How I took this picture of the dog with books

I seldom set up anything for the photos on this blog. Alot of it was: it is happening, quick get the camera/phone. So a lot of the photos were really candid, although some became an exercise in stay, stay, stay… because I am too slow and need her to hold on doing whatever she was doing. :P

Sometimes it works, most times it doesn’t because looking at the human to see if she will get a treat for staying became more important, or she looks away and stops doing whatever cute thing she did.

But I did have to jump some hoops for this shot. And so did Donna.

Because on her own, there was no way for her to position her head exactly under that particular shelf of books at a level higher than my waist.

It took quite some time in the morning to slowly work her up to jumping up and sitting on a small black plastic stool. The surface of the stool is about the same size as the park stools that she is used to getting up on, but the black stool at home is slightly taller. And then she had to stay on it while I waited for a nice expression to snap. It took time but it went well, because of all the previous exercise we did with the pee tray (training video over there if you are interested to take a look). She has always had a fear of getting on objects for fear it will slip under her.

I held the chair steady the whole time, so there was no reason why she will topple getting on or off it due to the chair toppling. Unfortunately, probably because the session lasted a little too long for the first time training this, she may have gotten tired, lost focus, because she slipped by herself getting down.

I am sharing this because it is a lesson learnt. I need to always time myself and always have breaks if I am going to be taking a longer time than expected. And perhaps to break it into two or three sessions to accomplish this, rather than to try to do it all in one session. Despite her initial fears, Donna did admirably which perhaps gave me that false confidence that she could do it.

Regardless, she slipped and stumbled a bit but landed safely. Her confidence in the exercise plunged however.

Getting a dog to perch on a stool/chair or bench is a sit-stay exercise that works them mentally and reinforces their focus and patience. The best tools to use are heavy chairs/benches or park stools that are stable and cemented to the ground. Not lightweight plastic stools like what I have. It doesn’t prevent a dog from slipping if they lose focus, but a stable stool/platform does reassure them more because they know the surface they are sitting on is not going to move from under them.

For now, this is the modified exercise we are doing when we are trapped at home due to haze or bad/hot weather.

You can’t see it but my two legs were on either side of the stool holding it in place securely for her. 

She was at first tentative to approach the plastic stool again. But through counter conditioning, she was comfortable to rest in this pose on the stool, which she felt was a stable pose she was safe with. And there was really no need to push her to jump on the stool. All I wanted to achieve was a variety of different exercises that can sustain her interest and that we can do at home when we can’t get out of the house. We probably won’t be doing this too often.

And after a while, she got right back on the stool when asked to get off and then she refused to get off the stool. – –

More treats! More treats! Donna will stay here until Donna gets more treats!
At least, that’s what I inferred from her body language :P