Molly's Vocabulary

I keep finding myself thinking in awe at the number of words Molly knows. It really does seem like I can sometimes just talk to her and she understands what I'm saying.

for example, DH gave Molly a rawhide chew last night right before bedtime. I wanted to see what she got, so I called out and asked her to show it to me. She ran into the bedroom to the foot of the bed. When I praised her bone, she ran back out to the kitchen. It was like she understood what was going on.

Later she tried to bring it in to the bedroom. We just called "ud i køkkenet med den" (out in the kitchen with it) and she took it back to the kitchen. Shortly after, she came back to bed without the bone. She got to keep it all night, but didn't bring it to bed.

The kitchen isn't the only room Molly knows. We can send her to the living room, bathroom, and bedroom as well by name. These are in Danish.

Molly is also able to interact with a number of people by name. She knows me and DH as "mor" and "far" (Danish for Mom and Dad). She knows DH's parents by name. Even though we weren't in the US very long, she knows who Grandmom and Granddad are and she learned to ID my aunt and uncle by name in one evening! It isn't just context clues either, because she can deliver items and toys to the right people and find them when they aren't in the same room.

We have no doubt that she knows what a bath is in both languages. If we just mention that she might need one, she is not very happy about being near people. We don't talk about a vet enough to know if that is an issue, but we do think she likes the ones we use.

Molly can differentiate types of trips. If we say "Vil du med?" (Want to come with?), she knows it could be any sort of outing. If we say "Med ud at køre?" (Come with for a drive?), she heads for the cars. We can also tell her which one with "Mors bil" and "Fars bil" (Mom's car and Dad's car). She even knows that "med ud til hestene" means come along out to the horses.

Then we have her item recognition. Molly can select the correct one of her toys by name. She currently has "pindsvin" (hedgehog), Bunny, bold ("ball") but we can't tel lher a particular ball, "tyggeben" for any kind of chew, and "fodbold" for her football. She also knows a number of other items used for her work and training: sock, pants,crutches, phone, "tæppe" (blanket). She can also ID the TV when we say "fjernsyn" but we didn't teach her that one on purpose (she likes to watch TV).

When working, training,and playing, we can use a number of words to help her navigate to find what we need. Sofa, "stol" (chair), radiator, "bord" (table), "seng" (bed). Of course we have the rooms to identify locations as well. For outside, she knows "hegnet" to be her fence and heads there when we say it. I can also send her home from any location with home or "hjem" (another bilingual command). I just need to teach her that one in German sometime in case she gets out somewher and runs into German tourists. Molly also knows to get into the car when we say "ind i bilen."

To start and end situations is also easy with Molly. She knows when I say "vil du træne" or "skal vi træne" that I am asking her if she wants to train. I can tell from her enthusiasm and the fact that she drops her toys that she understands. If I need her to do some work for me, I just say "hjælp mor" (help Mom) and she's at the ready. "Skal vi lege?" means it is time to start a play session and she finds a toy. When I want to end a training session or a commanded behavior, I just say "fri" (free). To stop her from bring us toys, barking, etc., we use "det er nok" (literally "that is enough" but used like "that'll do"). Speaking of toys, she also knows that "nej tak" means that I don't want whatever she is bringing me right now. "Tak" is Thank you, which for Molly means that I'd be happy to have whatever you are bringing. It is a polite way of accepting her play. If we want her to let go of something, we use the "slip" command.

Then we have all her commands. Sit, "dæk" (down), down, come, "kom", take, give, pull, push, laundry, watch, "skridt" (walk), leave it, mat, touch... I'm sure there are more that I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Mat, BTW, is a word that she knows both as a command and an item. If I say "take mat" she retrieves her mat for me. If I just say, "Molly, mat!" she goes to her mat or a similar object and lies down until I tell her she is free to go or give another command.

So how's that for the vocab of a 2 year old BC?

Not Much

With the weather and Molly's heat, we haven't been up to much. I've also been suffering from some pretty nasty migraines.

We've worked on item recognition and on quieting her work with shoes, but nothing new. I am hesitant to push her hard while she is in heat--she can be so easily distracted by her hormones and I don't want to give her negative experiences.

I guess you can say that Molly is getting a very boring extended vacation. We won't take her for walks or to public places we might run into other dogs while she is in heat. There is no reason to risk an accidental breeding. I'm also unwilling to push public access while she is dripping.

She's had lots of time for playing with her Daddy and has gotten a large rawhide to chew. As usual, she's being difficult about eating. She does spend a lot of time with me and trying to take care of me. She knows I am not feeling well.

Molly Reports on Panties and a New Blog Award

Mommy and Daddy keep making me wear these things they call "panties." They won't let me in the living room without them. :-( The first time I had to wear them, I thought they invented some new tortur device, but now I'm sorta OK with them. But I'd rather be left in peace to lick myself clean. Since my blog has gotten so boring without pictures, Mommy insists that we must post panty pictures. I'm SO embarrassed! This is almost as bad as that potty picture she posted before. But at least she will let me pick which ones to share.


Here I am just after I got a treat. I dunno why Mommy had to take a picture when my tongue was stuck out, but she says it is very cute. At least I am wearing one of my cool western panties instead of the pink Minnie Mouse one.

You can also see my nice new dog tag. It doesn't dig into my chest like the old one did and it's purty.





Even though I am drippy and stuck in panties, I still have to do work. Here I am fetching Mommy's pants for her.

She also makes me fetch my mat and the fone a lot. It is fun to run around and find what she wants. Sometimes I have to give things to Daddy and he might not even be in the room! It's hard work to be an SD and it is SOO hot here.

To help me stay cool, Mommy made me ice cream again. This time she put peanut butter in it too. I lurve peanut butter!

But Daddy was busy in the other room so she told me to "leave it" and made me wait until Daddy came in to eat it.

I wasn't happy about waiting, but I did what Mommy said.


I got tired of waiting so lay down for a bit. But then Daddy finally came in and we all had ice cream. I ate mine really fast then Daddy let me lick the stick from his. I even made Mommy happy by keeping my ice cream on my mat.

We are honored to have gotten another blog award from our new friends, Desert Pups. Mommy read the rules of the award. It says we have to nominate 7 other blogs. As much as we like all our favorite blogs, we think it is a bit much to ask of our friends. We're honored to be chosen, but we de-kline to pass it on.

I hafta run now! Daddy has a BALL and is offering to play with me. It is finally cool enough to run around a little.

Doing Better and Public Access

We've been taking it pretty easy and Molly is seeming a lot more like herself. I gave her treats for coming into the laundry room, which she ate gladly and without signs of stress. We did some mat training today to build up time. We're also doing lots of named retrieves with things she knows, like mat, pants, and phone. She is gettign really good at the retrieves, even from quite a distance.

Today we took her to Farm Fun, which is a petting zoo-like place next door to us. The place is crawling with kids and dogs on leashes. We got ice cream for us and sat down. Molly mostly did okay, but she was whining a lot. She still responded to sit, down, and target commands, but didn't take treats (so she also passed on the road L3 zen).

The whining was mainly aimed at dogs and kids. We need more practice!!

Our thanks to everyone who has worried about Molly and sent her good vibes. I hope to be able to report that she's completely back to normal within a few days. We're going to stay taking it easy a little longer and not add any new behaviors yet. We will probably continue trying to improve and practice things she is already doing easily like we've been doing.

Improved Item Recognition

Molly hasn't been showing any sign of distress with retrieves, so I've felt comfortable working with those.

Yesterday I did several short sessions of "take phone" using only the phone. Then in the early evening I needed to take her for a walk. I was in the kitchen so I told her to find and take my pants. She ran through the dining room and into the living room and grabbed my pants off the floor. I followed to make sure she got the right thing, but she already had my pants and was on her way to me by the time I got through the dining room. She gave them to me and a sock fell out of the leg when I took them. She grabbed the sock and ran out into the kitchen.

So she definitely knows "pants" without a problem. :-)

In the evening, we did more practice with item recognition and she was able to fetch pants, her mat, and the phone without problems. She was also able to distinguish the correct one--I put the phone and a cloth down at the same time and she brought me the phone. I put phone and pants down at the same time and she brought me the one I asked for. She was also able to deliver to me or to DH on command regardless of which of us issues the take command.

Item Recognition and Watch

I'd spent the past few days training things that have nothing to do with the levels. I've been doing pretty poorly mobility-wise Sunday and Monday, so I decided it was time to start teaching Molly to identify the phone by name. We'd originally talked about getting her her own cordless phone, but instead we decided to take the one handset of the cordless we have and make it her phone. It is a little damaged on the screen from an accident anyway and this phone is several years old now.

So I locked the keyboard on the phone so Molly can't make outgoing calls by accident
and put it into an old cell phone cover to protect it from drool. They aren't the sturdiest cordless phones in the world, but they're pretty good and the cover will help. It also makes it easier for Molly to carry.

For now we are just doing a lot of takes and gives trying to associate "phone" with it. She is good at taking anyway, so will complete the behavior, but we want her to begin associating "phone" (which sounds the same in Danish as well) with the right item. We trained several times Sunday and Monday and even tried a few times with two items down on the floor. She retrieved correctly about 75% of the time, so that is a good sign of progress.

Once she is starting to know what to take when we say "phone," we will start teaching her to find it and retrieve it over longer distances. My ultimate goal is for her to be able to go find the phone for me if I end up stuck somewhere. We're going to need to find a place to try to keep that phone most of the time that is at Molly-height and fortunately it holds a charge a long time, so that helps too. DH and I both want to feel confident that if I fall or something and am home alone that I have some possibility of getting outside help. It would also be good even when DH is just outside, because Molly can't get him there, but he can take his mobile phone with him.

Today I got back to working a bit on a Level 2 behavior called "Watch." The point of it is for the dog to be able to make and maintain eye contact with its handler on command. Molly has worked some on this before, so today I had her holding eye contact consistently for 4-6 seconds and was able to start cuing it. I need to have her doing 10 seconds on cue to pass the behavior. With DH home from work with a migraine and moving around some of the day, she was working with distractions, which does make it a lot harder. So I'm looking forward to see what I get with good treats on a quieter day.