During our recent flight, one of the
other passengers had an ankle-biter stowed away in a soft-sided
carrier. I would never have noticed, except that Glindy's sixth
sense for other dogs manifested in the gate's waiting area.
Glindy started making her excitement whine, and it took me a few
minutes of following her darting eyes and twitching nose to spot
what looked like a Pomeranian that was sitting in its carrier
several rows and a dozen yards away from us. Impressively
perceptive, but annoying.
So, I figured it was a good time to practice. At first, I tried to
distract her with some chin-scratching and ear-rubbing, but she
kept whining. I didn't want to reinforcing the whining, so I
stopped petting her and tried Plan B.
I'm embarrassed to admit that Plan B was positive punishment: every
time she whined, I'd poke her gently but firmly with my toe and say
"no." My idea was to make whining unpleasant, and to distract her,
with the idea that I'd praise her when she was quiet. Alas, this
actually increased her level of arousal, and the whining went from
excited-curious to a much louder almost-howl. I've created this
reaction in the same way before, so I really had no excuse for
doing it again.
So, I dipped into my backpack and got out some
Grizzly NuTreats and began working on focus exercises. In about
five minutes, the near-howl had become an intermittent (and much
quieter) whine.
While I wouldn't call this brief training exercise a success, it
was a good learning experience for both of us. It reminded me of
several things:
- Positive reinforcement is still usually the best training
tool.
- Even though Glindy isn't food focused, and will not always work
for treats, treat training is still more effective than other
methods when it works.
- It's not always convenient to use real-life situations as
training exercises, but it's important—and often
unavoidable.
On a much more positive note, once we were on the plane, Glindy was
an angel. Our last flight segment was a Boeing 737 that was
completely full; every seat was filled, and Glindy had to share the
bulkhead with three clumsy humans (including me) with big
clod-hopping feet.
With a little nudging, she curled up in the narrow gap between the
economy bulkhead and the first-class seats in front of us. Even
though I stuck my foot out to protect her, the real success was
that Glindy managed to keep her tail safely tucked for most of the
flight, with only a few reminders from me whenever the beverage
cart trundled past.
A number of passengers and flight attendants commented on how
well-behaved she was. That made me feel good, and reminded me that
while Glindy and I will always have behaviors to work on, she and I
really do make a good team.