Raccoon and Lobster

Warning: This post is tl;dr, and there is not even a single pun for your time. Sorry.

I don’t know what took me so long to start this project, it’s certainly an obvious one. All the pieces have been there since the day he came home and yet they were never put to use until now.

For his entire life, Arthur has been what we euphemistically call “excitable.” Other people might say “high-strung” or “energetic” or just plain bonkers. He comes from a line of working goldens and the combination of increased energy and increased sensitivity means that he is prone to stress. Worse, when he gets stressy, he tends to stay stressy and lacks the ability to calm himself down. Not a good combination. While I could calm him down pretty easily, he was unable to do so himself and could stay in a heightened state of excitement for hours, panting and drooling until someone intervened.

We’ve done years of training with him to keep from becoming a neurotic dog, and he is free from many of the neuroses and obsessions that high energy dogs are prone to, like OCD or separation anxiety. In fact, all the training has worked great at controlling his actions. The majority of the time, he is a fantastic dog, rides well in the car, listens to commands, behaves appropriately, etc. But his brain is still a stressy, neurotic brain and it is not uncommon for him to get worked up and lick your face, LICK YOUR FACE, LICK YOUR FACE until he remembers his training and throws his entire body onto the floor into a down with great violence.

Late yesterday, I was doing some clicker training work with him, mostly refreshing commands when it occurred to me that instead of training his actions, I could work on his disposition. Earth shattering. Relaxed mouth? Click. Ears forward? Click. Calm and quiet? Click.

It’s been 2 training sessions over just about 18 hours and there is already a world of difference. Internet, my face was lick-free today.The first session left him so exhausted he conked out afterward. I can’t wait to see where this goes.