By K.Gilley
Over the years, you would think I had learned something about training Greyhounds. Wrong? Well then you would think I had learned something about their mental processes. That, I have: They think and learn just as fast as they can run, or faster. They learn so fast you don�t even know what it was you taught them. Until later.
Take the dog I taught to scratch her ear. Now why would anyone teach that? It is lame to say I did not mean to. Every morning when we woke up, I would roll over and stroke Chey, ending with her ears. One morning I did not. She stared meaningfully at me and stuck her back foot in her ear. I immediately responded, �Don�t scratch your ear,� and proceeded to rub it for her. Now, every morning when she knows I am awake, she slowly moves her foot toward her ear while looking pointed at me. I say, �Don�t scratch your ear,� and rub it for her. (I have said, �Don�t scratch your ear,� after noon nap, and the back foot reflexively heads for it.) This has been going on for more than nine years. To a Greyhound, knowledge is indeed power.
I taught my first Grey to carry my husband�s bed pillow around the house and even out into the yard. Sweetness always had to carry something. One day I picked up all the toys in preparation for vacuuming. Sweet went in and got Gil�s pillow. (The similarity to a stuffed toy is obvious when you think about it.) I shrieked with surprise, dropped everything and chased her down. Voila, whenever she wanted my attention, Gil�s bed pillow appeared, regardless of how tight I tucked it under bed linnens.
Chapter two of Gil�s pillow happened when I wrested it from her mouth and tossed it down the hallway onto the bed. Sweet discovered she could make it onto the bed in time to catch it and therefore extend my attention. Sometimes this went on for five or six throws. She was faster than a flying pillow for sure. Greyhound training rule number one: Don�t laugh at what you don�t want to live with for the next ten years.
Since Sweet was a little gangster who thoroughly enjoyed pushing my buttons, the bed pillow story has a third chapter. I decided to ignore her and see what happened. She appeared in the kitchen with Gil�s pillow; I watched out of the corner of my eye, pretending to ignore her. The Grey gears ground. Then she put her foot on the pillow case, and jerked the pillow out. Somehow she knew I just could not stand a �nekkid� pillow, even if it wasn�t mine. I shrieked at her, chased her out the door and around the yard. A great time was had by her and I ended up re-casing Gil�s pillow, at least twice a day, forever after.
The learning process was clear with the purple and orange rubber worm. Sweetness found it when we walked by the fishing dock. It was about a foot long and almost as big around as a finger. As we walked back through the campground, she met a little kid, who took one look at what dangled from her lips, screamed and ran. The next couple we past, she headed for them shaking her worm. They were appalled, repulsed and disgusted. (�That dog�s got a snake in her mouth!�) She was delighted and thrilled. It wasn�t until we met a fisher person, who told her, �Nice worm there,� that her little terrorist act got deflated.
Enter the Snack Police. Golden is the 2005 addition to the Dancing Greyhounds and a �real blonde� although she is blur fast mentally and physically. Not long after she came to live with us, I took a container of non-fat yogurt out of the fridge for a little snack. She happened to think it might be of interest to her, so in good Greyhound fashion, she spread her toes for maximum grip and pawed me from the hip to the knee. The agony was such, I whipped about, smacking her in the face with a spoonful of creamy vanilla yogurt. You bet she learned something from that!
The result was that anyone standing up, trying to sneak a snack was bound to get a leg shredded. (If you were sitting at the dinette, nothing was said and a body could eat what they liked.) In self defense and the right to pursue snacking happiness, I began to paw her with my bare foot as a method of pre-empting her clawfest. Being a blonde, she did not take it personally, she just changed the game. Now, it you try to snack and paw her, she does a cross between a bark and a roo. It comes out a high-pitched, �Woo-woo-woo.� Not something anyone wants to hear between midnight and 6:00 a.m.
Of course there is a woo-woo chapter two. She did this one morning as we were getting ready for a walk. It was so cute and puppy like, I told her I liked it. She quickly did it again, threw the front half of herself across my dinette bench and turned to look over her shoulder for her back rub. Unwittingly I complied. Gotcha.
Then, there�s teaching something that does not turn out to be what anyone had in mind. Good young Golden again. When our lead singer, Safire, went to a better world, I needed someone else to lead the Dancing Greyhound Tabernacle Choir. I thought I would teach Golden, the resident �Mouth of the South� (and Snack Police).
As we lay in bed and I would coax her, �Sing for meeeee.� The first time I got the slightest vocalization, I praised and rubbed her favorite spots. When she barked, I didn�t. Pretty soon the sounds were getting longer and louder as she vocalized and I rubbed. One day, Gil came in looking very concerned. �What in the world are you two doing in here?� �We are singing,� I proudly replied. �Well, it sounds like you are teasing a 200-pound Rottweiler.� Oh my gosh! She was singing beautifully, but it was mucho basso profundo! When I listened to what it would sound like to an audience, I knew they would be horrified.
Speaking of Safire�s soprano role in the [Singing and] Dancing Greyhound Comedy Show, that backfired too. Until she was six years old, we thought she was mute. One day, Gil was setting up wireless, battery-powered door bells at our winter abode so we could be apprised of parcel deliveries. As we came back from walk that night, something set the tones off and Safire began to roo. Good thing we are surrounded by cow pastures, since the other five joined her in good Greyfashion. Like everything interesting that happens, we put it in the show. At first, but not for long, we carried the door bell apparatus to trigger a �sing� and changed our name to add this unexpected feature.
But Safire was enchanted with the sound of her own voice. As much as she had loved her part of being center stage and doing the things she seemed so uniquely designed for, the group sing became of paramount importance to her. In a flash, she realized that after Chey�s one-by-one, working up to the �World�s Record Live Greyhound Jump,� we would get to the roo. But, why should she wait? After Chey had jumped four Greys, Safire began being disruptive, jumping and spinning, barking at Gil to get on with it. In three more shows, Safire became insistent after a one-dog jump. (Naturally, we put arguing with Safire into the act: �No, this is not your show. Hey, you are ruining Chey�s act. Geez, who�s running this circus?�
Greyhounds can inadvertently be trained as a pack. Take the �Leave it!� fiasco. I have always taught any dog I�ve ever had that �Leave it� means: horse apples, cow pies, and other wildlife delights are not a food group, that whatever that was in the road is not for viewing, tasting or sniffing pleasure, and if you are looking pointedly at a cat, cease and desist. What it translated into for the Thundering Herd was, �Oh boy, someone found something cool. Let�s go see what it is.� Chapter two of that is, if you want them all to come at the same time, look pointedly at the ground and yell, �Leave it.�
And I have watched folks train not only their dogs but other people�s to do what was not intended. The most common thing I see is Greyhounds being trained to be dog aggressive.
I was standing with the Team, behind two gentlemen, waiting for our show to be called. A large male in front of the two men made a lunge in our direction. At the speed of a Greyhound, one of the men jumped up and hugged the aggressor! �Oh poor boy,� crooned the man, �you probably don�t like their red jackets.�
I got a post from a friend I have placed two females with. She mentioned she went to a Meet and Greet and a nasty-tempered Grey showed up. When he snapped at one of her girls and the owner did nothing, my friend asked what she was going to do about it. Hamilton�s owner replied, �I bring him to these events so he will learn, but he hasn�t yet.� My friend looked Hamilton in the eye and hissed what she would do if he touched her girls. He didn�t and the group was amazed.
I E-mailed her that I would bet Hamilton�s owner was in fact urging him to behave aggressively by stroking or doing pleasant physical contact. Her reply was, �Hamilton�s mom is very supportive of his need to dominate.� (Does he really want to dominate, or did he just want a hug?)
Ex-racing Greyhounds are extremely attuned to cause and effect. If they try a behavior and like what happens, it will happen again. If the behavior results in what does not please them, it is likely to lessen in frequency or extinguish. If Hamilton got a mean talk or little sip of unsweetened grapefruit or dill pickle juice, I bet he would not be in such a hurry to behave rudely. Examine what you teach your Grey; they are smarter than you think.