Miki and Rocks

With just a little bit of encouragement, Miki will now zoom right up the steepest of rocks in our yard. He seems to have very little trouble getting up even the nearly-vertical sides of some of them, happily scrabbling until a paw randomly finds a grip, then he zooms up a foot or so and does it again. Eventually he gets to the top of just about any rock. In the far-right photo, that’s exactly what he just did.

But once at the pinnacle of a boulder, he’s not quite so sure what to do next. If the rock is less than about five feet high, eventually he’ll screw up his courage and leap. If it’s taller, he’ll sit there and wait for me to come rescue him.

That’s what’s happening in the left-hand photo — and I’ve enlarged his expression in the center photo. Doesn’t he look like he’s saying “Yo! Human! Get over here and get me down!"?

He really, really doesn’t like scrambling down the side of a steep rock. His claws are useless in that direction, though his pads would cling quite well — he just doesn’t seem to understand that…

Miki was home alone with Dad and Lea this weekend, as Debbie was up in Pomona at an agility meet (where Mo’i got FIVE Qs! And he’s now in Excellent B for both jumpers and standard! And he DOUBLE Q’d on Monday!). In between weed-whacking battles, we had some training sessions, both with Miki and with Lea.

Today we had some especially good sessions, from the dogs' perspective…because we had HOT DOGS! I’m convinced there’s nothing on this planet that a dog likes better than hot dogs. Both Miki and Lea are usually gentle food takers (that is, they refrain from chomping off your fingers when you’re giving them a morsel). But with hot dogs…they both basically lose their little minds. They can scarcely contain themselves while waiting for their treat — and when they go to grab it, if your finger happens to be between their jaws, well…that’s really just your tough luck is what they say. Getting the hot dog definitely has priority over leaving dad’s fingers intact. The moment I click the clicker and say “Yes! Good dog!", they’re trembling with hot dog anticipation. If I wait too long (say, more than 10 picoseconds) after clicking before stuffing a hot dog segment into their maw, they lose their ability to sit still. They just gotta have that hot dog! Now! Lea, after about 10 minutes of training exercises, just goes on strike — she refuses to do any exercises and just chases the hand with the hot dog treats!

But those very high-value treats did help focus them on their lessons, in the sense that they would do anything (if they could just figure out what it was!) to get that treat. I had more success with both of them today than I have in any prior training session…