#crittering

[cassiedragon1]

Hi cass hi hi hi hi hi hi hi excitedly jumps on you and crawls about like a creature

HIIIIIIIIIII😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁CRAWLS ABOUT LIKE A LITTLE CREATURE ALSO

[millenniallust4death]

Dogs, Cats, & Livestock - In the Classroom with Michael Ellis  

In this episode of In The Classroom With Michael Ellis, Michael fields a question on how to manage dogs around barn cats and livestock. Michael offers a series of management and redirection techniques to desensitize our dogs to other animal that could otherwise become competing motivators. This video was taken from Michael's puppy development class at the Michael Ellis School For Dog Trainers in Santa Rosa, California.

[calico-oat]

tagged by @its-an-echo! Thank you!!

Making this made me realise how plain my room is... 🥲 ANYWAY

steal from my room 🫠

Comic collection since elementary

Chocolate stash

Mint chocolate Hatsune Miku!!!

The most basic Google-d scenery paintings you'll ever see

My senior veteran dreamcatcher

MV1 cap 😏

Shinobu's katana! (unfortunately it's wooden)

My sister (listen I don't have a pet but she's close)

Voting ended onApr 30

[calico-oat]

@its-an-echo my music taste is kinda all over the place lol

rules: put your music library on shuffle, then list the first five songs that come up in a poll to let the people vote for which one they like the most

My Songs!!!

Livin' la Vida Loca - Ricky Martin

We Own It - 2 Chainz & Wiz Khalifa

Colors - Halsey

メフィスト - QUEEN BEE

Rule #34 - Fish in a Birdcage

Voting ended onFeb 25

[wyrddogs]

Crittering update

It's been 48 hours since meeting with the trainer, so let's do our first update!

The good:

-- He's picking up on leash pressure and heel position super fast.

-- Meatballs are a great high value treat for him. He has eaten his own weight in meatballs over the last couple of days.

The excellent:

-- This is a me thing and not a Zaku thing, but our walks are so much calmer. I'm not frustrated at all, I'm not looking for critters to try and find them before Zaku does, I'm not having my arm wrenched out of its socket, my back isn't being killed, I'm not stewing in horrible feelings of resentment and feeling like a bad trainer/owner and a failure. I'm able to be the supportive and happy trainer I want to be for him.

-- Eating his own weight in meatballs means that Zaku is starting to offer me eye contact randomly in the hopes that he gets one. (He does.)

-- Went to a race meet and four people on horses randomly rode up. Instead of having a major meltdown and dislocating my shoulder, two very gentle collar corrections on the prong and a fuckton of meatballs had Zaku sitting quietly at my side and offering me attention while glancing calmly at the horses.

-- All this work on engagement in a very short period of time has already shown an improvement in my disappeared recall.

Haven't had a chance to work on place yet. So that's next on the list of things to work on.

And my trainer talked to another trainer who deals with the chasing-and-grabbing-dogs-for-fun thing all the time, so we have a game plan for the future. We first want to get Zaku really solid on engagement and recalls, and have a strong understanding of his new boundaries. Then we'll work on appropriate behavior around his friends when they're running.

So I'm deeply relieved that all of this is very workable and I'll be able to do all the things I'd planned with him.

[wyrddogs]

The Saga of Zaku's Crittering

Met with the dog trainer today. She said that I'm doing a great job with him (I told her I feel like I'm failing as a trainer) and that she can tell how much work I've been putting in. She said she also has Imposter Syndrome with some of her dogs really bad, which was very relieving to hear.

For my own notes, here is what we worked on and my homework for the next couple of weeks:

-- Introduced the prong collar and yielding to leash pressure. Practice in low distraction environments and gradually add distractions.

-- Vary the rewards. Zaku is used to receiving one cookie and then immediately checking out. Give him two, four, three, five, etc. to keep his interest. Also back up and encourage him to follow me as I reward him.

-- Introduced heel position. Work on this until he's solid.

-- Work on Place. He needs a lot more practice on matwork in distracting environments. It will be a very important life skill for him to be able to calm himself and relax while exciting things are happening.

-- Add a correction when I ask for attention and he doesn't give it. Jackpot if he gives it without being asked.

-- For walks, immediately do some heelwork and attention exercises when I get him out of the car, then release him to sniff. Then ask to heel, and ask for attention whenever he starts to get distracted. Reward by releasing to sniff. The goal is to get used to checking in with me.

For the future:

-- She'll help me transition to the ecollar so we can proof our recall. I've been using an ecollar for over a decade but I can always use some pointers. Zaku handles differently than the other dogs I've ecollar-trained.

-- We'll meet in the actual park I walk in so she can see what I'm dealing with and do some fine-tuning.

-- She'll talk with another trainer to formulate a gameplan so we can get Zaku ready to go on pack hunts. Zaku isn't aggressive but he likes chasing the greyhounds and grabbing them and that is completely unacceptable. She's confident this can be managed.

-- I told her I'd love it if he could be a rabbit dog like Bindi and Kermit, I just need him to be smart about it and she said that's totally doable.

So it was a very good session and I feel a lot better now. I haven't fucked my puppy up beyond repair and he isn't too much dog for me, and I can do the things I bought him for. She was very complimentary on his responsiveness and was amazed by his rear end awareness (very pleased with that since that's what we've been working on for the last month).

[goblincreature808]

cutest little baby bubble snail 🐚🫧