Thursday, October 14, 2010

Laurel and Hardy are working together to alert and perform tasks

Laurel and Hardy have been working together to teach him to alert for severe muscle spasms and also to perform various tasks. With the change in temperature I've been having more muscle spasms than usual and Laurel has been alerting to them. What's interesting is that she works to get Hardy's attention when she alerts and actively encourages him to mimic her. Laurel knows what body part is going to spasm and it seems that Hardy is catching on to that as well. A couple times now he has alerted before Laurel and he has nudged the correct spot. Since I feel more confident in my ability to teach him to do the diabetes alert, I'm thrilled that Laurel is teaching him the other two. 
Over the past couple days, my two goofy Labs have also been tag-teaming picking things up for me. Laurel will find something under a table or tangled in cords and will get it out into the open. Then, she shows it to Hardy and will step aside so that he can come and pick it up to bring to me. I have some old credit and gift cards that I use for training so Hardy has gotten very good at picking them up off our hardwood floor. Of course, when he brings the object to me, we all have a big party involving dog treats or toys! 
I was concerned that I was going to have to crate Laurel or in some other way discourage her from doing all the tasks in order for Hardy to learn them. One time when Hardy was much younger, he went to pick up my shoe and Laurel pushed him away so she could bring it to me so I am thrilled that Laurel has now taken on the role of teacher. And I'm not sure which one of them is prouder when Hardy brings me something!

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