Despite my efforts to begin a retrieval training program for little Lightning, his most impressive moment today looked like it might have been pure instinct, any training beside the point. I tossed a squeaky tennis ball across the room, ready to click & treat if he picked it up, but I was too slow. In a flash, he leapt after it, grabbed it up, and raced back to me with it I saw no point in adding a click & treat for extrinsic reinforcement. This was all his own natural impulse.

Then, as he loosened his grip on the ball, I gently took it and threw it again. And once more he was off like a bolt of lightning so to speak, grabbing the ball and charging back without any reasoning or conditioning seemingly involved. It was simply what he was built to do.

Twice was enough. Tomorrow, or maybe later tonight, we’ll try it again. If by some chance we can then build it up as a reliable behavior over several days, I think we’ll really have something to build on.

This of course is nothing unusual for a retriever puppy. Lightning’s just another in a long line of retriever puppies with a natural affinity for a tossed tennis ball. Reminds me of Laddie as a puppy, and Lumi before him, bringing a tear to my eye thinking of her and how crazy she was about tennis balls whipped deep out into a grass field with those tennis ball launchers you can buy.

I also made some effort at actual retriever training earlier in the day, but it’s not worth reporting after seeing these two strikes.

Wearing the dog

Another thing we got to work on today was tethering, or what my friend and dog training expert Jody Baker calls “wearing the dog”. I needed to use my walker to get from my couch downstairs to the stairs and then make my way to the bathroom for a shower, and I decided to take Lightning with me, joining Laddie as a second Velcro dog. So I attached a 40″ line to his flat collar and made my way to the stairs, up, and into the bathroom. As Laddie had learned years earlier, Lightning’s job was to pay attention, keep up, and yet stay out from underfoot. Both dogs then waited for me while I trimmed my beard and showered, and accompanied me back downstairs afterwards.

The benefits of wearing a dog are too numerous to mention, at least for someone whose brain is currently dulled in the shadow of oxychodone. But if it’s something you don’t know about or would like to discuss further, I hope you’ll introduce it as a topic in the contents.

Eating raw

Per guidance from my holistic vet, Lightning is now on virtually the same raw diet as Laddie. Laddie eats his raw chicken and ground meat & bone frozen solid. That’s too much of a challenge for Lightning yet, but he still needs to learn to tear up his thawed chicken wings with a minimal assist from cutting into smaller pieces with a neat cleaver. He seems to be making progress and may be able to shred the entire wing without help in a few days.

So much for a puppy to learn! I’m seeing the doctor tomorrow, and if he can get me back on my feet, and get me off these mind-numbing drugs, maybe Lightning and I will be able to delve even deeper into our puppy training list. To say nothing of getting Laddie out for a training session at long last.