The Routine of Boot and Sock Duty

Now that I am feeding horses every day, Molly has the regular job of removing my boots and socks when I come back in. She actually seems to thrive with the job, loving that she has something that she has to do. It is probably the border collie need to work in her.

The advantage of this is that her skills have improved significantly and she's gotten quieter in the process. Removing a tightly-fitting pair of jodhpur boots is not exactly easy task. Having no hands with which to do the job does make it more difficult.

Molly firmly grasps the heel of my boot with her teeth. The heels are soft enough rubber to allow her teeth to sink in and get a good grip. She then backs away pulling it off, often struggling to hold her footing on the slippery floor. I give her a treat or two after she hands me the boot.

Before going onto the next boot, she removes the sock from the first foot. She's very careful when getting a grip with her teeth to avoid nipping my toes. She then backs away pulling it off. Again, Molly is treated when she hands over the sock.

The entire process is repeated on the other foot.

Shawnee has learned that if she sits quietly and stays out of Molly's way, she also gets a treat. I'm very relieved I no longer need to tell her what to do. When she was younger, there were often problems with her getting in Molly's way or trying to help when she didn't know what to do.

We have actually decided it is time to start teaching Shawnee retrieve. We started the other night at my in-laws without clicker. The dogs were little bit bored so we set Molly to work retrieving my keys and handing them around. To activate Shawnee as well, we took turns holding the flashlight on my key ring and encouraging her to take in her mouth. She did so several times despite it being metal.

Yesterday, I dropped the strip of leather that I use when punching holes with a thonging chisel or awl. Molly was occupied somewhere else, but Shawnee was immediately at my side. I pointed at the piece of leather and told her take. It took her a few tries and little encouragement, but she finally picked it up gently in her mouth and raise it high enough for me to be able to take it from her. Of course, she was showered with praise from both me and DH. This is a big step for her, because she is not good at returning a toy to our hands. Part of the reason I actually want to begin retrieve training her is the hope that it will pay off in a play fetch.

Molly Reports on True Color Thursday: Red

I had sum trubbel comin up wif a new ting ta take pics of dat waz red. But den I memberd da new eezy butten dat Grandmom sent me from da US. I reeely reely likes da eezy butten.

Mostly Im sposed ta push it when Mommy sez "push"






Wen I push it, it sez "dat waz eezy!" Den Mommy or Daddy givz me a treet.


Wen Mommy is dun havin me push it, she tellz me ta take it, soz I pik it up n giv it ta her.



I reely like da butten, so sometimez I stare at it ta ask Mommy n Daddy ta giv it ta me.

Tank u Grandmom fer da yummy butten! We luv u n miss u n Granddaddy. Iz Dumbo bored wifout me?

It's Good to be Home

Since we got home, we've mostly just been chilling out and trying to adjust to the time difference. I am trying to do some walking with Molly though to keep the muscles I built up on the trip. The good news is that on today's walk, Molly kept her leash loose for about 200 meters despite cars, horses, and people working on a fence on a property we passed.

Walking that far, even though it was on crutches, is really quite a work out for me, so as well as being very proud of Molly, I'm very proud of myself. One thing I learned on the trip was how and when to push myself and what the consequences are. The consequence is that I need to sleep 1.5 to 2 times as long as I've been active--beyond the 8 hours _at least_ at night--to recover at all. So I need a nap shortly even though I slept about 13 hours last night. I need 12-14 hours of sleep a day just to lie around and not really do anything all day. As soon as I add in any sitting upright or moving around, I have to sleep more. Such is life, but at least I have a better idea of how to cope now. Needless to say, I slept probably an average of two-thirds of the time that would normally be "waking hours" on the trip. I'm fortunately able to sleep quite well when fully reclined in my parents' back seats.

The past few days I've also started getting Molly back into a training routine. She is eating pretty normally right now although my DH is putting a lot of various extras in her food (not because she requires it but because we have stuff that needs to be used). She got pretty good, but not perfect, about eating while on the trip. I think she has more of a habit to eat now than not to, although there were days she skipped or we let it stand and she ate it later. But on the trip our schedules were all over and sometimes she seemed to need a rest before she could think about eating and we weren't about to get up int he middle of the night to give her 5 seconds to eat.

So, about this training routine. We got a lot of good tips from Erin for getting Molly working quietly. My DH hasn't had the extra energy to work with us to do the he-works-if-Molly-makes-noise routine, so I'm continuing with the retraining from scratch but requiring quiet routine. So the past few days she'd had several couple minute sessions with the old boot. It's actually going really well. I started with just touching the boot with her nose, what she first offered when I got it out, and am now up to short grabs and even a few double grabs. IF she starts making noise, the session ends, but I've managed to do a few minutes of training before it got that far. I'm going to try making my next few sessions even shorter to see if I can end the session _before_ she feels the need to make noise.

I've mostly been using shoes I can flip off without her help, so that way I'm not making her work and having to reward her for noisy efforts while retraining. Not much anyway. I've also been avoiding socks both for that reason and just because I generally don't like them.

My laptop died yesterday (screen won't get bright anymore), so my posting and activity checking out others' blogs and on my usual groups and forums will be very limited until I can find and install a replacement. Sitting at the desk to use the desktop machine is just too painful for me and even short posts like this one require a few breaks to get written.

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.

Regular Retrieve Practice

Molly has a good solid retrieve, but we want to keep it that way. So I keep a collection of items for retrieve practice and make sure she gets lots of treats and praise for the good work.

To make it more like her actual job, I don't use the clicker. I just ask her to pick up items one at a time (usually I only have one item on the floor at a time). When she delivers them to me, she gets praise and a treat. She regularly gets breaks with petting and attention. I try to make it as real as possible, because when I'm somewhere and I've dropped something important, I usually don't have the clicker on me and often don't have a treat. So it is important that she is excited about her job (but not so much that she gets noisy) and is happy working for praise and attention.

As you can see from the picture, our practice bin includes some pretty small items, like a match box and a small piece of paper. We've had them in the bin for ages and she is able to retrieve them without getting them wet or making holes in them.


Another good item is the yellow duck squeak toy. Someone on one of the mailing lists recommended I train with a squeak toy when I was having trouble teaching Molly not to chew items and it works GREAT! From that training and regular practice, she remembers to handle items gently and take them up carefully. If the toy squeaks, I treat it like a hurt animal and comfort it and put it aside for awhile. That little trick worked wonders int he progress of her retrieve training.

The bit of fabric is an old sleeve from a t-shirt. As well as being great as an item in itself, it is also useful when working on training Molly for quiet clothing removal. I can throw it and focus on quiet retrieves then hang it off my feet or hands. Then it can slide around my arms and legs. To make it difficult to remove, I wrap it a few times around a foot or hand. Molly loves the challenge and has learned that way to be more quiet with clothing. She still isn't 100%, but that's what practice is for. I can also alternate the sleeve with a real sock or pants or whatever to remind her that she is capable of being quiet.

For give, we regularly practice varying the person to whom she should deliver the item. This way she is used to giving things to DH and taking things from DH and giving them to me. She can take items both from the floor and from our hands.

We did a fun practice session the other day when DH sat in the kitchen and I sat in the living room. I gave Molly an item and told her to give it to DH. She took it out and gave it to him, got a reward (her second item was a pill bottle filled with treats), and came back with something else. We swapped all sorts of things, including a fly swatter, wire cutters, sun glasses, and a hard plastic egg the size of a dove egg. Unfortunately she loved that game so much that she chewed a little on the old credit card for the first time ever. We'd also been training with it for months. But the sunglasses went back and forth without damage.

Molly is also our little messenger. Because she is so careful with paper, we can safely write notes and hand them to her. She carries them in her mouth to the other and will find us in different rooms over the entire house.

When out, we also try to teach Molly other people, so she is learning to deliver to someone I point to and to my in-laws by name. I'm also slowly adding item recognition for a number of items. She is already about 75% accurate on pants, socks, and shoes. Not a particular item, such as matching shoes, but in selecting items that belong in the requested category. I often have pants and socks in one place and she is definitely able to distinguish those most of the time.

I really want her to learn to ID my crutches, but it is a matter of training time that I have not yet invested. I'd like her to be able to fetch a crutch at a distance or in another room and give it to me. It would be great if she could search them out on her own. If I'm having a mobile spell, I tend to forget where they are or DH moves them somewhere out of the way. Then I suddenly need them and have trouble getting around well enough to find them.