Competitive Notions

Bug recently celebrated her third birthday. She was fortunate to get many wonderful gifts, including Hi-Ho Cherry Oh and Go Fish. Bug loves playing these games - probably because she gets the adult's undivided attention while we play.

I am not a fan of a society who protects our children from competition. I feel that propping kids up by not keeping score at their sporting events, eliminating grades from grade school, or telling them they're doing a great job when they're not is just setting them up for frustration, confusion, and failure when they get older. Because believe it or not, life is competitive. Harvard isn't going to let Junior in just because Mommy said Cs were ok even though the kid was slacking. The boss isn't going to hire all 12 applicants for one job simply to make sure no one's feelings are hurt. A store owner or manager who can't run the store in the black isn't going to be allowed to keep "playing" because she wants to. I'm not saying we should turn play groups into mini Olympic-style competitions or that children should have to interview to get into preschool, but I do believe that competition should be introduced at developmentally appropriate levels so children learn how to deal with success and failures in a safe, protected environment before they are adults and on their own.

But, back to HiHo Cherry Oh and Go Fish. My husband and I have decided to play these games according to the traditional rules, which means that there is one winner at the end. I may make some choices to let my daughter have a bit of an advantage, but I refuse to throw the game just so she could win. I did consider it at one time and then she beat the pants off me three times in a row and I decided it was insulting to her to underestimate what she could do.

However, what I do find myself doing is to make light of the times when one of us has a run of bad luck or looses the game. In Hi Ho Cherry Oh if the spinner lands on the over turned basket you have to put all of the cherries back on the tree. When this happens to me I respond with a "Oh boy, look at that! I have to start over" and start over in a matter of fact way. Or I make a very dramatic "Urgggggghhhh!" and goofy face which is guaranteed to make Bug laugh. When Bug has to start over I try to be just as fun. We count the cherries going back (counting is tons of fun for this kid) or I point out that we'll be able to play longer now. Basically we look for the positive. And sometimes we keep playing even after one of us has won. I will point out that one of us has won, but we can keep going if she'd like to, or we can start a new game.

I realized as Bug cheerfully continued on from a set back in her game that I really should practice what I preach. Oh sure, when I'm with Bug I take my set backs in good humor, but when I compete with my dogs, particularly Cousteau, I let the inevitable set backs take the fun out of working with my friend.

Cousteau loves agility, but I'm terrified to compete with him because I can't handle the thought of not qualifying (aka NQ). Everyone I know who competes has NQs - it goes with the territory. The last agility trial I watched I paid close attention to the NQs. Most people came off the course with good grace even after knowing they or their dog made a mistake. I often heard people say "Well, the teeter went really well" or "He knocked the bar, but at least he took the jump. That's progress!" I admire that so greatly and it's something I can do when watching other people, I just can't do it for myself. But, I never realized that until playing a child's game.

So what can I do? The issue isn't with my child or with my dogs, but with myself. I guess I can look at it as I do any training problem, only the trainee is myself. I need to set myself up for success by doing more run thrus where the final score doesn't matter, but running a new course well does. I need to click and treat myself for the good things I do on the course and point out 3 things that went well at the end of a run, even if it was pretty ugly overall. I need to take the pressure off my dog, who honestly just does what I tell him to do, even if I don't realize it, and look to myself for changes. Basically, I CAN'T BLAME THE DOG. Boy, does that stink! Something will actually be MY fault and I'll have to do something to change it. That will take some getting used to.

Let's see if this dog trainer can let her dogs and child teach her something instead of the other way around...

They are what they are...

It's been quite a while since my last post - roughly 3.5 months. I've had the will, but not the energy to post since I found out I was pregnant a few days after the last time I was here. This is wonderful news - we're very excited, but I've also been pretty sick and miserable for 3.5 months. :P But this brings me to the point of this post - kids and dogs are what they are.

I distinctly remember when I was pregnant with Bug clutching the toilet on my birthday. I didn't vomit often with her, but my birthday was an exception. As I'm retching and wishing it was July already and my baby was in my arms, Cousteau came into the bathroom and pushed himself against me. I thought to myself "Oh, how sweet. He wants to comfort me!" Then I retched again and he stuck his head through my legs to try to drink out of the toilet. It wasn't the chance to offer comfort but the chance to score birthday cake, one way or another, that led him to the bathroom.

Fast forward to this week. I'm driving along the highway hoping against all hope that the Chinese food which sounded so good 10 minutes before would finally settle my queasy stomach. It didn't. Instead I started vomiting at 60 mph. I won't go into details, but it was nasty. Thankfully Bug was with my Mom so she didn't have to witness my distress, but I did call my mom to get some sympathy once I was home and all cleaned up. Bug wanted to talk and she very sweetly said "How are you feeling, Mama?" I went on to tell her that I wasn't feeling well, that I got sick in the car and my tummy hurt. Her response? "Oh, well we're going to have a picnic on the beach. Bye Ma..." and she tossed the phone back to my mom. Mama being sick really didn't have any impact on her at the moment since she had Nana to play with.

The point - while some times there are stories of amazing empathy from children or dogs, ultimately they are selfish creatures. This doesn't make them bad or amoral, it simply makes them kids and dogs. Being self-centered is what has gotten them through the ages. With children we do what we can to teach them to think of others which in turn may just help the human race survive a little longer or at least better. Dogs aren't humans. They are dogs and what serves them best is to think "What's in it for me?" Don't get me wrong, there are some dogs who do seem to have an amazing empathetic link to people, like Greyfriar's Bobby who visited his master's grave every day for years until he himself died. But those dogs are the exception to the rule. The rest of us have wonderful companions that are bonded to us, but ultimately are concerned about themselves. Actually, they're not so different from people after all...

Little pitchers have big ears...

Raggzz, the cairn terrier we had growing up, wasn't necessarily the smartest dog on the planet. She wasn't dumb, but she wasn't above average. Well, she was the cutest darn cairn terrier ever born, but that had nothing to do with her brain power. However, despite a complete lack of training she managed to learn what “eat”, “walk”, and “bath” meant. In fact, we even switched the words around a bit and started spelling eat and bath and saying “promenade” instead of “walk” and she still figured it out. It was basically a kind of Pavlovian or classically conditioned learning – she always heard those words in conjunction with those events so hearing them made her anticipate the event. We learned to be careful in how we used those terms in every day conversation. Otherwise we risked unleashing the full range of terrier emotions about whatever it was she thought we had said about her.

Yesterday I was driving along, listening to NPR as I usually do. (Yes, I'm a liberal crunchy granola girl, if you haven't already figured that out!) Bug was in the back seat. She'd rather be listening to music, but I can only take so much of Elmo and Ken Lonnquist, no matter how talented they are, especially if I'm driving along a tedious route as I was yesterday. The NPR discussion was about Barack Obama and Reverand Wright and I was only listening with half an ear. Then I hear a little voice from the back seat. “O. Bam. O... Obama! Bah-rack...Barack Obama!!!” She was sounding out the unusual name just like she tries to sound out words. And she was pretty darn proud of herself for sounding like the radio host.

While Bug doesn't currently have an extreme association with the name Barack Obama, like Raggzz did with her key words, it's still pretty amazing that she was able to pick out that name, a name she's heard so much on the radio, out of all the political mumbo jumbo. And it also reminds me that I'd better keep my *&@# mouth shut when I'm driving or my child will pick up more than a liberal education!

Why?

When Cousteau was about a year old, he decided to venture into the open door of our 110 year old house's cellar. That's not so surprising, but was amazing is that with all of the stuff down there for him to get into – hoses, gardening equipment, paint supplies, litter box, packing materials, etc. - he chose to find a chunk of rat poison laid down by the house's previous owners (something we were completely unaware of). How did he know to find the most toxic substance there? It must be something hardwired into snotty puppies. $800 and 3 vet visits later he was fine.

Bug has had many painting projects. She's used tempra, water color, and acrylic purchased from the kid craft aisle. So why, oh why, does she decide to taste the acrylic paint used for outdoor terra cotta projects?! The stuff that doesn't say “non toxic” or “safe for children”. No, instead she's sucking on a paintbrush full of the paint who's label saying NOTHING about toxicity. She's never had the urge to taste paint before. I blame the Labrador. Thankfully, the child is also fine.

Figthing Fears

I have a toddler and a collie – I know a little bit about dealing with fears and phobias that pop up at random and I think I'm getting pretty good at working through these situations effectively.

Conditioned Emotional Response or CER – classical conditioning forming an emotional reaction between a conditioned stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus. We often deal with fearful responses and CERs are very strong and hard to extinguish.

Poor Beamish must have been trained on a shock collar before I got him. The mere sound of the warning tone before he'd get a burst of citronella from a scent collar or on the electronic fence, or even the warning tone on a cross walk signal, turned him into a frozen, quivering mass. There was no shock associated with the tone the 3 years he was with me, but the fear was there whenever he heard the sound.

Bug had no particular feelings about my cousin until my cousin watched Bug during Bug's seperation anxiety phase. Now Bug always associates my cousin with me leaving and says she doesn't like her, even though they have a lot of fun when they are together and even if I'm not going anywhere.

Counterconditioning – changing the student's association of a conditioned stimulus to an opposite association.

One of Beamish's triggers was the presence of a sheltie. Whenever he'd see a sheltie he would get very stiff and start showing aggressive body language. If the sheltie got close enough, Beamish would lunge at it. We happened to be staying in a place where we saw a couple of shelties frequently. Beamish and I would sit off to the side and every time he noticed a sheltie I would click and give him a treat. By the end of that trip he was doing a pretty good job of looking at the sheltie calmly and turning to me for a treat. We had begun to counter his negative response toward shelties with a more positive, or at least neutral, response.

My aunt happened to watch Bug several times during her separation anxiety phases. She knew that Bug had a strong negative response to my leaving, so she brought ice cream with her whenever she came to watch Bug. Soon Bug was telling me “bye bye” because she knew she wasn't getting “i teem” until momma left.

Desensitization – introducing small doses of the fear-provoking stimulus and gradually working up to exposure to the entire stimulus.

Cousteau did not enjoy our 19 hour drive from Massachusetts to Wisconsin. (Neither did we!) He refused to get into the car for weeks after we moved, probably because he was afraid he'd be stuck in the back of a packed car with us screaming at him to lie down or he'd get tangled in his seat belt during rush hour traffic or some doG awful road construction again. We started throwing treats in the car and letting him get back out. Then we took short trips to fun places. After a few months he was able to get back into the car on his own without complaint and even tolerates road trips well now.

For some reason, Bug was terrified of the vacuum. From the very first time I turned it one she freaked out. We started vacuuming in a room as far away as we could get from her and worked closer one room at a time as she allowed us to. We also introduced a toy vacuum and a smaller, quieter electric sweeper. Over time she could happily play with her toy and remain in the room with the electric sweeper. Then she moved up to using the sweeper herself. Now she can tolerate being on the same floor, a room away from the “big Daddy vacuum”.

Flooding or response prevention – a barrage of the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus present. In other words, the presence of the big scary thing in huge amounts.

I didn't realize I was flooding with Lacey, one of my foster dogs, and I'm lucky it worked. She was afraid of big, tall men with deep voices. My dad happens to fit that category. We started off with some counterconditioning, but then I needed to run into my grandmother's house and dogs aren't allowed there. So I tossed Lacey's leash to my dad and went in. Lacey began freaking out, but eventually settled down. I don't think this would have worked if I hadn't started with the counterconditioning, though.

I can't think of a time when I've used this with Bug. It just isn't a very pleasant way to deal with a CER. I've tried it a bit with my fear of snakes by forcing myself to go into the herpitarium at the zoo and look at the snakes surrounding me. Even though the snakes are behind glass, the longer I am there, the more anxious I feel. Maybe if I sat in that room for hours and hours I would become so exhausted by the constant anxiety that I wouldn't be able to shake and hyperventilate, but I'd be just as terrified the next time Bug and my husband wanted to see the snakes.