Epic standoffs

When Frankie is in a new place, he sticks close to me. Once Frankie decides a place isn't new, then he's constantly attempting a power-coup so he can decide the route we go. I guess sometime during this past week he decided he is totally familiar with the new neighborhood and since Wednesday morning we've been having A LOT of standoffs at the start of our walks and runs.

There is only one rule when we have a standoff: I always have to win.  I'm pretty sure I look pretty nuts to passer-bys, a grown woman staring down a 10lb min-pin/chihuahua mix. Especially since the staring can go on for a long while...

A lot of the time the staring is broken by someone passing by-- it'll motivate Frankie to hop into action and sometimes I can use that momentum to get us going in the direction I want. That probably only happens about 40% of the time. The other 60% of the time the momentum just brings him one step closer to me and the staring constant just continues.

In just today, Frankie and I have had two incredibly epic standoffs. 

Epic Standoff #1

The first happened during our run. We had just hit the one mile point on the trail loop and we came to a point where we generally go straight-- but there is a branch where you can turn left and run a shorter loop. Frankie has been loitering there more, not because he wants to run less, but again, because he's trying a power-coup and wants to control where we go. Today he came to a complete stop and started to alternate between staring down that path and looking at me.

Not to scale. We were probably 100m apart because normally he stops and sprints back to me, so by the time I realizde he wasn't catching up to me there was a bit of a gap between us.

I stopped my watch and hunkered into a squat so I could be more eye-level with him. I alternated between calling out, "Frankie, come!" and whistling. After a couple of minutes, Frankie finally started sprinting towards me. When he got about half-way, I praised him and clicked (training clicker ftw!). That made him speed up and when he got to me I clicked and praised him. After that, we were set and the rest of our run went by smoothly.

Epic Standoff #2
The second epic standoff happened on our pre-dinner walk. Since he is so afraid of the apartment's bridge, I wanted to start training him to not be afraid of it. My idea was that I would get on the bridge with him on-leash but standing off the bridge. Then I would tell him to come and when he got to me I'd give him a pupperoni treat since those get him even more excited than carrots.

That was the idea anyway. We got into position and it became immediately clear that Frankie was going to pull out all the stops for this standoff.

"I DON'T SEE YOU. THIS BRIDGE ISN'T REAL. LET'S GO HOME."

If Frankie was going to give the standoff everything, that meant I also had to (see the aforementioned one rule regarding standoffs). So, I decided to get comfortable and sat down on the bridge. Frankie was not pleased.

After about 8 minutes (yes, I was timing it) of me alternating between "Frankie, come!" and whistling, I decided to toss a little treat on the bridge near him. I know bribery isn't good and I should just reward him when he acts properly, but I was getting a bit impatient. Frankie stared at the bribe for a couple minutes and then I was finally able to coax him to check it out. He took a first step....

...I clicked and praised him. He ate the treat and somehow I was able to trick him into being on the bridge, albeit still a full-leash away from me. At this point, we were over 10 minutes in and I tried putting a couple more pieces on the bridge.

 He stared at them and me for a few more minutes without budging. He was keeping his cool.

"So not interested. I am not here. F#@# you. I am going home."

Since he wasn't budging even with me attempting bribery, I felt guilty for trying to bribe him and put the treats back in the treat-bag. Maybe that was what inspired him to come closer to me, I don't know, just somehow after another five minutes Frankie finally gave up and came to my lap. I clicked, gave him a treat and after spending over 20 minutes sitting on a bridge I was pretty damn happy to return home for dinner!