So yeah, lots of puppy posts. Not gonna apologize.
This one’s a little less “aww!” and a little more training-oriented. I’ve got to type fast, though, because I just put the pup down for a nap after a big afternoon!
A California puppy haiku:
Snow is weird and cold.
OMG! You can eat it!
Ow-wow-wow brain freeze.
Due to a lucky “break” in our cold snap, Mindy experienced only a 70-degree drop in temperature when we arrived home late Monday night. I took her out to urinate on the new paving stones installed for her toilet (GDB puppies learn to urinate on concrete, for the easy of urban work later) and watched it freeze beneath her. Brr!
So right now a lot of writing friends and I are stocking up on coffee, candy, and Prozac, building our bunkers for National Novel Writing Month (fondly known as NaNoWriMo). Only I don’t like coffee, so I make up for it with chocolate. To each her own.
NaNoWriMo is a blitz to write at least 50,000 words in 30 days. (Of course, no, one isn’t writing a publishable book in 30 days, nor is 50,000 words a complete novel in nearly any genre. But that’s not exactly the point, either, so work with us here.)
Considering that at my sugar-and-caffeine-induced perfect zone, I peak at about 1000 words per hour, and that’s not really sustainable — I know a lot of professionals who are quite pleased with 250 words per hour — and considering that normal life doesn’t actually suspend for most of us, you can see the challenge here. So motivation and discipline are big concepts for the NaNo community.
There are lots of ways NaNo writers motivate themselves, but it boils down to several commonly-used terms — small incentives, big incentives, anti-incentives, and rituals.
Let’s look at them from a professional behavior perspective, and maybe you’ll find them useful for any big projects you’re facing.
Yesterday my friend Mark sent me a page about polite and, hmm, less polite deer in Japan. And of course (as he suspected would happen) my little behavior brain took over, and we have here not only a great example of deer learning to work a system of tourists, but how we unintentionally create behaviors both cute and dangerous in our pets.
To train an animal, you really need only two things: a marker it can recognize, and something it wants as reinforcement.
To train an animal efficiently, you need a way to track and plan your sessions, or you’ll waste time in moving too quickly (confusing your learner) or moving too slowly (frustrating you both).
There are many ways to do this, of course, but I just got home from Gen Con, the world’s largest gaming convention, and I thought I’d mention some less common planning tools you might not have seen.
I need to stick at least one actual behavior post in here between medical updates, I think, so here’s one from the creative side of things.
Besides my day job in training and behavior, I also write fiction. I just spent three days at the Midwest Writers Workshop, charging up my creative batteries and getting new techniques for revision and for developing ideas. And while I didn’t run into this Joss Whedon quote there, it was brought to mind again:
Not quite sure how to start this one, so I guess I’ll just jump in…. Laevatein has terminal cancer. Lymphoma.
She was just diagnosed, when a vet found somewhat-enlarged lymph nodes during a routine exam. “I have to mention the c-word,” she said, “but she really doesn’t present like a cancer dog.” Indeed not; Laev is 8, but she’s quite active (she spent about 4 hours Sunday night circling and jumping, trying to work out how to reach a critter in a tree) and looks sleek and shiny. We figured some sort of tick-borne disease was more likely and ordered panels to test.
But the biopsies came back as lymphoma. Two weeks later, her lymph nodes are already large enough to visibly distort her silhouette in front and rear. Monday we met with the oncologist, discussed options, got further tests (cancer has likely spread to spleen and lungs, but not liver), and started chemotherapy.
Longtime readers may remember that Laev is a weeeee bit predatory, and I have an annual springtime mission to keep her from killing my snakes as they come out of hibernation. I even wrote about one year’s “Snake Kit” and how I was handling her.
Well, a few minutes ago I was at the computer when I heard the telltale bark from outside. Laev had found and cornered a snake, the first of the year (our spring has been rather inhospitable thus far). I jumped from my chair, snatched the french fries left over from my Elevation Burger lunch — I knew I’d moderated myself for a reason — and ran out the front door.
If I sound a little dazed or in shock as I write this, it’s because I am.
Today’s the day: Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out: Training Crazy Dogs from Over-the-Top to Under Control has hit the shelves!