Henry Clay Clermont Stephens- NO! Stop! OWWWWW!

Owwww! Stop! No! Not that! Give me back my sock! Why are you chewing on that? Why are you chewing on my desk? Why are you biting me? How did you get that? Leave Gipper alone! He doesn't want to play! Stay off the couch! That is not yours. Come back here! I could go on and on with what Henry Clay has heard in his first few weeks with me.  It didn't take long to figure out I am going to need some help this dog does not listen to me at all. A Therapy Dog needs to be a bit more compliant, or at least not bite.  Jimmy and Sarah's, (friends) family are animal whisperers and veterinarians I took Henry Clay to see Chrissy at MWAS and knew right away she was one of those people who make a difference for families with their four legged family members.  Dr. Chris Albert met Henry Clay and let me know first -- newsflash-- all dogs shed. There is no such thing as a dog that doesn't shed at all. Secondly, Henry Clay seemed to have a good coat for a Therapy Dog.  More importantly she felt he had a good disposition.  (She didn't see him attacking me earlier in the day!) I felt for sure I was going to fail at this effort but kept in mind the many kids in our building who were going to benefit from getting to see and spend time with Henry Clay. I might fail, but I was willing to try. Chrissy and I talked a bit and she agreed to help us train Henry Clay as a Therapy Dog for the school.  She would come to the school and help us there, she would train the humans who would be working with Henry Clay.  Which to be honest, I think is more work than training Henry Clay!

Before we left his first vet visit we started our training. The first thing Chrissy trained me on was "touch"; hand down, flat once he nudges it with his nose, treat. If he doesn't nudge my hand pull it away and try again in a few seconds.  Hold your hand where he can reach it, if you are too far away he may not know what to do.  I wasn't sure what this was going to do but we worked on it.    We worked for a little bit right there in the office, Henry Clay picked it up right away.  She shared with us the fun trick of using Dog Crack (Duck/Turkey Jerky) as a treat.  I bought some and went home and Henry Clay and I worked on TOUCH for a week. 

He was good at it, Touch-treat, Touch-treat, he even started to sit after he did Touch. It was great.  He was still biting me though.  Chrissy instructed us to use touch to distract him- he knows what he is doing right in that moment.  Praise him, distract him and focus on the good behavior. -- What? Focus on the good behavior? Redirect, rephrase, reward him when he is doing something good and take the energy away from the bad behavior.   I started thinking, I know I have heard this before.  We all have if you are a teacher or a coach.

Henry Clay and Chrissy reminded me so beautifully that negative behavior can be redirected and praise makes such a huge difference.  When students are misbehaving do they really know how to undo what they are doing? Do they need a redirect and a moment to feel be successful at something? Do they need someone to focus on the good and set them up for success? If they aren't moving to the goal should we, while not changing the goal, create a smaller goal a little closer? Offer the big goal first, then scaffold? I really don't know.  This is not a doctoral dissertation, nor is it meta-analysis of practices that work and don't work for students in the educational setting.  It is just my reflection on 21 years of working with the tweeners and wondering if I ever really got right? I don't think so, there is still so much to learn. Having this realization is when I knew Henry Clay was going to teach me a whole lot more than I was going to teach him.