The chronicle of Missy

 The chronicle of Missy

September 26, 2007

Missy is a 6 year old, female (spayed) Bearded Collie. She is an energetic nervous dog. Missy has to be near someone (she has her “pecking order”)…she literally gets underfoot and follows you around from place to place. She also has SEVERE thunder phobia…she will head butt doors and walls, dig out the grout between tiles and break out of various types crates/kennels.

Missy is on Clomacalm (not sure of the spelling) twice a day. Her veterinarian said she is on the highest dose he is willing to use. She also takes an over-the-counter calmative (approved for use by the vet) when storms or other stressful situations may or are occurring.

The family…Missy is left to her own devices for several hours a day, in a large kennel. When the family IS home, mom is busy with the small children (one of whom is mildly autistic) The household is constantly on the move…you can feel the urgency to get things done in the air! I have been counseling the family to spend more quality time with Missy. She needs exercise, training and companionship.

Other pets include a miniature collie named “Trouble” and an outdoor cat named “Patches”. Trouble is fast approaching senior citizen status. Missy has “attacked” Trouble on several occasions but I have never personally seen one. Mom reports that the fights are “pretty bad” and they have had to pull Missy off of Trouble occasionally. There have not been any injuries that I am aware of. Patches is fair game for chasing but it doesn’t seem to be a vicious sort of chasing.

When I first met Missy four months ago, she was totally un-medicated. Over the course of the last 3 months, we have been working closely with her veterinarian to get the right amount of medication.

I have also been working with Missy using clicker training to get some basic behaviors. I generally see her for about an hour every week or two. I have also dog sat for them a couple of times and made great progress during those times. (Note at some point Missy was “shown” and did very well.)

After she got over her fear of the clicker…Missy plays “100 things to do with a box” pretty well. She doing okay with leash manners but in her defense, she doesn’t get much practice. She has a basic concept of sit, down, place and wait. Missy is resisting a left or right finish…she will not go behind you if she can help it. I’ve been able to get maybe 3 or 4 “clean” finishes out of her so far.

When I first met Missy, part of my plan was going to be to teach her to herd basketballs or soccer balls. Little did I know that Missy was TERRIFIED of them!! She will now bump one with her nose! (Took me a whole weekend to get it!)

I have chosen Missy for a mission!

On October 28, I have been invited to give a clicker training demonstration at the annual Pet Expo and I will be dog sitting for Missy, Trouble and Patches. I won’t have time to run home and grab my dog so I will be taking Missy.

In order to take her to the expo, I took Missy to Petsmart (at a slow time) and just walked her around a bit, inside and outside. We did lots of walking and turning as well as "sit at stop" and such.  She did really well. I have also scheduled 12 more sessions between now and the expo. I plan on taking her to different locations such as public parks and Petsmart (at gradually busier times), as well as working at her home and neighborhood.

My first goal is to get/keep her attention and to get a response to the “click” in various environments. Then I will proceed to teach her a few tricks.

September 27

Took Missy to Petsmart again...in addition to the regular food treat I use, I took some peanut butter too.  She did very well at loose leash walking to and in the store. This time I incorporated a shopping buggy into the picture. At first, she was a bit apprehensive of the buggy but after a few clicks (with PB)  all was well. Near the back of the store, I found a small piece of cardboard on the floor and used it for a bit of target practice. Although she was a little distracted, she bumped it with her nose a few times. Getting Missy to look down is a big problem. We met 5 people today and Missy only attempted to jump up on one of them. I was soooo proud of her!

October 1

Working at Missy’s house today. Decided to work on Missy turning on a tap light. Again, getting her to look down was a big problem. I picked up the light and held it in my hand…got a few nose bumps then set it on the floor. Missy steps over it or around it but barely even bumped it with a toenail. After about 20 minutes I had gotten 4 or 5 paw bumps and several nose bumps.

Then we worked with the “Magic Wand” which is a long dowel I use for various tricks. Right now we are working on going over, under and around it. (hold dowel vertical to ground) She got the under and over part pretty quickly but the around is troublesome.

I don’t know if it’s the medications she is on or what but at times I really don’t know that Missy gets the whole clicker concept yet. Sometimes she repeats and sometimes she won’t. I can’t seem to find a pattern yet. She does however know that click = treat!

I have a small "Bucket of Tricks" which includes the Magic Wand, a basket, a box of kleenex, a tap light and a decorated coffee can (for small dogs...they roll it or put their paws on it and walk it)  So far I have taught 4 dogs the whole bucket...most learned them very quickly but Missy is VERY slow.  It is very exasperating some times!!