April 17 Progress Report

The past five days Mandy has made progress each day. She is calming down from her puppy rearing ordeal. Before pups came, Mandy was taking chicken bites from my hand and starting to target to get the chicken. I hoped to get back to this point and begin progressing from there. Oddly, she has one place that she feels comfortable as compared to other locations. This is outside in a small fenced in area designed for her potty time. I have a chair sitting near a corner there. She had begun approaching me again for sniffing, then much to my surprise got comfortable sitting beside me in the corner. First for a few seconds progressing up to about 5 minutes at a time. I had chicken bits with me but they would be on my knee or on my shoe and she could approach, take it and leave. I found I needed to be very non-chalant in my attitude, quiet and calm for her to be calm. For her to approach me I had to sit very sit with my head turned to one side (a calming signal I learned) and NOT look at her at all.

As this got easier for her, I would make slow short movements with a foot. When she didn't dart off at that (and it took a few tries) then I showed her a hand, just by putting it on my leg. I was able to move my hand to a dangling position and found that she would still approach and come to her corner provided I stayed very still, practically motionless. Then I added the chicken to my hand and much to my delight after a few passes she took it gently from me!! The first time was absolutely wonderful. I gave her a chicken reward and left her alone as I didn't want to pressure her for me. Later the same day, she took chicken from my hand several times.

My clickers have not been shipped yet and I am curious to see how she reacts to this noise. I appreciate the suggestions and encouragement given by the commenters. I must remember to blog about her noctural behavior which I find very interesting and need a little help figuring this aspect of Mandy out.