January 23, 2005

Clicking With Lilly

I've decided to start keeping a little tally of the people Lilly hassles during the course of her day, in order to chart her progress.

So far today, it's only two. One lady for the morning walk, one lady for the afternoon walk. They were both people who were passing on the sidewalk. The lady this morning actually clutched her heart and started babbling. The lady this afternoon wanted me to get the dog further away from her, but I apologized and told her I couldn't drag the dog by the neck.
I'm not supposed to drag her away from the scene of crime, cursing and mortified by her behavior, though, of course, I'd like to. Screaming at the dolphins and spanking their butts doesn't get them through the hoop; a whistle and a bucket of fish does. This sort of process will work for Lilly as well. It will, it will.

These two aside, she let quite a number of children play basketball, baseball, and swing on swings without saying a word. Additionally, she let a lady continue to plant flowers in total peace, and two dogs in the distance went unchallenged.

I stuffed her so full of treats on the morning walk that later on in the day she suddenly puked an entire bucketful right under my computer table.
Thankfully, my friend the carpet shampooer is here for me 24/7.

On the walk back this afternoon, she found an almost whole box of doughnuts on the ground that some construction workers had left. She opened the box, inspected the wide variety of doughnuts that were there, then selected the plain one. Interesting. Mr. Cracker said he would have picked the plain one too.

Posted by floridacracker at January 23, 2005 06:13 PM

   



Comments

Keep cracking away at the positive reinforcement.
I used to work with dolphins, and that plus
attention depravation (time outs) are very good training / behavior modifiers.

Posted by: neo at January 24, 2005 11:48 AM

Very cool, Neo. Every time I go to Seaquarium I'm envious of the jobs those trainers have.

Posted by: Donnah at January 24, 2005 01:44 PM