Happy days



I'm just a sitting fool these days. 
Perhaps Mummy should get me a chair.

Things are going very well.  We're continuing our daily training/socialization walks.  Annie now starts looking for treats (looks up at my bait bag) as soon as she spots a person approaching on a walk, and no longer needs to retreat off the sidewalk as they go by.  And she'll merrily take treats from anybody.  Since it's next to impossible to stop people from reaching toward her, I just make sure she gets a goodie when this happens, and abracadabra, she now ducks aways much less dramatically and looks at the treat pouch when a hand starts coming at her.  Yippee!

She's started barking at the front door (through the security/screen door) when she hears people go by, especially at night.  This could have been her shyness partly morphing from flight to "bark, bark, go away!" as she gets more comfortable and perhaps territorial.  But timing her out seems to be working, meaning it's probably just garden variety watchdog/excitement barking.  So when she rushes to the door barking and growling, I say, "That's enough," and when she keeps barking, follow up with "Too bad," and then baby gate her alone in the kitchen for a minute or two.  It's a pain to interrupt my evening couch potato time repeatedly for this--thank goodness for DVR's--but voila, she's doing it less and less.  This morning when she started barking at the mailman, who comes right up on the porch to deliver the mail, she actually stopped when I gave the "that's enough," warning cue, and began wagging happily at him.  Don't think she was too upset!

She still tries to hide behind my exercise bike (next to her favorite bed) when she hears the faintest gardening motor noise.  It's often so faint that the first thing I notice is her hiding, then have to strain to hear the sound.  The only good thing about this is that loud versions don't seem much worse.  In any case, I've taken up doing mini recall exercises for this: 

1. I call her  ("Annie, Annie, Annie," in my jolliest happy voice)
2. I toss treats just a little closer to me (just so she has to bring her head out from behind the bike)
3. Then toss a line of treats between where she is and where I'm sitting (about 6' away), which she collects.
4. Then I let her retreat to her hiding spot again and repeat.
5. I repeat until she will come all the way to me without any treats on the way.  By this time she's usually ready to lie down on her bed and relax--I toss her treats for this.

I'm using this technique for a couple of reasons:

• To give her something else to do (think about) during the scary noise
• To make coming to me her most likely behavior when something scary occurs. 

So that's our story after 3 and a half weeks.