The weather has really been warming up around here so Kody and I have started some tennis court training. Kody wants to be outside again, and I have always wanted to give him more time to be off leash. It’s pretty fun.

We couldn’t use the tennis court before because I really didn’t have any way of getting Kody back under control when he started barking. Now I just say “Go get ‘em!” and pretty soon Kody will calm down and come get his treat. That’s one of those weird things where something that seems like rewarding bad behavior actually extinguishes it. When Kody gets really bugged by something and barks, “Go get ‘em!” means if you calm down and come here and sit quietly, you can have a treat. So in that sense, it solves the immediate problem of the barking. But why doesn’t Kody go back and start barking again to get another treat? I don’t actually know, I’m sure the technical reasons are written down somewhere, but my guess is that the barking is caused by fear and related dog emotions, and the “Go get ‘em!” game has removed all those things. Since he’s not afraid anymore, he doesn’t really want to bark. Since we’re on the tennis court to play games which involve treats anyway, he can do far more fun things than barking to get treats. I suppose if I only gave him treats for “Go get ‘em!” things would be different. That might explain how this game goes wrong for many people. But whatever the reasons, it works for us.

The main game we play on the tennis court is fetch. Well, kind of. Kody is not used to being off leash, and is still getting used to the idea of wandering too far away from me. Also, for now, smelling different areas of the tennis court is far more fun for him than anything else. So I walk around the perimeter of the court and when I get to a corner I throw the tennis ball to the next corner, then I start walking to get it. Kody comes with me and usually runs a little ahead to get to the tennis ball. I’m training him to touch it with his nose at which point I click and treat. I’m hoping he will eventually start picking up the ball and bringing it back to me to get the treat sooner. But right now, I can see he’s taking a lot of information in and can’t give the tennis ball his full attention. Also, we are working on the occasional distraction outside the court that causes Kody to bark, but he’s working through those pretty fast.

He seems to be having a great time. In fact, last night he very sneakily found the tennis ball and started playing actual fetch with it in the house. This is why I’m pretty sure he’ll start to play actual fetch once he’s more comfortable off leash. By the way, we use one of the smaller dog tennis balls, not a full sized tennis ball.

We both get pretty good exercise from this and it’s a lot of fun.

Today Kody and I started out on the best walk we’ve had in a long time. I have been working hard to pay attention to Kody’s needs when walking and today he decided all on his own that he wanted to go on a longer walk. I was so happy, and as I suspected, dogs that aren’t afraid are far less likely to pull on the leash. It was just comfortable wonderful walk.

Then, a sort of worst case scenario happened. Kody went poop in some bushes and that was great. But what I know about Kody is that the ten seconds after he poops are the most important ten seconds. He seems to feel most vulnerable at that time. I have to make sure he’s feeling good, so I usually click and treat a couple of times, which works out great.

We were just about the point where he would be fine, when a little dog in a car on one side of us barked. This, by itself would not be that bad, but it put Kody on alert. Right after that, some people in an apartment on the other side of us just clicked their blinds, like they were looking out the window or something. This was the point of no return. Kody felt surrounded on all sides and let me know in no uncertain terms that he wanted to go straight home and was really scared.

This all happened so fast, it took me a while to catch up. I tried clicking just to see if Kody was even capable of calming down, he wasn’t. I still had to pick up the poop and since Kody had gone in some bushes today it was going to be a little more difficult that usual. Oddly, Kody seemed to understand this. I was in a sort of panic, though, because I knew if I didn’t handle this situation correctly, it could cause a lot of trouble for us in the future. Kody needed to get home and fast and know that I would take care of his needs when he had them so he would trust me in the future.

I got the poop picked up, and we walked straight home and Kody didn’t stop pulling on the leash until we got to the front door. It was a bad day for Kody, and while I felt good that I had responded fairly well, I still had some negative feelings because I was so disappointed that a situation that started out so positive ended up so, well, weird.

Looking back, I think I made the right decisions though. I think whatever Kody’s fears were, he wasn’t afraid that I would put him in danger, and that’s hopefully going to help us in the future.

I’m so happy that I can understand when Kody’s afraid now, because it explains a lot of our past challenges. When he’s not afraid, things are so much better. With my learning to be patient, Kody now finally has the ability to learn to be more comfortable and courageous in our world. He can trust that when things get bad for him, I won’t make them worse.

I never thought a dog would be this naturally fearful. Throughout this process I’ve blamed myself, blamed Kody, and blamed just about everything and everyone else, but this is just who Kody is. It explains why my dog experiences are so vastly different and more difficult that other people’s. Now that I have some perspective and realize it, though, we have begun to make real change.

Now I watch for any sign of fear, and that happens quite often, and when I see it, I don’t question or criticize it, I accept it and make a plan to quickly make Kody feel better. I don’t think dogs learn much while they are afraid except to be afraid so it’s good to get them out of that mode.

With an understanding of this I can understand how to go about certain challenges. I decided to switch Kody from a collar to a harness, and I knew it was going to be some work. He was excited about the harness, but he also rolled over with a little fear when it got too close to him. I expected this, and I already had chopped hot dogs. As soon as Kody got close to the harness, he got a hot dog. We did this a few times, then I started feeding him hot dogs though the neck opening of the harness, at first making sure he didn’t have to get to close, and then gently placing the hot dog in more challenging places as Kody got comfortable with it. We progressed to the point where Kody was practically getting the harness over his head to get the treats. But I had no intention of putting it on. Kody will put it on when he’s ready by sticking his head all the way through the neck hole to get a treat. No rush. The harness now means the most fun game is about to happen, and nothing else matters. After one game of this, Kody later found his harness and indicated that it was fun and he wanted to play that game again. So we did. Success! I’ll let you know if we ever get it on.

Part of the reason Kody has trepidation about the harness is that we tried them out when he was younger when I didn’t realize he was so afraid and I did many things wrong. Obviously not so much that a few treats can’t quickly change it. At the time, I believed Cesar Millan when he told me to purposely put my dog in situations he feared (the technical dog training term for this is “flooding”). Poor Kody!

Now everything’s fun and positive for both of us. I have had to learn a lot of patience with Kody, but it has really changed the way I view the world, myself, and challenges. Sometimes we’re just not ready to do that scary thing, and that’s okay. Just take baby steps and make it fun.

Aside from Kody’s fear, one of the reasons I started this blog is because I started to realize dachshunds are just not like other dogs. You can’t expect them to behave like a lab because their nature is to behave completely differently. They can be trained very well, and training can change what they want at certain times or in certain situations. But you can’t change what they naturally want, which is to be one with their nose and go wherever and however fast it takes them regardless of a leash. I can positively entice Kody to walk on a loose leash, but I can’t make that be his natural instinct. I’m sure over time, he will start to want that more, but there’s no need to rush it. After all, life should be fun, right?

After working with Kody so much, when I watch dog training TV my nonsense detectors are on high. I like Victoria Stilwell, but a few seasons ago she was trying to sell Cesar Millan techniques before coming over to the full positive training side of things. I fear this season she has regressed a little bit in that area.

While dealing with Oscar’s aggression issues she was switching between using real proven positive training techniques and Cesar Millan techniques. She would do some good things, but then she would try to be firm and a little angry with a dog to stop him from aggressing at other dogs. All I know is that when Kody is scared being stern with him is only going to make things worse and lower his trust in me. On the other hand Victoria was using great techniques such as “look at that” (although she didn’t call it that) which were working great. The Cesar Millan based techniques Victoria used with Oscar didn’t really make sense, just like when Cesar uses them. They should watch the show and ask themselves, “Can people tell what the heck we’re doing here?” If not, cut it out.

I was saddened that they were rushing the work with Oscar. Dogs don’t become less fearful overnight and owners don’t learn to deal with fear overnight. For me, learning how to even think about my dogs fear responses is still a struggle. With dachshunds, you’re also dealing with instinctual behaviors rather than just plain fear. Victoria was trying to work with Oscar’s human dad but she wasn’t engaging him. She was mad because he was using his cellphone, but why wasn’t he working with her? Why did he have a chance to use his cellphone? Victoria threw a little fit that wasn’t really flattering. I think it was mostly for the cameras.

During one of the commercial breaks they presented a tip saying not to reward a dog when he’s afraid. I feel this is classic bad dog advice and it’s straight from Cesar Millan. First, my dog won’t even take treats that are right in front of him when he’s truly afraid, and I think that’s probably true of most dogs. Second, people need to know what they should actually do when their dog is afraid, not what not to do. For instance, I could say, “Don’t try to do the hula dance when you’re dog is afraid.” That’s true, but it’s not very helpful. When your dog is afraid, he needs to feel protected. He doesn’t feel safe and it’s your job to show him that you will always protect him when he needs it. So simply remove him from the situation to show him that he can trust you, then later after he’s calmed down, take baby steps to work on the fear a tiny little bit at a time.

What’s ironic about that commercial break blurb is that Victoria said just the opposite at another time in the show. She said:

When you stimulate a dog’s appetite it gives them a feeling of pleasure, just as with a human, so you’re replacing a negative feeling with a positive feeling.

Interesting… so which is it? Don’t reward negative feelings with food, or do? Well, what Victoria said is right according to my trainer, food is a great tool to keep your dog feeling happy and it can combat mild fear when used correctly. She showed this many times throughout the rest of the show. I think the tip during the commercial was probably put in during post production by someone who wasn’t really with the program.

I still really like Victoria. She’s the closest thing we have to a really good trainer on TV. Oh, one more interesting thing, this season she switched to using the command “wait” instead of the command “stay”. She went out of her way to correct someone who tried using “stay”. I think this is because, as I learned in my first training class, “stay” is often reserved for longer time periods and sometimes requires touch to be released.

After getting up a few times and having him walk away, I just let him tell me when he was ready. Finally he barked to let me know, and even then he almost walked away when I approached. I told him to wait.

When we went outside he changed his mind, but I knew he had to go. He went pee and tried to pretend that’s all it was, but I know him well enough to know it wasn’t. I really had to press the issue and walk him over to the grass, at which point he immediately pooped. Crazy dog.

He also went to the vet to get his toenails clipped today. I tried integrating the clicker and hot dogs to ease the vet visit, but it doesn’t work. He’s too nervous to care. I know I should probably learn to clip his nails, but it’s just one more thing on a long list of things I probably won’t get to.

We had an old classic tonight. I love iceberg lettuce and blue cheese. I chop about a quarter of a head of lettuce up and leave a piece for Kody. He loves it, he was so excited because he knows whenever I have salad he gets it too, and it’s been a while. The iceberg lettuce had been so bad that I stopped buy it, but now it’s good again. Kody will only eat iceberg lettuce, and he loves it.

I posted this once, but then put it back into ‘pending review’ because, well, this has just been a hard time. But now I kind of have some confirmation of what’s going on, and a bit of a happy ending, so I edited the post and here it is once again.

This morning I took Kody outside three times. The first two times, I opened the door, he went to the door, and stopped like he didn’t want to go out. Then, with great trepidation he went outside, peed in a flower bed right next to the door, and went back inside.

I knew he must have to poo, and he acted again like he wanted to go out, but once I opened the door, he didn’t want to go out. I finally gently coaxed him out and he ran to the end of the leash and pulled me to the front yard where he found a place to poo, I picked it up, and then he dragged me back to the front door.

But then, I could hear it. There is a faint hight pitched sound coming from the fire station. I put Kody inside and went out to investigate. I could hear it from our front door but it was definitely coming from the fire station. I walked around to be sure and it was much louder by the station.

I went back inside and thought, could this be what’s bothering Kody so much?

I got up the nerve to go to the fire station and ask them. They said it came on once a week for the generator, but one of them said it would be fixed. I told them my dog seemed to have an issue with the fire station but that it started in the middle of the week so maybe that’s not it.

Well, I was still not sure so I found a way to take Kody through our back yard to go on a walk. Sadly I had to let him walk at the end of the leash most of the way because I wanted him to be free to go where he wanted. It felt like a big setback, but now at least I had a way for us to go on walks.

The hardest thing about this is that Kody has brought out all of my parental instincts. To have this thing that I don’t control that is making it uncomfortable or maybe even painful for Kody to leave the house is bringing up painful emotions that I’ve never experienced. Imagine your kids who are normally happy all of a sudden one day don’t want to go outside and are begging to go in when you take them outside. Even worse, dogs have to go outside to go potty.

Well, the somewhat happy ending is that we just went out and the ringing had stopped. Kody was so happy and went outside to pee and then spent a bunch of time looking for a pine cone to bring back in. (It’s a game we play, he gets to trade the pine cone for a small treat.) He didn’t find one, so a little while later he asked to go out again. He walked all over and was sniffing and jumping around and having fun. Finally he found a pine cone and was so happy and ready to go in and trade it.

To see him that happy again outside was just the best. I never thought I would be so happy about a pine cone. That gave me hope, and I know we’ll figure this thing out, somehow.

Part of the reason I pulled this story is that it’s so crazy. I mean, with all the stuff I’ve been through with Kody, now this? I’m so glad I was able to hear the sound finally, and that the firemen knew what I was talking about. It seems like from there, we can solve the problem.

First, two days ago, when Kody and I went outside, something spooked him. It seemed like it was something that happened right then but now I’m just not sure. There is a fire station near us, and it seemed as if Kody was afraid of the station. He was scrambling at the end of the leash to get home, and I’ve never seen him do this. He has also been nervous to stay outside for very long. It made me think they might have one of those ultrasonic devices to scare away dogs, but what kind of a fire department would have that? I’ve contacted the trainer and maybe she will have some good ideas of what happened.

Today a friend came over and we took Kody for a walk. He was nervous, even shaking, but his curiosity was winning and he started moving forward. It seemed it couldn’t be a sound situation. Then he started sniffing a lot, and I think maybe he smells something. He didn’t sniff yesterday, but maybe the scent is so strong he doesn’t need to. Even with the bit of courage he showed and lots of clicking and hot dogs, he was still very nervous.

On our walk, another dog came by and it didn’t seem nervous. The owners said he had been fine. This put to rest my fears that being outside our house is inherently uncomfortable to dogs. Kody has smelled things before that have bothered him, so I’m guessing this might just be another smell. We’ll have to just take it slow and give him time to get used to whatever it is. I was telling my friend, “You see how hard this is?” He said, “Yes, you have a crazy dog, just like you!” Hey!

To make matters worse, my car battery died last night, and I had to wait an hour and a half for roadside assistance. Then this morning, I couldn’t even unlock my car with the remote the battery was so dead. My friend and I tried to jump it, but it wouldn’t start, so we waited another hour and a half for a tow truck to take it to the garage. Thank goodness for roadside assistance, I haven’t had to pay for any of this.

All this and a few other things have been making me a bit sad, especially since it’s getting dark so soon, but Kody’s been great at cheering me up. This whole week has reminded me just how important he is to me. When he hurts I hurt, but when I hurt he cheers me up.

We went on our morning walk and I decided to try to get Kody to walk beside me without luring him with treats. It’s always hard to get this process started so it took a while to get him to come to my leg. When he did, though, I found I could control him with my voice and prevent him from running ahead and bring him back if he started to edge forward. This amount of control with Kody is amazing! I’m really happy with it.

We went our usual distance I’m guessing somewhere between 30 and 50 feet and only then did I pull out a treat and reward him.

Now, whether some perfect trainer could have gotten here faster or better doesn’t matter. I’m just a regular guy. But I know that if it weren’t for a lot of patience and treats we wouldn’t have arrived here. It’s not like we’re done or anything, this is just another milestone. I’m sure as with everything have good days and bad days, but things are steadily getting much better.

Most trainers very much encourage the use of treats but often have goals to remove the need for treats as soon as possible. I’m not a trainer. I think I have the perspective of a normal person who’s trying to train his dog right. If you don’t totally know what you’re doing to the extent that a professional trainer would, as most of us owners don’t, you need a crutch. Small training treats are a great crutch that will help you make progress and limit any damage to your dog (assuming your treats are healthy.) Then remove the treats only when both you and your dog are ready and confident.

And heck, what do those people in the rings at dog shows have for their perfect dogs to make them behave? Treats!

If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me!

Today we went outside and they were resurfacing a parking lot at the senior center in our neighborhood. This is a pretty good distance away, but we could here some sort of metal pounding against the pavement. It wasn’t a jackhammer, it was something bigger. It was pretty quiet at our distance, but there was a large bass component to it so maybe it was shaking the ground a bit. Kody was very unsure of this, it seemed to concern him. I don’t think he barked though.

We walked just a short way to a tree and something set him off. It was not something I could see, but he was barking and what was unusual was that his tail was between his legs. He was really scared. I just let him bark and remained calm. I’m experimenting with letting him take care of his own needs. Also, really, I had no idea what to do, but there was no imminent danger so I let him get over it on his own, which he eventually did. My hope is that calmly giving him this opportunity in situations that are truly non-threatening will help him to deal with situations better in the future.

When he calmed down, we started walking again. But he must have been in a really bad mood. He saw a crow across the street and than set him off on a good barking fit. Again, his tail was between his legs and he was skittish about any motion nearby. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before. He barks a lot, but not with his tail between his legs like this.

I felt bad for him, but again, there was no imminent danger, and the crow wasn’t doing anything to taunt him, so I let him adjust and calm down on his own.

At this point, I know he’s upset in general, so I just plan on going around the block, and we’re already half way there. At this point he still needed to take care of both kinds of potty needs, which he eventually did.

We ended up going within sight of the construction, although the noise had mostly stopped. He barked a little, but got over it pretty quickly. I was hoping that was a sign he was adjusting.

I’ll tell you the truth. I honestly don’t know what to do when this happens. I know what not to do. I know I shouldn’t get excited or angry of course. I know I can have him sit and treat the quiet that comes with that, but while that works at the time, after doing it so long, it doesn’t seem to help with future times at all. Especially now that he’s figured out to sometimes bark just to get the treats. (Although when he does that, it’s usually accompanied with a doggy smile and a look like, “I get treats now???”)

So I just let him bark now when there’s nothing to move him away from and no threat, and hopefully he’s learning from that.

Probably the most common comment I get when walking my dog is, “You give your dog treats for barking?”

I used to be incredibly bitter about it, now I am a little annoyed because the comment is always delivered with a good amount of judgement, but I understand that’s just how it is.

Yesterday a man asked why a gave my dog a treat when he barked at a bus. I just told the man, I give him a treat when he calms down, not when he barks. Kody had sat quietly for a good long time before I gave him the treat, but it probably wasn’t that long to an observer. Then he commented how dachshunds are either really mean or really nice. I’m not sure which he thought Kody was. But I didn’t mind this comment. From a non-dachshund owner perspective, it’s absolutely true.

So I just told him about how dachshunds are naturally a little more cautious and fearful than other dogs and they’re not afraid to tell you so. You just have to give them time to get used to things, lots of time. At the time Kody was investigating one of those slow/stop signs that are used to direct traffic through construction zones. It was leaning upside down against a fence. He barked at it a couple of times and was very cautious around it at first. So I pointed out it was a great example of what I was saying as Kody quickly learned the sign wasn’t much of a threat.

The man had also said, “Don’t let him pee on that sign!”