Yitch and a Ride

"Horses on my side!" Tracey pointed out "Yitch Yitch! 20 points!"

"Yep, you're killin' it," I responded. 

"Oh no! Not another cemetery on your side!" Tracey said with snicker, "You're back to zero."

We were in the car, on a road trip to Buffalo. We had already gone around the dial a few times in Name that tune. Victor unclear (ok - it was Tracey, it's always Tracey - it's the early 70's tunes knowledge).

Yitch Yitch was another game we were playing. I'm not really sure of the rules. It's a game Tracey's father made up for her family when they were on a road trip. The rules seem awfully flexible to me. I mean, what the hell is "Yitch yitch," anyways?

"I think broken out windows should be minus 20 points," Tracey stated, she was practically rubbing her hands together in anticipation of the slaughter coming my way. There were several on both sides of the road. "And, there is a log cabin on my side, too! That's another 20 points!"

"Well I think broken down houses should be minus 50 points!" I exclaimed, pointing at one on her side.

"Ok," Tracey agreed. We drove along, chatting, eating popcorn and talking about my family drama.

"Oof - is that two broken down houses on your side?" Tracey winced. 

"Yep, game over, I admit defeat." I gave her a chocolate covered caramel for her conquest.

Read Aloud

 One of my students is reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins for the 8th grade dystopian unit. This is a student who has some significant focus issues, so one strategy we use to address the issue is to read it aloud together. We take turns: I read, he reads. This approach has been working really well until today. Today he decided he wanted to read it with character voices.

His Katniss voice is very "sex kitten": breathy, a little high and when he reads it, she pauses in very disturbing places. Imagine it: ' So...I'll be in a ...coal miners outfit? I ask...hoping it won't be... indecent.' I was waiting for him to wink and leer at me after that reading. But I don't think that's how he meant it; he just doesn't have too many "girl voices" in his head. Which somehow makes it more creepy and unsettling.

"How do you like my Katniss voice?" He asks.

"Umm... It's not really how I hear her voice in my head," I replied carefully.

"What?!? Why? It's a great girl voice!" he insisted, his voice raised indignantly.

"Well, I don't know. She's a strong girl; she feeds her family by hunting food and trading it - she's tough. The voice you use doesn't sound all that tough to me," I tried to explain.

As we continued reading the book, it became apparent that he was so engrossed in his voices that he wasn't actually comprehending what he was reading. When I told him so, he was very perturbed about this observation.

"You are so worked up about the character voices that you aren't paying attention to what you are reading," I informed him. 

"Not true! I AM paying attention!" he exclaimed.

"Really? What did Cinna do to Katniss' costume for the opening ceremony?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Um... I'm not sure." he said sheepishly.

"They LIT her on Fire!" I said, stunned, "How did you miss that?" I shook my head, trying to clear it.

"Look, I know you like using the voices. When we finish the book and finish the assignments, you can reread the book and record yourself. It can be as if you are performing it for an audio book. You can listen to it over and over if you want." I was really trying to sell this idea so we could continue reading the book for class.

"Oooh! That's a great idea! I'll do it!" he said excitedly.

Mission accomplished.

Two Little Kitties

After we got Lucy, our older cat, Penelope died. This left a big cat hole in our family.  It was technically my turn to pick the next cat. At the time, I wasn't sure I wanted any more cats because whenever we traveled, we left them and it made me feel bad. 

In lieu of explaining this to Tracey, I declared, "I only want an orange Maine Coon cat. That's it; no other kind of cat." I gestured with my arms crossed and spread them wide, using the universal "no way" gesture. I was sure an orange Maine Coon was rare and not so easy to find; therefore, I would get some time to figure myself out.

Tracey found one the next day. She showed me the picture when we got home from school. There he was, My sweet Milo, looking straight into the camera. He's a good looking guy. We called the rescue organization and they convinced us that one kitten was a BAD idea. 

"One kitten is a recipe for trouble. Cats are nocturnal - who are they going to play and mess with if there's no other cat around?" the rescue spokeswoman asked me. I fell for it. I did not want to get woken up by sharp kitten claws and teeth.

"Is Milo bonded to any other cat?" Tracey asked. 

"Yes, there is a white Angora kitten here that he is attached to. They spend a lot of time together." she responded. 

That weekend we had a home visit planned for the kittens and the foster mother to check out our house and set up. We had a conversation with Lucy, who was about 6 months at that point. 

"Look - be on your best behavior - no chasing!" I warned. We kept her on a leash.

When the volunteer opened the cat carrier, Milo waited for Tibby to come out first. Tibby is the undisputed leader of the pets in our house. She is vocal; you never have to wonder if Tibby agrees with what you're doing. When we came home from the movies one afternoon, it was Tibby swinging from the curtains. Milo hadn't worked up the courage to climb them yet. It was Tibby who got stuck at the top of the sliding screen door every night over the summer; and it was Tibby who climbed onto the book shelves to try to sleep behind all the breakables. 

Milo often gave away her whereabouts by sitting under where she was, looking at her and meowing. When she sneaks into the bathroom without you noticing and you accidentally close her in - Milo stands outside the door scratching and meowing until we let her out. 

None of my pets are allowed in the kitchen when I am preparing their food. I don't want them under foot. My cats wait in the dining room until I give them the release word to come in. (Lucy won't come near the kitchen; she does NOT want to get in trouble) Milo, mostly, waits on the rug, sitting and watching. Tibby circles like a shark; waiting for me to turn my back or lose focus. Then she tries to dart into the kitchen. I usually growl at her or make the universal "Ah Ah!" noise and she stops and runs. They have both learned the trick "Walk away." which means turn around and literally - walk away.

They can both play the shell game, and are seriously good at it. They can "touch" things on command. Which is a good command for focus. (I'm not allowed to teach them to turn the lights on and off)

One night when I was scrolling on my phone, I came across a video of two cats wearing hats, ringing a bell for a treats. I'm still not sure what the hats had to do with anything, maybe entertainment value?

"My cats can do that!" I exclaimed. "No problem!"

Tibby and Milo ring bells for treats.  I taught them using the clicker. The command is "Ding" and a point. After they ring the bell, I click the clicker, which is the signal that they have done what I wanted and that a treat is coming. They make it very clear that the treats don't come fast enough. They will ring the bell faster and harder and and stare at me. We're working on a jazzy version of "Jingle Bells".

They do not wear hats while they perform. I hate the hats; I think they make the cats look like aliens. 

Who's a Good Girl?

 In 2003, there was a hurricane named Isabel that was supposed to come through Arlington. When it became clear that Isabel was really going to be more of a rainstorm than a hurricane, we decided to travel to Pennsylvania and get a puppy. FINALLY! We knew she was cream colored and on the way to get her we were testing out names. I was sure I wanted her to have the name of a flower. We were almost settled on Daisy, but then we met her and it just didn't fit. It came to us as we were driving away; her name would be Isabel. 

I picked her up and stared into her eyes, "Isabel, a strong puppy named after the hurricane that got us off school so we could travel to get you." I declared; she promptly threw up.

After such a grotesquely endearing beginning, you can imagine; puppy training was not as joyful as I thought it would be. She snatched the socks right off our nephews' feet when they were sitting on the couch. She was atrocious on the leash and really thought all tissue on the sidewalk was a delicacy left for her and her alone. Isabel routinely waited until we got back inside from a potty break to actually go to the bathroom. She would run behind a chair in our living room and squat.

"That's it!" I yelled. "I'm hanging a sign around her neck 'Free puppy to a good home.' I am NOT attached!" I shouted, standing hipshot with my hands on my hips and a mutinous expression.

"Umm... I am." Tracey noted.

Of course, those were just puppy pains. Isabel turned out to be an amazing dog. As my first dog, I couldn't wait to get home form school everyday to teach her tricks. (I was an assistant at this time and could come home right after the bell rang.) She got much better on the leash; she knew all the standards: sit, down, stay, roll over - both ways, give her paw. 

But she also learned to limp when I used my fingers to point a "gun" at her and say, "Bang!" once. When I said "Bang Bang!" she would drop down and crawl toward me. If I said "Bang Bang Bang!" she would roll over and "die". 

We have a two story house. I often forgot things on the bottom floor of the house and would yell down to ask Tracey to throw something up top me. I got the idea that Isabel should be able to carry things up to me when I needed something. That was when I taught her the "Take it to Heidi" trick. As a golden doodle, she has a very soft mouth and could even carry fragile items like my vial of insulin, a baggie of corn chips, or my eye glasses.

My favorite trick that I taught Isabel though was "Oh no!". I would say this and point to whatever I "dropped" on the floor and Isabel would run over and pick it up for me. Then, and this is the kicker, she would wait for me to ask her to "give it to me" before dropping it.

"I'll never have to bend down ever again!" I crowed to Tracey after she got it down pat.

The Class Menagerie

Over the years, I have had quite a few classroom pets. I had a fish tank in a console TV painted like a cow, several lizards, skinks and geckos, two hamsters that one student kept putting together so they would continue to have babies (and eat them). There were also three turtles: one painted turtle (Toulouse), one snapping turtle (Snappy) and one box turtle (ByeBye 'cause he kept trying to escape), and two gerbils named Thelma and Louise. 

All of these classroom pets were "gifts", I didn't procure any of them. Some of them learned tricks and some did not; it depended on when they came to the classroom and if they were sharing "quarters."  

Toulouse was an only turtle for about two years before any other turtles showed up. He had turtle food that he would eat in a pinch, but he truly loved a good cricket- preferably still alive. In the beginning, I would pour the crickets out of the bag and into the tank, usually in the water and they would drown and Toulouse would eat them begrudgingly. He would swim by them multiple times, push them with his claws, and finally touch them with his beak before eating them. 

I taught Toulouse to follow my finger out of the water and get on his sunning perch where I would put some food, at first vegetation, so he understood I wanted him to eat up there and not in the water. Eventually, I could walk up to the tank, wait for Toulouse to look at me, and shake the bag of crickets. He would swim quickly to his perch and rest with his head raised, waiting for me to open the tank and shake some crickets onto the perch. That boy could MOVE when crickets were involved. Snatch and crunch.

A few years later, one of the more senior science teachers had to retire unexpectedly, and all of his classroom pets had to relocate. This is how I acquired ByeBye and Thelma and Louise. I taught ByeBye how to run an obstacle course. He liked it at first but the reward at the end never seemed to make up for the fact that he ended up back in his enclosure.  A student took him home one summer, and not surprisingly, he didn't come back. I'm sure he was happier wherever he finally escaped to.

Thelma and Louise were characters. They had a huge tank, it spanned almost one whole wall. When it was time to clean their tank, I would put them in the gerbil balls and let them run around the classroom. They were able to navigate those balls out of my classroom and down a very long hallway. Sometimes it took me 10 minutes to find them when the tank was clean. Thelma and Louise were not "holding gerbils." They would bite your fingers to the bone if given a chance, and I had to wear fireplace gloves to handle them. I did teach them to hop onto my palm when it was time to get in the balls, though. This trick came in handy later when Thelma and Louise got sick. 

Thelma got sick first; one of her back paws was swollen and red. I was so worried about her that I took her to a vet. Unbeknownst to me, not all vets treat small animals. Small animal vets are not that easy to find, but I found one, about 45 minutes away. She had cancer and he gave me some medicine for her pain.  I decided to turn the vet bill in to the school accountant. Two days later, I got called into the principal's office.

"Ms. Neunder, I understand one of your class pets is sick?" my principal asked me.

"Yes," I answered sadly. "Thelma. She has cancer, and I'm worried she's in pain."

"And she is...?" 

"A gerbil," I told her

She looked at me over the top of her glasses. "Ms. Neunder, I know you take great care of all the animals in your room." 

I nodded.

"And I will pay the vet bill this time. She paused and shook her head. "But the school cannot be responsible for the medical treatment of your classroom pets."

I got it. I did. But that was the end of my animal adoption program.

Bingo!

 Once I decided I was going to stay in Virginia for a while, I moved out of the summer host family's house and into a house with a group of friends. One of the guys, Larry, had a 1 year old cat. He and his brother were the only siblings left of a litter of six. The owner's 3 year old daughter named them: Happy Birthday (nicknamed Happy) and Bingo Was His Name Oh (nicknamed Bingo). Bingo lived with us.

Bingo was part Maine Coon and quite biddable. I would sneak into Larry's bedroom once I knew he'd fallen asleep and snatch Bingo right out of his arms and take him to my bed to sleep with me. Often, I would wake up in the morning and Bingo would be gone. A quick investigation would find him back in bed with Larry, seemingly waiting patiently for me to come get him. (At least, that's the story I'm sticking with.)

When Larry moved to Colorado, he asked me to keep Bingo until he got settled. A few weeks later he came back to get him. That was a no.

Bingo was motivated by food. He loved food so much, I had to take the gravity dry cat food dispenser away because he wouldn't stop eating the food. He would just sit at the food bowl and eat and eat and eat. After that fiasco, he got fed twice a day with additional treats for tricks. That restricted diet turned out to be just the motivation he needed to perform like a circus animal.

Bingo was able to sit with no problem; that trick happened fast with the usual training method of holding the treat over his head so that when he looks up to keep the reward in his eyesight his rump goes down... Voila! Next he learned to give me his paw. And then the other one. We moved on to lie down - easy. But roll over, that was hard. Until he lost some weight, he had a hard time rolling his significant belly over. He had to build momentum by rolling a little at a time over and over until he could successfully get his belly to the other side. He kept at it though to get that one measly treat at the end.

But my favorite trick was when he learned to jump into my arms when called. I had treats stashed all over the house so I could reward his behavior. All I had to do was call him and pat my shoulder and he would jump up. I loved that trick.  

Pavlov's Goldfish

Growing up, my mom ruled the roost. Everyone followed her rules. That included the pets. I grew up with the unspoken knowledge that all animals can be trained. I was witness to the dog only defecating along the fence line in our backyard. The cat only bringing mice to the side door. The dog was allowed upstairs in the bedrooms but not the cat. The cat was allowed in the basement in the rec room but not the dog. There was NO rebellion in the Neunder house (at least, not from the pets).

From an early age I was given the care of the pets as one of my jobs, with the understanding that we all would follow the house rules, of course. This was the beginning of my love of behavior.

When I moved to Virginia, I worked at a summer pool teaching swim lessons, water aerobics, coaching the swim team and guarding. I spent many hours a day in the guard room where we had a fish tank. It was filled with 5 goldfish and one grey goldfish. The gray fish, named Fred, harassed the goldfish; he would chase them around the tank and keep them away from the food when they were all fed. This upset many of the kids who came to watch the feeding and see the fish. So, I decided to teach Fred to stop his shenanigans. Every time Fred would chase the goldfish when I was around, I would put my hand in the tank, catch him, kiss him on the "lips" and say, "Now Fred, stop that. Leave the other fish alone."

This delighted the kids. Eventually, Fred recognized me and would swim to the other side of the tank if I came close to the tank. I didn't even have to put my hand in the tank. This, of course is only using negative reinforcement; this isn't recommended for training anymore. 

But Fred was only the beginning...