I am not a writer...I apologize in advance! I am, however, a clicker trainer...of 3 dogs, 1.5 horses (I'll explain later), a Harris' hawk and (at work) of innumerable shelter dogs. Right now, two of my three dogs are recovering from surgeries so my training schedule seemed a bit lightened. I did notice, however, that my nagging schedule was increasing until it occured to me that I could click my little recovering buggers for games like NOT zooming around the house like maniacs, NOT rushing through the door at the same time so both of you yike and hold up the offending, exceedingly expensive and half-healed leg, NOT leaping up to my eye level to encourage me to move a little faster making breakfast...of course we all know that you can't really click for no behavior. After all, the only way to accomplish that is by murdering your little doggie that just upped his overall veterinary value to $4500 and his little sister whose "me too" attitude pushed her's over $5000. That approach just isn't very cost effective! Instead, clicking for an alternative behavior that results in no further vet bills seems like the way to go. After all, nagging just makes my throat sore and the whippets heads shrink (they fold their ears out of sight and make their eyes REALLY big) before they are right back at making me hemorrhage money into the vet's pockets. Since both of my kids are fluent with controlled obedience behaviors: sit, stand, down, heel and such, it's really easy to cue and appropriate behavior when the pupils seem to be dilating or the JRT (who proudly reminds everyone that she is still the only dog in the house worth less than a grand) begins practicing flyball turns off the back of the couch. And the promise of kibble is worth more than any amount of cat harrassment, boinging, zooming, or three-way tug-of-war. I am SO grateful for food motivation!
Thanks for the opportunity to vent at a community that just might understand someone spending almost $10,000 on a couple of dogs when her two horses are worth a grand total of $225...btw, that INCLUDES shipping....'till next time.
