Flipper!

Hi, I'm "Flipper"! I'm a Border Collie mix (possibly part Sheltie or Aussie). I was adopted by Stacy Braslau-Schneck and Dave Schneck in September 1999, when I was 8 months old. They found me at the Humane Society of Santa Clara Valley, where Stacy volunteers. She says she can't imagine why I was there, since she thinks I'm a pretty nifty little dog!

Stacy apologizes for the poor quality of some of these pictures. She says her digital camera has an unfortunate delay between when she pushes the button and when it actually takes a picture. She says that I'm very mellow for a Border Collie but I still move almost every time she tries to take a picture. That's why all of the pictures are of me lying down! (See more pictures of Flip at our Photoloft virtual photo album, here.)

Stacy and Dave brought me home on September 20, 1999. Stacy is a professional dog trainer so she's been watching me with Border Collie-like concentration. Every time I do something she likes, she praises me. She also introduced me to the clicker, a great little thing that says "Flip, you're about to get a goodie!". I'm beginning to think that I can make her click the clicker, just by doing certain simple things like sitting when she waves her hand one way, or lying down when she waves it another way, or touching her palm when she holds it out.

She also gave me a Magic Collar. It looks like an ordinary collar, but every time I try to go somewhere faster than she walks, she stops dead in her tracks! She won't budge until I come close enough that the Magic Collar isn't pulling on the leash.

You can click on one of the buttons at the top of this page to learn more about Stacy and her business, Stacy's Wag'N'Train. She'll help you teach your person how to be more understandable!

Here's some stories Stacy's been telling about me to the ClickerSolutions e-mail discussion list.

Flipper's First Kiss

One thing I was disappointed in with my new 8-mo-old puppy, Flipper, is that he didn't "kiss" me, that is, he never licked my face.

I know that most dogs start face-licking as a sign of submission, derived from feral puppyhood when licking anadult's mouth corners would cause them to regurgitate a half-digested meal for weaning pups to try. The scientific side of me is very well aware of this. But the sentimental side of me *loves* dog kisses. I believe that many dogs learn to use them as a sign of affection, or at least are trained to do it because it normally results in dog lovers praising and rewarding them with affection that they enjoy. (Many dogs have "kissed" me in moments of frustration when learning a difficult task, too. Stress reliever? A relationship check? I don't know, but I love it!).

So I thought, I'll just train Flip to "kiss" me. At least I can get him to softly touch the end of his muzzle to my lips. If dolphins, who really don't have any lips and are more likely to use the end of their heads for agonistic ramming, can learn it, so can Flip!

I started with a hand touch, which he'd learned last week when I was stuck on the phone, and which has since been used as a game and a movement target, and has also been transferred to a target stick. A few c/t for each palm touch, just to get us started. Then I moved the palm closer and closer to my face, with a c/t for each successful touch. Then I had it pressed right up near my pursed lips, c/t. Then I angled the hand out a little, so it was sort of cupping my lips. He accidentally brushed my pursed lips as he went in to touch my palm, c/t. A few more times, and I started moving the hand away just before he got there and c/t'ing the touch to the lips. Then I started fading the palm onto my chin, as if I were just resting my chin on my hand. I'm now "fading" the chin-on-hand into a cue (two fingers next to my lips, the same sign we used with the dolphins) so that I can ask for a "kiss" when I want, and perhaps so can other people, but he won't be the kind of dog who annoys non-kiss-lovers with big sloppy wet ones all over the face.

We've only just practiced this, but he's much more willing to try to put his nose near my face (he usually puts his head down when he gets that close to me, focusing his attention on my shoes, lap, or pressing his head against me). Like any adolescent, his "kisses" are clumsy and often rougher than I'd like them to be. We bonk noses a lot (they're about the same size!). But at heart, he's a lover. I'll teach him proper "kissing" yet.

Just don't tell my husband!

A Walk in the Park

This weekend I took Flipper on a hike to Sunol Ohlone Regional Park, where dogs are allowed off-leash. I was afraid that he would discover cows, or deer, or birds, or just the joy of running over the hills into the great beyond, and not come back to me when I called.

He was terrific! I could not have asked for a better response!

For the past week I've been working on him responding to his name by looking at me (for click/treat), and for coming running to me when I use a special command, "FlipperCome!", as a Really Reliable Recall. The nice thing about having both is that if he does not stop to look around at "Flipper!" I'm pretty sure that he won't respond to "FlipperCome!" so I can work on getting some other way to get his attention and get him interested in me.

So we get to the park and I keep him on leash at first. We meet my friend Sally and her Golden Retriever, Disney, and we walk to a spot where a trail goes down to the river. Much to my surprise, he fearlessly walked right in. The area seemed relatively safe so I took a deep breath and let him off leash. He bounced from spot to spot in the river, and around on the rocks, with the delight that only a young dog can have, but stayed circling around me. The first time I tried his name he bounced over to me and eagerly ran into my arms as if to say, "Hey, thanks for bringing me to this place, this is great, you're so cool!". I thought my heart would burst!

Can you believe I forgot to bring my camera? But here are some gratuitous pictures of Disney and Sally from an earlier trip!

He *did* bark at Disney when she chased her toy into the deeper water (eventually I think the Sheltie side of Flip came out and he said, "water, icky!"), and he tried to eat fresh horse poop. But after a while when he started barking, I'd go hide behind a rock and soon he'd go bounding from boulder to boulder looking for me. And after enough "Anh-anh!" (which means "stop what you're doing" in our communication system) and "leave it" (which I don't think he really knows), he actually started circling around and avoiding the horse poop.

On the way back I had him off-leash almost the whole way. He trotted on ahead, looking gloriously wind-blown, but stopping to look back at me occasionally and coming when I called him. He even stayed closer than Disney, who has a "too far!" command that my friend uses to get her to stop and come closer.

Oh, and we did meet the horses, too. He got very alert, and at first thought about barking (you know, that little "boof!" noise that seems to just well up in their throats sometimes). But I was c/t'ing about as fast as I could, either for looking at me or for just standing with a loose leash, and he got quieter. By the third time the horses went by, he was just very alert but I didn't even have to hold the leash tight (I put him back on leash each time we saw horses).

He was just about perfect. He slept in the car the whole way home (about 40 minutes). After a bath, he let me check his paws again soon to make sure he didn't cut the pads any on the rocks, and do a more thorough tick and burr check. He's Clean!

A Drop In The Bucket

So Flipper has an eye infection. It's not too bad, doesn't seem to bother him much, and it's not contagious, but the vet gave us eye drops, two drops in each eye, twice a day. Yeah, right! Of course he HATES it. I don't blame him; I put in contact lenses every morning and I *still* can't stand drops in my eyes, either!

So this morning I got out the clicker, to try to train him to accept the eye drops. I decided we should do this before going on our morning walk. This is a good idea, because then I an use the walk as a nice jackpot at the end. This is also a bad idea, because never in the day will he have more excited energy!

Click/treat for lying in front of me. Click/treat for lying in front of me with one hand holding his face. Click/treat for... wait a minute. How am I going to click, hold his face steady, and hold the second hand over his eye? I don't have time to saw off one of the plastic ends, to use a toe; or glue some sort of push-piece to the metal tab! I look around for something I can rest up against the metal tab, that will stick out enough that if I hold the clicker in my teeth I can press in and click. Aha! The cap to the eye-drop bottle! I press the bottom to the metal tab and hold the whole thing between my teeth. A couple of gratuitous click/treats for lying in front of me, with the clicker in my teeth, then back to one hand holding, then on to one hand holding his face, the other resting above his eye, holding the dropper (repeated several times), then click/treat for holding the dropper even closer... he's just getting pretty relaxed when I let the first two drops go. Click and jackpot - several of the ordinary kibble treats plus some nice turkey hot dog pieces (all already in my treat bag).

He has to squirm around a little, sniff his bowl, his crate, imaginary spots on the floor - calming stuff, I can wait. Then back to c/t for down in front of me, then a rapid progression through the steps, this time with the dropper hand over his other eye. Several c/t's for that position, then in go the drops. Click, treats, and "Hey, wanna go for a WALK?!"!

Of course I don't expect tonight to go any better. I just hope that when the 5 days are up, he'll be pretty comfortable with the ordeal!

By the way, his eyes are already looking much better - little-to-no yellow goop, and the conjunctive tissues are going from red to pink to white.

The Nail Grinder

While I was away at the APDT conference in November, someone took away my charming puppy and replaced him with an identical-looking but ADOLESCENT dog who was no where as well-behaved as MY dog had been. Ah, adolescence has hit us!

One of Flipper's new charming habits is barking. He barks at Dave if he hops or dances, he barks at other dogs running at the dog park, he barks at noises outside, and at the postwoman. He barked at the blender when I used it to make Mexican hot chocolate.

First I tried the "Ah-ah!" sound that had worked so well at interrupting him in the past; no good. I tried cuing him to go to his crate and gave him some goodies there, hoping that he would link the sound of the blender with going to his crate for goodies. This was not very successful: he'd go into his crate, eat his goodie, and come back out to bark at the blender. If I shut the crate door, he started barking from within the crate...

I tried something I'd seen people suggesting on the ClickTrain discussion list. I got out the rubber spatula, and when I next turned on the blender and Flip started barking at it, I yelled "No, bad blender! Bad, bad! Do NOT tease my dog!" at the blender, while hitting it with the spatula. Flip backed up, shut up, and stared at the blender and I!

Unfortunately, this stunned silence did not last. The next time I used a blender he barked again. I found it was much more effective to leave the blender on low and ask him for simple behaviors he knows, like "sit" and giving me eye contact. For a while the blender, cuisinart, ceiling fan, and vacuum cleaner all amazingly made treats appear. Additionally, with the vacuum cleaner, I rewarded bouts of quiet sit-stays with the chance to bark at the vacuum, which I'd encourage but not reward with the clicker or other treats. His barking at those items seems to have calmed a little.

Well, just when Flipper has started to develop a habit of barking at everything that buzzes or whirls, my new Oster nail grinder arrives. I was sure that he would bark at it, so I wanted to start off on the "right paw" with it.

I turned it on and put it on the desk next to the keyboard while reading the last digests (it's cordless and much to my surprise it came somewhat pre-charged). I ignored it and Flipper while Flip barked at it in alarm (or whatever it is). Then when he calmed down a little I dropped a handful of tiny treats on the ground below it. Soon he was not barking and instead eating (did I mention I chose a very food-motivated dog? :).

Next I casually (without really looking down) placed it on the ground, and dropped a pile of treats next to it (between it and Flip). When he ate most of those I dropped a new pile over it, so that some were on the far side and one landed right on it (lucky!). By then he had completely forgotten to bark at it and was just eating.

Next I picked it up and held it in my hand, out towards him. Sure as Akeakamai loves fish, he targeted it with his nose, and I clicked and treated. Next I held it a little lower....