Gwen's Sententia

Monday, October 12, 2009

Remembering Valor: How to train humans to let you eat table muffins

Quinn had an appointment with his talking doctor (speech therapist) today. These appointments are in the doc's house, and her two-year-old Golden Retriever, Madison, entertains us while Quinn is with the doc. Madison is a good girl, but the doc is working on some of her behaviors to help her be even better.

While Quinn was with the doctor today, Madison took it upon herself to grab her brother's shoe and chew it. I told her "uh uh," and called her over to me. Madison takes some queues very well. She understands "uh uh." She understands it when I turn my head to "ignore" her. She understands "down," and she gets that she's supposed to calm down with calming strokes. The shoe was saved.

When Quinn and the doc came back, Madison went back to the shoe. "Mom's here, maybe I can chew the shoe now," she seemed to think. The doc took the shoe away. I told the doc about what Madison and I did while she was working with Quinn.

The doc asked a few questions and I told her about some of the stuff the Guide Dog leaders drilled into me when I was raising Guide Dog puppies. I explained the importance of not repeating yourself, reserving "come" for emergencies, how to train "come," and other dog stuff.

Then the doc asked the really tough question. "How do you train the dog to not steal off the counter?" I laughed a little and explained to her that I never successfully taught that skill to Valor. I told her how the Guide Dog people train dogs to not steal off of the counter. Then I told her a Valor story.

Valor was a super smart dog. Valor knew he was not supposed to take food off of the table. But, being a dog, he didn't understand forensic evidence and some basic "who dunnit" logic.

If I left food on the kitchen table and left the house, Valor would eat it. This was a fact with 100% certainty.

Leon and I decided to observe this, so he set up the video recorder and aimed it at the table. He set a fresh, blueberry muffin on the table, and we all got in the car and left.

Leon played the recording back when we came home. This is what was on the recorder:

The sound of the garage door opening.
The sound of the garage door closing.
One minute of nothing.
Valor putting his front paws on the table and grasping the muffin in his jaw.

What a smart dog he was to wait that extra minute to make sure we were really gone.

I gave up on training Valor not to steal food off the table. I decided that since there was a 100% correspondence to food being left out and Valor stealing it that it was my job to not leave muffins out. If I left food out, I blamed myself and not Valor.

Besides being really smart, Valor was an excellent human trainer.

Labels: dog, guide dog, pets, valor

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Tunnels and weasels

We have ferrets now, and we refer to them as the “stinky weasels.” The name just stuck.

The whole family likes the ferrets. My husband, Leon, still gets a goofy look on his face when he plays with the ferrets. He laughed for a spell when I lost my wallet and he found it in the ferrets’ stash. He doesn’t seem to mind that they are de-stuffing our leather couch, and he doesn’t seem to notice the weasel smell. Both children love the ferrets. Quinn likes Mimzy the best, and Anna likes Simon the best. Being young children, they inadvertently torture the boys by holding them and not letting the ferrets ferret, but they’re learning.

Since the kids do play hard with the ferrets during the day, I frequently feel obliged to let the boys out after the kids have gone to bed. That way, the ferrets can ferret and Leon and I can be amused watching ferret antics. Mimzy, who is a pound lighter than Simon, likes to jump on Simon’s back and try to pin him. They both like to chase each other around the house, and they both like to crawl up pant legs. (Why does a wet dog nose bother my husband, but weasels crawling up his pants don’t? It’s one of life’s great mysteries.)

I don’t recommend ferrets for all households. Ferrets are ferrets and they ferret. They tip over anything they can, including trash cans and beverage glasses. They “steal” things, like my wallet, and put them in their stash. They “do business” in corners, so you either have to have litter boxes all over, or you have to only let them out for an hour at a time after you’ve witnessed a successful litter box operation. Mostly, ferrets like tunnels. A friend of mine told me ferrets were used to hunt rats in sewer tunnels in England once. Wikipedia says that they were used by the Romans to hunt rabbits. They can get into holes you wouldn’t believe. My husband refers to them as two-dimensional creatures.

Simon and Mimzy, our boys, have found ways to crawl into our kitchen cabinets. We had to try about four different instances of ferret proofing to keep them out of the upstairs. We are still working on proofing the stairs to keep them from going downstairs. The current mechanism works, if you remember to block the cat’s door to the basement AND remember that ferrets are two dimensional critters.

Two nights ago, I let the ferrets out after the kids had gone to bed. I failed to remember the cardinal rule and left about an inch of clearance by the cat’s door to the basement. After an hour of playtime, we put Mimzy back in his cage. Simon, on the other hand, we could not find. It was late, and Leon wanted to go to bed. I told him we couldn’t go to bed until all weasels were accounted for and safely tucked away in their cage. We searched.

I pulled apart the coat closet. We tipped over the couches. We searched the nooks and crannies, and eventually Leon saw the cat door. He went into the basement, and he heard Simon scratching.

We have two sump pumps in our basement, and Simon had managed to get into the sump pump pipes. Leon came and got me. He wasn’t able to get Simon out, but he did see him. I came down with him, and we spent a half hour trying to get our boy back. At one point, I told Leon to get the jigsaw and I covered my hand in yummy ferret vitamins. Leon sawed on one of the sump pump pipes, very close to my hand, while I kept my hand by Simon so he could lick ferret vitamins.

We “rescued” Simon. We were covered in basement gunk, and we thought Simon had to be traumatized. Traumatized or not, midnight or not, Simon earned a bath. I think the bath was scarier for him than being stuck all alone in sump pump piping for an hour.

As we put Simon to bed, we both agreed that we had to ferret proof the sump pumps, because while Simon had just scared us, he clearly had fun. Basement plumbing pipes are just too fun a playground for stinky weasels.

Labels: animals, danger, ferrets, hiding, pets, tunnels, weasels

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

He did it

I have a dog. My husband doesn’t like my dog. I don’t really understand really, since my Valor is so perfect. Valor’s about as good a dog as anyone could want. He let the kids get away with a lot when they were babies. A toddler can pull a hamburger out of his mouth and not get bitten. He’s a good boy. Yet Leon describes his interactions with my perfect pooch as “annoying.” So, I am solely responsible for loving the dog.

I have a cat. My husband doesn’t like my cat. Tonka’s biggest flaw, in my opinion, is just that he’s a cat. Other than the cat-thing, he’s pretty good. He doesn’t hide from people when company’s over. In fact, he demands pets. He’s friendly. He doesn’t do business in incorrect places. He’s a decent cat. My husband describes his interactions with him as “annoying.” Fortunately for me, my daughter considers Tonka her cat, and so she helps out petting, and loving, the cat.

I had a dwarf hamster. The kids named her Peanut, and she was technically my daughters hamster. However, Anna was afraid of Peanut. Peanut bit her too many times. I was the only family member that held and pet the hamster. I actually had that rodent trained. She got to where she liked me holding her and she stopped biting me. It took a lot of work and patience, especially since I was the only one that took care of, and loved, the gal. She recently had a stroke, spent a day running in circles in one direction, and died. We had a funeral for Peanut, and my work load decreased.

Well, the only time my husband actually smiled when being around an animal was at the pet store holding ferrets. I made him a deal. I told him I’d take care of the ferrets physically, such as cleaning their cage, taking them to the vet, trimming their nails, and the like; however, I told him I wold not be solely responsible for loving them. Ferret love would have to be a whole-family affair.

Leon thought about it for six months. We made many trips to the pet stores and held a lot of ferrets. The kids really wanted ferrets and they got over their fears and held them.

So, last week we left the pet store with Mimzy and Simon. Mimzy is about ten weeks old and Simon is about 20 weeks old. Mimzy weighs a whopping pound and Simon is 2 pounds. They are both cute, frisky, smart, and stinky.

A friend at work doesn’t understand why Leon doesn’t like cats and dogs, but does like stinky weasels. I’m not exactly sure either, but he’s had a lot of smiles on his face, as have the children.

Labels: cat, dog, ferrets, fun things to do with kids, pets

Gwen's Sententia

About Me

Links

Recent Posts

Archives