had my Mom walk into and out of sight. Every time they were about to come into sight I cued Mia with "Look!" and a point and clicked as soon as she looked at Emma. We did two sets of about 20 trials and Mia seemed to be getting the idea of the whole thing. At the end, I took Emma for a 15 minute walk as a thank you for being such a good sport!

Oh yeah...by the way. Meet Mia's new auntie (my Mom's new puppy, Pipi):

"I iz a cute Crestie mix with one ear up and one down."

Reactive Dogs Class #4

Whew...it has been quite a long time since I last posted! We have had a lot going on. I started and finished my last undergraduate semester and graduated on December 18. We had a great Christmas. In January I started a new job as a behavior therapist for kids with developmental disabilities (primarily Autism) and I am loving it. Lily turned 1 two weeks ago (and is still as much a puppy as ever).

Mia has improved leaps and bounds in agility she is constantly raising the bar with what I can expect from her. She now tackles the A-Frame like she's been doing it for years with no help whatsoever. Some days it's hard to keep her off of it!

Most notably, we finally got to start a reactive dogs class with the local vet behaviorist. It is held at the same facility we have agility classes. It has really helped me in the past to document her training so I can look back at it so I will be posting a lot more often now (hopefully!).

Mia has been doing very well. Each class she surprises me with how well she does. Yesterday was our fourth class. The other dogs in the class are not anywhere near as reactive as Mia is. I think there has only been one bark in the entire class that was not Mia or on command. We worked on three exercises: Look at that, on-off games, and parallel walking.

Mia is not at the point where she can play "Look at that" with the other dogs yet so we worked on desensitizing her to the sounds of jingling collars and other dogs barking (on command) when it was our turn.

Mia also wasn't comfortable enough to really get excited/aroused enough to truly work on the on-off exercise.

She, again, wasn't ready to do the parallel walking exercise so instead we worked on her looking at the other dogs (one at a time) from across the room. We rewarded anything that was appropriate (prolonged eye contact, sits, sniffing the ground, vacuuming the ground, shaking, looking at the other dog, looking back at me/the vet). One thing that is highly reinforcing to Mia is me being near her so we toyed with using that as a reinforcer. If she started to make noise or bark I would say "oops" (not as a correction but more as a marker word) and walk a few feet away. When she did something appropriate I would come back. It seemed to help. By the end of our turn she was (most of the time) looking calmly at a dog about 15 feet away and then back at me without a sound!

While the other dogs were doing the parallel walking exercise they came very close to the barrier that Mia and I were behind. I fed her continually when they walked close to us (she couldn't see them but could hear them) and she didn't make a peep (this is still quite an accomplishment for her!).

Looking forward to next week!

Mia on Easter (2010)

Crazy, Crazy Day

Today was a pretty crazy day. Lily's first puppy class started today and is an hour before Mia's. I packed everything up really early and we left about 30 minutes early to make sure we had time to set up before class started. I also brought my Mom along just in case.

It's an hour drive out to the boonies where our trainer lives and has her training facility. The plan was for Lily to ride in a crate in the car and Mia to ride in the back seat next to her. Lily REALLY did not want to be in the crate and absolutely would not stop whining and barking. She was so stressed that she knocked the crate over on to little 9 lb Mia. I had to pull over and get Mia out from under it. Lily's crate was all wet on the inside from her drooling so I decided to just let her sit in my Mom's lap. The rest of the drive was much calmer.

We arrived 20 minutes early and went inside to set up. The plan was to have Mia in a covered crate because I knew she would be freaking out and barking a lot with all of the strange (and large) new dogs there. I put her in the crate before the first dog came in so she didn't even get to see him. She barked quite a bit during the class but usually only when one of the other dogs barked. She actually did a little better than I thought she would.

Things went pretty smoothly until my Mom took Mia out of the crate while I was across the room and one of the "new" dogs was still in the room. She had a total meltdown (I wasn't really surprised because of how stressed she was from being in a crate for an hour when she could hear other dogs barking and moving around). It took about 10 minutes for her to calm down once the dog left. She couldn't even concentrate on me enough to have her turn on the first run we did. By her second turn she was happy and wagging her tail. She went on to do better than any of the other dogs in class.

We worked a lot on serpentine again and added dogwalk, weaves, and tunnels.

Mia did really well and didn't have much trouble with it at all. She was very enthusiastic. Although she wasn't thrilled about the dogwalk she did it on leash with just a little encouragement.

Next week we have to miss class because we will be in Chicago. It'll be a nice little break for Mia and I to spend some extra time together.

Side Effect of New Little Sisters

So aside from the usual jealousy and general "I don't want anything to do with you unless we're not in the house or car" we've experienced one positive side effect to having Lily around. Mia can be extremely hard to motivate in training sometimes. Since I've been doing so much training with Lily, Mia has been extra interested in doing lots of extra training too! I'm definitely very excited about that!

I had them both working on "touch" today side by side. I've been working with Lily a lot on her retrieve (all the better to wear her out with!) so whenever I start collecting the balls Mia knows that Lily is about to start getting treats and runs over. It's pretty cute. Mia is really smart and can be quite manipulative, it's just hard to gauge what motivator will work best for her because it changes day to day (complicated Little Miss Prissy-Pants)...

On July 12th Lily will start her Puppy/Basic Obedience class. It will be from 3:00-4:00 (the hour before Mia's class). The plan is to crate Mia with a cover during Lily's class with hopes that Mia won't be completely stressed out and bark like a crazy lady. I'll be bringing my Mom with me the first day just in case so that she can take Mia out to the car and keep her occupied there if it is too much for her. I'm not worried about Lily sitting through Mia's agility class...I will bring a couple of frozen stuffed Kongs and hopefully after a few licks she will be passed out anyway.

Does this count?

While working on Mia's "go to mat" behavior today she gave me this:

Does this count Momma?

Nice try.

Agility Class: June 21, 2009

Agility class was fun today...it was really easy for me and really hard for Mom! What a nice change! She had to do all the work.

The jumps/tunnel were set up like this:

We had to do all kinds of crazy combinations of jumps with tons of front/back crosses, etc. Mom tends to still have a hard time getting her feet to move the right way but she's getting better!

It was easy peasy for us dogs as long as our handlers were doing things correctly. I had tons of fun and even watched Kiefer (the German Shepherd) have his turn only about 5 feet from me. I watched him completely relaxed like this on my mat:


Mom was pleased!

Mia and Her Mat

Mia here...Just a quick update today because Mom has a zillion videos to watch for her summer school class. Fun!

She decided that she doesn't want to lug my bed around everywhere when we're proofing and eventually to agility trials (if that happens) so she decided to get me a smaller, lighter, cheaper mat.

Mia on her mat.

Mom bought it this morning and so far we've done three 5-10 minute training sessions with it. Mom was very excited when she got it out the third time and I ran over and slammed myself down on it. Apparently, that's a very good thing! I'm definitely getting the hang of it though and tonight we will start doing the Protocol for Relaxation on it instead of just on the floor.

Also on the to-do list for this weekend are working more on my finger targeting (something Mom has been LAZY on for the last several months) and Leave It. We might even go on some extra walks to see if we can find any kitties to practice looking at.

Hopefully Momma will get enough done this weekend that we can get some video of our training sessions!

Belated Birthday Present and First Day of Relaxation Protocol

Back in October I went to the H.H. Backer pet industry trade show in Chicago, Illinois. I bought Mia a leather "Choke Free" harness with the intention to have my Mom (Mia's Nana) do some decorative beading on it. We both kept putting it off but I finally got off my butt and ordered the beads I wanted a few weeks ago. My Mom finished the harness on Sunday and it turned out beautifully!

In other news, Mia would like me to report that the first day of Dr. Overall's Protocol for Relaxation was spectacularly easy, boring, and tasty! She kept looking at me like I was doing some sort of crazy dance but was happy to be getting lots of treats!

I have to be at work early so that's all for now!

Agility Class: May 31, 2009

In agility class today we mostly worked on sequences with things set up at tricky angles. Most of the sequences were jump, tire, weave poles, tunnel, and then teeter or dog walk. Mia did pretty well but for some reason just did not want to do the tunnel today. At all. I think she only did it twice by herself without help from Rachel, which was very odd for her.

One of the dogs in our class is a Belgian Tervuren named Ritzy. She is absolutely gorgeous but is very, very nervous. When she gets worried she takes off and runs around the room. Each time she came close to us I would feed Mia little treats as long as she wasn't growling. By the end of the class instead of looking at Ritzy when she came near us, Mia, looked at me! Yay! Improvement!

I did end up bringing Mia's infamous bed to class. The whole point of bringing a bed or a mat is to help the dog relax because the dog is already conditioned to relax on the bed/mat at home. The bed helped a lot...maybe a little too much because towards the end of class Mia didn't want to get OUT of bed! We all ended up having a good laugh about it though.

First Private for Reactivity

On Friday morning, Mia and I had our first private with her trainer to work on her reactivity. She is very reactive to other dogs and cats (especially big dogs). It is a problem that I think I have let get away from us for far too long.

The first thing we worked on was counterconditioning Mia to the door opening and closing. Our trainer has a big training building on her property (with air conditioning!!) and Mia has learned that 90% of the time when the door opens a dog is either going to be coming in or going out. We noticed that she starts to react as soon as she hears the door start to creak. The plan was to drop a small handful of food on the ground right before the door creaks. We did several reps of this and then Rachel went and got one of her dogs, Glory.

While we were waiting for her to return, I worked with Mia on laying down on a mat (from now on I'll be bringing her bed to agility and privates to help her relax). We had barriers set up so that Mia could not see her. When Mia was calm we would have Glory appear from behind the barrier (or alternately, I would move the barrier out of the way so Mia could see her). She would get clicked and treated for looking at her. Unfortunately, Mia's threshold at the moment is pretty low so we didn't make a whole lot of headway.

Our homework for the next two weeks or so is to start Dr. Overall's Protocol for Relaxation and to work on more systematic desensitization with other dogs in more random situations (i.e. parked outside of the vet's office, the park, petsmart, etc.). She also reccommended scheduling a consult with a veterinary behaviorist that teaches a reactive dogs class at her facility. So we may do that depending on how things go.

We've got a long road ahead of us but it will be worth it! Tonight we went over to my parents' house for dinner and a movie. Mia is always excited to go over there.

Fake Yawns!

Mia here...I guess something is wrong with Mom's newer bigger memory card because it wouldn't transfer the video from last night either! Oh well, today we took another one and it's still a pretty cute video.

Bicycle

Mommy has decided that she is going to buy a bike for this summer so we can go on adventures!!

This is the trailer we are looking at getting to attach to her bike:

Hunter K9 Bike Trailer

I think it will be lots of fun. This way we can all ride the trails together and maybe even bring a picnic lunch. Or we can ride along the seawall in Galveston! It should be a fun time!

Mom is done with finals!! She is excited that she gets a little breather before she starts summer school on June 1st. She will be taking Intro to Clinical Psychology. Luckily, it is an online class so she won't have to drive all the way into downtown Houston for class everyday.

Mom also talked to my trainer at agility on Sunday and we are going to start my behavioral privates next week. I'll go once a week for 30 minutes or an hour (depending on how I do the first day) for as long as I need it and Mom can afford it. It's a bit pricey but she knows it will be worth it in the end!

We have been working on getting my yawn on cue. Tonight will be the third night we work on it. Mom may post a video sometime later this week showing my progression. I still don't quite get exactly what she wants me to do but I'm offering the behavior more often now!

That's all for now! Mom has to be at work at 10:00 so I better get to bed!

Climbing Mount Everest

In my never ending quest for procrastination I put together a video of Mia doing the A-Frame today.

Boring Friday.

Mia here...Mom is busy studying for finals. This week has been spectacularly...boring. Mom and Dad have had a bunch of finals and they haven't had a whole lot of time to pay attention to me. No walks...not much play time. At least I still got to go to agility. Agility is always so much fun!

Mom is going to go buy little play cones from the store in the sporting goods section tomorrow and a camera tripod so that she can video tape me learning to go around them. She also has plans to teach me to yawn on cue. It's pretty easy to make me yawn...all you have to do is rub my back. It's actually a little embarrassing but hey, it feels really good.

I'm going to go snuggle in my bed now and take a nap as I see tonight isn't going to be much unlike the rest of the week. Mom and Dad even went out to dinner and didn't take me. Humph.

Smiley Girl in Galveston

Agility Videos from February

I have a lot of studying and paper writing to do today so I thought I would just post some recent-ish videos of Mia doing agility. Normally she is more focused but she was very excited that my Mom was there that day and kept running over to her.

Agility: May 3, 2009

Tonight in agility our focus was working on getting the dogs "out," away from us.

Our trainer started us off by giving each of us a cone (or in Mia's case a little bucket because we ran out of cones!) and having us lure our dog around the cone and then click and treat:

Once they mastered that we added in a jump:

After the mastered one jump and around the cone we added the next jump:

Once they had mastered the two jumps we added in a front cross so that they ended up on our right side:

Eventually at the end of class we had progressed to this:

Each week I become even more amazed at what Mia is capable of. She is highly motivated by me running with her. She started to shut down a little and get the "dazed" look that she used to all the time when we first started agility when we were working on things where I wasn't running with her today. As soon as we progressed to some of the later steps where I running with her again she lit up and started running like a crazy lady. She could really care less about treats as long as I'm running with her.

Hopefully next week we'll work some more on the A-frame and teeter! Now that she's conquered the A-frame (well, at least twice on leash) the last fear we need to get her over is the teeter. We've even made considerable progress with that in the last few weeks.

I am also looking forward to starting her behavioral privates in a few weeks to work on her reactiveness around other dogs/cats. My long-term goal is to get her therapy dog certified so we can visit nursing homes.

That's all for now. Mia has officially crashed in her bed:

Mia the Chihuahua

Hi, I'm Kaitlin and will be mostly talking about my pup, Mia, on this blog. I am a college student majoring in psychology and minoring in Spanish. I will graduate in December 2009 and then I will be off to graduate school. I hope to eventually do some kind of therapy (possibly animal assisted therapy) in the future.

Mia is a spunky, little 3 year old red sable long haired Chihuahua. I adopted her on June 30, 2006 when she was 10 weeks old. Her favorite activities include sleeping, eating, playing with her best buddies Emma and Kiba, going on walks and to the beach, and AGILITY! We have been doing agility for almost a year now. We started on June 14, 2008. She absolutely loves it! Mia has some problems with her reactivness and is very afraid of most other dogs so it took her a while to warm up to the classroom setting. The first several months she barked a lot and was very, very nervous with the other dogs around. In the past few months she has blossomed and I am thrilled with the progress we have made.

This summer we are planning to work on her reactiveness with our trainer with the goal of her eventually passing the CGC test and getting her therapy dog certification.

That's all for now. I'll post a few my favorite puppy pictures of her!

Mia on her way home for the first time (11 weeks).

Precious Mia (3 1/2 months old)

Mia's first bath (11 weeks old).