Piney likes to keep things interesting for his owners. Probably that’s why he’s picked up this exciting new behavior where he totally refuses to leave the apartment with me at all, ever, even if that means not “eliminating” for 13 hours at a stretch. The infuriating thing is that he will go out with Ira without complaint. He timed this well, too—Ira’s been out of town since Saturday and I am out of my head with frustration.
Tomorrow I have a phone appointment to talk about this issue with the awesome people who are P’s behaviorist and his trainer. As homework
Jolanta, the trainer, had me watch these videos:
Hmmmmm I wonder what we’re gonna be teaching Piney this week! Probably skateboarding is my guess.
10 comments:
Oh eek, keeping things interesting, maybe he wants to go back to the beach. Hope the consult helps. Skateboarding, fun!
Is he better after your holiday at all? (Apart from not leaving the house?) Hopefully his trainer will be able to solve this one!
I'm sure he DOES want to go back to the beach. He was so happy and mellow there.
@Liz, he's definitely healthier. It's just his behavior that's all messed up. The trainer gave us some good ideas today that I'm going to be implementing over the next couple of weeks.
this is interesting. mr thumper will not go out with my stay-at-home human either. tugging and yelling doesn't help. he always prefers to wait for my out-at-work human. sometimes, that means holding onto his pee a long time!
lately, my stay-at-home human has tried enticing him with little liver treats, leading him slowly down the garden path to the gate. once he's out the gate, he sometimes sits on the pavement and refuses to budge...until another treat comes along. it's a good scam and it seems to work!
good luck : )
@georgia little pea: That is so interesting! Any theories as to the reasons behind his behavior?
It sounds as though this cutie may have had some kind of new negative association to walks with you. I am not trying to sound offensive :). It's just that sometimes even the smallest things can frighten a dog and cause them to associate a formerly pleasant walk-route with scary things. For example, my dog once received a shock on a certain NYC street on a rainy day--and I mean a literal electic shock (turns out there was some faulty wiring near a city utlitly pole). She refused to walk that way for weeks, until I figured out what had happened. Then I reconditioned her to re-associate that particular route with happy things. Anyway, we can't often know the full root cause of these new behaviors. So you might try a quick round of "operant conditioning" using your clicker. The tools required are simple: an enormous bag of the tastiest posible treats (even sugar cookies if you have to :) and buckets of enthusiasm....
Jolanta can take you through the steps. And Patricia McConnell has wonderful things to say on re-conditioning.
Good luck!
YOu may also make sure his digestive system is working okay. Is the abdomen bloated?
Yours in Doggie-Love,
Lee Harrington
(editor at Bark magazine and best-selling author of REX AND THE CITY: A MEMOIR OF A WOMAN, A MAN, AND A DYSFUNCTIONAL DOG)
mr thumper just loves one human more than the other! although the one he loves more would deny it ;P
however, after a few weeks of bribing him, he's MUCH better at going out with her now...with or without treats.
i hope you're having some good luck with piney too : ) xox
my stay-at-home human has just read lee harrangton's comment and agrees that treats and making the walk happy, happy, HAPPY [once she was able to get mr thumper out the gate] was definitely the way to go.
mr thumper is old, irascible, and HUGE meaning - impossible to budge if he doesn't want to move.
if my stay-at-home human managed it, you can too, with piney! we know it!
all you need is persistence : ) xox
when FDR doesn't want to go out (he hates both snow and rain) he just makes it easy on himself and craps indoors. : (
I wonder if Piney is doing one of these saving up the bad times for mommy thing like babies who are quiet all day with their sitters and then break into tears when they finally see their mother at the end of the day?
@Lee Harrington: Thank you for your totally helpful (and not offensive at all!) comments. I'm working on playing games with him on the stairs of our bldg, to start building positive associations with leaving the apartment with me. So far, so good, but we're only on the first of four flights of stairs. His belly may very well be bloated -- he has a long history of digestive problems.
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