Watching Hardy's Posterior

If Trixie was bound to be living in some other home than mine, then Hardy was destined to be living with me. It was the classic girl and her dog scenario. I could remember having childhood dogs in my life, but nothing compared to the bond I felt with Hardy. For some reason, I could see past his flaws and recognize nothing but potential. I believe it was because he was so smart. Perhaps it was because I was so in need.

In any case, what I found when Hardy began to live with us, was it was getting easier for me to get up from bed everyday. I had found a sense of purpose, however small. In regard to Hardy, it was to care for and help him learn to behave because soon after he came to us, his bad habits emerged almost immediately and without hesitation. The biggest problem behavior was to get Hardy to stop escaping from our front door, gate, car, or any other opening that led to the great outdoors and out into neighborhood traffic! It was as if the game of watch me run away from you was his reason for being. If an opening was there he would take it, and unfortunately for me, that was often since there were two kids and myself coming and going. In secret, I thought a better name for Hardy would have been Dash.

Because our home was situated on the corner of a cul-de-sac, the danger of getting hit by a car in our neighborhood was always a threat. People in their cars came zipping around our street corner without restraint on a regular basis. This made getting Hardy to stop his practice of testing my sprinting ability a matter of life and death and my foremost goal. I had remembered in my conditioning and learning class that animals learned their responses to a certain stimuli based on repetition. So in an effort to re-create an appropriate response to the “open door” stimulus, I decided the opposite behavior would be a better response. In other words, I wanted Hardy to respond to seeing an open door by coming to me, not running from me.

At that time, one of my favorite shows on television was called, Good Dog U. I enjoyed watching the dog trainer on the show visit people’s homes and help them with their dog’s bad behaviors. His advice seemed to bring about successful results, and his techniques didn’t involve any type of punishment. One day, after viewing an episode, I was inspired to come up with a plan to try and retrain Hardy.

I decided to make the front door the place to begin training, since it was the largest most easily accessible problem area. I began training him when the kids were away at school and the house was quiet. Over and over again, like I had seen on the television show, I set up the problem scenario and rewarded the desired response. I started by opening the door; then I would call Hardy’s name. I shook a baggie of treats in my hand to entice him to come to me, and every time he would happily oblige, I would reward him. We practiced this day after day, until I felt it was time to introduce the idea to the kids.

We practiced these sorts of sessions for about a week or two, and I had even witnessed a couple of times when Hardy successfully resisted running out the front door when the opportunity presented itself. I was fairly confident that the bolting behavior had at least been modified. And then it happened.