Listen to Your Dog

I meant to post this yesterday but didn't get around to it. I've always heard over and over again since switching to more positive training techniques to listen to your dog. So why is it that when Toby refuses a cue my first reaction sometimes is fall back on punishment? I know my dog and for his standard cues, I know his responses. He doesn't blow me off unless for some reason he just can't do it. Whether that's because he didn't hear me, is above his threshold for what he can cope, what I'm asking is beyond what we trained or it physically hurts.

And yet... yesterday morning when he refused his sit for his breakfast my first reaction was to get mad. He knows sit. He can do it almost anywhere these days. But fine, I thought and I switched gears. I asked him to down... his ears flopped back - almost in a defected look, a clear "Mom I can't" from him - and I got even more frustrated. His down is his most reliable behavior. It's his default behavior. Mad, I just pushed him away and worked with Reba so she could get her breakfast... but Toby just looked so sad. So I asked him for some hand touches and wa-la! He could do those. I asked for another sit (my brain had yet to kick back in apparently) and his face fell again. He lifted his left back leg (wow! He doesn't even do that on his own in his sessions) and kicked it at my hand. He was trying, which only made me more miffed. I checked both his back feet, ran my hands over his legs. Nothing felt wrong, swollen or heated. Frustrated I asked for another hand touch and just gave him his breakfast all at once, refusing to let myself get too angry with him. (At least that part was good on my part...)

He followed me upstairs after breakfast and got him in my room and asked for a down again. He did it very, very slowly. Now my brain was thinking... I checked his back legs again and nothing. Then I had a look at his front paws and sure enough... they were completely matted over with pine sap, bits of sticks and pine needles matted up between his toes. Ouch! I trimmed it off his feet and washed them down, giving him lots of love.

And you know what? Five minutes later when he found me getting ready for work and I cued a sit? He slammed that butt of his right down, ears pricked up and everything, just so proud of himself. "See mom! I can do it now!"

Ugh. Some days I just feel like an idiot. And it also reminds me of why physically correcting him refusing that morning wouldn't have helped either one of us.