The boy (Parker) wanted cuddles but the laptop and cat were in the way so he whined until I moved and then he immediately jumped into my lap and settled
Oh my god. Matilda hit a milestone tonight. We are really struggling with dog reactivity right now, and it's making me feel like shit to the point that she's about to start taking a break from coming to work with me — but I had a genuinely really wonderful moment this evening. See, she really reminded me that there was a reason I decided to train a clever, pushy, independent dog as a service prospect in the first place:
you get a clever, pushy, independent dog at the end.
Pictured earlier today, glaring because seven hours earlier she had to have a bath (because she got so muddy that three separate shampooings were necessary to get all the dirt off).
Which is to say, today for the first time ever bedtime came in a context where there was no human effort attending to me getting up and going to bed: CM was off to work, and Kawuli was upstairs on the phone, and I was absolutely absorbed in yelling at the bank sitting in the living room gently zoning.
And she took one look at that situation, marched up to me, stared urgently and then poked me until I got up. I did not move until she shoved me at least twice, because I was focused on something else. She nudged me into getting up and then marched me to where CM was getting ready to go to work to see what happened. At which point I went OH RIGHT BED and started getting ready for bed, and then CM had a few minutes to sit and chat before leaving so we sat down for a bit and as soon as they got up Matilda was right there watching that I went to the bathroom and came to bed upon getting up.
And then she helped herself to a used kleenex on my pillow, because her nickname "yucky Tilda" is well earned.
I genuinely cannot tell what is going on with her feelings about dogs because she has always been extremely weird about strange dogs and soliciting play, and her natural body language is almost as stunted as Benton's: she has always sort of gravitated to other dogs screaming at the top of her lungs or hung back and watched strange dogs very seriously and thoughtfully. I think it may be excitement but even as a puppy she was not into meeting other puppies or interacting with them—she used to sit firmly on her mat and observe other puppies without getting involved during free play time.
She has the ability to control her attention and totally ignore other dogs if she's doing something rewarding enough, though, and I think we can countercondition our way out of this. I'm trying something new out: tying her, harnessed, to the cherry tree in the front yard and playing flirt pole. My yard is fenced, but only by about three feet, so I have a limited visual barrier. And we have a very rewarding activity that does not involve self control and does involve engaging with me. Let's see if we can get the idea of dogs walking by me way less interesting than engaging with her human in a game.
Tried it out this morning and she was able to totally blow off Roof Dog (also a cattle dog) yelling at her from the roof of the garage across the street. She struggled with my neighbor walking a polite Lab mix past the gate but handled a smaller toy mix easily. So we will see if that helps.
But even if she is never public access ready, she's still really useful just being at home. She's never tasked totally uncued before—generally by timer —but this was extremely clearly an extension of the pieces I've taught her smoothed and merged into a sequence I was hoping SO much she would pick up on.
