July 29, 2008 - Are you my mommy?

Back in the dog sitting business already...Mika and I are puppy sitting tonight for one of the Malinois babies. This little guy hasn't been adopted yet so I agreed to watch him for my neighbor who has a 6-week old pup of his own plus a 5-month old Malinois and a 1-year old lab. He has his hands full and needed the night off from two tiny babies!

Poor Mik is being harassed by the pup who thinks she is mama and screams at her to nurse him!!

Today in class - Finger Holds
A forced retrieve is where you teach a dog to pick things up in his mouth and bring it to the handler on command. Most dogs already know how to pick things up with their mouth but generally just items that strictly benefit the dog itself (his favorite ball, a fun looking stick, the shoe he wants to chew, etc.). A forced retrieve would basically be teaching a dog to fetch and hold items that you, the human, want them to carry (a small wooden dumbbell in agility, a bird in hunting, a beer for the lazy bum on the couch, etc.).

Finger holds are the first step in teaching dogs a forced retrieve. Today we had a hands-on introduction to finger holds. How this works is that you stick your thumb in your dog's mouth and cradle the lower jaw with the rest of your hand. With your other hand you brace the dog's head so he can't back away from your thumb. You hold your hand in the dogs mouth until he stops trying to chew up your thumb, stops trying to spit out your thumb, stops resisting. The moment the dog calmly hold your thumb in his mouth is when you click, remove your thumb, and give a treat. Repeat and repeat, increasing the time the dog holds you thumb in his mouth. Ultimately the dog will open his mouth and calmly hold your thumb on command. The finger hold lays the foundation for holding other objects.

Why your thumb? Because you have utmost control over whether or not the dog spits it out. It's much harder to try to keep an object in the mouth. The drawback is that the dog can really chew your hand up if he wants to.

The older Malinois puppies, including Mika put up more of a fight than some of the younger pups. We did two sessions of Finger Hold today and in the morning Mika resisted but caught on quickly. In the afternoon she faught hard and chewed up my hand pretty good. We stopped early and will continue again when I have a glove.