I will no longer be updating Iron Guide (see below). Instead, I am now writing at my new, personal blog. Though that will be about some of the newer things I'm doing in life, if you want to see updates about Louie, Lester, and now Dusky, add me on Facebook -- there's enough ridiculously cute pictures to go around.

Lester has always been a little distracted around dogs, and so we've been working pretty hard at it for the last few months. We put him on food rewards a little while ago, and, combined with two weeks of intensive, 24-7 training with Koji in LA, he's been improving.

So, food rewards. Basically, it's exactly what it sounds like: be good, get food. Whenever Lester is around another dog and behaves, listens to my commands, doesn't cry or whine, or otherwise generally contains his excitement, he gets a bit of kibble. There are some tricks to timing it properly and making sure he doesn't figure out how to game the system, but, really that's it. Guide Dogs will approve food rewards for specific problems where strong, instinctual positive reinforcement -- stronger and more instinctual than the strongest praise -- is necessary to counteract an equally strong and instinctive tendency, e.g. fear of traffic, dog distractions. Lester loves his food, and saying food is rewarding is like saying Britney Spears has a flair for drama -- an understatement of the most ridiculous proportions. Put another way, as soon as the connection of "be good, get food" is made, it's very powerful motivation to be good.

But, for handlers, food rewards is a little annoying. You carry the food in a little pouch that bulges out of your back pocket and has a tendency to spill all over the place at the most inopportune moments. Dog slobber, while an understood occupational hazard in general, reaches entirely new levels when you're stuffing food into your dog's mouth every other minute. Random dogs come up sniffing to you in the park; you smell an awful lot like their dinner, after all. Yup, all sorts fun.

Still, we handlers selflessly and nobly -- ahem :) -- do everything we can for our dogs.

Sometimes, it works. Check out Lester and Koji -- or, more precisely, Koji's tail -- from a few days ago. Two weeks of having another dog in the house, food rewards, and 24-7 training made something click in Lester's energetic little head. I've never seen Lester so calm around another dog, certainly not so close and most certainly not with a tail repeatedly whacking him in the face. Blink, blink, blink.

Labels: Lester

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