When I put Perri's harness on, she cringes her head down to the ground as low as she can go and shrinks downward. She is clearly saying, "I do not want that on me." Perri has a therapy dog vest and her reaction to this small piece of equipment is even more dramatic: she will roach her back violently and actually try to run away from it. (while it is on her body) It is not tight, and neither are any of her harnesses. Perri has been this way from her first day home with me about any equipment, and I will never know why. She used to cringe from a leash being clipped onto her collar, and even from collars. I do not know why she is more accepting of collars and leashes now, while the harness aversion still remains.
This is my newest lesson taught to me by my dogs. Perri needs to have a choice about the harness. I want her to wear the harness on hikes, and no doubt it is a far better piece of equipment than her collar. But it needs to be Perri's choice.
In Nosework, the harness is supposed to be a cue to the dog that Nosework is about to happen - they are supposed to be excited about it! For Perri, the harness has the complete opposite effect. It sucks the joy out of her entirely, to the point where she will barely search. We have done nearly all of her training either with the "put the harness on and wait several hours" approach, or without the harness.
Step One: No more harness on Perri unless she chooses to wear it.
Step Two: Get Perri to want to wear the harness.
We've been spending some time with lots and lots of treats and the harness. I wasn't sure how to go about this, but I sure do know how to read Perri these days (three years of living with a martian, you learn a few things.) I laid the harness on the ground and used the clicker, and at first it was simply c/t any behavior other than head down misery. We've been working it slowly over the past few weeks. But the cringing behavior has gone away, and I believe that Perri realizes that she has a choice. Perri is now allowed to make decisions about the harness. It has to be this way moving forward. I wanted to write about this tonight because when I began this evening's session, Perri did something she has never done before ever when she has watched me reach to take her harness off of the hook that it hangs on. Tonight, Perri kept her head up, her ears up, and her tail up. Eyes bright and interested.
I like where this is going. I love giving my dog a choice. I love seeing the shift in her attitude.
I am curious as to how progress has continued with Perri's harness. In the service dog world we are seeing more and more of "body sensitivity" issues that usually manifest in different type of aversions to clothing such as their cape. Some of the dog it's just their lower back where they can't wear a cape with a handle, others can't wear a cape period. And they show different "dances" as I've termed them with some "twerking" some "scuttling" and so forth, and some just shut down. Some are able to recover in a few minutes once you get them moving, others would have to be career changed before we came up with the bandana "cape."
ReplyDeleteOur first response to this phenomenon a few years ago was let them live in the cape- eat, play, whatever. That didn't work at all. Then I put a lot of work into classical conditioning and "cape games." That worked incredibly well for some of the dogs, not all. however I found that the dogs it worked on immediately reverted back to old habits as soon as they went to a foster who likely didn't keep up the daily games as told. It's fascinating, especially the genetic component...