Fun with Dogs!

So that is the trick and it came about quite accidentally.  Brit is usually the last one out at night and one night I was watching the last few minutes of something on TV and Brit was having a hissy fit wanting back inside.  I turned to Jellybean and said, “you know, you could go open the door and let her back in for me so I don’t have to pause this with less than two minutes left.”  And Jellybean ran into the hall and opened the door and both dogs came running back to jump on the bed.  Jellybean was SO pleased with herself and Brit was SO MAD about it it just cracked me up.

Note:  I pointed out to Jellybean the other night that it would be lovely if she could go in the kitchen at get me some pepcid but alas, no luck on that front ;-)

For about three days it was a nightly ritual where I would ask Jellybean to go get the door and let the puppy in the house.  Then I decided I wanted to get it on video because Fancy had so many funny things like that (how she would take a shower, etc.) that I never recorded and then she died and boom no option to record them.  Well, Jellybean refused to do her new trick when it was a set up.  All of my dogs can and do open the back storm door since it doesn’t latch terribly well - Fancy even knew to hit the handle if it was latched - and I had “get the door” on cue with Jellybean already since I have her go to open the door when I am taking out the recycling and my arms are full and to direct her away from the crowded little area by the back door where if I am standing there, Jellybean and Brit will quarrel.

I told Casey I wanted to submit this trick to clicker trick of the month on RBDT and asked if I was allowed to do that when the dog had just taught herself to do it.  Well, Jellybean required a bit of assistance for our video.  For three days I tried to set it up to get the video and Jellybean would just look at me.  Everyone has been there right?  So I did have to actually work on this to get the video.

To get the “open the door” on cue all I did was say, “get the door” as Jellybean and I were walking towards the door when she knew I was going outside (recycling/trash/keys) and then getting to go outside and often run hard at her Jolly Ball was the reinforcement.

I have not used a clicker with this behavior because it was so obvious to Jellybean what we were doing that I certainly didn’t need to teach a target on the door although if you are trying to teach the behavior from scratch that would be what I would do.

As you can see in the second clip, just a little bit of food to reinforce letting Brit in was all it took to remind Jellybean that she knew what “get the door” means even when I am sitting on my bed in the other room.

Debbie Jacobs (@fearfuldogs) tweeted this morning that I should use food to counteract the resource guarding when they both come back inside which I have been doing - you see that Brit barely growls at all when she sees me standing in the hall with treats - but since Brit’s honest response was, to me, the hilarious aspect of the trick, I did not immediately pop treats in their mouths as soon as they came inside for the video.

Think of the finished video as a re-enactment of the original incident and imagine how surprised I was when Jellybean DID go open the door for Brit and how hilarious it was that Brit was so infuriated by that.

I guess now I’ll have to do a video of how we’ve been doing this where Brit knows she will get a treat the second she comes back into the bedroom and is more focused on that than on resource guarding me.