Jump!

When they get driven somewhere, our dogs travel in one or more kennels in the back of our van. When our CCI pups are tiny, they ride in their own small kennel, and Tucker occupies a second, commodious canvas container. But when the pups outgrow the baby kennel, they share the big kennel with Tuck. That’s always worked just fine. We feel that confining the dogs keeps them somewhat safer (if we slam on the brakes, heaven forbid, they can’t get thrown too far), and it impedes the spread of dog hair in the vehicle.

Kyndall moved into the big car kennel with Tuck a few weeks ago, and initially, we were lifting her up to stow her in it. But we assumed we would soon train her to jump in. Indeed, we saw her do it once or twice, fluid as a gazelle, effortless (unlike Tucker, whose ten-and-a-half-year-old upward launches are getting more and more precarious).

Then Kyndall suddenly started balking. It looked like this:

Frustrated, I remembered the words of our puppy mentor, who long ago instructed me that teaching the Jump command was easy. She liked to train it by urging her pups to Jump up on a bed. That’s normally forbidden, but I subsequently used it as a training ploy on a couple of puppies, and they did seem to find it irresistible. Not so with Kyndall. Urged to jump up and claim a delicious piece of pepperoni that I was waving around from the inner recesses of my bed, she… barked at me… tried to worm her way up on the bed… steadfastly refused to Jump.

Yesterday, however, Steve and I embarked on our first Road Trip with Kyndall. We drove to Phoenix to attend a professional conference and took her with us. Suddenly, at a pit stop halfway there, the gazelle was back! And she continued this morning to act as if jumping into the car kennel was no harder than yawning. See her in action:

I don’t have a clue what changed her mind. She seems to be going through a strange phase. She has suddenly abandoned all resistance to putting her leash on (wonderful!), but yesterday afternoon when I was walking with her, she stopped dead at the sight of a fallen tree branch. Clearly it made her nervous. (Not good.)

Certainly, this adventure is exposing her to all manner of new experiences. We’re hoping it will end with her taking a lot more things in stride.