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Wednesday, March 23, 2005
It's All About Incentive
At first with Pork Chop, I was discouraged regarding her prospects as a learner of social skills and tricks. For one thing, I am not a good dog trainer, more like disastrously bad. Additionally, she seemed to have the intelligence of a cabbage. The first time I worked with her re. "SIT", she not only did not sit, I could not force her to sit without fearing to break her little back legs. She stiffened up like a board. That was a week and a half ago. Now she sits right away when told to do so. What made the difference? Sara Lee thin-sliced roast beef. Before the Sara Lee, I got indifferent results using cheese, turkey, or ham. I spread a third of a slice over each training session. A teeny little bite each time she does soemthing right.
Besides SIT, she now can do UP..which means stand on her back legs and walk a couple of steps. This is the preliminary to learning to dance. So there's hope for the little dog. I would love to have her learn to do everything Lydia's dog Bugscuffle used to do. Bugs could dance, beg, "sing", do "shamey, shamey" with her paws over her eyes, sit, hold a treat on her nose until told OK, and then toss it up and catch it, roll over, heel, go get in her naughty box, down, stay, come, fetch, jump through a hoop, and take the top off a Tupperware container if it held a treat for her. Bugs was so well-trained that if she was doing something wrong, all you had to do was clear your throat, and look at her, and she fixed herself. All of that seems like too much to ask of Pork Chop, starting her education at age five. Too, Bugs was trained by the great Nancy who could teach a cow to rhumba. However, the progress Pork Chop made in a week and a half under the influence of Sara Lee urges me forward.
One more thought about Sara Lee...today the kids were here at lunch time. Sadie and Benny wanted hot dogs. Sadie ate hers holding it in her hand and waving it at the dog, letting the dog have a lick now and then, and finally tossing it on the floor for the dog to have it all. I grabbed it, thinking about Pork Chop's diet. Then I reconsidered and broke it into small pieces. I tried using these as training incentives and was mostly ignored. This dog has a discriminating palate. She wants only the best and most expensive incentives.
The cutest thing about her is that she talks all the time...I don't mean bark...I mean she makes little sounds as she sits beside me or on my lap, itty bitty grunts and squeaks. I think I'm becoming attached to Pork Chop. I decided to get her, intended to treat her well, thought she was cute, but none of that meant I liked her. She's talking me into liking her. She's only been here for a week and a half, and if she were taken away I would miss her terribly. Right now she is on my lap, nose tucked under my elbow, asleep, emitting barely audible dogisms.
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