collection of things

Maya picks things up around the house and brings them to me.  Usually (but not always), she restricts herself to things on the floor -- mostly socks, dirty laundry, bits of paper, pens, dog toys, and sticks of firewood.  Once in a while, there is a surprise -- a USB flashdrive, cash, an orange.

This is a game I taught her, for better or worse.  It builds on her inclinations though: she likes to interact with me, often hopes I can be enticed into a game, and prefers to be given permission before eating/destroying things.  I started trading socks for snacks, and we went from there.

When she gives me things, it is my job to take it and admire it ("oooh, what a lovely used kleenax!  thank you!").  Then I can give it back, throw it, or confiscate it.

In certain ways, this is very useful.  Maya is less likely to eat dangerous objects, and my socks develop many fewer holes when she isn't allowed to chew on them.  When I accidentally drop things, I can be sure that they'll be picked up.

Of course, in other ways this is very inconvenient.  I end up with a constant pile of trash and random objects on the coffee table beside me, and a large stash of socks/towels/laundry tucked into my chair, and occasionally a few pieces of firewood across my lap.  Once in a while, I feel I am being buried. 

Mostly it's useful, though.  Just as long as nobody leaves a sock drawer open or expects a folded pile of clean laundry to stay that way!

In other news, snow finally fell in our mountains, and Maya and have been running away to play it in as often as possible.  It's lovely.

who Maya was

On June 18th, 2009, we brought Maya home from the shelter.  She was sweet, cautious, impeccably polite, reserved, and had excellent leash manners.

About a month later, the real Maya emerged.  Real Maya was the product of the first seven months of her life -- seven months which had, apparently, included very little interactions with the normal human world.  My best guess is that she was a yard dog -- raised outside, with no exposure to new humans beyond a small group.

Turns out, if you take a high-strung herding/guardian dog, raise her without proper socialization of any sort, and then thrust her into the real world, she becomes a mess. 

Here's what Maya was like for the first 3-6 months.  She was terrified of new things.  Stairs made her cower, the car was her worst nightmare (and made her puke uncontrollably), any stick-like object made her cringe and cower (hammers, brooms, etc...anything you'd hold in your hand).  She was hand-shy, easily startled, and couldn't calm herself down once she started to worry.

Out in the world, things that moved were stressful.  Instead of being quietly cautious, she elected to display massive amounts of threat to anything that moved -- people, dogs, suspicious bushes.  She'd scream, lunge, stand all of her hair on end, bark, growl, and otherwise act like a homicidal hyena.  I think she was hoping to intimidate the entire world into staying perfectly still (or at least, staying well away from her). 

She had no emotional coping skills.  Things were either boring or EXTREMELY OVER EXCITING TO THE POINT OF FRENZY.  No in-between.  She couldn't tolerate frustration, she had no self-control, and once excited, she couldn't calm herself down.  When faced with a complicated situation (AKA any situation), she did not know any appropriate behaviors -- literally her only coping skill was to act scary, and then escalate as needed.  I am happy she never felt the need to escalate to biting (we kept her out of those sorts of situations), but I've no doubt she would have.

She wanted attention.  Not at first -- that initial shut-down period was profound -- but once that wore off, our attention was all she craved.  And she had no appropriate ways to earn it.  She'd whine, then cry, then scream, then shove, then body slam, then climb on top of me and stand there screaming in my face.  She'd pick up objects (toys, shoes) and throw them at my head.  She'd pace, obsess, and work herself up into a frenzy.  And anything I did -- literally anything -- rewarded this behavior.  All I could do was sit perfectly still (sometimes pulling a blanket over my head), and ignore.  Meanwhile, she'd just stand and bark.  I once timed a thirty minute barking session, all aimed screamingly at my face.

She had no leash manners, and once she realized what "walks" were, she couldn't handle them.  A trip outside the house where we might encounter strange things?  Complete emotional meltdown.  As soon as we left the back door, her brain short-circuited and she'd hit the other end of the leash, every nerve on high alert, completely lost to reason or connection.  We had to cancel walks altogether, because once a tantrum started, she had to way to recover.

Bored inside the house, so she'd attention bark relentlessly.  Unable to function outside the house, so no walks or other adventures.  She didn't know what to do with toys, wasn't interested in fetch or other forms of constructive exercise.  Oh, and she wasn't potty-trained, and didn't become so for quite a long time, hated the crate, and panicked (destructively) if left alone.

That was Maya.

a handful of virtues

Despite the occasional frustrations, life with Maya is pretty special.  In no particular order, here are a few of Maya's more delightful qualities.

She is strictly diurnal.  That is, she wakes with the sun (in the summer, this means about 5 am, but at this time of year, it's not bad) and, when night falls, she becomes almost too sleepy to move.  Every night, she tucks herself into her crate when we go to bed.  Then, about four or five hours later, she gets out, paws clicking on the hardwood floors, and leaps into our bed.  This is always very sweet at first -- she curls up very tightly into a little ball, conveniently placed -- and then, as the night goes on, becomes painful and intolerable by varying degrees.  Generally, I end up clinging with both hands to stop myself from falling off the three inches of remaining bed, with my back cricked at some impossible angle and one of Maya's many elbows jammed into someplace soft.

Maya weighs 68 lbs when awake, but at night she seems to somehow triple this.  But I love that she sleeps so soundly, that she patently adores sharing a bed (or tent) with us, and that every morning she is ready to go go go.

She is a good watchdog.  Actually, this is something I often think of as a flaw.  Maya watches out for everything, without regard to whether I think it may be dangerous (sound of large truck, bark bark bark.  Neighbor raking his leaves, bark bark bark).  But when we go camping, this combines with the first trait I mentioned to make for very secure nights.  I go to sleep without listening for marauding bears or nibbling mice, completely certain that Maya will let me know if some critter comes too close.  And, because she is so sleepy at night, she only wakes up for the important stuff.

She is a great lapdog.  I know, not everyone wants a 68 lb lapdog, but mine is awfully comfortable.  We recently bought two reclining armchairs from which to watch television or read in the evenings, thinking Maya would enjoy having the whole futon to herself.  Ha.  She spends all evening waiting for one of us to stand up, then steals the chair.  When we are both sitting, she comes over and indicates a certain willingness to snuggle, then I pick her up and put her on my lap.  Surprisingly, it really is comfortable.

She laughs a lot.  Maya is an intense dog, and sometimes she is just intensely happy.  It's infectious.

She is self-cleaning.  I know many people bathe and/or groom their dogs.  I am not one of those people.  Maya has a coat that does not collect dirt, snow, or burrs, and she does not roll in things.  Her natural smell is deeply, aromatically, pleasant to me -- she smells of forests, warm earth, pine nuts, and suede.  She also grooms herself meticulously, licking every bit that she can reach and especially taking good care of her paws.  Really, there just isn't much for me to add.

She loves hiking, camping, being together, and playing games.  If only she also loved good books, politics, and beer, we'd have almost exactly the same interests in life.  

December hiking

This weekend, I took Maya on a couple of hikes in one of our favorite 'secret' places, a tucked-away corner of National Forest land that nobody ever seems to visit.  Places like this allow Maya to be off-leash and me to stop scanning constantly for approaching dogs/people/bicyclists/etc..  In the nearly two years I've been visiting this place, I've only ever run into one other person, who was only there to round up his cows.

Of course, that changed today.  Maya was running around ahead of us, we were chattering away, and all of us were following an old forest service road.  Suddenly, Maya heard something in the bushes and let out a giant alarm growl.  Then she stopped, turned around, and ran to us.

This is a behavior chain I've worked hard to teach Maya, and I think it's pretty successful.  Alert, bark/growl once, then run to me.  I would like even better for her to simply be less alarmed, but that's taking longer to teach.  If I teach her that alarm barking is always followed by running to me, then at least I control the situation from there.  Which is why I have the only dog in the neighborhood who will bark at passing dogs just once, and then run inside the house to calm down.

The source of the growl-inducing scary noise was a jogger with two off-leash dogs.  I was pretty startled to see her too.  One of her dogs promptly ran at us, screaming and barking and showing its teeth.  The jogger yelled at it to come back, which it ignored, but then it got nervous about us and ran back to her after all.  Only, I guess she either wasn't carrying leashes or didn't bother to put them on.  So both of her dogs, even the barking and growling one, stayed off-leash as she ran toward us.

This was weird to me.  We moved off the trail, concentrated on rewarding Maya for appropriate behaviors, and waited.  As the jogger ran past, she said, "Oh, don't worry, he's very friendly.  Just likes to bark!"  Meanwhile, her dog kept showing his very friendly teeth and barking his very friendly head off.  It was never particularly worrying -- her dog kept his distance, and was clearly intimidated enough not to approach us -- but was something of a contrast in management choices.

The thing is, Maya is not a very friendly dog.  She is reactive, sometimes aggressive, and emotionally volatile.  This makes her potentially dangerous, and we treat her that way.  Consequently, she never gets to chase people or otherwise bother them on trails.  "He's really very friendly" dogs get to chase us and bother us all the time, and frequently do. 

Oh well, it mostly serves to create good training opportunities for Maya, who spent the entire episode staring incredulously at the barking dog and whining softly.  Not entirely calm, but responsive and relaxed enough to keep her cool.  She is a good dog.

blog reboot

I started this blog about six months after Maya came home.  At the time, I was awfully fond of Maya, but also often very frustrated and unhappy.  In a nutshell: Maya has a lot of issues, and life with her has not always been easy.  When the negativity and misery got too much, I quit writing; I just didn't have much to say. 

Things are better now, although often still challenging.  I wish I were a better dog trainer, and I wish Maya found life in the human world easier.  But most of the time, we are happy and we love being together.

Tomorrow, Maya turns 2 years old.  I am hoping that this is a year full of great adventures, unfolding potential, and simple fun, for both of us.  In that spirit, and because I know I'll appreciate having written some of the journey down, I am re-starting this blog. 

Happy birthday, sweet dog.

Sniffer.

Clipping Maya's Nails

Yes, I am blogging about my dog's toenails. I figured it was best to get it out of the way early. Also, I have a vision of this blog that includes no readership. Ever.

Here's the chronology. Early on, I started playing with Maya's feet. By early, I mean probably the first week we had her home. I usually picked times when we were relaxing together on the couch, and she was terribly polite about it.

Eventually, a clipping was in order, so I bought a set of guillotine clippers, read a bunch of articles online about doggy nail grooming, and set to.

All the articles said to clip small pieces and continue until I could see a lighter color oval within the nail cross-section. Then stop, because you don't want to hit the quick (the soft part inside the nail containing blood vessels and nerve endings). So this is what I did. Only it turns out that you can do this just a little too vigorously and on about the sixteenth nail I must have hit a sensitive spot. No blood or anything, just a little twitch on Maya's part.

This is how Maya works: 100,000,000,000 positive experiences might outweigh one negative experience. But 15 sure don't. Fifteen times in a row I cut her nails without incident, but the sixteenth it hurt a little. Therefore, nobody should touch her nails again.

Ever.

Since then, I've been playing with her feet a lot. She eyes me with full awareness of my intentions. "I see you playing with my feet. Touch the nail clippers and I'm out of here." I've tried touching her feet and then giving her a treat ("Oh good, I get a treat as soon as you let go of my feet"). I've tried touching her feet and giving her a treat at the same time, which works right up until one hand needs to also hold the clippers. I've even tried holding the foot in one hand, the clippers in the other, and putting the treat in my mouth for timely delivery.

Important note: Maya does not believe in taking treats from my mouth. As I understand things, this is terribly species-appropriate of her. From her point of view, putting a treat in my mouth is equivalent to putting a giant sign on the treat that says "MINE! DO NOT TOUCH." Imagine I then try to put my face near hers and spit the treat neatly into her mouth. Not only is this a "don't try this at home" maneuver (I can imagine a dog who would react very badly indeed), Maya finds it terrifically worrying. She treats it like an elaborate exercise in extreme politeness, and leaves. Politely.

I only have two hands, and the treat can't be held in my mouth. Neither can the clippers or her foot, obviously. Actually, Maya would probably love it if I put her foot in my mouth -- how terrifically playful of me! -- but not if nail clippers were still involved.

Our temporary solution is to introduce a second pair of hands. One of us holds a bowl with peanut butter smeared around the sides, so that Maya is both distracted and rewarded. One of us (me) hastily chops at Maya's toenails. It is not elegant, nor does it produce beautiful nails, but at least it prevents her from having claws like Wolverine's.

Anyway, if you noticed Maya's super-long nails in the picture below, it's because we're low on peanut butter. See, everything has an explanation!

Mayan ball game, or, Maya gets specific.

When Maya first came home, her interest in toys was negligible. Her interest in fetch (or any other interactive toy game) was zero. So we built a game of fetch from the ground up.

First, we experimented with different balls. There was one that could be filled with treats, one that had ridges to be filled with peanut butter, and one that squeaked. Forget the food...squeaking was the way to go. Squeaky toys became Maya's great interest, and we slowly built that into a respectable game of fetch.

Maya and the squeaky ball:


Somewhere along the line, the ball stopped squeaking. This is because Maya slammed all 65 lbs of her weight onto it one too many times and the squeaker broke. No problem, because by this point the itself was the prize. But after a few hundred (thousand?) more full-body pounces, the seams started to split. So I went out and bought a new ball.

A new ball?

CRISIS!!

The first few times I held the new ball, she jumped around with excitement and chased after it vigorously. Until her mouth touched it, at which point she'd recoil in horror, abandon all pursuit, and come running back to look at my hands for signs of the real ball. After the first few times, she got wise and quit chasing altogether.

It is true that the new ball is not identical to the first one. It is slightly smaller and bouncier. Also, it glows in the dark. But it is not the abomination that Maya claims.

Maya and the new ball:


Notice how she can barely even bring herself to look at it? That's how awful she thinks the new ball is.

After two days of hard work, we have reached a stand-off. Maya will chase and return the new ball if we are in the dining/living room or if we are in the back yard. But not the sun room (which is where we play fetch during big storms or on extremely cold days...of which we've had a lot lately). The sun room is for the real ball only, thanks.

This is typical Maya. Rules that work for one room are not assumed to apply to other rooms. She takes note of everything that I do and assumes it is highly relevant, even if it isn't (or is in a very different way). For example, I like to sit on the floor in the sun room while we play fetch, because it saves me the trouble of bending over to pick up the ball 1000 times (lazy, I know). Which makes Maya think that me sitting on the floor is an essential part of sun room fetch. If I stand up, she immediately lies down because she thinks the game is over.

I have no way of explaining to her that sitting down is something I do for comfort, not a part of the game, except to show her by my actions. So I take care to play a certain percentage of our fetch games while standing up (oh, the effort). Similarly, I'd like to explain to her that fetch is a game that can be played with any spherical, bouncy object of about the right size. Or so I thought.

Maya and the real ball and some other ball nobody cares about:


But just as I get completely frustrated with all these meaningless (to me) differentiations, I wonder why it matters so much to me that she generalize. Generalization is a skill I'd like Maya to learn, because it will lead to better coping skills (more about Maya's behavior issues later). But does she really need to learn to generalize about balls? So what if she only likes the green squeaky kind that I have to special order because the local pet store doesn't carry them (*sigh*). There's no particular reason she absolutely needs to learn to play with different kinds of balls, at least as long as JW continues to manufacture the kind she likes. Perhaps I'm being just as frustratingly arbitrary as she seems to be.

Maybe I should try to think of the upsides to this. For example, Maya does not fetch all spherical objects, which means she does not constantly seek out tennis balls, rotting oranges, gourds, or other found objects on our hikes in order to thrust them upon me. If I want to stop playing fetch, it's as simple as putting the ball away. Not every dog owner can say the same. Maybe I should just try to be glad that Maya is being so good about communicating her preferences.

Besides, it's just a ball.



Update: A few days later, and the new ball is finally becoming a part of our play. The secret was to play with the new ball in the living room and back yard, then to take it away. Less access leads to higher value, especially when I make a point of holding the new ball, having the new ball in my lap, tossing the new ball from hand to hand, and otherwise imparting a kind of rarity, interest, and value to it. So far, so good!