Green

Where's that Ball???

Dog Blog Post #376: Green, green, my picture's green...

At least that's what the Daily Shoot wanted:

Make a photograph of something very green. Don't settle for vaguely green. Go for saturation.

Here's a few more...

My Little Sheep

I'm Coming!

Here I Am!

Yeah, a bit wimpy this time. Will try to do better tomorrow (high today was only 97F!)

And for the curious, a sneak peek to what the boys will be working on for the rest of the summer. It's not done, and it quite possibly (probably) will change, but this is the basic idea...

(Click images to see larger)

Thoughts?

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Scrapbook - Find It!

Step 1: Take a stack of paper (I used 24 sheets of cheap notebook paper) and wad each sheet up into a loose ball.

Step 2:  Toss the paper balls into a paper bag. (To add an element of human enrichment, place the paper bag on the opposite side of the room. Two points if you make it, three if you make it cleanly, and four if you can keep your dog from pulling the wads out as fast as you toss them in.)

Step 3: Take your dog and put him in a sit or down, whichever he is more likely to hold. (Three guesses as to which I put Zachary in.)

Step 4: Dump the paper wads onto the floor in front of the dog. (Is your dog still where he's supposed to be? What a good dog!)

Step 5: Show the dog a cookie, then wad it up in the middle of Yet Anther Piece of Paper.

Step 6: Make a big show of shuffling the wads around. (Is your dog still where you left him? Pat yourself on the back for teaching a great stay!)

Step 7: Stand back, and give your release/Find It! command.

Want to make it harder? Instead of tossing the balls into a bag, put your dog into a down and toss the wads on the ground in front of him. To make it easier, set the whole thing up with your dog blocked out of the room.

Beau didn't have any problems with this at all. He is a careful, methodical searcher and found the right wad the first time, every time. His way of indicating is to take the wad and nose it out of the pile, at which point I open it up and give him the cookie, toss that one paper wad (tainted with cookie smell), put him back in a down, get a clean sheet of paper, and start up at Step 5.

It took Zachary a few tries to figure out what game we were playing. I think he was just having a lot of fun shuffling the wads around, until he finally figured out there was food in one of them. After that, he settled down to searching, but his technique is poor (random and rushed) so it takes him longer. His method of indicating is to put a paw on it and attempt to disembowel the helpless paper wad.

(As always, you can click on the image above to see it larger)

(Editors Note #1: I got this idea from a Zoo's Enrichment page while trying to find a definition for Enrichment that I could actually understand for my Canine Enrichment? post. While I failed in my original quest, I think the boys enjoyed this particular activity.)


(Editors Note #2: The incredibly observant might notice a slight change in the description of this blog. 

1. It was brought to my attention that without the words "dog blog" in either the title or the description, the search engines have a hard time indexing it correctly -and-
2. It can't be "A" journey (singular), as I have TWO dogs.)

Canine Enrichment?

I don't hear much about Enrichment with regards to domestic (pet) animals. Perhaps that is because we assume they are already enriched with our presence(?) or at least by being in our homes, although we do talk about enriching children's learning and experiences...

I tried to look up the definition for Enrichment (as in Behavioral Enrichment or Enrichment Activity) and found:

Enrichment is “… a process for improving or enhancing animal environments and care within the context of their inhabitants’ behavioral biology and natural history. It is a dynamic process in which changes to structures and husbandry practices are made with the goal of increasing behavioral choices available to animals and drawing out their species-appropriate behaviors and abilities, thus enhancing animal welfare (AZA/BAG 1999)."

(I kept looking...)

Enrichment is an "animal husbandry principle that seeks to enhance the quality of captive animal care by identifying and providing the environmental stimuli necessary for optimal psychological and physiological wellbeing" Shepherdson, D.J. (1998)

(Right... ummm... perhaps we should just move on...)

Wikipedia, ever practical, says "Most enrichment stimulus can be divided into six groups" and lists them as:

• Sensory: visual, olfactory, auditory, tactile, and taste
• Feeding: Different methods of food presentation encourage animals to think and work for their food as they would in the wild
• Manipulative Toys: items that can be manipulated in some way via hands, feet, tail, horns, head, mouth etc. simply for investigation and exploratory play
• Environmental: enhance the animals' zoo habitat with opportunities that change or add complexity to the environment
• Social: the opportunities to interact with other animals
• Training: training animals with positive reinforcement

... and if you go browsing on various Zoo web sites you'll often find a page that lists various animals' enrichment programs, or how enrichment is done. Disney has a nice site for the average reader, including some simple examples (like THIS ONE for an Anteater.)

Ok - enough background, what about my captive animals (the four-footed ones)?

• Sensory: I think they really love the texture/hardness/give of the Lacrosse balls, the softness of the woolie toys, plus they get to play "Find it!" every day.
• Feeding: They certainly get a large variety of foods, from kibble to cookies to carrots. Peanut butter is a crowd pleaser, as are hot dogs, deli-chicken, and cottage choose. But the mode of feeding isn't at all imaginative (bowl/fingers) and has nothing to do with "the wild".
• Manipulative Toys: They have plush toys that they love to carry around, toys they like to find, toys they get to eat (chewies), toys to chew (Lacrosse balls make AWESOME chew toys), and toys for playing tug. They get to rip apart boxes/bags (frequently!) and sometimes I put things into the boxes/bags to make it even more fun.
• Environmental: Their environment is my environment, but as they don't use a computer, watch TV, or have their own set of earbuds, their environment is probably lacking. There is a yard, which they are free to go into, but other than to get rid of the zoomies they rarely go there. They do get walked a couple miles each day, but that's about it. 
• Social: So long as human's count, we're good. These are house dogs, who live and sleep with us. Plus they have each other for company, and they really do seem to enjoy being and playing together. They also get out to the pet store and sometimes to meetings or classes.
• Training: Yes! They love training (class) time, and they get at least 5 "formal" sessions a week. They also get countless mini-sessions as an excuse to toss them a cookie.

If I was to give myself a grade?

• Sensory: C
• Feeding: C-
• Manipulative Toys: B-
• Environmental: C
• Social: A
• Training: A-/B+

Obviously, there is much room for improvement...

Speaking of Enrichment - below is the Word Cloud (using Wordle) for my previous post, "Find It!". Words like "boxes, squirrel, hiding, hunter, squeaky, and activity" give me hope...

Find It!

"Find it!" is one of the boys' favorite games. We play it every day at lunch, each dog getting three "finds" of the beloved Squeaky Squirrel (which replaced long-suffering Duck (of Duck Zen fame.))

Beau hunts first (of course) in the Living Room, while Zachary gets the back bedroom. I'd like to do it the other way around, since Beau is a much better hunter and the bedroom affords more hiding opportunities, but Beau gets... animated... while watching Zachary hunting.

As the Living room is visible from the Holding Area, and Zachary is a less then stellar hunter (ie: takes forever) and we happen to like our neighbors, we keep things the way they are.

Yesterday, in my quest to enrich their Enrichment Activities, I pulled down our relatively large collection (eight) of empty soda boxes which we carefully store (or precariously perch, depending on whether they avalanche on you) atop the refrigerator.

They are there so that we can toss one to the dogs every so often to give them something to rip up (Yet Another Enrichment Activity.) It's also fun to show them a ball, drop it inside a box, crimp down the top, and then give them box. To see their frantic shredding of the hapless box, you would think the ball was suffocating in there.

Today, while Beau was hiding in a sit-stay, well out of sight, I took the entire collection of boxes (all eight) and spread them out on the Living room floor. I added a couple brown paper bags to the mix, stuffed Squeaky Squirrel in one of the boxes, and called "Find it!"

I sometimes wonder about the intelligence of my dogs - both purebreds from a breed believed to be reasonably smart. For the past four (yes, four) years I have been playing "Find it!" with Beau - and over the course of those years I've hidden the Treasured Object (at the moment, the above mentioned Squeaky Squirrel) under pillows, sofas, behind curtains, on shelves, tucked into blankets, behind boards, in baskets, in heaps of laundry, in the bed, under the bed, on top of dog crates, inside boots, I've stuffed it behind/on top/and under hubby and son, I even tucked it under my shirt once and wandered around the room (really had him going with that one!)

But in all those years - for thousands of "Find It!"s - there has never been a pile of boxes mysteriously deposited in the middle of the Living Room floor.

Ever.

Don't you think he would be at least a little bit suspicious????

Nope, not my boy.

He came roaring into the room, practically fell over the boxes, sniffed the first one as he ran by and then proceeded to check out the Usual Places - carefully picking his way through the maze of boxes to do so.

(sigh)

Meanwhile, Zachary, who had seen the whole hiding process from the Holding Area, was practically beside himself with excitement, making noises I never knew a dog could make (any higher in pitch and I'd have been sweeping up broken glass.)

Finally, the Usual Places searched and double searched (Beau is a very thorough hunter) he decided to explore the boxes. He did redeem himself slightly by finding it in short order, but still - I have to say I was more than a little surprised by his lack of initial curiosity about the cardboard chaos I had created.

After that find the boxes were retired, Beau had his two more "normal" finds, and the dogs switched places. With Zachary in a sit-stay (who am I kidding, I'm sure he slumped as soon as turned the corner) I proceeded to dump the boxes and bags back onto the floor, stuffed the Squirrel into a bag this time, and called "Find It!"

Zachary, a credit to his breed, went straight to work snuffling the boxes and bags, and while he took a bit longer to find the right container, at least he knew to look in the containers!

Anyway, needless to say a good time was had by all and this Enrichment Activity received two very big paws up.