Squirrel Woes

I've been really careful with Pilot to try to keep her focused on object play (ball) and not on the rodentia family. For the first time in 33 years of living in Capitola we are having regular squirrel visitors. The terriers have been racing out to the yard to see if they can see one as it is climbing the trees. It is very much like a scene out of the movie "Up!" where everything else stops when the most exciting word "Squirrel!" is heard.

The second piece to this is that we went out walking on Christmas and Pilot took off under a fence into a pasture with a long horn steer in it. (Why would someone have a long horn steer in Soquel?) Amazingly, Pilot did not bark at the steer and she came back within a minute or so, but it could have been faster. I had visions of coyotes dancing in my head, as a friend's Jack Russell got grabbed by the neck by a coyote a couple of weeks ago. Yes sir! I do want a faster recall.

I sallied forth today under a cloudy cool sky. I put Pilot on a retractable leash and we spent about 30 minutes doing "yo-yo" recalls, out and back over and over again. If she did not respond, I quietly said "Oops!" and I reeled in the leash and limited her scope for 30 seconds, then I called her again, marked her head turn, asked for a sit, rewarded, praised and scratched her neck (collar grab desensitizing), played some tug and then released her and the leash with a "Go Play!".

I use two releases. "Break!" means you are released from this behavior but stay with me because we are still training. "Go Play!" means stay close but go do whatever you want to until I call you again. Pilot immediately went off to check out the "grundoons" (gophers) and I'd wait until she lifted her head up and call her. We got about 85 to 90% sucessful responses, which is reasonably good. Even so, I will be practicing this daily. Practice makes perfect.

Another way to look at this is that we were using the Premack Principle or life rewards. Premack is also known as Grandma's Rule "Eat your vegetables and you can have desert." in Pilot's case this is "Come when you are called and you can go check out the gopher holes". Salient consequences are important in getting the behaviors you want. I've had people tell me that you are playing with a fire when you are trying to use Premack to trump genetics with food or toy rewards, but I've seen it used effectively with prey drive. Rachel Sanders allows her Jack Russell, Trump, to go after gophers as a game, but she can also end that and get her dog back on a toy any time she asks. It is effective if you are deft at controlling resources as rewards and your relationship and training is stronger than the arousal of prey drive.

Genetics and breed play a big role in how your dog reacts to the world, but training and management can trump genetics as long as you are willing to do the practice - and in our case it is all about play!