look both ways before you cross the road

Yesterday Penny's humans were jokingly discussing how nice it would be if she learned to look both ways before crossing the road. Given that she is always on lead around traffic, I guess she hasn't had a chance to learn 'road sense'.

So I was amused to see this clip of a chimp checking for traffic before crossing a busy highway. (The more I see of the animal world, the more I realise we are only one many intelligent species that share this planet.)

Penny the dog works on the basket trick

Mitch and Molly said, on my post about kitchen training of the basket trick, that their mum is thinking of teaching them to 'hold'.

I was really glad to get that comment, because I'd been scratching my head about where to go next with the trick. (We got the idea from Ludo.)

So I'm reminding Penny of the 'hold' behaviour, which she hasn't done for months. She used to know how to hold a toy, but has never done it with a basket, so I didn't expect too much of her. She only had to mouth the handle of the basket at this stage. (Apologies for my loud voice. I do get a bit excited when Penny shows me how smart she is!)

kitchen training for dogs

It's been a while since Penny and I have played games in the kitchen, so I thought I'd post this 'warts and all' series of clips from yesterday.

I placed two familiar toys in the doorway of the kitchen...

...after throwing an assortment of toys around the floor. (I have no idea why I did that, seeing it had nothing to do with the training except to add some confusion, but I enjoyed tossing them out of the toy box and seeing Penny dash joyfully around.)

The idea was for me to show a toy to Penny and she would go to find the matching toy.

She was pretty good at it, seeing we haven't played this game for nearly a year. I didn't react to the wrong toy being fetched, except to continue to ask for the correct one. It was funny to see her tail drooping as she realised she wasn't going to be praised for the wrong one.

However, it was lovely to see the wagging tail the rest of the time.

No one watching her could doubt there was some problem-solving going on. Have a look!

Penny and the overly big stick

I like to see Penny solving problems for herself, when possible, because I think it's good for her to stretch her mental capabilities.

Yesterday she arrived at the door of the car - after a delightfully muddy swim - with a big stick in her mouth. It wouldn't fit through the door as she was carrying it. I hoped she might figure out to turn it sideways, as she has done in the past, but more often than not she can't be bothered with all the mental exertion of problem-solving.

In this case she waited for me to solve the problem for her.

I found it interesting to watch her body language as she coped with the stick that wouldn't fit. Here are some of the things I noticed:

She slowed down as she approached the car and realised there was a problem;
her tail drooped;
she licked her lips;
she looked away from the problematic door and stick;
her ears flattened;
she scratched her chin;
she looked at me for help.

Many of these are classic signs of stress, but I think it was good for her to face the situation and try to work it out. I think she was experiencing eustress rather than distress.

Here's the whole incident, if you feel like looking at it:

a dog learns from another dog's blog

I've been having an interesting conversation with Johann's mum. She has two great video clips of how she trained Johann to succeed with the wooden Nina Ottosson Dog Casino.

First she taught him to focus on the little pegs that close off the drawers.



Then they moved on to pulling the pegs out of the holes.



So far we've practised Penny touching the peg for a reward from my hand. We moved on to clicking when she knocks the peg off the game, because I thought that might be closer to what we need finally, when she'll have to pull up the peg and throw it off the Casino so she can pull out the drawer to get the treats.



Johann's mum has mentioned the command 'pick it up' and Penny knows that well, so we experimented with that.



(I just can't seem to co-ordinate using the clicker and stopping myself from saying 'Yes!'. Luckily Penny's used to my muddled training methods, lol.)

dogs can extrapolate

Recently, my sister worked on a new quilt. As I walked through the room where she had thrown the work-in-progress across a lounge chair, it passed through my mind to wonder whether she should move it before Penny jumped up on it. (It was full of pins, so don't think I was worrying about the quilt, lol. I was thinking of Penny getting hurt.)

Penny does not get on our furniture. (Well, beds are another story...) She will jump up onto a couch of comfy chair only if her special quilt is lying there, ready for her.

I've heard it said that dogs don't extrapolate, that is, they don't use given information to judge an unknown situation. But in this instance, Penny decided that one quilt is like another. Sure enough, she decided to nap on the unfinished quilt. 

the nina ottosson dog casino

It seemed a good time to try out our new Nina Ottosson toy today, as Penny was having kibble for her breakfast - boring stuff!
So we got the box out.



It's one of the hardest puzzles, level three, so we knew we'd have to take it in stages.



First I put the puzzle on the floor, taking out the little bones on top that stop the drawers underneath from moving in and out.




I let Penny see the drawers pulled fully out.



She watched with interest as I placed a piece of food in each little drawer.



And, last of all, I pushed the drawers in part-way, so she could see and smell the food.



I have a video clip of her trying it out, but it's very long and probably boring, to be quite honest. But I'm going to upload it here as a separate blog post, because I think it's worthwhile for anyone thinking of buying this toy. It's a warts-and -all look at how a dog approaches the task for the first time.

toys to enhance a dog's intelligence

I've been talking to Johann's mum about her post regarding Nina Ottosson's toys for intelligent play and I've finally figured out a way to get one - a friend is going to bring me the Dog Tornado from Clean Run in the US when she comes over here for Christmas.

Fingers crossed that it gets to her before she leaves and that it's not too heavy!

In the meantime, Penny's still extending herself to solve the puzzle of the balls that disappear into a game I made out of pvc pipes in December last year. Because we're experiencing a drought here, we've had water tanks put in and there were some old pipes left over, so I've extended the pipe game. Here's Penny trying unsuccessfully to use the techniques that worked with the shorter version.I had to put it on YouTube because I couldn't get it uploaded to Blogger.



She thought we were going to help her, but we weren't, so she tried again - this time she gets it right. I love the way her tail is wagging throughout.

fun new problem-solving toy for dogs

I brought home a new toy for Penny today. I noticed it as I was browsing the pet shop that (unfortunately for my finances) is right opposite the place where I work. The toy is called tug-a-jug and is made by busy buddy. On the site there is a movie clip of dogs playing with it.

Penny spent ages playing with it and we made a video that includes just a little of her work on the task.
At first she used a variety of techniques that had worked for other toys and did get all the treats out. However, the walls of the kitchen might be showing a little wear and tear already - I think there might be a few chips in the plaster on the corners. The packaging does warn that it's a heavy toy and needs supervision, especially if the dog throws it around. Penny hasn't progressed to that technique yet, but I think it will come.

Later in the evening I showed her that if she tugged on the rope the treats would spill out.



When Penny first started to gnaw on it I was concerned about her teeth, as the material is very hard.( (It says on the packaging that it is made with non-toxic materials similar to those used in bullet-proof glass.) However, she quickly moved from chewing on it to moving it around with her paws, so I relaxed about that, though I think it is a toy that should be supervised at all times, rather than one for solitary play.

I like the fact that it deals with the five senses, as is advertised also on the packaging: There are holes for the scent to come out - Penny was sniffing these; the treats make a rattling noise - Penny stopped playing with it when she could no longer hear treats in it; the food is visible through the transparent material; she was pawing at it and rolling on it and generally getting stimulation from her sense of touch; and, of course, the treats tasted good!