This morning Zane worked on "stand" for his breakfast. Not getting in a stand. Just standing. Still. Without any foot movement. It's something I need to remember to build up with him.
Mid-morning we went out and he did a novice run-through minus the off-lead heeling and the down-stay. He did a minute and a half sit-stay. When I said "around" for his finish, he did a "get in" instead. I did the whole thing with no food - just him and me and us working and playing together. He did pretty darn good! Just the few bobbles.
For dinner, it's his second day of working on "hold". He's getting in the habit on the informal retrieves of just bringing the object to me and kind of tossing it at me. Uh, no. It's time to tighten up that bring and hold. I'm using an M&M tube and found a funny side-effect to it. When he bites down on it, the lid pops and scares him. He drops it, then he wants to avoid it. No go buddy.
When he realized I was going to make him hold it, he decided to just not get it at all. After asking him a couple of times, I put him outside (I still had his dinner) and brought Bella in and trained her. Then he got to come back in and try again. He picked it up a couple of times, had to work on the hold, then decided he didn't want to anymore. Travis had just finished his dinner, so I asked Travis to take it. Zane growled and grabbed it out of his mouth. Yes, he does do some resource guarding against the other dogs. And he didn't want Travis getting his training time and his food. Of course he didn't bring it to me either.
So we did several reps of that - sometimes he dropped it at me feet. Sometimes he wouldn't come to front. But we ended on a good note - he picked it up, brought it to front, sat, and held it until I asked him to release.
How much do you worry about resource guarding? Zig has the tendency to guard if he has something really good (from other dogs, not me, and he's always in his kennel when it happens). I worry he's picking it up from his older sister, who decided a toy is hers and will tell him off for getting too close. It's always very restrained, but since my other aussie used to resource guard toys quite fiercely, I'd rather nip it in the bud early, if that's at all doable.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see the resource guarding, I stop it immediately. If he's laying by me and growls at another dog that comes near, he has to get away from me. When he snatches something from another dog in a resource guarding way (there are other times where it's play), I block him, take the object and give it back to the other dog - and keep blocking him away.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, I do take this pretty seriously, but he's not a serious resource guarder at this point. Hopefully, we'll keep it down to a low level or hopefully, completely stop it.
Right now, as he's entering adolescence, he's also really starting to get pushy with Travis. I stop that behavior too. He doesn't need to be a butt-head, and I can put him in his place when he is. Dogs that are full of bluster like he is are insecure dogs. True "alpha" dogs are very benevolent. They don't have to bark or growl or push. Their presence tells you who they are. Since Zane is all bluster, I just remind him that he's not in charge. . . I am, and Travis is.