when management fails..

When the sun came up this morning,  I looked out the kitchen window and saw this.   It gets dark out early now, and the sun comes up late.   My dogs had been outside for potty trips, in the dark,  4 times by the time I noticed this.    Apparently,  when I was doing evening chores,  I meant to go back to the rabbit hutch and forgot and left it wide open all night.

My dog trainer brain immediately starts blogging in my head about "dog stuff" when something like this happens.

"Management ALWAYS fails..."  is something trainers try to impress on clients all the time.   You have to have multiple layers of behavior control in place.   Training and reinforcement is one of those layers.  We train ALL THE TIME for this.   I regularly leave the hutch open during chores, with gradually long distances from it and longer times so that it's not an "exciting" event for my dogs that trips arousal and competing instincts.  Habits and routines are another layer.

Physical barriers are always just one layer of management.   Someone forgets to shut a gate,  the wind blows a fence down, the batteries wear out on shock containment, a leash comes unhooked, a snap breaks...  

I started thinking about my dogs/breed specifically.   German Shepherds have a strong prey drive and they get a bad rap around livestock in general.  But they ALSO should have a strong pack drive and a desire to modify their prey drive into "herding" and in this case,  controlling/containing their livestock.  German Shepherd herding is unlike border collie type herding in that they have the job of a "living fence" and making sure livestock stay behind or inside a barrier of some sort.   Like the old quip about which wolf wins (the one you feed) you have to nurture and strengthen the choice you want the dog to make on their own when management fails.  Reinforced behavior will increase in frequency, and it has a much better chance of being the preferred choice in the future.  

Thankfully, no urban predator showed up during the night and it was just a bit too high for my momma rabbit to attempt jumping down (although she was thinking about it).   Momma rabbit and two 4 week old babies are in there, all was well.   My dogs were a little bit like "um, is this supposed to be open right now?"  but ultimately it was no big deal.   It's not something they haven't seen or learned previously.  

Some shots of my youngest "showing" me that it was open and "counting" her rabbits when we went out after sunup.  

That's excellent training, Heather!! Teaching our critters - all of them, not just dogs - how to choose the wise actions makes life with them so much better!! And, rewarding good behavior makes most critters want to repeat it. Great dogs!!

I'm thinking that the "smell" of dogs in the area may also have protected Mother Rabbit from trouble last night. That's another reason for making sure that at "safe" times, a dog has access to all areas of a yard. When I babysit friend's dogs or people visit with dogs, I'm always telling them to pee all over, particularly at the edge of gardens! Unfortunately, the deer seem to realize that the dogs are only occasional interlopers to "their property".