Take what we can get

It is Thursday and so far, no drama again this week. Beckett is a bit more settled. Today I advanced the 'trust' limit a bit. I left the hall doors open ( but not the street level door) and called Beckett to go for a walk. (I'm going to try and video him for this posting to show you his actions)
He did his chatter as he rushed by me and out the apartment door and down the stairs to the street level door. I stayed on the second floor and called him back up.

He did his whine/growl thing and paced up and down the stairway by the sound of it and eventually got the point that in order to go out he needed his lead on and reluctantly came back up to the middle floor and in the door to be clipped on. It took a bit of patience on both our behalves but it worked through. I'll try it again tonight to see how it works. My objective is to have him come when he is called regardless of where he is in order to get clipped on. I'm doing the same thing with the car.

In the case of the car, Beckett is now associating it with positive experiences (nothing like being neutered to set you off on the wrong foot I'll say!) and I am holding up my car keys and jingling them when I say Car. I will extend this to be just outside the car, now that he easily jumps in and out on command. If Darrin and I can have him come to jingling keys/name or something common, to be clipped on, then it will help with his trust factor and allow us to take him for walks on the property without the issue of his lead always limiting his experiences.

There is still the odd Pee thing happening and I'm now using the word "no" when he shouldn't be doing something and he is catching on. He doesn't like it when he can't have the clothes from the hamper and there is just something unsettling about having the crotch chewed out of my underwear thank you very much. The symbolism there gives me the shivers!

There is one more thing he has caught on to. It's the "I'm just so cute you can't tell me no" approach. He is learning that if he poses at the end of the carpet and just moves his eyes, that we will melt into babbling baby-talk people and toss him goodies. Of course he just as quickly goes back into his elusive growling talk stance like we're threatening him... although a minute before he was letting you pet him. Now you know why this one is titled, "Take what we can get".

It's Friday, I have the afternoon run for a change. Darrin has a meeting so I'll be the one going home. Apparently Beckett had already gone in the apartment before Darrin got there this morning. I think next week we will start to do the praise vs non-praise training. He needs to know when something is not acceptable. First thing we need to figure out, is how to have the non-praise recognized without him feeling threatened. The mild tone of 'No' may be good enough but I'll see how he reacts on something mild. Darrin also had his first experience with Beckett turning himself inside out at the particular point of the walking route. I'm not sure what it is but he freaks out there and we even had a negative experience where he went into 'crazy' mode of escape at all costs action. There isn't a reason for it but it exists and so I avoid that corner to eliminate the negative experience of going for walks. He doesn't do it when approaching the same spot from the reverse direction. Weird huh?

Friday night.... had a major slip back for Beckett. We came home and not only did he not come back up the stairs he lost control of his bodily functions and had quite the mess on the stairs and on the landing. We're not sure what triggered it but, yup... another little setback. He seems okay now but that isn't a guarantee. sigh.