Moku & I Make A Scientific Discovery (Well...We Made Up A Cool Game, Anyway)

Daily CHALLENGE & ACTiViTY Summary

Dog’s name: Moku

Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Physical Fitness

When I came to pick up Moku this morning, I ran into Traci and her husband in their driveway. Traci mentioned that Noodles (the Boston terrier, her foster dog) was having some issues on the leash, so I suggested we work with her and Moku, since Moku is utterly non-reactive in virtually every situation. I’ll go into our training exercise more in other sections of Moku’s report. But after working on leash, we brought Noodles, Moku, and Clancy (who had been in the car) into the backyard for some social playtime. So Moku did get some exercise roaming around the yard – with quick bursts of high speed play peppered throughout.

We walked 1.8 miles around my neighborhood today, and Moku swam as well. I was feeling a little concerned, though, because Moku seemed very sluggish today. I wonder if this is something you’ve noticed? Or is he clearing his 2-3 miles a day pretty easily? If you two have had some long walks the last few days, perhaps that’s why he seemed tired today. But I almost worry sometimes that he might be hurting somehow. I truly hope not! But I’ve been thinking about what you mentioned before -- about the way he sits all hunched over. I’ve noticed that too, like he’s not “growing out of it”, if we were thinking it was just kind of a cute, roly-poly puppy thing. It also seemed like it was harder for him to get up from sitting or lying down today. I truly hope I’m reading things completely wrong. His vet hasn’t expressed concern, right? So I will settle on his professional opinion being the best assessment. I don’t know…he just didn’t seem to want to move very much or very quickly today at all. And I know sometimes we think of that as Moku just “being lazy”. But it concerned me today, and I wanted to express my concern to you. I am curious as to whether you’ve had any similar observations.

Cognitive Fitness

We had fun in the cognitive realm today – or should I say “dognitive”. While we finished up with Moku’s Dognition assessment, our brain games didn’t end there!

Taking a cue from research by Brian Hare, and the other Duke U. researchers who created and run dognition.com, I simulated an experiment that was meant to assess Moku’s understanding of gravity. You’ll get the whole explanation in the video, along with some hilarity, as you watch bits and pieces of me trying to get the makeshift equipment to work right! We only did six trials, and while our results are interesting, I’ll have to think some more about what they might mean. Moku chose wrong the first time, but right every successive time! Anyway – see video for a more in-depth description of what we were up to. It was pretty cool!

Social Fitness

Moku helped me, Traci, and her foster dog Noodles, with a socialization exercise this morning. To be honest, it was extremely challenging (for ME), because it was directly after I got Moku out of his run, and his excitement was OFF the charts! I had a new type of collar on him, which I simply wanted to try because I’ve never used one before. It’s called a martingale, and basically works the same way a slip lead or “choke chain” works (I hate that term): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(collar). I knew he was going to be overly excited when he saw Noodles (and Traci for that matter), so I wanted to test out the collar rather than relying on the chest harness, which provides virtually no control. But I hadn’t fit it correctly; it was too loose. And besides that, (as you know), Moku is just SO STRONG, no matter what type of restraint one is using at any given time.

This is frustrating to me. Not because I’m frustrated with Moku, but rather with myself, for not being able to “fix” this issue. I still think a lot of it has to do with the fact that labs remain “puppies” (sometimes) for multiple years. But his size and strength, combined with a reaction of excitement as high as his is when other dogs are around…it’s a difficult combo, and one that continues to challenge me as a trainer.

At any rate, he finally calmed down a bit…especially after just saying hi to Noodles, which is what he really wanted all along. And even though she got grumpy when he entered (what she perceived as) “her” personal space – actually Traci’s space, which she had passively been giving away to Noodles, a responsibility too big to rest on Noodles’ shoulders. Anyhow, it worked out for everyone, and ended up being a really good training exercise for all of us (Traci’s hubby included)!

Emotional Fitness

I’m going to let the Social Fitness category speak for the Emotional category today. All that heightened energy of his in very particular situations…I KNOW it is in part to do with my own frustrated and nervous energy, feeling as though I don’t have control, or fearing that Moku will pull too hard and take me with him, which produces an insecurity on my part. It is something Moku and I continue working on together! But that is ALL emotional. It is a shared emotional space between him and me that we need to spend more time practicing being calm in, that’s all.

Primal Fitness

Moku’s pack walk with Clancy, Ginger and me…and then the remainder of the walk without Ginger, and for part of which Clancy and Moku were connected at the leash, and so feeling more of one another’s energy directly than mine feeding through the line between them…counts for his primal exercise today.