Shawnee Reports on True Color Thursday: Black

Mommy sez dat I get ta help wif da blog now dat Im gettin ta be a big gurl n past Level 1 af da trainin program. So dese are my BLAK piks!

Mommy sez dat Im sposed ta say tanks ta Blue fur da idea.

Dis iz me n Molly. Weer tricullur border colliez, so dat meanz we r BLAK n wite n tan. But mostlee we r blak.

Molly iznt vewy happee wif me in dis piktshur cuz Im steelin da bone frum her.










Dis is Molly wif owr blak kong. Sumtimz Mommy puts yummy stuff in da kong fer os, lik peenut budder or pattay.


Molly liks da kong lots, but sumtimz she lets me play wif it too.


She iznt happy wif me if I take it frum her, but uzuly she lets me haf it if i wunt it.

Heer I am sayin, "Pleeze Molly, kan I haf da kong?"





Da krate iz blak. Dis iz me sittin in it. Wen I gets bord, I try ta let me out. Uzuly I'm stuk til Mommy or Daddy cumz, but wonce I got out on my own.

If I haz ta pottee, I wine n cry til dey kom n take me out. Sumtimz I try dat too if Im bord.

Da krat is big nuff fur wen Im big lik Molly, but it haz a wall in it now.


Da next pik iz af me n Molly playin wif da BLAK klude we had urlier. Mommy sez ta tell uz dat "klude" meenz rag ur sumtin lik dat.

Weev playd sa hard wif kluden dat it wuz fallin part. So Daddy gaf us a nu won taday. Itz blak too.


Mommy dropt her fone taday. Molly wuz busy playin soz I pikt it up n gave it ta Daddy. Dey didnt beleef I'd dun it, so dey dropt it igin n took a piktshure da secund time. Mommyz fone iz BLAK too, so heer I am pikken it up.

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.