Moku's Thursday This Week

Daily CHALLENGE & ACTiViTY Summary

Dog’s name: Moku

Date: Thursday, October 29, 2015

Physical Fitness

While we only covered .75 of a mile walking today, we tried something a little different; we made a conscious effort to fuse elements of all the (herein defined) realms of fitness -- cognitive, social, emotional, and primal -- in with the physicality of the exercise.

You’ll hear me talk about it in the video: When working on focus commands (cognitive), energy management (emotional), relational roles, i.e. Moku as the “follower” to my “leader” in our “pack dynamic” (social), and connectivity based on synchronized physiological rhythms in our shared “zone” (primal), one tires out a lot more quickly than one would on a casual stroll through the neighborhood!

Moku also swam today, and played some chase around the yard with Clancy, to get his heart rate up!

Cognitive Fitness

Besides working on focus commands throughout our walk, we also finished our series of Dognition.com games! Today’s two games – of four trials each – consisted of a warm-up for the physical reasoning game, and then the game itself. Moku’s trials are shown and explained in the video, and his results (not only for these particular games, but his whole Dognition profile!) are attached. I think a good challenge for me now, is to come up with new games we can play that follow the same premises as the Dognition games, but that build on them, as in they might be even more advanced and offer greater challenge! Of course, the Dognition games come from Duke University PhD’s, so it’s a bit of a lofty goal.

When I say we worked on focus commands in the context of our walk, what I mean is this: We’ve established that Moku gets overly excited when faced with certain stimuli – specifically other dogs, and also, to a lesser extent, people. So today we worked on the commands STOP/FREEZE (which I’ve decided to use interchangeably, since I can’t seem to just choose one), CHECK-IN/LOOK AT ME (same story, interchangeable), SIT, STAY, WAIT, and LET’S GO. Specifically, we worked these commands while just below threshold, a term in dog training that describes the point at which which a stimulus causing overexcitement or reactivity kicks in, and sends a dog over an “edge” where he is no longer able to listen or respond effectively (I found this excellent article on thresholds, if you’re interested in learning more: http://suzanneclothier.com/the-articles/understanding-thresholds-its-more-under-or-over). For Moku today, this meant standing across the street from the dog park, and teaching him to respond to commands meant to keep his attention focused and productive, while in the presence of other dogs/people.

Social Fitness

When I talk about “relational roles”, I mean the follower and leader positions within a dynamic between dog and handler. I don’t mean to speak to the “old school” notion of the aggressively dominant “Alpha” role vs. the impish, submissive peon quivering at his punishing master’s feet. When I think of what it means to be a leader, in terms of dog handling or in any other context, I think of empowering the same qualities in myself that a great coach, parent, or teacher embodies: a balanced blend of expectations and compassion, faith and acceptance of limitations, encouragement and tough love, granting of freedom and imposition of rules. So in the context of working with Moku on a “constructive walk” like the one we took today, reaffirming those roles meant guiding Moku to do his best, challenging him fairly – setting him up for success and encouraging him to learn and make the right choices, rewarding him with sniffing, affection, praise, and forward movement for honest effort and right action!

Emotional Fitness

Again referring to our constructive walk, the same exercises I discussed in the social and cognitive sections were meant to help Moku grow into an ability to control his (what I consider “emotional”) excitement more efficiently and appropriately over time. As he learns how to focus just below threshold, that threshold becomes progressively more intense as we move closer to the threshold, and for longer periods of time.

Primal Fitness

Moku swam, and retrieved toys in the pool. Additionally, he and I “migrated” together through the neighborhood, consciously power-walking in between “cognitive focus sessions” until we got “into a groove” together. Moving forward at a quicker pace, focusing only on that simple common goal, makes for a special, unifying, animalistic experience. It is in that “zone” where humans and dogs come together on the common level of biology, physiology, pure energy. There is no place in the world I’d rather be!