NaBloPoMo: Rollover and Such

Since I have not been the greatest on differentiating between 'drop it' and 'give' with Caleb, and a lot of the tricks I am really excited to get started on in 101 Dog Tricks build on, or at least combine, one or the other, I thought I would warm up with a few tricks that we have a better grasp of.

So we started with sit, down, place, shake, paw, and rollover. All of which he did very well on, so I thought I would start introducing the trick 'bang' (play dead). At first, I thought this would be a piece of cake, since he spends half of his life on his back with his paws in the air, and already knows rollover. What could be so hard about getting him to stop mid roll, right?

Well now.

It took all of about three minutes for Caleb to get frustrated with me and stomp off. Luring did not work because he thought he knew what I was asking and just rolled over and then pouted at me when I would not hand over the treat. The book suggests stopping him with a hand on his midsection if he tends to roll all the way over, which sounds easy enough, but for some reason I just could not keep the treats and clicker ready in one hand and guide him with the other. I think maybe I need to work without the clicker until he gets a vague idea of what I am asking him to do, so I no longer need to keep my hand on his midsection. I really like using the clicker, though. I need to mull this one over a bit more.

I did manage to get Caleb to come back and we reworked the tricks he is consistently successful at, so as to end it on a fun and happy note. Then we ended our little session with a nice game of chase the laser pointer. At least I got that part right. :-)

On a side note, I found out today that Caleb will be able to come back to work with me by the end of the week!! The short version of the story is this: The company I work for is very dog friendly and owns many of the buildings we work in, but they also lease space in other buildings that are owned by other entities. I work in one of the leased buildings, and last week we got an email stating that due to a dog related incident, dogs we no longer allowed in my building effective immediately! There are only a handful of employees who regularly bring their dogs in, and we all know each other. So immediately we got together to try and figure out what happened. We all decided that whatever happened, it did not involve any of us (As we would have been informed by HR that our dog was no longer welcome at work - if they knew who the culprit was). It took me the whole week, but I finally found someone who knew what had happened. Apparently, someone walked into a conference room and found a large pile of fresh dog poop, with no dog or owner in sight. This means one of two things, either the dog was being allowed to roam (which does happen, but is very rare) and found an unused conference room to do his business, and the owner never realized that an accident had occurred, or much worse, the owner knew their dog had pooped in the conference room, and for some unfathomable reason, did not clean it up. Whichever it was, they ruined it for all of us. To make matters worse, we are all sure it was someone who does not bring their dog in regularly, because, and I'm sorry there is no delicate way to say this, it was a big dog poop, and all of the regular office dogs in this building are small to medium sized (Caleb is the biggest at 26.5 pounds). The dog ban is still in effect in that building, but I found out today that my team is moving to a different, company owned, building!! We move on Friday, so Caleb will be back to work next Monday! Hallelujah!

On yet another side note, I manged to get my html badge on the side of my blog where it belongs! Hooray!