Working On Touch: A Chima Update

When Chima first arrived she didn't want to be on the same side of the room with me, let alone having me touch her. And even though she now trusts me for the most part, she still isn't fully comfortable with touch. Back in May I wrote the post Stupendously Wonderful Baby Steps about her progress and the work we had done using a paint brush to help desensitize her to touch since it was less scary for her than my hand.

We've continued our desensitizing and counter conditioning work over the last three months and I'm pleased to say we've continued making baby steps that whole time. And three months of baby steps adds up to some great progress.

At first when we were working on this I had to have treats in hand and she would work at the treat in my hand while I gently stroked her neck with my hand, releasing the treat after I marked the behavior.

Next we worked on her receiving touch while she saw the treat in my hand but not needing to have her mouth on it to tolerate the sensation of touch. She started to show more pushy terrier like behavior with me, putting her paws up on my lap and standing on her hind legs trying to get a treat. I talked about that in the post When it's good to be bad. Not saying that's great behavior, but in a dog who didn't want to approach me, acting like a typical demanding terrier is a good sign that trust is building. I was turning from a scary unknown into a benign treat dispenser. Exactly what I want to be to Chima.

And now here we are after three months of training. I now don't have to have a treat in sight for Chima to allow me to touch her. She knows from experience that touch = delicious treat from all our counter conditioning work. When we are doing long touches, like in this video below from yesterday where she gets a full on ear scritch and head rub, I'm still always marking the touch and following with a food reinforcer. We are still not to the point where touch has become something she desires or tolerates for long. I want to lengthen the time she tolerates it and help her become more desensitized to it. We want to move from tolerating to enjoying and that is going to take some time.

But for the occasional short touch she allows when she comes up to me on the deck, she doesn't always get that food reward. I'm trying to vary the length of time the touch happens before she is reinforced, and also vary the type of reinforcers she gets - sometimes a verbal reinforcer, sometimes food, sometimes a favorite chew toy... My goal being to really make this behavior - seeking out touch and physical interactions with humans -  become an everyday habit that is part of her normal behaviors, not something that she will only do when a piece of food is present. That is the part of training that people who poo-poo using food as a reward don't understand. The food makes the learning speed up and happen pretty fast, but then that food is faded out for the most part, as the dog begins to use that desired behavior in a habitual way.

And that is working too. Chima likes to check in with me and we have this little check in touch that we do - I hold out my fingers she touches my hand and I wiggle my fingers a bit, touching just the side of her snout as she licks my fingers. She rarely gets treats for this anymore and it's just become her little check in routine that we share - something that feels safe to her. And if I'm honest with myself, it's probably less about the checking in with me and more about checking in with my fingers to see if I've touched any dog treats recently and if there are residual crumbs she might be able to lick off. But that's okay. It's a great behavior and one we both enjoy.

Since physical interaction with humans started out as a huge struggle for Chima, I do believe that this is something that she'll need to work on and practice for quite awhile. It's not a huge commitment of time - more like keeping treats available so you can do little one minute touch sessions occasionally through out the day. Making the commitment to 5 one minute sessions a day will keep this progress going.

So a big round of applause for Chima's continued hard work and well deserved success. She's an amazing dog who with the right people will continue to blossom and show what a goofy, fun girl she can be.

The Puppy Rescue Conundrum

I personally am not a huge fan of rescuing puppies. They are always the first to get adopted from the shelters because everyone wants a pup. And while I understand they are more susceptible to the diseases that are common in shelters, I still would prefer to pull a one year old dog who's never been taught any manners or house skills to an 8-12 week old puppy. Because the spazzy one year old fearfully barking his head off, isn't going to make it out of the shelter. The spazzy 12 week old yipping his head off probably will.

As the rescue coordinator for the Pacific Northwest foster homes, I try to rescue dogs who urgently need out of shelters or the situations they are in but also dogs who the foster parents that I work with are skilled enough to work with, and who are truly adoptable dogs (or can become adoptable with a little work.) Some of the foster parents need young dogs, some need older, some prefer toy and minis and some prefer standards, some can work with special physical and behavioral needs, other haven't built up that skill set yet. So it's a bit of a dance trying to decide which dogs are going to fit where and then rate which of those dogs need out the most. Because trust me there are always 5 or 10 or 20 more that need rescue but that I don't have room for. I look at them all and then have to choose one or two. It sucks.

But occasionally we get a chance to make a big difference and that difference can be made by taking a litter of young pups into rescue. I try to only pull young pups if they are listed to be euthanized, but there is this one situation where I joyfully will jump in and take a litter of puppies off an owner's hands.

You see, Lynn, my partner in crime down in Fresno and I have a "pull rule" for people who approach us asking us to take an accidental litter of pups off their hands: "yep, we will take them but first you have to spay their mom."  Often these female dogs are having litter after litter of pups, many who end up in shelters later, undersocialized and needing basic training. I used to get so angry at people who let this happen, but now I get over myself and instead choose to help educate people to make a change. Having a tantrum feels good but it sure doesn't do anything to help the dogs.

The puppies' mama; happily her mama days are now over and she can just be a goofy terrier

This current litter of pups the team is taking in is one of those situations. The family had 2 females and 2 males, all unaltered in the house. Each time a female went into heat, accidents would happen, dogs would figure out how to get around enclosures, and another litter of pups would arrive a couple months later. It's a common story. Family members had taken puppies, friends had taken puppies, and now everyone was done with taking puppies. I think this was litter number 4. Someone told the family about potential rescue groups to contact and that's how they got in touch with New Rattitude's Lynn.

Lynn talked with them on the phone and let them know that sure, we would take their 6 puppies into foster care, but only if they spayed both of their adult females. She offered to find them a low cost option for these spays, and even offered to take them into the clinic with the dogs to help them with the paperwork. But the puppies couldn't leave the situation unless that happened. The family thanked her profusely and took her up on the deal. Their adult girls are now spayed and we are following up on our end of the deal by taking the puppies.

The puppies' dad

The happy ending of this story is that in one fail swoop Lynn saved not just 6 puppies, but quite likely hundreds of dogs. You see, those two adults would keep giving birth to litters. And in the Central Valley of CA, it isn't super common for people to alter their pets, so many of the puppies the females had would also give birth to more puppies who would give birth to.... well, you get the picture.

Mama's last litter

On top of stopping that downward spiral, the six current puppies, four females and two males, will be properly vetted, spayed or neutered, and will go to responsible adopters who have what it takes to raise a puppy. And they won't end up in a shelter since once a New Rattitude dog, always a New Rattitude dog. If their placement doesn't work out they can come back to us and we'll find another home for them that does.

So there's the reason I would take in a beautiful litter of purebred puppies who weren't knocking on deaths door. We did it for their mama and for all the future pups their mama and auntie would have had.

A huge thank you to Lynn Bonham since she does all the really tough rescue work for me and then sends our team wonderful dogs who just need a little polish before they head to their final homes.

New Fosters Squeezing In With Us

The Northwest team of New Rattitude has rescued a litter of pups and because we needed to get them into foster care as soon as possible, I decided to take two of the pups here. I've fostered many pups over the last several years and have discovered that two is always better than one.

The reason? Well, for the puppies the reason is that they get to continue to learn the lessons that young pups learn from each other. Things like the level that a play bite turns into getting your butt kicked because it hurt. The other reason is a purely selfish one on my part. Two puppies play together and keep each other busy and mentally stimulated. If you foster one puppy, you get to take on the job of being puppy number 2 and keeping them busy and mentally stimulated. It is a LOT of work.

So without further adieu, I'd like to introduce Juniper and Mesquite. Juniper is a female and Mesquite is a male. They were born on May 12th and I think they are about 4 pounds now. Their parents are both purebred Rat Terriers. Tune in tomorrow for more of their story.

Juniper

Mesquite

More Fun In the Back Yard

Everyone was busy rolling in the grass the other day and it was pretty funny to watch. I wasn't able to catch Salinas' roll on video and by the time I had the camera out she was already relaxing on the deck, all rolled out.

I did however catch Chima and Tilly in the act. Tilly is funny because she likes to slide down the hill while she rolls around and on occasion will slide a good 3 feet or so down the hill as she squirms. Occasionally she'll squirm right over a poop pile which she thinks is awesome. Me, not so much.

Guess Who's at Our House...

Former foster dogs Willow and Hobbs. Their parents are in Oregon for the weekend and so the kiddos are staying with us. They've been as sweet as I remember them.

Willow (New Rattitude name was Coho)

Hobbs - he's always moving so it's tough to get a clear photo of him.

Willow is wondering what the heck Chima and Salinas are eating - fir cones, of course!

Chima and Salinas are a little leery about new dogs hanging out at the house but they have been good girls and are just doing a lot of sniffing. Willow and Hobbs will head home tomorrow and I'm sure they will be happy to see mom and dad again but in the meantime they are busy snoozing on the couch and doing what they do best - warming laps.

Pupdate: Whidbey in Alaska

Whidbey was rescued and adopted in 2012 and since he's gone to live with his new family he's been on some great adventures. We had shared with you his adventures in Death Valley. Well this year he and his brother Bain (another NR adoptee) headed north to Alaska - here are some pictures of them on their trip. Enjoy!

On the Dalton Highway

The boys made it to the Arctic Circle!

In the Yukon. "Larger than Life" could describe a Rat Terrier's attitude too.

Midday Snacks

Chima and Salinas have been quite successful on their diets. In fact they have lost about 10% of their initial body weight. Salinas is on a maintenance level of calories now but Chima still has a bit to lose. While I'm quite proud of their successes, they could care less. They are sure they are starving and have been forced to scavenge for midday snacks to sustain themselves between meals.

Chima and Salinas, on the "hunt"

Chima made the discovery that the nice crunchy fir cones littered about our yard have a delicious layer of pitch inside and she spends much of her time search out and crunching up this new delicacy. Sal caught on and now they both do it. Even Frodo joined in now and it's pretty humorous to see them on this new kind of hunt in the back yard. Forget the mice, these cones are much easier to catch.

Before

After (and they will come back and finish this part later)

Salinas, crunching up the last bits of her cone