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Getting A Service Dog.

No she's a Beagle mix and I've heard that sometimes they love to howl. I guess the mix part of her has tempered that because it's quite a funny squeaky voice. Starts quite high and swings up and down. She may have been singing along to the radio? :)
 
SD has done that a time or two -- started barking at a cat in the street in the middle of a call. I've found putting his vest on him shuts him up because he thinks he's working and knows he can't bark with vest on!
 
We've been travelling again and just got home. I left her travel crate in the lounge room because I was too tired to put it away but I did empty it (I stuff her bed, toys, food etc in it whilst en route).

Half an hour later I went looking for K . Eventually found her curled up in the back of her travel crate fast asleep. :) Took her outside and when we returned - she bolted for her crate again.

No issues with crates for her.

Edited: added a )
 
We've been practicing retrieve but with a difference. I bounce the ball hard down on the pavement and she lets it hit the ground once and catch's it on the rebound and brings it back to me with such a proud sassy trot. Like the dog who got the duck? Eh whatever... she's proud. And I give her a treat and she huffs and puffs at me which is her own unique way of telling me she thinks she did well. So then we do it again, again, again. She doesn't always get it on the rebound but she has a go. It's great exercise and K loves it. So without fail, except when it rains this is what we do. I think it helps her to decompress and just be a happy dog. It's good for me too.

Collecting toys has morphed into me spreading them all over the house and her seeking them out. She will pop them in the basket and give me a glance to see if I approve. If she gets distracted I use hand signals to indicate she ought to keep searching. Some nights she'll find all of her toys in less than a minute and emphatically dumps them in her basket with such enthusiasm it makes me laugh out loud. Other nights she'll get side-tracked with a Kong that still smells like maybe it still has a fragment of food that somehow she may have missed. So she'll bounce it around several times to double check before giving up and thumping it into the basket.

If we take a toy outside to play now I can ask her to take it back inside, put it in the basket and get another toy. Lol... She'll do just that and bring it outside and present it to me.

If I leave the back door open while I'm gardening or whatever outside she'll appear with a toy and put it next to me. If I ignore her she starts doing zoomies around the back yard with it held aloft in her mouth like a runner with a torch getting faster and faster till I start to worry she'll miscalculate and run into something. Eventually of course she has my complete attention. Hmmm.....

'Push the ball' has evolved to her laying towards me with front paws slightly apart and nudging the ball back to me with her nose. We sit about 6 feet apart now but when we began learning this skill we were almost nose to nose. She can concentrate on this game, rolling the ball back and forth for five or more minutes. K is becoming very careful that she rolls it at just the right speed and always in the right direction towards me. If I mess up and send it off past her she jumps up, collects it, pops it on the floor & gives it a nudge back towards me then she flops down to restart the game. Every time she nudges the ball her tail thumps the floor at the same time... I mean I know she likes the game but it is hilarious to see her level of concentration and enthusiasm.

Tonight we learned to give a hug. I've been training her to switch sides and go middle which is sit to the left or right depending on my hand movement. And in the middle is between my legs whilst I'm standing and she either a sits or a drops depending on my hand signal. So tonight I tried doing switch to the left or right whilst I was sitting down on the floor and she was so excited! I've seen trainers teach their dogs to hug and I tried it a while back but her excitement took a frenzied, hysterical turn and she took a mouthful of my hair and started pulling me down and giving me big lick kisses. Completely over the top and err not so pleasant though I'm fairly sure she loved the moment. So I dropped the idea.

Tonight in a burst of renewed enthusiasm I used a treat to lure her to the back of my neck and she jumped up and wrapped her front legs around my neck and took the treat the first time! I told her to stay and she did so I rewarded her with more treats and wallah! Hugs are on! We repeated the exercise a few times and I was stoked with how fast she learned it this time. So well done little K!

I going to find some more brain games. I'm convinced my dog is genius lol.....
 
Just wanted to say how much I love reading about you and K and all the new games and tricks she's learning. I can easily imagine the amount of fun and love going on with all the new stuff she can do, and the whole-bum-wagging action that she gets going on when you guys spend time doing stuff like this together. It's impossible to read posts like that and not end up with a smile on my face:)
 
What great ideas. The one we call Tdying Up! Your mess!! You reminded me that York won't even take a piece of food tossed to him. Being a KING doesn't take food thrown at him. It falls to the floor. Then he examines it. I also think I'm his royal food taster! So bouncing the ball is a perfect solution. Thank you.
Sorry didn't get back to you sooner. For some reason every time I logged on it indicated I wasn't a member. Suddenly today went smoothly. Pet K for me. She seems like an amazing dog! Stealing your training ideas.
 
that is one smart doggie!! Not sure SD could figure out half those things

^I've created and carry the burden and fun of training this dog every.single.day. And she expects it. I don't know how you guys manage but for example if I do something at ten thirty in the morning - thereafter K expects the same thing to happen at the same time every morning. She's got a formidable memory. So I feel like I have to be really careful that I don't do or let her do anything I don't want repeated because she will remember for sure.

Yesterday I was digging holes to plant more trees in my back yard. She thinks any gardening activities are for her sole benefit. Let me explain...so whilst I'm trying to dig this little hole she sniffed it, play growled at it, licked my ears and face because I was certainly well within range and I think she wanted to console me (which makes me wonder what digging holes means in her language?). She sat down and watched for a while but thought better of that a minute later and began furiously digging at the hole spraying soil into the air behind her and wagging her tail wildly. For all of that frenzied happy work she dug down about two inches but made the hole a foot wider.

Spent with her contribution for digging she needed to relax doing zoomies around me in a circle getting alarmingly close. Tiring of this she then crawled towards me inches at a time in stalking mode which she's convinced make her invisible and tried to take my hand tools off and away with her for a damn good chewing..... and looked highly offended when told to bring them right back to me this instant! Skulked off to show her attitude but re-appeared moments later with a snail and presented that to me with obvious pride by dropping it in the hole. I flicked it out of the hole with my shovel and somehow that triggered her eating it, crunching it all loudly and with gusto... ugh...

Finally in desperation when I told her she wasn't helpful she sat in the hole and tilted her head back at me looking pleased that she had shut down all prospects of putting a tree in it!

That was just one hole....

Lately I've been training K to 'play dead' but I've not named it yet. I say 'lay down' and lays flat out of the floor, legs straight with her head extended and touching the floor too. She's got it all down beautifully except she thumps her tail up and down on the floor - it won't stop. Ha!

K's tail is her emotional thermometer. Wagging means fun, happiness and excitement. Twirling which is just very fast wagging means hysteria and out of control; no wagging is serious; dropped tail means huh?; between rear legs means uncertain, I'm sorry; sad or I know I've been naughty. Chasing tail (still) means I'm a puppy at heart and damn I'm going to catch that thing one day! Held high and still means red alert I sniff something and must stop to concentrate.
 
Ha, ha,! Some help is no help at all!
My last CKCS was also a therapy dog. I called it *go to sleep*. She would wag her tail. I,'d say Ah and she'd stop. But soon I'd hear people giggling cuz her tail was going again!

Love your tree planting story. Sounds hilarious. She's a smart puppy. Just trying to help. LOL
 
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