Tuesday Topics #44 - She's a Wanderer

Just about every morning, I take Cabana to a nearby park that allows dogs off-leash during certain hours. The park consists of 18 acres of fields which are also used for soccer, baseball, and softball. Over the past two years and a half years, Cabana and I have made wonderful friends, both human and canine, with the folks who show up at the same time every day, and together, we walk as a pack, back and forth along the back fence of the fields. Our walking keeps the dogs walking, so we all get exercise. Meanwhile, the humans chat with each other and throw Chuck-Its for the dogs that like to retrieve. Other dogs romp around with one another or just sniff the gopher holes, which are abundant. Our time at the park is something I look forward to every day, rain or shine.

The problem is that Cabana is not a ball dog or a gopher hole sniffing dog. She will retrieve the ball 3-5 times, but even if I reward her every time she brings the ball back to me, she loses interest. What she likes to do instead is WANDER. She has learned that she sometimes finds yummy morsels when she's off by herself--a bag of chips left behind from a kid's lunch, dropped peanuts from a baseball player, maybe even some rabbit droppings. Even when her favorite dog friends are there, like Maggie (the English Springer Spaniel) or Bodhi (the Blue Picardy Spaniel), she will romp around with them for a while, but sometimes, she will still wander off.

The park is about 90% fenced, so I'm not too concerned about Cabana getting lost. It's more that it's an inconvenience for me and a bad habit for her. I've tried to show in the photos what a big field this is and how far away from me Cabana can be. When she's just a few yards away, she's very good about coming when I call her. But if she wanders a bit too far, she blows me off completely. I call her name, TRYING not to use "come" unless I'm sure she's going obey (though I've blown it many times and used the word when I shouldn't have). When she does come, I reward her with a treat and praise. But she will immediately start to wander off again. Sometimes, I feel like I have to call her over to me every 15 seconds. I can't have a conversation with anyone or lose track of her for even a minute, or she will have taken off.

Part of it, I'm sure, is that Cabana has figured out that if she wanders off and I call her, she gets a treat, so she has made it into a manipulative game. But if that was truly the case, she would come every time when I call her--but she doesn't.

I have tried many different tactics to stop the wandering. If she wanders and doesn't respond when I call her, I go to her and leash her for a while, so she loses her freedom as a consequence. I've tried different kinds of treats for the recall. I've tried recalling with a whistle. A friend even lent me an e-collar for a week, which actually worked very well (I only needed the vibrate mode), but I still have mixed feelings about getting one myself. I guess I could leash her the whole time we're at the park, but that sort of defeats the purpose of being there. I have also tried waiting her out, not calling her at all, and waiting to see if she will ever come back to me on her own. This does not work at all--she eventually ends up heading over to the parking lot or leaving the fields altogether and poking around in neighboring yards. She's just not a stick-to-your-side kind of dog--she's very independent, and it would probably take hours for her to even miss me or wonder where I am.

As I write this post, I'm thinking of the definition of crazy--it's a person who does the same thing wrong over and over, but expects a different outcome each time. I think that's what I'm doing. I need to think differently about this wandering issue, but I can't seem to see the situation clearly while I'm in it. Any advice from an onlooker's perspective?

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Coming Along Nicely

Cabana and I have been working diligently on recall everyday for the past 3 months. It's a long and gradual haul! But she has progressed very well and comes about 95% of the time when off leash. Here she is, boisterously and immediately coming when called. (Ugh, I'm embarrassed of my voice, but oh well.)


Video description: We're in a big open field of grass with a fence and buildings off in the distance. Cabana is running around a short distance away in tall grass, but when I call her, she makes a beeline toward me.

Even when I don't call her, she likes to come running back to me. This is so rewarding, as well as such a relief. I feel so much more confident about letting her off leash now as compared to even a month ago.


Video description: Cabana running through the long grass, she circles around and comes to a stop after passing me.

But there's still that 5% of the time when I know Cabana's too involved in whatever is distracting her. Here, it's a big swampy, marshy puddle of water. Usually, I leash her when we're getting close to this puddle, but she's been really good about listening when I say "uh uh" (meaning, don't go there) or "this way" (change your direction). This morning, I thought I'd try keeping her off leash as we passed by the puddle. I called her once, but then I gave up and took this video instead. As long as she doesn't drink the water, I'm not that concerned.


Video description: There's a pond/puddle larger than an average living room, with tall reeds and grass growing in it. Cabana skirts the puddle, thrashes through one side, exits the pond and then runs around in a circle on the other side.

Well, next time we pass this puddle, I think I'll have to go back to leashing her. ;)

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Doggie Taj Mahal

This impressive compound is a dog training and boarding kennel about 2 miles from my house. This place offers just about everything--obedience and agility classes, canine good citizen testing, live-in training (like boarding school for dogs), a private dog park, doggie daycare, and even sheep herding!

Here are their three fenced play areas, so you can pick what dogs you want yours to play with. Their winter hours, unfortunately, aren't convenient for me, so I won't be signing up yet--but maybe in the spring.

Pictured below are the boarding kennels that open out onto a sandbed play area. I think it might come in as a close second to Guide Dogs for the Blind's play areas.

On our morning walks, Cabana and I often cross paths with Lesley, who is a dog trainer at this facility. Lesley has offered me a lot of good advice over the past year on our chance meetings. So, I was thrilled to sign up for a one-on-one consultation with her, which took place today.

I had thought about taking an obedience course here, but the 7-week course is $200--and I didn't want to sit there, watching other people teach their dogs to sit and stay and other things Cabana already does well. Actually, there are just a few itsy-bitsy things that Cabana needs help with (or rather, that I need help with so that I can teach Cabana).

One of those things is, of course, RECALL (so I won't have so many more stupidhead moves). The others are walking more politely on leash and not jumping on people. (Cabana doesn't jump on our family, only on other people, making it really hard to practice.)

The training session was FABULOUS, and I can't wait to start putting what I've learned into practice. Consider us "dog whisperered"!

Yesterday, Cabana had an appointment with our non-GDB veterinarian, so she could get her rabies booster and bordetella. She weighed in at a slender 53 pounds, and the vet said her weight is perfect. Cabana is now ready to rock and roll! (Though I think Cabana would say she's been ready to rock and roll for the past year.)

Credit for the post title goes to Nicole/OSU 98, for coining the term "doggie taj mahal".

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Stupidhead Move

Don't you just hate it when you do something dumb? Last week, to my chagrin, I was able to add an incident to my already lengthy list of stupidhead moves. All I can say is, it seemed like a good idea at the time??

Because Cabana's recall at dog parks is atrocious, I've been looking for opportunities in which to practice. On one of our early morning walks, we took the dirt path pictured above. A barbed wire fence runs along this path, with a very large cow pasture on the opposite side. An immense field of grass flanks the path's other side. There are no roads close by, and since I usually walk Cabana fairly early in the morning, no other beings (human, canine or bovine) were around.
I kept Cabana's nylon lead attached to her flat collar and purposely let go of the other end, letting her meander and sniff about a bit but still encouraging her to stay near me on the path. I'd call her back to me and reward her with a piece of kibble when she returned. No other dogs to contend with, it was all going according to plan! Until....

Much to my utter surprise, that rascally devil of a dog wriggled herself, lickety split, under the barbed wire fence and ran into the cow pasture! (Thankfully, there were no cows there at the time.) She frolicked around like a crazed lunatic, gobbling up cow poop as she dashed about.

I called to her, but of course, she ignored me. I took out a fistful of kibble...more ignoring. I bent down, patted the ground under the barbed wire, called her name happily and playfully, called her name more sternly...more ignoring.

Finally, in desperation, I thought, darnit, there's nothing else I can do but climb over this barbed wire fence. I prayed I wouldn't scratch myself up too terribly as I gingerly placed a foot on the bottom rung. My standing on the fence, though, completely piqued Cabana's curiosity ("What in blue blazes is Mom doing?", and she came running over to me! Finally, no ignoring!

I got back down off the fence and was able to grab her leash and lead her back under, safe and sound except for a bad case of poop breath. Needless to say, I didn't let go of that leash again. Enough practice for one day.

As we completed our walk along the path, I noticed that there were no other spaces along that fence where Cabana could have fit under. Except for that ONE spot (shown with Cabana sitting in front of it), the wire is much lower to the ground and has a lot of brush growing up under it (as shown in the bottom photo). Of all the places for me to decide to do a little off-leash rehearsal! Next time, I'll try to be more careful--although I'm not naive enough to think this will be my last stupidheaded move ever.

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A Visit to Guide Dogs' Campus

So this morning, having everything better to do with my time, I decided to play hooky from all the projects I should have been working on. And I drove to the GDB campus for a tour. I had only been there once before for a graduation. Cabana and I were the only ones there for the tour today, so we got our own private one! Thanks to Brian, our excellent tour guide, pictured below.


Here's some pics of a puppy socialization outing on the grounds. This pup has petals stuck to her nose!! She reminds me of someone wearing a fake mustache.



Photos of pups in the kennels. Such cuties!



Recalled dogs in the kennels.

Pups at playtime with volunteers. The collie is Pearl, who helps socialize the puppies. She's gorgeous!



And Cabana in front of the puppy truck.

This is the only time she sat calmly for the whole hour. She was totally hyped up (i.e. pulling on her leash non-stop), being so close to all those puppy pals. Now she's snoozing on the floor, absolutely exhausted. Hopefully, being around the kennels a bit will help prepare her for recall (fingers crossed). I might take her to the campus every few months--I hate to think of her being scared there, and I'm hoping being there previously will help at least a little bit.

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