Winter
Standard Poodle
Santa Ana, Ca | 3-Week Service Board and Train
Welcome Winter the 5-year-old standard poodle! She is joining us for the next 21 days to work on learning some new tasks and lose a bit of weight. She had a bit of a medical scare a while back that required some downtime to properly recover and now she’s trying to get back into shape and learn some new tasks for her owner. She weighed in at 65.6lbs Follow her on her journey!
April 1, 2024
Winter spent her first day in training going to group class and working on her service dog skills out in public. She worked on expanding her old tasks around new dogs and people while adding new complexities to it. Once she settled into her new environment, we implemented her new tasks immediately getting the groundwork going. She did great to start as long as my dog stayed in the room with us to keep the pressure on her to eat her food and get more praise and pets than him, she has strong opinions. When we worked on the same task without him there, she kindly refused her food and the game. We made her walks a little more structured so we can eventually implement her tasks to her walks but in the meantime, she just heeled with my foster dog instead of running around sniffing everything she wants. She wasn’t a fan, but she was a trooper and hoped she would get paid for her excellent heel, she did not get paid she’s on a diet, but she got lots of verbal praise and head scratches. That seemed to be a tolerable exchange but she’s keeping count. After a hard day’s work and her puppy brain fried, she curled up on her bed and immediately fell asleep.
April 2, 2024
The lesson we learned today is that Winnie is quite vain, and jealousy is a great motivator for her. As a disclaimer, Winnie has had formal training in the past. Where she’s had all different types of training methods used to teach her previous tasks. On the first day of boarding her I realized, while on a diet, she was not going to learn anything fast enough or with the desire and initiative it requires for her to do the task for her handler out in the real world without putting the pressure of another dog getting the praise and rewards she wants or so she thinks she wants. So with that understanding, I learned that if I want to teach her something all I have to do is reward Stitch for doing it!
Winnie will never not be hysterical, the dirty looks, the huffy huffs, the sheer shock on her face, the confusion in her eyes – priceless.
Today we worked on her scent training, she’s learning to pair the new odor with rewards.
I had my dog initiate everything we did today so she could see him get rewarded and attempt to do the same things.
The first time we worked Winnie with the scent with the kibble and no Stitch was a no-go. SHE LOOKED AT THE KIBBLE AND WALKED OUT OF THEM ROOM! But not until after she gave me a dirty look and huffed.
That’s when I brought out Stitch, put her in a spot where she could watch him, had him do it a couple of times, and then let her have a turn. Then she eagerly ate all her kibble probably because she thought it was his kibble.
Retrieving came next.
I sat her down and had her watch Stitch retrieve an item for me unprompted and prompted, repeatedly getting praised and rewarded for doing so while she looked upon us with confusion and shock in her eyes.
I then pretended to drop it in front of her while Stitch was chattering out of his body, eagerly waiting to be allowed to pick it up instead. He lives to work; he was training to give it to me before I even dropped it!
With the pressure of Stitch on, not only did she scratch it, and boop it, but she angrily opened her mouth, bit it, then proceeded to PICK IT UP!! and gave it to me with a prideful huff! I was floored. My eyes could not believe that something this dog has STRUGGLED with for years she accomplished several times today, in different positions out of jealousy. JEALOUSY!
Finally came working on her assistance when bending down my dog really likes doing this game and he takes that job very seriously. He will fly to stop you from bending down as he braces you with his entire body with fiery passion. Winnie was very confused to watch him intensely throw his body at me every time I pretended to bend down.
However, after several times rewarding him, changing direction, and angles, she began following him but what was so comical was the way she moved with such confusion and her body so stiff because she had no idea what she was doing. She just threw spaghetti at the wall hoping it got her a “treat”. When she did follow him and stood in front of him, in front of me, she had deer-in-the-headlights eyes and would gently step on my foot or boop me with her nose. For her first day of work, she made phenomenal progress!
April 3, 2024
Winter is making great progress. Today we worked on expanding her retrieval of the 1st texture to different positions and distances. She’s picking it up fast and when she has moments where she would like to pass on working or would prefer a nicer snack then Stitch comes out and lights a fire under her tuchus. However, she is getting to a point with the first items that she can retrieve them without Stitch’s presence and for her kibble but she only does so for a short period until she decides to attempt to leave the room or huff at me and try to lay down. I’m hoping that over time as she builds her confidence in her abilities on her own, without the competition aspect, that she will be more willing to do so on her initiative. I hope if Stitch rubs off anything on her it would be his passion.
We’ve also been working on her only barking once at the door and working on limiting her huffs and woofs throughout the day for random annoyances or noises she feels she needs to vocalize about. She’s getting into the routine of doing structured heel walks throughout the day with either myself or my assistant.
I’m going to take a step back on her bending down task so we can revisit hind-end awareness. She’s very blocky and seems to have a disliking to getting closer to you and making body contact or her body doesn’t flow as freely. We’re going to take a few days to just work on pivoting and hindend awareness.
We took a break from scent work today because she doesn’t seem to have any thoughts behind those games so I’m hoping if she took a day off when we revisit it she might show some interest. I’m also aware that it’s only been two days and it will take more than a few sessions to potentially get her to enjoy the game not every dog likes every “sport”. I’ll give her a day or two to see if that changes anything and if not then I will bring out better treats and give that a go, just because I’ve always been immediately successful with animals doing scent work, it’s everyone’s favorite.
April 4, 2024
Winnie spent the day getting lots of treats. She was in a very excellent mood today, far less woofy than normal. I assume the treats are the reason. Her sent work enthusiasm came as soon as I brought out the treats. I suppose for now we will allow because that’s important to us. She did manage to work on her other tasks for kibble and I would throw in a treat here and there when she did an excellent job. I will continue to use treats for scent work only in the meantime. We were reviewing her alerts and I was unaware that she has an alert that she does a little jump boop with her feet in the air like a Kitty and almost like a squat but not really because she chonk. Kind of reminds me of a T-rex or a ferocious bunny. It was quite comical to witness however our goal is to get her to not jump or put her paws on humans so no humans are injured in set alerting. For the exception of hugs because Winnie hugs are the best exceptions for paws on a human body. When we added the treats to the scent games on the floor she immediately picked up the drive to search the remaining boxes which I thought we were going to have to work on. So that was cool seeing her that motivated to check all the boxes. It probably helps that she witnessed Stitch searching all the boxes but today’s sessions we’re all done with blinds, so no one could see, because I used the same location for each animal in a set. We are also working on expanding her retrieval without Stitch’s presence for the initial texture. I’m hoping to be able to move on to the next texture in a day or two once we’re working a little more reliably out and about.
April 5, 2024
Winter worked on her grooming skills today. We’re working on getting her comfortable with the drumel. There were some amusing points in the day when she was so upset that I was not accepting her nose boops that she would mouth me and think I wanted her to pick up my hand. She was very annoyed because she did not want to give me her paw and I said that was her choice she just didn’t get treats for anything else. Which made it more comical when Stitch would get frustrated with her for not giving me her paw and would offer to give me his paw in her face so she could see what I was really asking her for. She didn’t like that but that didn’t stop him from doing it. We also brushed her hair today which she wasn’t a fan of but tolerated especially when it got her snacks.
Today was potentially the last day of the first texture for at least a little while. We spent time out and about working on “realistic setups” so she could show me that she knew what I wanted without any guidance or assistance from Stitch. She actually did really great, she just did it with an attitude every time, in every location. She was very huffy and used her paw a lot more but for the wrong activity. I think the most amusing part of the whole activities was when she would look at me with what looked like an angry face and her mouth open but it seemed like it was shock instead of anger or she was trying to remember in her mind how she picked it up because she would just open her mouth and walk around for a little bit and then with her mouth still open place it on the object and wait a second or two before closing it and picking it up. She even copied Stitch’s method of throwing the item at me when frustrated. I will accept that for now whatever gives her more passion and she did it all for her kibble so a win is a win!
April 6, 2024
Winter spent the day at the Biannual OCTA Service Dog Training Day! She did superbly around all the other service dogs. She worked on riding bumpy roads loaded with other dogs and loading in and out of the access bus. She was unshaken and kept her cool the entire time! She enjoyed tasking for her mom for her KIBBLE! We were both so proud. She worked on her new texture retrieval, I was so impressed by how fast she picked it up and retrieved it for her mom! She’s working on her scent work and now actively searching for a scent. She is now showing clear signs of more intensity in her alerts as to her frantic booping and her t-rex stance before head butting when we “don’t listen”. I’ll be working on getting her reactions to be less harmful but maintain this new intensity! At one point today she was saw jumping up wasn’t getting her anywhere, so she began throwing slippers at me and before I stopped her, she almost picked up and threw a bow drill at me!!! I promptly understood the message and called it a day. She had a very pleasant rest of her evening and took a long nap.
April 7, 2024
Winnie had a relaxing day today. She spent the morning exhausting my dogs in play 10 out of 10 would recommend they were good boys the rest of the day. She did get dirty, and it was very rude because she jumped on my bed immediately after coming inside and while I was hyperventilating after just doing laundry she came and booped me, alerting me to my distressed state. In that moment of pure genuine concern, all my anger and frustration dissipated, and I gave her a snack. Not one lecture from my mouth, just a defeated sigh, a salmon treat for taking the initiative, and she got to walk with me back to the laundry room to place my blanket back into the washer.
Later she met a new dog named Maverick who insisted on smelling her butt throughout our walk. She was very intrigued and excited to meet him. We’re continuing to work on scent training. We’re hoping she can internalize it into taking more initiative later this week to remove the initial treat completely but in the meantime, we’re just going to slowly work on that, until she puts more thought into what she’s looking for. We began pairing down the rewards intermittently and she was annoyed but she would do it a couple of times before trying to leave the room or end the game. We will continue to use Stitch to keep working on building her internal drive to want to continue playing the game with or without a reward.
April 8, 2024
Winnie had such a long day today her puppy brain is fried to its core. When you went to work with me this morning and was an excellent distraction girl. She got pets from all her regulars who worship and adore her even after talking about her attitude or experiencing it first-hand. She’s making great improvements in her retrieving she has two solid textures now we will hopefully be moving to the more difficult textures in the next day or two she practiced her retrieval with her parents today at our group class she did phenomenal even around new dogs and people and lots of distractions. Her scent work is coming along but not as fast as I’d like. She’s not transferring as much to her parents but she is more interested and engaged at home. She wants to get rewarded when she smells the scent but she’s not quite actively looking for the scent unless more prompted. I’m hoping by next week we’ll be able to get her to an unprompted point, it’s still a work in progress. After class, she went to the store with her moms and we worked on her guiding. She does great in crowds and around food distractions. She sizes her area exceptionally well and has a solid follow. She came home and immediately knocked out, not a peep, her brain was dead she said do not resuscitate.
April 9, 2024
Winter spent the day lounging on place cots while I worked. She enjoyed showing off and snoozing in the warm breeze. After an afternoon nap, she worked on her tasks and seemed more enthusiastic today. Her retrieving is going very well we’re going to be moving on to a new texture soon we’re just finalizing her current texture and transferring it out and about. Alright, we have been working on our hind and awareness and she’s trying to do what Stitch does but her body is not ready to do it. She see’s Stitch do it and it’s funny to watch her get confused as to why she can’t do it but she gets an A plus for effort. Her elephant dance is improving, I’m hoping that we can get her to a little more flow by the end of this week so we can improve her mobility. For now, she is getting better at paying attention to me and making sure that she goes to me when necessary and stands in front but I’m hoping she builds her speed and her intensity when she gets more flexible. She’s doing good, things have kind of steadied out progress-wise, but she is showing interest and she’s doing everything for her kibble the only thing that we’re using treats for is scent work and probably our next retrieval texture but that will be in another day or so. I was quite surprised today when it was time for her to go to bed she told me no and she went back to my living room where we were currently working and she wanted to keep going, I was very impressed.
April 10, 2024
Today was a rough day for Winnie. We spent the morning at the doctor’s getting to work on some of her tasks. When we got home, she seemed a little frustrated and our progress was not as smooth or steady as we hoped. We’re working on her woofing. It’s still a work in progress. She enjoyed several naps today because today was one of those days where we needed to take lots of naps, she and I were both frustrated and needed to take some breaks from our routine hoping tomorrow would be a more productive day task-wise. She’s making progress with her retrieval and a few other areas, but the scent work seems to not be her Forte. I’m hoping with Stitch’s continuous support and more practice she’ll be able to get there and be a little more enthusiastic about it. She took her responsibility of being a puppy wrangler today very seriously she was very proud of herself. She got a lot of treats today but didn’t want to eat her kibble so we’re going to try again tomorrow.
April 11, 2024
When he did a little better today, we started our morning by going to the gym and working on her task. Her retrieval is coming along nicely she’s transferring her understanding to different textures and today we had a real-life situation where she practiced on a new texture that we haven’t worked on yet and she did pretty well. We just had to be patient and keep directing her on what to do. It took a little while but with persistence and waiting her out, she understood and was proud of herself after retrieving the item.
We went to another doctor’s appointment today and she did a little better, but she did solicit pets and that was naughty, but she did do better today. I was able to capture her confusion stand in action which gives me great relief after our many frustrations together.
A nice walk always calms us it’s good for the soul, but we continued working on scent work later. I added a second scent tube which at first, she was confused as to why she wasn’t stopping after one. Why I kept repeating myself but when she realized that she was going to get two treats every time she quickly regained her excitement towards the game. This made today a whole lot better, and we did everything without Stwables, which gives me hope.
While at the gym we were there strictly for work-related reasons, but I had to look the part. Since we were working on retrieval with our new texture, I brought a small item to pretend to drop while I was “working out”. There were a couple of moments that were funny where she was positioned near a handle or knob, different things that you use to adjust your seat, or the weight and I had her near them so that I could easily interact with her while pretending to work out. There was a point in time when she thought I wanted her to target and retrieve those items. There’s one station where you exercise your legs and there’s this little, tiny target-looking handle to adjust the seat so you can push your legs out or in and she was sitting near it. I wanted her to sit a little farther back so it wouldn’t hit her and every time it went by her face, she would boop it or try to put it in her mouth and I thought that was hilarious because she was getting annoyed that it kept moving. She was confused as to why she wasn’t getting a treat, but she wouldn’t leave it alone when I told her to leave it. I needed to sanitize that lever afterward, but I thought that was hysterical. Great moral booster!
April 12, 2024
Winter worked on her retrieving today and she did great. She is picking up things in different positions, at different distances, and different textures. We still need to work on her grip as well as improving certain textures. Ideally, I’d like to also build her hold on certain textures but we’ll see how far she gets. She also worked on her scent training today and we worked on different locations to break away from the room we tend to focus on. She seemed to do much better and we didn’t have Stitch with us, so progress is progress. We also made a little bit of progress with her bending down task. She is now making more physical contact which I’m really happy about, however, it’s not a consistent thing so it’s going to take some time before she realizes it. I think she’s just guessing but wins are wins and jackpots are jackpots. Hopefully, those jackpots sink into her little puppy brain and help her make the connections.
April 13, 2024
Winter had a long day today being an excellent distraction dog and a super great demo dog. She loved all the attention and compliments. She did amazing in our group scent class today. She’s transferring her enthusiasm and scent skills to her parents and that was great to see and nice for them to see what I see, loved that. She came home and napped which worked out because it started raining. Later on, we worked on her retrieving heavier items and food-related items that we need to build trust for. She did well we started with some of our previous heavy items that she’s doing good with and we moved up to more awkward-shaped items that have a little weight to them and we were able to get to her treat bag which she was very confused as to why she was allowed to take it without being allowed to eat the snacks so that was a challenge because her command to eat things is take it and her command to put things in her mouth is uh-oh, take. She was a little confused, but we worked on the difference. She was also extra needy today she followed me into the shower and wanted to be inside the shower with me. She could not for many reasons. So she sat right outside of the shower and watched me the entire time and as soon as I opened the door she asserted herself in so I had to take a picture. She was being very metichi and offended that I was not allowing her to impose.
April 14, 2024
Winter had a busy day today, we worked on her new texture items, and she did pretty well. We’re working on slowly getting her more comfortable with retrieving items that our awkward shapes, and heavier, as well as items she might be tempted by. Today we also started adding names to specific items that she’ll be retrieving most often. She’s doing great putting her vest on now. She does it without hesitation, but she still stands weird afterward and shakes or refuses food for a couple of minutes but that’s OK. That’s very normal, no one wants to get dressed for work.
Later, we went to Target to work on her tasks out in public with more distractions. She’s working on it she does get tired faster when we’re out and vested. She worked solidly for 15 minutes and then she looked aghast. However, her scent training is definitely hearing a brighter tune. She picked that up immediately at the store and was super excited to look for things, so we are beginning to work on my person. She was a little confused at first, trying to look all over the area around me, and was annoyed and gave me some dirty looks when she searched all the areas, she thought it would be in and it was not in there. Once she realized that I was also an area to search through she was annoyed but also relieved that she didn’t have to look so far. She still wants to look elsewhere but will be slowly transitioning her over this week.
We’ve also begun pairing the scent with an alert. However when she got tired and we were doing set up situations for her to retrieve items for us, my mom saw her full attitude when she refused to pick up things for her. We used items she hasn’t had too much experience with outside of my home and things that she’s completely solid on, but her puppy brain was fried and she gave us such dirty looks. She was so tired that she tried hiding the retrieval item by pushing it with her nose and paws then sitting down like no it doesn’t exist anymore it cannot be retrieved just forget about it. We laughed a lot but then we made her follow through and pick it up and she got a jackpot for eventually getting it for us, but we had to remain stubborn, more stubborn than her.
I also began noticing how she will escalate certain situations and I like how she’s thinking right now, she’s in a good headspace in terms of acceleration with certain tasks so I’m proud that she is thinking on her own. She’s responding to my hesitations and to my blatant disregard for her alerts or tasks. She is thinking in the moment how to get me to listen and I like what she’s coming up with.
We were only at the store for an hour and a half, and that time was divided between tasks and actually shopping. She doesn’t mind just heeling in the store or even doing some guide tasks but critical thinking working time-wise, she has very low stamina. She came home and immediately knocked out, didn’t even get up to take her vest off, her little brain was mush and her body could not continue, except when it was her dental chew time, she mustered the energy to go with me to get her chew and carried it all the way back to my room, to her bed and ate it there then went back to sleep post snack break.
April 15, 2024
Winnie had another long day today. She was an excellent distraction dog at work showing off her off-leash obedience. We are continuing to work on her retrieval. Working on incorporating things that she may or may not want to eat and retrieving them respectfully without taking bites. A very hard task for any and all that attempt. We went to group class today and she got to work with her mom and show her all the progress she’s been making. We’re transferring her scent training to her mom’s person as well as working on transferring her bending down alert. Her brain gets fried fast, but she did great following the other students around when I couldn’t be in front and keeping her mom saved through the crowds and crossing all the streets. She came home and after a nap worked on her other alert some more. She has decided she wants to jump to alert, or she could have just been telling me she doesn’t want to work anymore for the day, she was playing ostrich. So, I’m not going to reward that but it does seem like something she offers often so we’ll have to see how to deal with that if it continues.
Oh my goodness. I’m loving these updates! I can’t believe this is what we needed this whole time! 😂 I can only imagine how she’ll get, in the future, if we decide to get another dog after she retires! She’ll be showing all the sass and huffs. She definitely has only child syndrome. 🤣