THE CURSE OF A HUNGRY LABRADOR…

As I've said many times before, Dobbs is a great guide dog. He’s smart, focused and really performs his job well. He rarely misses a curb or jumps the last step on a flight of stairs. He threads me through some of the most challenging situations without a hitch and almost never misses a beat, almost. Occasionally he has his moments where his halo slips a bit, when he’s hungry. When my Dobby is hungry, sometimes he can be a real handful. When he’s hungry, all he’s thinking about is getting home so he can get fed. He’s in such a hurry he practically drags me down the sidewalks. He occasionally doesn’t listen to my commands and his only interest is to expedite our excursion so he can get home.

Take today for example. I needed to go to the store this afternoon to pick up a few odds and ends. Now Dobbs’ normal feeding time is at 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. Around 2:30 p.m. we headed out to Gelson’s Market, which is about a mile down Santa Monica Boulevard from my place. I used to have a grocery store that was closer but it recently closed for renovation and so Gelson’s is now really the only option that I have for grocery shopping within a reasonable walking distance. In a way it’s great because I get to work Dobbs on a longer and more challenging route and he really loves to get out of the house and work. Dobbs often prances down the street as if to say to the world, “Look at me! See how special I am. See what I get to do!” He can be a character sometimes. But I digress.

From the moment we headed out, Dobbs was in a hurry. He wanted to get to wherever we were going and that was that. At first I wasn’t sure what was up with him. It was a bit windy so I chalked it up to that and put it out of my mind. Our route began normally enough. We had the usual number of dog distractions along the boulevard, which he handled with his usual calm, collected demeanor. He stopped me for a few cars pulling across the sidewalk in front of us and we pulled over at his usual favorite piece of grass to relieve en-route. Everything seemed normal and that’s when the trouble began. We approached a somewhat unusual corner on Holloway and Santa Monica Blvd. Now I wanted to do what is called a “curb to curb” turn in order to reorient myself to cross Santa Monica Blvd. rather than proceeding forward across Holloway and down the same side of the street. After stopping me normally at the curb, I gave Dobbs a right command to execute the turn and rather than listening to what I had said and paying attention to my foot work, Dobby tried to go forward to take me across the street instead of doing the curb to curb I had requested. I immediately called out a “halt” command, commanded him to “heel” and put him in a sit and a down to get him re-focused. It didn’t work.

By this point it was nearly 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon and I began to realize that Dobbs must have been getting hungry early. I got him up from the down position, got him into the ready position and gave him another “right” command. Instead of going right he again tried to take me across the street. He was bound and determined to cross that street. This time I had to give him a collar correction and a “No!” You have to understand, Dobbs rarely if ever needs to be given a collar correction since he’s normally such a well behaved dog that it’s always a bit of a shock to him when it happens. I again put him into a sit and a down hoping that the second time would be the charm and he would calm down and re-focus on the task at hand. Again, I got him up after waiting for a minute or so, got him into the ready position and gave him another “right” command. This time he did execute the turn but he leaped forward dragging me along with him nearly pulling me off balance (And yes, I was in the correct ready position. That's what kept me from falling).

What I’ve noticed with Dobby is that when these episodes happen, the situation tends to snowball and the errors begin to mount one upon the other in succession because he's confused and is trying so hard to do what he thinks I want that he ends up making more mistakes. Dobby just wants to please me so much that he gets frustrated and when he does the wrong thing he overcompensates and tries to take the initiative to prove that he’s capable of handling my requests and that he's a good boy. Dobbs is a sensitive dog and sometimes can be a bit needy and these kinds of episodes are the darker side of that yin and yan of his personality. He so much wants to know that I still love him that he becomes fearful that he's lost that love and gets overwrought. The only way to overcome this vicious cycle is to stop him, put him into a sit and shower him with all the love he can handle and then move on as if nothing has happened. Did I mention that through all of this I had a bag of dog poop in my hand the entire time? That’s originally why I wanted to cross the street instead of heading forward in the direction we were originally traveling because I knew there was a trash-can on the opposite corner where I could drop off my little white plastic bag of joy.

Dobbs and I finally crossed Santa Monica Blvd. successfully, he found the trash can for me with his usual diligence and then, when all seemed like it was relatively back to normal, Dobby showed he had other ideas. He wanted to head back to home and tried to take me back across the street rather than proceeding on to Gelson’s when I gave him a forward command. His "independent streak" went on all the rest of the way to the market. Once there, he behaved himself while we were inside but he started up again once we were back on the road towards home.

I ended up doing two obedience routines with him en-route to try to help him get his focus. It didn’t work. I did some traveling "sits" and "downs" (where you stop every 10 feet or so and put the dog into a sit and a down for a few moments and then repeat it again 10 feet later) with him to try to get him to focus on listening to me. That sort of worked but the closer we got to home, the more he was bouncing off the walls (so to speak). He blew through a curb (which he almost never does) and rather than re-work the entire intersection with him I figured the best possible thing I could do was keep heading for home so he could get fed. If I had tried to re-work the error by re-working the entire intersection it would have been a huge struggle to get him to focus and it wouldn’t have helped him to not make the mistake again in the future because his mind was elsewhere. Sometimes, you've got to know when to cut your losses and at this point, my Dobby had a one tract mind, he simply couldn’t think about anything else but getting home for dinner. I’ve come to realize that one of the strongest forces in Dobbs’ life is his stomach. He doesn’t behave this way every time we’re late getting home for a meal but when he does, he can be a real handful. I still love him to death. As his trainer Holly was fond of saying, “Dobbs is a really well trained dog but he’s still a dog,” a point which Dobby occasionally reminds me of in spades…