Good To Know

well, had our favorite dog behaviorist (trainer) come by this weekend and give some input on sumo's new found dumbness. i had emailed her earlier in the week about the new barking he's been doing in his 8th month, and asking if it's something we need to be worried about or something that she can help us correct.

luckily, the answers were:

1. based on his age, the behavior is about right. between 6-8 months, a male puppy may begin to have the terrirorial and/or scared/untrusting behavior that they had with things that bugged them as very small puppies. it could be either unsureness/fear or it could also be protecting/warning (himself, chibi, and the rest of the family)
2. it isn't anything to get too stressed about and we have a few new items/techniques to help correct it

the general idea is to try to get his attention focused elsewhere. given the intense focus that shiba's (esp our 2) tend to have once they get set on something, we start by backing them further away from the stimululs until we can get their attention again (using a 'high value' treat). they are rewarded when they can focus back on us. we gradually get closer to the stimulus until they can focus on us by command and/or ignore it altogether.

we also can try a new command. "touch". "touch" rewards the dog for putting their nose on your hand (thus focusing away from what they were looking at). we had to use 2 fingers (instead of open palm -- which is already conditioned for their "high five" paw). so far, sumo "gets it" (though his "touch" also includes a subsequent "lick the hand and fingers" also). chibi seems to have no interest in the command (nor the treats that she gets when she does it)...however, chibi also doesnt bark at everything that moves, so we'll work on it, but not with the vigor that we'll try with sumo-dog.

fun fact of the weekend: sumo managed to "tunnel" underneath his doggie bed, get stuck underneath, then walk around with it on top of him, looking like a turtle. chibi then saw the moving dog bed with legs, and pounced on him, knocking the turtle flat :)