Puzzles

One of our favorite things in the world to do with Athena is to give her puzzles. We love watching her little brain work as she figures them out and gets her reward. It’s a great boredom buster and she loves it. Our favorite brand is Outward Hound. They have different skill levels and different types of puzzles to try. Her brother is a chewer. He doesn’t like the puzzles because his Malamute brain just wants to chew on it. She, on the other hand, seems to enjoy the process of “if this, then that” that the puzzles present.

Lately I’ve been looking on Pinterest and other sites looking for other puzzles that we can do with her that tweak other skills. I’ve seen the two liter bottle puzzle where they spin the bottles on a rod to get treats out. I’ve seen obstacle courses. I’ve seen wooden puzzles, plastic puzzles, puzzle bowls, snuffle mats….all sorts of sensory builders. I will be trying some of these out moving forward.

This short post is just a quick note to say that if you have a German Shepherd, they need a job. They need something to do. It’s in their nature. When they’re bored, they’re destructive. My best suggestion is to invest in puzzles, puzzle toys, and other such busy time activities. When you need to get a few things done, it’s a great way to entertain them. It’s also a great way to distract them when you need to leave the house. Of course, daily activity whether it’s walks or backyard/dog park play are incredibly important but these activities can sometimes busy the brain and wind down the dog for a good transition.

Six Months Update

Athena is officially six months. Here’s the half year update:

She’s 42 lbs. She’s on the smaller end of the normal scale but growing just fine. She’s just petite. She’s not lost a bit of her beautiful coloring and she’s a slender beauty.

She’s fast! She outruns her brother who has been known to outrun everyon. She has a beautiful stride.

She’s smart! She knows so many commands already and she’s always eager to learn new ones.

She’s obedient. She understands the concept of who the boss is and listens.

but….

She’s still a puppy, which means digging up the brand new sod that was just laid down, jumping in bed to wake you up at 6:00AM on a Saturday, and chewing on things she’s not supposed to.

Still…..

She’s literally the sweetest puppy I’ve ever encountered. She is a true cuddle bug and a brilliant, obedient girl. She may have swayed this Nordic Breed mama to a new breed moving forward!

Roll Over

Athena’s newest task to learn was to roll over. While this was a major training must for her older brother (a very much pack attitude animal who needed to learn alpha male and female of the house), she is a very docile, happy pup so we saved this one for a little further into training. Our hand gestures are not always the same as everyone else’s and we have to do what works with our pups so we came up with our own hand gesture and taught the basic command. The basic concept was to put the treat out front and have her follow the treat all the way over. We, then, introduced the word with it each time, then weaned off the treat until the actual roll was complete. We are now at 100% with our roll over command.

We’ve also discovered the sprinkler this past week. Whenever I was watering the flowers, she would whine and fuss until I aimed the hose out for her to run through it so Dad set up the sprinkler for her. She gets completely drenched running in circles around it and occasionally gets her reluctant malamute brother to join her but she is living her best life running through the water.

Next up, we are continuing to focus on heel. We are at about 90-95% on this but puppies are still puppies sometimes. We’ve definitely improved on our manners with other animals and have gotten far less reactive (I say this as she sprinted after a big crow the other day that had landed in the yard). We had our most recent vet visit and she is 42 pounds now. She’s on the petite side, more so because she’s slender than anything else. It’s hard to believe we’re approaching her half birthday already. It will be interesting to see what the next half year brings.

Just Shy of Six months

Athena is just shy of six months now and has developed quite the personality. She’s such a little love. She wants to kiss and cuddle all of the time and loves her big brother.

What have we mastered so far? The list is pretty long but I’ll try not to forget anything: sit, lay down, stay, roll over, please (both paws), touch, leash manners, car manners, come, leave it, drop it, and probably a few more that I’m forgetting.

We are about 85-90% on taking treats gently, learning appropriate times to bark, and heel (when not on a leash). We are continuing to work on heel, in particular.

What’s next for this little lady? We are anticipating her first heat soon, after which we can get her spayed. We have never had the intention of breeding any of our dogs and we want to be sure that we are being responsible pet owners as such. In terms of training, we will continue to work on mastering the current ones but we will also be adding a “bring” command to allow her to pick up an item that is dropped and bring it to me. We might also work on stretching those muscles more by practicing some dexterity runs over obstacles. I have no intention of showing her professionally but I like to keep her challenged.

In her first six months of life, I can say this: she has given me a whole new love for this breed. We could not have picked a sweeter, smarter girl that is more perfect for our family and we adore her.

22 weeks aka 4 1/2 months

I missed a few weeks of blogging just due to the hubbub of having a big family but I’m back. Athena is now 22 weeks and growing like a weed. In the past few weeks, we have mastered the following….

Being able to jump onto furniture and beds (which we allow)
Moving into a bigger bed to sleep in at night, as she has way outgrown the other one
Growing big enough to successfully use a traffic lead

Okay, so those aren’t mastery skills but it shows growth for sure. As a reference, she was itty bitty if you look back to how big she was by her brother before. Now….

She’s catching up fast. In the past few weeks, we have concentrated heavily on three major things: gentle treat taking, holding her “stay” command for longer, and “saying please” which is really more about letting me examine her paws. In terms of “stay”, she has nailed it to staying for essentially an unlimited amount of time (or as long as I’ve tried up to this point) as long as she has entertainment to play with while she’s there….half hour, hour…she’s got it. Saying please she grasped quickly and does it easily with both hands. Gentle treat taking has been a journey but I’ve found that if I wrap my fingers around the treat and approach her slowly with it, she takes it slowly as well.

Then there’s leash manners. This is a work in progress. That’s not because she pulls, etc. When’s on a harness, she walks like a champ…..but we bark…and bark…..and bark…and bark.

We have tried two methods (depending on the situation) and found a way that we are improving. Obviously we tried the “keep your distance” method but honestly you can’t always do that. We do a hybrid of two other methods.

Can of air: If I’m walking in the neighborhood where I know the sound won’t be as scary to dogs walking by, I use a can of air. If I’m walking with her and she starts to bark at another dog, I do a quick spurt of the can of air just to make the noise. It startles her enough to stop immediately. If we walk past another dog and she does NOT bark, she gets a big reward. Obviously over time, we will reduce the size and frequency of the treat but it’s all about rewarding the positive and making sure she knows the barking behavior is undesirable.

“No”: If I’m inside somewhere where I don’t want to use a can of air, I use the simple “No” command. As I’ve used this in many other commands when she’s doing something undesirable, she knows that when she hears the short “no” in a particular tone, it means stop what you’re doing immediately. Obviously the challenge with this is getting her to hear. It becomes, “Athena focus” when she gets too loud and needs to regroup. I try to catch the barks before they really get going. One bark, short “no” in the tone she’s familiar with…if she barks again, “No” and redirect again. She’s getting it but Shepherds are known for this trait so it’s not a huge shocker that she does it.

What have we mastered?

Sit
Lay down
Stay (for extended periods)
Say please (give me your paw) with both paws and from sitting or laying
Hold (we have a name for this and she goes to a particular place, esp in the kitchen)
Leash manners (walking nicely while on a harness)
Car manners (sit down and feel the breeze without pacing)
Come
Not begging (this isn’t so much a command but just a general behavior) at the table
Waiting for her food until she gets the “take” command

What will we be working on in the coming weeks

Mastering leash manners and not barking when other dogs pass.
Roll over (allowing me to examine her belly on command)
Taking the treat gently every time
….and if we can get into it, bring it here. I would like to work with her on simple techniques to bring me an object such as a water bottle, etc. Though this is generally a command for service dogs, when my neuropathy acts up, it wouldn’t be bad to master.

17 Weeks

Athena is 17 weeks now and is a happy, sweet girl. We joke that we should have named her “Anna” (from the movie “Frozen”) because she’s definitely a morning puppy (i.e. “The sky’s awake so I’m awake” – Anna, Frozen). She’s definitely a cuddle bug and loves to bury her face in pillows or blankets when she sleeps. She’s growing like a weed and has personality for days.

We’ve been working hard on staying on her place for extended periods with distractions. Essentially, we do the “place” command, followed by our stay command and she’s expected to stay there until I release her. Meanwhile I’m opening doors and walking out, opening cabinets in the kitchen, and talking to the other dogs. Essentially, I’m trying to get her to understand that the command means to stay in place until I tell you otherwise. This is our progress thus far.

Front Door-100% of the time, even with delivery people

Back Door- 50/50….this is the door that has our bells on it to go outside so the bells automatically make us want to get up and go outside to play. However, it’s not often that I would be making her wait so we don’t practice this one often.

Door to garage- 100% if it’s just the door going to the garage. However, if the garage door itself opens, 50/50. She wants to greet.

Cabinets in the kitchen- 100%. Can opener running-80% (though, to be fair, she does run to her spot in the kitchen where she sits politely when she hears it).

I will give props that when the delivery people came in to bring in our new appliance yesterday, she maintained her spot even with the people coming in and out…I call this a win.

We’ve also gotten to 99% polite leash walking. No more barking at other dogs 99% of the time. The 1% is when they start barking and won’t stop. She controls it when it’s just a bark or two but when the owner lets it continue to bark, bark, bark…she loses her cool and barks back. However, I will say it’s quickly fixed with a “no”.

We’ve gotten to 100% polite greetings both at home and in public. We sit and wait politely for someone to greet us instead of jumping, getting in people’s faces, acting nuts. We do still bark when strangers come to the door if we have not been put in our place and, honestly, I’m kind of okay with that. I don’t want her to think she can’t alert me to someone coming into our house. However the people who live here know the commands to get her to greet politely and she transitions quickly and easily.

We’re also taking treats politely about 90% of the time. She can be a real snappy Mc-Snaperson when she wants to, but moving the treats toward her slowly and telling her to be gentle has helped. I’d even wager to say 95% of the time if it’s not her favorites. The 5% ish is when it’s her favorites and she gets over-excited.

We also took our heart worm pill for the first time….which we did not care for. I ended up having to put it into a piece of cheese to get her to eat it. I don’t know if it was the texture or what. She put it in her mouth, tried to chew and then spit it back out probably five or six times before I finally just grabbed it, put it in the cheese and gave it to her. Easy peasy.

We will continue to work on our place command with distractions as well as moving our “place” to different areas and possibly even trying “place” outside. We are starting to work more on the commands to get her to be able to walk off leash, but honestly, I won’t be walking with her off leash much (as there are leash laws) so it’s not a huge priority. Our other work keeps her not under foot and that was really my priority.

All in all, I’m extremely pleased with her progress and love my little pup.

16 weeks

Athena is 16 weeks old now and full of energy! She’s getting into the fun, ultra chewing stage (did you sense the sarcasm) and is a creature of routine. In fact, just this morning her dad tried to get up with her at 6:00 AM when she woke up so that I could sleep and she could not grasp that it was not mom taking her out. Mom has a routine with her. Creature of habit…for sure.

Here’s what we’re currently working on….

Chewing: Supervision, supervision, supervision. I cannot stress that enough. Puppies are like toddlers at this age; they experience the world through their mouths. It only takes a second for rocks and tiny pieces of plastic to become a real dilemma for a curious pup. Supervise and make sure that she understands the GREAT things to chew on. If she starts to get into mischief, I redirect with a quick “no” to her to a marrow bone and then use her trigger word “good girl” to let her know this is what we chew on. If she actively seeks out the marrow bone when she wants to chew, it’s the same “good girl” cue to let her know that this is behavior I want to see.

Barking at other dogs: This is an exposure thing. A trainer suggested to us to use a little can of essentially canned air to startle her when she barks at other dogs. This didn’t work for us…. she was just curious what the sound was. As she does 99% of her barking at other dogs when she is on the leash, we know the trigger. I’ve essentially just done a quick “no” and then our “heel” command (we use a different word). We’ve also worked some on “me” training. We started this with taking her in the back yard and rewarding every time she made eye contact, then added the “me” command when she made eye contact. It then transitioned to her following me around the backyard and when I say “me”, she has to get in a position to look me in the eye to get the reward. In a high distraction environment, that “me” command is starting to get her to reposition and focus on me, not the other dogs.

Place with distraction: We have the “place” command down and when we add “wait”, she hold in that position for an extended time (we’re increasing the time). We’re currently working on “place” with distractions. I am now able to open the front door to get deliveries without a curious GSD pup under my feet. The next step to this is to desensitize her to the doorbell, followed by the doorbell being a secondary cue to go to her place.

Wait: “Wait” (as opposed to stay) has been a godsend. I use it when she’s in a sitting position to get her to stay in place. I use it when I’m trying to groom her or when she’s at the vet’s office for a check up and needs to be still for a minute.

Gentle: “Gentle” is the trigger word to not snatch at treats like an alligator. It’s not so much a command as it is a trigger word to remind her.

We continue to reinforce her other commands as well. She is definitely a little busy body but I wouldn’t change her for the world. She is still equally as sweet as she was from day one, a cuddle bug, and the little princess love of our house!

15 weeks

We have had our last set of puppy shots and we are ready and able to play more now. Yay! We have had an interesting week with training and repositioned our wording a bit to help us with the process which has helped tremendously. We’ve also learned that while we can train some with brother, malamutes are not always great examples in the training category and we need to have some individual time too.

Here is our progress….

Mastered: Sit, (lay) down, come, place (getting to the place when told), leave it

Working on currently: Wait

We changed our wording on our stay command. For some reason, stay was just not really sticking as well with our little lady. It worked well for “stay” seated while waiting on food. However it just wasn’t really working with the place command well at all. So after working with some dog trainers and reviewing some videos, we tried a similar word: wait.

We instituted wait into our “place” training as we worked on duration. Sure enough, it stuck. I’ve also started working on “wait” when I have her sit during training. Sit…..wait. For some reason, this word has worked better and, frankly, I wasn’t about to worry about whether or not it was weird to change words during training…it’s working for us. We have our “place” command down to me being able to walk down the stairs, to the door, and open the door when we use “wait”.

I guess the moral of this is that sometimes you have to adapt your plan when training in order to fit the needs of the dog. Next on our list, “heel”. For your enjoyment, here is what we do after we’ve trained in the morning….she’s on her “place” by the way.

14 weeks

This week has been an adventure in the learning process. She has grown like a weed in the past two weeks and she is all legs. I imagine she might be a more lanky, slender German Shepherd as an adult, but that remains to be seen at this point. She takes up my whole lap now and has found that she is big enough to put her front paws up on the dining room table. This has shifted our plan a bit in training, obviously.

As an update on where we are 100% on “sit”, “(lay) down”, “leave it”, and “come” in an at-home, no distraction environment. We are 80% at home with “stay” and “off” in an at-home, no distraction environment. We transitioned sitting pretty to “hold” as it’s a more versatile command and we are about 90% in the kitchen (the only place we’ve really done it thus far). I can’t really say that’s a no-distraction environment because there are always people in and out, other dogs milling around, etc. On all of these commands, we range in the 70-80% range when we are in an unfamiliar, distracting environment. This, of course, comes with experience and we continue to engage in these commands in more distracting environments as a means of making certain that we understand the command is a command regardless of where we are.

This week, we have worked far more on two major commands “hold” in other environments and “place.” In fact, we are trying to use these two in conjunction with one another. As the dining room, kitchen, and living room and all on one floor of our house, we are starting with the “place” command on that floor. I started with laying out blankets (which will likely eventually be put on a cot/mat) and working on the “place” command. I lured them on to their blanket with a trainer treat, gave the command, and click/rewarded them . Then we began walking around and doing the command for “place” with instant click/reward once they were sitting on their place (they sat automatically once all four feet were on it). From their, we used the “hold” command. The goal of this is to get them to understand that they need to stay in this place. My goal for this weekend was only to get them to five minutes and we succeeded, for the most part.

When food is involved, it seems to be more of a challenge. When we are at the dining room table, I gave a simple “sit” and “hold” command. The challenge is that I have to reward them while simultaneously eating my dinner. The reward is that they are learning to sit still while I eat.

All training sessions involve my clicker and the trainer treats with a bigger reward being given at the end. We found some great duck and blueberry organic treats that really got Athena excited this week and she was willing to listen for longer with such a delicious treat. Dually noted, my princess, dually noted. I also got a great piece of advice from a dog trainer in my family when I commented that the only reason they listen to “hold” is because they know they get a reward 100% of the time. Her response was, “Well we don’t work for free, why should we expect the dog too?” While obviously there are some commands that I expect them to just obey, “place”, “hold”, and “come” will always be reward commands for me. Obviously my expectations for time limits will increase as they get more comfortable with “place” and “hold” but these are commands that I want them to understand are going to get a reward every time and, thus, are going to encourage them to listen every time. “Come” is important to me because there are cases where emergencies happen and I want them to “come” every time. Period.

This week’s plan is to continue to work on “place” and “hold” and to just enjoy the snow from the snowstorm that’s coming through. For your viewing pleasure, here is Athena with her brother, Orion, practicing the “focus” command.

13 weeks

We worked very hard on two particular tasks this week: Leave it and taking food/treats gently. Here are the details of our progress:

Leave it: This is particularly difficult with barking at other dogs and with wanting to just love the pants off of our older senior sister. We started walks this week and found that barking at other dogs was a consistent issue. When we continuously bark, we stop, sit, and get the “leave it” command. If we continue to bark, we sit and I look up at the sky ignoring her until she stops. When she stops, we start to walk, click and immediately reward. This has curbed the issue quite a bit. We are also going to start working on “look at me” games in order to prevent the issue from occurring before it starts.

Taking treats gently: Athena is a snatcher when it comes to treats. While I am all for coming in from below, I want her to understand that she needs to be gentle when taking treats. We have worked with two different approaches. Approach one is to come in slowly with the treat. If she starts to lunge, I remove the treat and use the word “gentle” as I come in again. This has been about sixty percent successful and she’s grasping the concept better. We’ve also worked with approach two, which is to hold on to the treat while she is aggressively biting until she starts to gently take it or even lick it, and then let it go. This has been a bit less successful but she is starting to grasp it.

Bonus: We used to jump like the donkey from Shrek whenever we saw it was dinner and we were getting wet food (if you can’t picture it, think “pick me, pick me”). We are now learning that we need to sit politely while we wait on our food and have about 85% accuracy with this. I accomplished this by literally stopping in my tracks and looking at the ceiling EVERY time we started to jump. “Off” (look at the ceiling), then when she got off “Sit and stay” commands with reward. Then if she jumped again, same protocol. Incidents became less and less and now the vast majority of the time we are sitting immediately and the rare occasions when we jump, it only takes one warning.

I stress every time that I’m not a dog expert and it’s only life experience. If you’re struggling, it is best to get expert advice.

That said, I’m very pleased with her progress and very proud of how great she’s doing. To celebrate, here is a picture of our growing little nugget of love!