training concept..
2020 10 30
I was giving a talk to a four age group ( wow… that was a 4H group) quite a while ago about training great Danes and I had thumper with me . thumper was a stud dog who's related to an awful lot of our dogs .. nice dog .. as I went into a question and answer. Someone said the problem with great Danes is they don't retrieve .. that's that's fairly true but they can be taught so I wanted to show that and I pulled my wallet out and dropped it and ask thumper who was about 10 feet away if he'd come over and pick up my wallet for me which he did immediately and handed it to me and went back and laid down without any further command for me ….. somebody in the back said " I didn't see that can you make him do it again “ so without thinking I took out my wallet and dropped it and ask him for to come pick it up and he looked up at me and very clearly said FU .. and I had to pick it up myself .. this is a great lesson and training our dogs at any rate -----once they've got it don't repeat it to the point of insanity stand up sit down stand up sit down lie down get up no so when you want to do it repetitive task break it up so that you do something else between ------the typical one at the moment is backing up a dog so you can get them between the seats on an airplane .. the tendency is to have the dog back up and you say oh goody aren't you nice and thank you and things and then you pull him forward and then you want to do it again so you ask him to do it again well that dog the second time round is thinking why do I have to do this ------sometimes they'll do it but they will very quickly sour .. same with jumping in a car jump in the car fine thank you goodbye but don't ask him to jump out and jump in and jump out and jump in that's insulting their intelligence if you want to do a repetitive thing like that take the backing up,-- back him up Pat them for doing it tell him good Gore give him a cookie whatever and then walk forward and go do something else like shuffle things on a table or whatever or sit down yourself or do something and then ask him to back up again well that will be far more logical to the dog .. there is some expression about people if you have to do the same thing over and over again with the same result somehow it's related to insanity----- well I think you have to remember that with dogs too--- once they've got the idea give me a break then repeat it .
That concept is not the same as the concept of achieving boredom which is also critical to our trading process .. you can take a young puppy to a street corner and not expect them to behave perfectly when they've never seen that kind of traffic or heard air brakes or 16 people coming over to Pat them all at once .. so with puppies there is a process of achieving boredom .. in nice weather there is a very nice Stonewall in Georgetown which is about four car lengths away from a traffic light where there is also a pothole .. so it's a perfect situation for t rucks to come along hit a pothole and then they hear air brakes stop for the traffic light and then step on the gas and roar away it gives you a chance to train for a lot of things all at once why you sit on the Stonewall and drink coffee the puppies have got to become bored with them before you try and teach them right left up down etc I don't even make them lay down in that situation I just make sure they stand within 6 inches of my knee .. well I drink coffee .. sometimes it takes a lot of coffee before they become bored with the cacophony .. now there's a good one .
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I don't know if you had a formal introduction two our chef .. mike. Just in case You haven't heard ,,, someone called me to tell me there was such a thing as a chef for seniors . being a senior I called immediately and Mike came in his white coat And in the course of a couple hours made four complete dinners for us four containers of four dinners
.. and thus was installed as our relatively permanent chef .. although he no longer cooks in our kitchen with a white coat on .. he prepares it all in his house or somewhere and then brings it all and puts it in our refrigerators .. that's approximately 16 meals except … because I bought a slightly bigger container each of those 16 is really two full dinners .. so that people who volunteer here are entitled to take one package per week out of the refrigerator on an as available basis . the meals are terrific .. we get to choose what meals .. and he charges to make them and just gives us the shopping list to pay the cost of materials .. so the fact that we want more shrimp or steak that he ordinarily would put in doesn't make any difference to him and makes it easier to split up .. we have volunteers who take one and share it with a parent or husband .. and then there's Janine who is not the greatest cook in the world --- actually I don't think she's the worst either--- she just doesn't cook .
Mike will cook about anything..Last week we had twice baked potatoes chicken quesadilla and baked Haddock … for tomorrow I've asked him for coconut crusted shrimp .. some sort of chicken with stir fry rice in steak with root vegetables …
That chefs for seniors is some sort of franchise it comes out of Idaho or someplace but it's certainly something to look into he does a wonderful job and is tremendously reasonable if you have a couple people to get together and have them do three or four meals at a time
So at noon today he should appear with at least 12 containers which really is at least 24 meals at slightly less than $10 each .. we wash and return the containers .
There is someone who is taking their service dog around for “porch viasits” to “shut ins” but does not want any publicity -- so I said I would not tell asnyone..
I will just put it forth as a good idea witha well trained dog…
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