July 12, 2008 - Baby's first poopie!

This is one of those times you all should be glad my camera is broken. Mika mad her first poopie today and undoubtedly I would have attached a photo of said poopie if I had a camera.

Yes, I'm sure it's not her first poopie ever but it's the first one since I took over her care on Thursday. Hard to believe it's been three days and this is the first one! She's not much for going potty in general. I am lucky to get her to go every 14 hrs, which is disturbing because a dog her age should be going every 5 hrs. Apparently she did this when she first arrived here at the school several weeks ago. So the good news is it's not me to blame! Even the trained staff couldn't get her to go in the beginning.

The other good things is that a steel bladder like hers will only help my social life. I can start going out on drunken benders every night and I won't have to worry about when my dog needs to be let out to potty! Sweet!

In other news...
Today's class was really exciting today because we started working our own dogs in class. Not everyone has secured dogs yet but many will get them over the weekend. The focus of class was to help students picking out puppies know what to look for and what to do with the dogs once we get them. This class was SOOO helpful to me because I discovered I was doing some things wrong and I can correct them not that I know better.

All I know is how to train dogs to be pets, and anyone who has met my boys will question even that. But when you're training a working dog you have to throw 70% of the rule book out the window. For example, with a working dog you don't leave toys down for the dog to play with at her own whim.

So the first thing I had to do after class was take 6 toys out of Mika's crate. The reason for this is because play time needs to be a time when our dogs increase their drive. We need them to have a high drive in order to do agility, tracking, narcotics search, and protection work. So that means that toys need to feel special and not something they can literally pick up off the floor at any given moment.

Mika gets play time with me every day, multiple times a day and each time we end play on a high. If I wait for her to stop play on her own when she wears out or is no longer interested, over time her general drive will decrease. The tennis ball or the tug toy we play with will no longer feel all that special or interesting if she has her fill every time she wants. The trick is to always keep her wanting more.

We did a class training exercise today where we played a game with the dogs to increase their drive. A couple of the dogs have such a high prey drive for the tennis ball that they literally salivate trying to get the ball. They are totally addicted to the ball!

That need to go for the ball at all costs becomes the basis for narcotics search, for example. In training, tennis balls are laced with the smell of cocaine, or marijuana, or even the smell of a dead body in the case of training cadaver dogs. These dogs learn to associate the "gotta have it" tennis ball with the particular scent. Ultimately for finding the scent they get the reward of the tennis ball.

So naturally you can see why a dog must have a high drive for the tennis ball in order to be successful, otherwise what becomes the dog's motivation to seek out the smell of crack? Find the crack and the dog get to enjoy the high of his tennis ball!