Squats like dis mom?

Kiwi has the muscle memory of a rock.

The 'wi has gone from impossible to train, to OMG I LOVE YOU WHAT DO YOU WANT like a ball-sick labrador after you've been gone all day. These are also peppered with the occasional fit of OMG DON'T BEAT ME. Which occur at complete random, usually when I am not even interacting with her. Take last night for example, I was putting my phone on the table and whatever motion that involved gave her the impression I was about to gut her and serve her raw. No amount of anything would "fix" her. So I eventually gave up. Today shes my buddy again. I think a wire is loose in there. If she kills me in my sleep, it'll all make sense.

Anyway, back to rock muscles. I have been trying to convince her to "sit pretty" for about a month straight now. Its a behavior I have been capturing and shaping, and since its not perfect, there's no lure/hand motion/cue for it yet. She just does it at random when she feels its time for her and I to party. Which is many times a day.

She would only hold it for a split second, before either dropping back into a sit, or doin' som' zoomies-ish motion, or standing up completely like a weirdo. Paws high like a 6 year old kid stands when mom is about to put a shirt on them. After selective rewards for over a month now, shes not making any progress in the duration department. So my conclusion is simply that there are no abs-o-steel in there, and those muscles instead are in her ridiculously muscular pit bull beef legs that she has, despite the only exercise she gets being nap marathons.

Chili, on the other hand. Has decided to once again make all the other dogs look like chumps, and just randomly one day decided to basically stand in front of the 'wi as it flopped around, and do the trick with 110% perfection. He even held it until I said "OK". Hes like that gifted kid in high school that really should be the one beat up, vs the people that have to actually put in effort to get things. Its so sad, hes like "like this mom?" with a pathetic expression. While the others just emanate a long, low durrrrrr sound that fills the room.

I think kiwi is debating stuffing him in his locker and eating his homework.

Handstands and Unseen Cues.

Damn you weather.


Well, severe weather that is.


I was so proud I was still getting tomatoes in late Nov. That is until the wind ripped the giant trellis loose and THREW it across the yard...ripping out most of the plant with it. Little unripened green tomatoes littered the ground like innocent victims. I left them hoping an animal would come along and eat them...but being as the only mammals that like to hang around are the ones I discourage I ended up going outside and being once again reminded of the windy murder..

For the most part tho, I've conquered the severe winds, or at least, learned not to panic when I see a tree defoliated in two days by having its leaves ripped off 2-3 months too soon. I now know the tree isn't dead, it will come back...it will come back. Don't panic.

the frost tho. Is my newest foe to conquer. Its unpredictable. So far. Unless I turn on my computer and go look at the weather and see the frost warning. I am blissfully ignorant until I walk outside in the morning and see it...the little ice crystals of doom on my "lawn". Then I know...I survey the yard to find the victims. Last year, it was agaves mostly. I also had a scrub that hadn't hardened off yet (still green, not bark) that got fried...this year however, since I've moved slowly away from ornamentals, and more towards food, my squash was fried. In fact, it was mush. Except for the little baby squash that was too small to harvest, stuck to the dead plant like a pathetic mammal trying to nurse from a dead mom (which is REALLY sad if you ever see that...)

enough of my bitching tho. I am not a complainer, at least I tell myself that. Its most me just stewing about what cues I haven't picked up on yet to warn me of things...It will come tho. I know it.

Chili is working on his handstand. With massive progress. We had worked on this off and on for months now...and that should be a clue...when I work on som'thing "off and on" that means generally I am doing som'thing wrong. Chili is sharp, and I am not a bad trainer, so when it takes longer than a session or two to teach som'thing...the method is off and its time to stop and figure out what to do different.

This behavior tho. I knew involved alot of muscle memory and strength. Time essentially. This trick would take time. Don't push the dog too far to fast, or you'll hurt his cute little body.

I suppose this made sense for a while, but as was hit a wall and got stuck, I think I used it as an excuse for too long. I needed to know a time frame, som'thing to compare his progress to and finally I found it.

Another trainer posted a montage of videos, here was a dog that was a blank slate, and six week or so in, she taught him 10ish tricks. Complex ones at that. Including, the holy grail, the walking handstand.

Now I had my timeframe. Nothing like seeing stuff like that to either

A. Motivate the hell out of you
B. Make you feel useless as a trainer

Luckily, I am in the "A" generally. I have a large drive to be like the people I idolize, and in general, an optimist...so now that I know the problem is ME. I now could figure out WTF I was doing wrong

I took the clicker adage to heart and went back a step. Then from that step, I broke it down into micro steps between it and the place we got stuck. Som'thing in there was incomplete. My criteria wrong, my click late, som'thing.

Within 5 mins of changing my criteria he was doing brief handstands against his platform.

Within 5 more mins, he could do it with minimal help, as in i could remove the platform and he could get into position against a bare wall

watching a dog levitate for a tenth of a second on his own is mindnumbingly exciting. I think I screamed at him. Which fortunately he likes.

the first ten of so handstands were accidents. As in, he'd do them in an attempt to balance, and would loose his footing on the books/wall. Now the criteria is intentional foot removal from the wall...one foot at a time. So far its going well...and now, our biggest enemy is fatigue.

I am reaching a point where I feel I can teach most anything...confidence swells in me.

And now, the anxiety begins, because the next step in the growth. Is taking your knowlege and giving it to others...which is new to me...and som'thing I am going to be dipping my toes into.

Scary.

Catgasms and Pecking orders.

While I haven't trained other species as thoroughly as dogs, I do have more experience than the average bear, with more species than most people would ever hope to own. :)

One thing I learned, early on, with the parrots, was to ignore biting, and praise the good things. With parrots, offering a treat for "good things" didn't even cross my mind, but yet they learned all sorts of words and behaviors, didn't bite me, all using just my happy voice.

They learned nearly nothing from the other keepers, and in fact would bite them quite regularly. Som'thing I found amusing, if it weren't for the other keepers smacking the birds across the head when it happened.

now for anedote's...


one thing I have noticed in other species is retention. The seem to remember the behavior the next session better than dogs. If I don't cue the behavior again, for YEARS the behavior still gets offered, perfectly, every time the animal wants som'thing. Its almost like the behavior is more resilient to extinction. They also seem to have greater understanding between reps, with shaping...as in "ah ha, I see where you are going with this" vs alot of dogs don't really know where you are going, but are following your directions, rather then skipping steps...once again, purely anecdotal.

Manipulation. While dogs do this also, the other species seem to be very, very quick to put that behavior into their repertoire of other, natural behaviors. Its like they instantly realize they now have a new tool or skill for getting what they want. The dogs figure out this also, but its not as quick, and seems to generalize slower. Teach a dog to sit up for a treat in the living room, a then move into another room and eat dinner. The dog, will likely not understand that he can use that behavior to manipulate the situation to earn a different reinforcer, right away.

Take a cat and teach it "sit up". The cat will, take that behavior and immediately begin to implement it in every situation it sees you have som'thign it wants. Theres no reteaching it in multiple places, contexts. They just get it. Its like they immediately generalize behaviors, granted heavy distraction would likely be an exception.


Buffy, my chicken, was taught to peck me (gently) on cue. She quickly learned that this is the bird equivalent of shouting "HEY YOU" at me. If I ignore her, she will very deliberately peck me for attention. But whats interesting, is she will peck me, then once I look at her (I try to ignore this, but being human...well, oh well) she then offers ANOTHER behavior. Shes literally cueing a "watch me", and oh boy am I trained.

The biggest hitch so far I have found in clicker training cats, is a phenomenon, I affectionately call the "catgasm".

Get about ten reps in, clicker training a cat, and then the cat has a moment of "OH EM GEE we are TRAINING!!!!!' and then the cat rolls around uncontrollably, purring as loud as possible, obviously in pure bliss...but also in their own world. You cannot train during a catgasm, you should not pet (will make the bliss worse) you cannot bribe or feed also I have found..you just have to wait it out. If you are lucky, you can get through the session without a relapse. Generally tho, you will have 1-2 catgasms per training session.

Annoying as these are, if you are in a hurry, I have learned som'thing very important. In a world full of dogs and dog training, we neglect to see how truely happy clicker training makes our subjects. For a dog that is happy all the time, its hard to dissect the emotions and see how much of the "happy" is because the dog likes training, and how much is the dog just a happy dopey dog.

Other species, however have greater happy/indifferent contrasts, so its really plain as day, easy to see that this way of training, builds strong bonds and associations :)

This.Shit.Is.Hard.

I recently heard the hard numbers, for how much food is wasted in the US. Its 40-50%.


Take that in a moment. We throw half our food away.

Numbers for the rest of the world is similar, its not just the wastefull Americans this time. We all suck at this apparently.

I have always grown plants, I remember being 7 years old digging up seedlings and transplanting them into pots, watering my morning glories and fussing over sunflowers (in pots that never got very big).

The past five years or so tho, I have begun to really put this deep seated urge to use. First growing indoor and outdoor potted plants...learning to remember to move, clean, water, prune them etc. Since this is som'thing you must teach yourself to remember. Plants don't cry when they are hungry, so its easy to forget them.

second, once we are in the house, I forayed into "drought tolerant". The desert scaped yard in my head, was beautiful. But it was not to be.

I found out, after I bought every succelent and cacti known to man, lowes and homedepot. That almost everything available was cacti from high elevations/mild climates...or succulents that were meant to grow under the shade of other, larger plants. Or wanted no rain in the winter, and monsoon rain in the summer, and would die if not carefully managed.

Every single one of these plants, pretty much had a heart attack if I didn't water daily, and if placed in the sun, they would burn. Ever seen a cacti burn? Its really depressing.

So in the end, the only landscaping I could do with succulents where with the ones they use on the freeway embankments, whose cuttings I stole from behind a autoparts place that backed up to an offramp. All the expensive and rare plants were useless.


So back to the drawing board. More plants, and more research later, I found the best thing for me to do, was to drive around and see what species were clinging to life in my neighbors yards. Talk about depressing...

Each house has basically no yard, or a yard of weeds, with one or two trees or shrubs clinging to life despite being completely ignored.

So what I found in my "research" is that the following plants survive here with little to no care.

Southern magnolia
Jade plants
pyracantha
cape honeysuckle
agave

and thats pretty much it.


Well armed with my new knowlege, I lansdscaped my little heart out, still lost a few to the wind, but for the most part, all is green.


So then I started learning about permaculture. Now I came to the realization, that I really should be growing USEFUL things on my land. Granted the flowers make great food and habitat for birds/insects, which was a goal...but now I really need to make use of things, or else suffer the guilt.

So began my foray into "farming".

Let me tell you now. There must be som' pretty savy people out there, or som' really magical chemicals, or else we'd have nothign to eat. This. Shit. is. hard.

Iam learning. Trial and error, research. I had to learn how to mulch, mulch correctly, how to prune/water correctly. How to plant/place trees. Times of year to grow veggies...bugs...rain...disease...placement...wind AAAAAA!!!!

Each year gets easier, but of course, each year, I try and take on som'thing new, or som'thing more than I should, so there is always a project to fail. I have finally come to grips with the fact that my soil is absolutely useless, and I will have to buy/make all my soil for the whole property.

I guess my point is, I now see why no one does this. Its hard on the body/mind/soul. But in the same note. We really DO need to ALL do this. We are running out of water/space/peace of mind. And instead of creating food and habitat, we are watering turf, and poisoning bugs, and fertilizing our roses. I can't remember the last time I used chemicals or fertilizer. That was a great feeling, knowing my yard was so healthy that everything was balancing. Seeing the birds and insects and reptiles that were NONEXISTANT three years ago makes me beam.

This is the right path, I know it. I just wish more people were on it.

Thinking, or feeling?

Forget the idea of alpha and dominance, that I don't buy into anyway...but the idea of dogs living in "packs" also makes me want to peel off my eyelids every time som'one uses it to explain behavior.


My dogs live together, they eat together, they hang out. They play, they share things, they chase each other. What a lovely little pack right?

Most people see a group of dogs in a home and think that, wow look they formed a pack.

Here's the thing.... My house has doors. My yard has a fence. My dogs hang out because they have too. Not because they want to. They get along because I've intro'd them correctly, given them each enough space they don't feel crunched and I've trained them to put up with, or even like, through countercondtioning, the other dogs habits they find annoying.

The dogs didn't "form" anything. I went out, acquired them, and now force them to live together. Kinda a new perspective on animal ownership eh?

if I left my gate open, and I wasn't here. They would wander off. I can't really say who would stick around, and who would leave, but with so many smells and things to do, I can say staying nearby is pretty boring. I imagine Tippy going the furthest, she gets so intense when she finds a scent.

Ironically, Tippy is the most attached to us, IMO. Yet, she'd be the first to bail.

I don't really envision them staying together either...maybe run down the same road until a split, and then, each engrossed in their own interest, part ways.


There are ALOT of stray, and dare I say feral even, dogs here. I see them alone, I see them in groups...BUT I always see them in DIFFERENT groups, or I see group members ALONE and then back again, but with a different group. They don't stay together. I've seen it with my own eyes. I don't need to travel to Romania, or to the Mexicans dumps. Its happening here. Right here in Socal.

Iam not a leader. Iam a resource. Just like a stray learns a house will provide food, since my dogs do not free roam, they have learned I provide food. Or attention, or access to things, etc. The dogs stay with me, not because they respect me as a pack leader. But because they need me, on a physical, or emotional level to survive.

Perhaps its the logical side of me that can say that, and not feel any ill will towards the dogs, and can not feel that cheapens the relationship we have. Truth is truth tho, truth doesn't not cheapen anything.

I tend to see things in a mechanical way, and not romanticize everything. Pack leader is a romantic title. Unfortunately, while I have no problem with romantic notions, in and of themselves...the over romanticising of ideas such as this one, can be to the detriment of our beloved dogs.

Who is training who?

There is a great chapter in Karen Pryors book Lads before the Wind where she talks about animals that have mastered the system of communication your using, and then turn in around on you and use it to communicate with YOU.

She then gives several examples, that, when you think about it, kinda makes the hair on your neck stand up. At least to me anyway. Its one thing for you, as a trainer to communicate clearly to your animal, its one thing for an animal, to communicate with you, using its normal behavior. Its totally another, and downright spooky when the animal uses YOUR method of communication, to communicate with you.


We were at the park the other day, Emma, myself and the spicy one. Both dogs are fantastic off leash, and have speedy recalls, even with the dog park in the background and rabbits everywhere.

Because of this trust, I do let the dogs get a decent distance away before I recall them. 120ish feet apparently. Interestingly enough, I had to google to figure out how wide a soccer field is...but little tan frankendogs know, without the computer.

Chili has a fasinating new behavior. He will run out, what I now know is 120ft more or less. He will stop. Turn to face me and sit.

Then he waits.

This behavior first appeared almost a year ago, but I shrugged it off. Now it is so frequent Iam 100% positive this is intentional.

Turns out, in training the recall, I would call the dogs back at varying distances. But I would ALWAYS recall them when they got so far away they were out of my comfort zone. I wasn't really noting distance, I was just going off gut feeling "eeeeh they are getting too far away, better call 'em back".


So now...Chili is INTENTIONALLY going to the edge of my comfort zone and turning around and WAITING for me to recall him. I can walk up to him, I can talk to him (usually I laugh at him or ask him wtf hes doing)...but if I don't give the recall cue, his butt is firmly glued to the grass.

So hes now training ME. Hes learned he can make me call him, which leads to treats. An unintentional behavior chain (unintentional, on my part, Iam sure VERY intentional on his)

He also has begun to bring me objects he can't seem to figure out or open. Or, since he was a puppy, bring me objects that shouldn't be on the floor. Look mom, I found a pen, look mom I found this piece of trash...etc...

He got a Kong stuck on his mouth once, he came and asked for help

Smart little snot.


The other "whos training who" comes from mimicry. Som'thing dogs are not supposed to do well. Iam sure it falls into "social learning". Though I haven't read much on the subject.

I taught Kiwi to push closed doors open with her face. Critter already did this, but the other three would not even try. If the door was ajar, they would try, but only if it was open enough that they barely had to bump it to get through.

What I taught Kiwi was, I turn the knob but the door stays closed. Kinda like the door is off just enough it can't lock..but visually looks 100% shut.

She caught onto this quick, and I soon put "push" on cue.

Within three days. Emma, Chili and Tippy learned this behavior. Unless som'thing magical happened, they MUST have learned this through observation. Tippy was first, which did not shock me, as I watched her learn how to use a buster cube from observing Chili. No trial and error. Just literally watched him, and then did it. All this after that cube sat, full of food, unused for about a year.


The dogs can learn from each other...perhaps this is why each new rescue gets easier and easier to acclimate. Fascinating!!


Anyway, Iam curious as to what the future will bring. I also can't wait for the next "ah you little shit" moment where I realize Chili is training me.

The dragons are biting.

If it has a mouth...it bites.


Dogs bite, cats bite, shit...fish bite...HUMANS bite...ask any cop or preschool teacher...


I get this "does it bite?" question ALOT. I always say that if it has a mouth it can bite you...If its som'thing that tends to be docile, I say "these tend not to bite". I can not remember a time in recent years where I've told som'one an animal was not going to bite them, in an absolute :never: way.

I find myself, more and more pondering peoples motivations behind pets. I mean, I was one of them, so I can understand it on that level, but I have "moved on" in many ways...as in, I like to have animals, but the need to go out and actively acquire new ones is a need that has left me for the most part.

I once was a consumer. Iam still, technically a producer. Even though I have for the most part shunned my former breeding operations, I still produce animals professionally, and due to my "career" assist novices in producing animals. Helping the novices, tends to produce more ill feelings than me producing my own animals, due to the sheer number of people who have bad motivators...and then here Iam, being the one having to deal with aggressive offspring from aggressive parents, having to baby non feeder snakes, which can from parents that were likely non feeders, and having to find homes for, or euthanize animals born with birth defects, when their producers reject responsibility for them

Ah, to cull or not to cull. Iam all for culling, in the spay neuter sense. As in, this dog is not perfect, lets bar it from breeding, but spare its life, and find it a home. But in reptiles, its not so easy. I can't spay/neuter a bearded dragon, and no matter how well I screen people, every year, som' tool decides that that kinked tail shouldn't stop lizzy from having babies. Or the School teacher, that year after year, produced tiny, pathetic, weakling bearded dragons, that grew slowly, the great majority of them with birth defects, and me doing everything, from reasoning, to pleading with her, not to pair the parents anymore. Every year, I'd find her eggs in the incubator, until finally, exhasted, as female beardeds become from egg laying, the mother of the weaklings passed on.

And there in lies the other evil. Egg laying. I'd say 90+% of the female beardeds I've known have died in egg laying. They get old, they get thin and their bodies just can't push them out. Its inevitable. Those that don't die in egg laying, die of accidents, or being euthanized when disease strikes their aging bodies. Males die generally of kidney failure or obesity, tho they do get to live twice as long as the girls do.

I used to say I've been bitten by beardeds twice. I remember both times...one was a very skittish animal that a person saved from a classroom where the kids were caugh torturing it. It nailed me as I tried to examine it for health. It was scared out of its mind.

The second animal, was an animal that belonged to a customer, and he felt the need to retell you its pedigree every time they brought it into the store (which was often). Reminds me of the people who approach you with their dog and blurt out "shes a champion such and such, when you hadn't even noticed the animal yet.....Of course pedigrees in bearded dragons for the most part are simply pretty animals bred to pretty animals, selected for color or pattern mutations. Anyway, despite its pedigree, it was a rather mediore looking animal, and it nailed me as I held up a nail clipper. It gave no signals, it just bit me, let go and was fine. The top of my finger was not fine

but these two stories, while I say they are the only ones, really aren't. I get bitten by babies almost daily now...som'thing I couldn't have said 6 years ago. Baby beardeds seem to be becoming more and more aggressive as the years pass, I have also noticed an increase in flightly skittish animals. Beardeds so skittish, they are almost impossible to handle, and they take quite a bit of forced interactions to 'grow out of it".

I remember a specific group of leatherbacks imported from europe. I have never dealt with beardeds that were so aggressive at a juvenile age. Absolutely untrustworthy and "evil" as we called them. They weren't a hard sell tho, they were a rare morph, and no doubt every last one of them went on to reproduce.

I have seen birth defects increase, with a big peak around 2008, I see fewer today, but I think thats due to most of the novices no longer breeding, and have given away their adults.

Thats the other thing...where are all these dragons going? This year and last, people in mass gave up their pets. It was insane. It was like I missed the "everyone relinquish anything alive" memo. People poured in wanting to give up the animals they swore were family members...many people saying the reason was the animals babies could no longer fund the hobby...ironic since the majority of people who buy a bearded dragon or two are not thinking about breeding for money...yet, once they have, and the money flow stops, the animals are worthless to them

Ironically, the pet, the exotic pet, that makes people different, is slowly going the way of the poorly bred purebred dog.

I see many more bites in my future.