Wed 12/27/23 
I’ve had 5 days with Sprinx so far. Today was the first day that I did any substantial clicker training with her; we began with food manners and progressed quickly to simple targeting. Safe to say she loves it.

The first few days, I either spent time cleaning up her field and saying hi when she chose to come up to me, or I intentionally went up to her and tried to initiate a conversation. First I relied solely on her curiosity, and after a day or two I started asking for engagement with a little negative reinforcement.

Relying on her curiosity looks like this: I approach Sprinx, get maybe an ear turned in my direction, and as that happens I take a step backwards. Sprinx turns to face me and walks over to give me a sniff. I rub her face, her neck, whatever seems pleasant to her in the moment.

Initiating a conversation looks like this: If I approach Sprinx and she remains completely absorbed in her current activity (likely to be grazing), with no body language indicating she’s given me an ounce of attention, I’ll “ask” for attention by doing something a little energetic. For instance, I might slap my hands against my thighs, clap my leather gloves together–anything to get a response from Sprinx. When she gives me that response (the ear, usually) I stop the energetic thing and again back away. The idea is that she finds whatever energy I’m producing irritating enough, that she will repeat whatever behavior makes me stop. She quickly learns to acknowledge me when I approach, because acknowledgement is always the precursor to peace and quiet from me.

This approach gives me diminishing returns, however. Sprinx’s offered “acknowledgement” changes from a step in my direction, ears forward, to a few steps and a head toss in my direction, ears back. She even opens her mouth, baring teeth at me on one occasion.

This result isn’t all that surprising, given Sprinx’s history, but it is 100% unacceptable. I raise my arms and flap the leather gloves at her, rather than at my sides, and fortunately Sprinx reverses course and moves away from me. I’m lucky, and somewhat reassured, that driving Sprinx away actually works.

But that’s as much as I need to know about Sprinx’s response to my negative reinforcement methods. It’s the same response I saw when I picked her up a few days ago: human applies some form of pressure, and Sprinx responds with aggression rather than curiosity and yielding. (In other posts, we’ll explore how this response may have developed.)

Since by today, I’ve fully convinced myself that negative reinforcement is not a good technique for training Sprinx, it’s time to go to the truck and get my clicker and my treat pouch.

And so Sprinx and I begin our positive reinforcement journey.