Category: Advanced Stuff, Fun Stuff ¤
  Author: Victoria Farrington ¤
   Title: Dash's Magic Box ¤

	Had Deb not descended from Planet Canine (can I go there? Can I?
Can I?) and mentioned Sully needing focus I'd not have the nerve to
suggest what always strikes me as a\both cheating and a very silly idea.
	I've not yet opened my copy of Culture Clash (Diana Hilliard
practically forced me to buy it!) partly because I don't want anything too
brilliant to interfere with the sloppy way I work out things for myself
but this is my defintion of the culture clash. 
	Dogs are very immediate and concrete.  Let's flatter ourselves and
say that people are capable of complex and abstract goals.  Dogs are not.
I was thinking about this when I read posts about Rosemary and her
environmentally sensitive GSD.  (In a terrier, I'd call that being a pig
headed insensitive little jerk but really, I DO like environmentally
sensitive.)  I go to a park with my dog.  I'd like to do some walking and
exploring myself.  I'd like to go for a pleasant walk and provide my dog
with exercize and entertainment and satisfaction.  I'd also like to do 45
seconds of heeling, a drop on recall, and a single retrieve.  I have an
idea my dog might be ready for a trial.  My dog, OTOH, gets there and he's
thinking: grass, grass, SMELL! SMELL! tree, tree! Tree! BUSH!!!Pee, pee,
pee!  Tehn he gets a whiff of squirrel or mole and it's like a car alarm
going off in his central nervous system.  And I somehow have to overcome
all this conflicting stimuli and get the little brute to even look at me.
	now I could go on at some length but I'm gong to switch horses in
mid stream.  When a dog heels, we become a physical target.  When a dog
retrieves or goes over a jump or through a tunnel, he sees something
physical.  When a dog targets his bed or his leash for a settle, he has an
actual physical target.  Dogs are very very good at targets.  At smells,
at sights, at places and things.
	Now think of a sit or down stay.  We're giving the dog nothing,
especially when we move outof sight.  Don't you think that dogs often
target US, our hands, our faces, our reactions?  I decided that a gain in
the future that was not yet seen or smelled in return for what is
really nothingness was WAY TOO ABSTRACT for terriers to ever grasp.  And
I'll admit it was Dash and his soccer ball that made me think about this.
	Dash would not accept that he had to sit still to avoid a leash
pop or my disapproval.  Dash could not understand that if he sat still I'd
return and give him a bit of weiner.  He's an action adventure type.  I
found him frustrating and infuriating until the day I got out his soccer
ball, he leapt so high he l ooked me in the eye and scraped my chin with
his teeth.  And then I thought:  He;ll do anything for this ball.
	But the ball itself was too mcuh for him so I put it in a large
cardboard box. It hink I'm rambling so I'm going to cut to the chase.  The
box sometimes contained his soccer ball.  Sometimes it held nothing.  I
put it between him and me, in front of him, behind him, to the side of
him.  When the box contained nothing, it still gave him seomthing to
foxcus on.  he was butt glued to the ground because the box was a symbol
of what he could earn.  And when I left him for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 3
minutes, I was always GOING TO GET what would thrill him.  The box, the
ball, a lovely food thing.  I shrunk the box, I moved it way behind him
and didn't treat himi if he turned to look at it, I kept coming back with
wonderful things and he couldn't have them unless he remained rooted.
	Dash has his flaws but really his stays are often terrific and
worry free because he has learned to understand what is at stake when what
was at stake was concrete (think of food in hand, no food hand as the
target and it seems all to o obvious) and also I was always leaving to go
get something so he LIKES this.  This is practically winning in itself.
	Just ideas and ideas.  I call this the Magic Box and sometimes it
seems like I'm adding unnecessary props.
	Victoria Farrington