Acadia Visit with Crossed Signals

The first crossed signals were mine. It's great to maintain an Outlook calendar. So easy to update from emails and my Ipod Touch. Now if I would just check it before heading out. OK, so I missed that our appointment was changed by an hour, due to a field trip and we showed up at the usual time. To be fair, I had scanned my calendar, just missed the change from 1- 2 . Luckily, we live quite close, so we zipped home and I went back a bit later. River was a little confused, but adapted quickly. Amanda didn't return as she wasn't feeling that perky to start and was fading, so I took River solo.

The other crossed signals I wanted to detail are the ones that Ump gives River. Ump often says one command, while giving the hand signal for a different one. He might be saying "roll over" while signalling "spin" - then River usually does "spin". Or he often waves his arm to the side, somewhat like "play dead" but says something else, like "Ready?" while River is sitting. Sometimes River is confused, but mostly he follows the body language or hand signals.

Today Maggie (therapist) asked Ump if he realized that his words and signals don't match and also asked if he would like to to work on that. She said it might be hard. He said he had not realized it and "ok" to working on it. So, as she was walking us out,we discussed how to tackle this.

My suggestion is to have one of us demonstrate and model the verbal command and hand signal for just one trick and then have him try it - just that trick. We often show him a few and then give him a chance to work with River, choosing what he wants him to do and I realized this may be confusing. Maybe a specific sequence and a smaller menu of choices would help.

Considering what to start with; "Roll over" and "play dead" are favorites of both River and Ump, but both sometimes need the "down" command first and then are directional - that is, River only rolls over to his left and goes on his right side to play dead, so those are more complicated. I think we should try "sit" and then "beg". From there we could add "catch it" for rewarding him. Sit and beg have clear hand signals - the hand moves in the same direction as River is to move, and "catch it" just involved a toss.

I say just, but have realized in other situations, that I am making an assumption there about throwing ability. The kids at Schreiber have not been able to do a toss that River can catch. Although, hmm, he might be able to catch a treat if they just drop it straight down from high enough - the way he catches ice cubes. We'll have to test that out. I think that Ump, on the other hand, does have the coordination and strength to toss a treat that River can catch most of the time.

So sit, and beg and then catch it are three separate tricks and I think we should really break them up separately and do one at a time. And then do them in a sequence and alwasy repeat them in that sequence. It's somewhat against dog training tenets, because River is likely to anticipate things if we always repeat a sequence, but I think it might help Ump to remember and link the hand signals and verbal commands. I'm eager to hear what Maggie think of the idea, and if approved, see how it goes.