the first thing

The very first thing I taught Maya was that human-dog communication was possible. Oh, I tried to teach her things before that.  Like not to be scared of stairs, which involved luring her with treats. I have since learned that luring is not the best idea with phobias, but Maya was more inexperienced with stairs than outright phobic. It took me a while to learn the right way to help her, and I certainly made some errors along the way.

But the first thing I taught her was that we could communicate.  I don't think she had any idea before...she was watchful, careful, and sweet, and completely clueless about life with humans.

Clicker training is the single area of dog training in which I've had actual, formal training from real trainers.  I even had a clicker already, long before we had Maya.  So, a day or two after she came home, I pulled out the clicker and a handful of dog treats, and set to.

I was working on a 'sit,' which is an easy thing to lure and a pretty simple movement for most dogs.  I loaded the clicker, lured a sit, clicked, treated, and repeated.  Then I quit luring, and started simply shaping -- letting Maya direct her own actions, and rewarding those that moved her toward a sit gesture.

Needless to say, she'd never done any clicker training before.  No shaping either.  She was very interested in the treats in my hand, and desirous of getting them into her mouth, but the idea that she could make that happen via her own actions hadn't yet occurred to her.  I waited, clicked a squat that turned into a sit, treated, and stepped back.  She stepped toward me tentatively, and sat.  Click, jackpot.  I stepped back again.  Maya stepped forward, sat, I clicked and held out a treat.

She leaped about four feet in the air and let out one shatteringly joyful bark.  Forget the treats!  She'd just learned that dog-human communication was possible, a better reward than any number of dog snacks.  It was one of the single most amazing emotional reactions I'd seen.

And here's a photo of puppy Maya, age 7-8 months.