Lola Guilt Pose #53: "I-am-so-distressed-by-you-my-paws-hurt"**

This past Monday, Lola and I attended the last night of our Fun and Games class.  After six months of puppy kindergarten(s) and clicker-based obedience classes, I signed us up for this class because I was trying to figure out how I was going to wear out keep Lola entertained during the winter months. At nine months, Lola is a ho loves to play with other dogs and wear their butts out run around. A lot.

 Clicker training is a wonderful thing. You reward dogs when they do the things you want them to do rather than punish them for the things you don’t. Punishment does not really teach dogs how they should behave. So whenever you are beginning to teach a new behavior, you use a clicker to mark the desired behavior and then you treat the dog. Once they learn the behavior, you don’t have to use the clicker.

 You can “shape” behaviors by clicking and treating intermediate behaviors that get dogs closer to the ones you really want. For instance, to teach a dog to come, you might start by clicking and treating the moment a dog turns to come in your direction from 2-3 feet away on a leash and slowly work up greater distances and off leash.  Once they catch on to the fact that a “click” means a treat, it helps dogs learn how to learn.

 Don’t think I have not been tempted to take a clicker and some treats to faculty meetings. Look, Jack sat quietly and did not scowl every time Mary made a comment.

            Click and treat.

 Wow! Harry did not make any misanthropic comments when students were mentioned.

             Click and treat.

Lola caught on pretty quickly; as soon as the clicker comes out, she does her little routine of movements to try to figure out what will get her a treat. She loves it. You can see her thinking.

 Do you want me to sit? Wait, look, I am watching you. Maybe you want a down. How about if I walk to the left? The right? Yes!!! A click and a treat!!! Now what? Go to the right and…. Lift my paw? No. Ok. Oh! Oh! I looked down and I got a click and a treat. OK. Ok. Let me think. Look down, look down. Ok Walk to the right and do a down? Jackpot!!! A Click and lots of treats!!!

And so it goes. Lola is very smart and has picked things up very quickly.

 That is… the things I have consistently taught her. But I am ashamed to say that the big gaping hole in Lola’s extensive and fancy education has been my ability to continue the training outside of class times. A few skills – like emergency recall (so that she will come to you when “come” fails and NO MATTER WHAT—is so important to teach well that I have been paralyzed by fear to even begin.

 I am a bad human. But up until now I have been lucky that Lola will pretty much do anything in class as long as some chicken or sausage is part of the deal.

 It was important to me that she not embarrass me do well after a few incidents in puppy class. You see, while the other puppies timidly walked around sniffing each other and maybe playing a mild mannered game of tag, Lola came to kindergarten balls to the wall.

 OH MY GOD!!! DOGS!!! YAY!!!!  (sniff, sniff, sniff) I SMELL BUTTS EVERYWHERE!! HEY YOU!!! WANNA SMELL MY BUTT? WANNA PLAY?  CAN I SMELL YOUR BUTT? (sniff, sniff, sniff).  TAG!!!  YOU’RE IT!!! OH DROOL!!! LICK LICK LICK. HEY!!! HEY YOU!!! YOU EVER HEARD OF ULTIMATE FIGHTING!!! IT’S REALLY COOL!!!!!  FIRST I GET ON TOP OF YOU AND THEN YOU GET ON TOP OF ME!!! AND THEN WE NIBBLE ON EACH OTHER!! WANNA SMELL MY BUTT AGAIN? (sniff, sniff, sniff) HEY DOES YOUR HUMAN HAVE TREATS? TREATS!! YAY!!! HEY!!! HEY HUMAN!!!!! LOOK HOW ADORABLE I AM. IS THAT CHEESE YOU GOT THERE?

And then of course there was the pooping incident. Now no one expects 8 week old puppies to be housebroken. But while all the other puppies were sitting quietly with their owners around a big circle, Lola got away from me, ran to the middle of the circle, squatted down and pooped. A lot.  Not in a corner somewhere—like the other puppies--where no one could see her. Nooooooooo. Right in the middle of the room for all to witness. You could see all the other puppy parents thinking how grateful they were that Lola was not their dog.

 So…. I spent the next few obedience classes trying to recover from the embarrassment of a problem child  provide Lola with some structure and guidance. Fortunately, Lola took to the clicker training and we took some classes more than once because I could not remember the commands there was lots of reinforcement in class. She has calmed down significantly and is usually commended by the trainers as being the most food motivated hardest working dog in the class. She usually is either gazing at me waiting for her next piece of hot dog command or sitting quietly on her mat. I now can gloat while the other doggie parents can be embarrassed because their dogs are barking or jumping up and out of control.

 So Fun and Games was supposed to be just that. No pressure. Each week there was a smorgasbord of tricks that you could teach the human dog, but Amy our trainer encouraged us to have fun and be creative, to think of tricks based upon things the dogs already liked to do.

Lola pretending to be a lion (it could happen) 

Well that was easy. Lola liked to be a drama queen. Every time I get ready to leave the house, she throws herself on the floor as if she’s playing dead and then covers her eyes with her paws. It reminded me a lot of what my mom would do when we would argue. No really. There were a few fights between my adolescent self and my Italian mother when she would throw herself on the kitchen floor and wail, “That’s right, walk all over me, just go ahead and walk all over me.”

So Lola and I have been working on her perfecting this trick. Every time I left the house and she did this, I started clicking and treating. Eventually I had to add a command. I decided “Republicans” would be a good one. So now if I say, “Lola, what do you think of republicans?” she throws herself to the floor and covers her eyes.

Cool huh?

Yeah, except I spent so much time on that one, I didn’t exactly… um follow the curriculum. Oh Lola learned how to spin and bow and weave with Vienna sausages nearby.  Sort of… A little…

 I have to work to pay for her fancy education, OK?

Lola preparing for her role in a movie about the Chilean miners. 

So we get to the last week of class. Lola and I had missed the previous class because we both spent the week after Halloween pulling snickers bars out of our asses as Cartouche so poetically put it were sick. We had not gotten our usual exercise and treats and doggie play time. So we got to class perhaps a little more hyped up than usual, a little more treat motivated than usual and a little less prepared than usual.

Little did I know that the last night of this no pressure-supposed-to-be-just-for-fun-class would be “show and tell.”

So little fluffy poodle whose name escapes me shakes hands, pirouettes (both directions), spins (both directions) weaves, says her prayers and bows.

Beginner’s luck.

            Good dog, I can’t disparage a special needs pup.

 Abby is an older golden retriever and God knows what her human promised her  before class because she was chomping at the bit to show her stuff. It was the usual: bow, shake, twirl, spin, roll over and play dead, say your prayers, yada, yada yada.

            Yeah well. Big deal. Abby always has to be dragged out of class because she does not want to leave so she’s not all that.

 So then there’s Harry, a golden retriever puppy. I think having Abby there gives him an emotional advantage as the majority dog.  Harry can shake hands. Play dead. Roll over. Spin. Stand on his hind legs and walk front and backwards.  Weave between your legs. Say his prayers and actually speak. Hold a piece of chicken on his nose, throw it in the air and catch it in his mouth.

 You heard me.

 Harry did everything but recite the The Odyssey in ancient Greek, ok?

 And finally, we get to Lola. As all eyes come upon her, I find my little munchkin has half of her body in my backpack and is snarfing down stealing examining a bag of salmon treats. I think about Amy’s instruction to shape tricks based upon what the dog naturally likes to do.

            “Well, Lola and I have talked it over, and we think Lola has a career in television doing serious roles. So this is Lola pretending to be a criminal and rummaging through my bag.”

 I finally manage to get her face out of my bag but Lola begins jumping all over the place, grabs her leash and starts playing tug-of-war, growling, jumping around, barking.

             “Um, this is Lola pretending to be a crackhead. Lola, put down that crack pipe girl!”

 I try to get her to do her drama queen but all I can get her to do is to spread eagle in lewd abandon.

            “I am preparing Lola in case there’s ever a canine version of “Showgirls.”

 Eventually, I get a few spins and bows and weaves out of her. But I have finally learned the secret of a well-trained dog without me moving my butt from the couch. Turn their behaviors into useful crime drama sequences. Who knows, maybe someday, Lola’s television and movie career earnings will be able to pay me back for all these human dog training classes.

PS: The comment about Lola, me and the Snickers bars was for humorous effect; please do not ever feed your dogs chocolate!

 **Guilt pose # 53 was named by Lola's dog sitter extraordinaire Elise Von Borries.