|
Post by Alma on Mar 8, 2020 18:54:04 GMT -6
The treat went ignored.
That was what Haix focused on as the houluh desperately tried to guard the cheese from the invading grubble. Luckily for her, a good chunk of the grubble had turned tail at her barks and snarls, and a good deal of those that remained were happy to eat the dead and dying rather than go for the cheese. None even made it over to the ignored treat as Tin did her best to scare them away before being forced to kill the few that kept coming for the cheese, the rancid piece of rotten milka call that their stomachs could not ignore. The treat, relatively dry and scentless, was trampled underfoot by hungry grubble.
Haix strolled over as the last of the grubble disappeared back into their holes, wondering how long the wounded would last in the hungry colony. As she got closer to Tin however, something distinctly unacceptable happened. Tin growled at her. ((At Ease-Start Tin-30.0))
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 8, 2020 18:54:15 GMT -6
Haix understood why the houluh was snarling at her, and on some level appreciated that the guard training had stuck so well with the houluh that it would keep guarding the cheese even from her. But she could not tolerate letting her beasts try to threaten her, or deny her anything that was hers.
As Tin continued to growl, she bent over and picked up the forgotten treat, brushing the dirt and grass off of it as she turned it over. Then she crouched next to the houluh, still out of easy biting range as she met the houluh’s eyes. There were two ways she could handle this, a third way if counting the one she should have done. She should have taught the houluh to be calm at a word back when they used the bone. Now she could either screech at the houluh and scare it down, or try to calm it down with words and tones.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 8, 2020 18:54:42 GMT -6
She wanted to do the screeching way. Instead, she merely sat next to the houluh, ignoring the whine-growls the runt made as she lingered so closely. She began to talk, some of it nonsense not quite directed at the houluh, some of it words that were, the tones remaining even and calm throughout. The treat was held up on one flat palm also just out of biting range, waving gently in hopes of luring the houluh closer and letting it know it was time to calm down.
The command to calm down was the most common of the things she said, woven through her sentences so commonly that anyone who heard her might have thought her mad. And, slowly but surely, the houluh seemed to relax, muscles no longer bunched under her tight skin. She did not move from the cheese just yet, but Haix kept up the words, now devolving into a repeated chant of the new command.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 8, 2020 18:54:52 GMT -6
Soon the houluh had taken one small, reluctant step towards her, then another as Haix held the hand with the treat perfectly still. Then she was eating the treat and, when Haix slowly reached out with her free hand, the houluh allowed her to pat her head without a trace of animosity.
Haix waited a good amount of time to be sure the houluh had completely calmed down before inspecting her nose to see how much damage the grubble had done. She found only a tiny scab denoting the spot that Tin had been attacked, and she chuckled to think that such a tiny wound had been what helped the most with the training. Grubbles might not have been the most intelligent of creatures, having been made literally to be nothing more than a living food source, but these ones had proved to have a use beyond that. She almost hoped these ones would be smart enough to look elsewhere for food.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 8, 2020 18:55:06 GMT -6
Standing up, she was able to take the cheese without so much as a squeak from Tin. She unwrapped, then chucked it towards the far end of the pen. If they did not leave after today, she could at least let them have what some many of them had died trying to get.
Then she turned her attention back to the houluh and the sack hanging from the fence. From inside of it she pulled out a few more bones similar to the one she had stabbed into the earth earlier, and stabbed them into the ground randomly throughout the pen. These would serve as things to guard now that the houluh had a better idea of how to react to anything nearing what she should have been guarding.
So she pointed at the nearest one and told the houluh to guard it. Tin ran over to it, and it took a few repeats of the at ease command before she would stop growling when Haix came near.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 8, 2020 18:55:33 GMT -6
Each bone had its own turn being guarded, and each bone that was not being so at any one point was approached to make sure Tin would not try to continue guarding a previous one after being put at ease and then sent to guard another. Other than that, the bones were selected at random, the command to stand down sometimes coming after a trail of similar words and other times there was not even a second of guarding involved. The command to calm down was the easiest so far for the houluh to learn it seemed, the runt seemingly reluctant to do more than growl or let out a single bark upon her approach. Then the at ease command was called, the houluh rushed forward to be petted, and Haix did so, more to show the houluh that now was the time to be relaxed than out of any real excitement of her own. There was still a few more things to teach, simpler things that she hoped they could finish before returning to the kennel.
((Guard/At Ease-End? Tin-31.0 Haix-196.0))
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:15:51 GMT -6
For the next trick, the quiet pen would provide no aid, so Haix packed back up the supplies and slipped the rope lead back over the houluh’s neck. The houluh was trained to hunt for the most part, and while Tin had shown little inclination to run off, the area she was looking for might change that. It took a little while to find the place for it was less of a physical location than a place where what she needed was temporarily happening, and it took a while before she found some soft-skin trainer with what she was looking for. When she did, Tin noticed it at the same time, and began barking madly, though she apparently had enough presence of mind to not pull heavily on the leash.
The soft-skin and the malii ignored the barking houluh as Haix led Tin onto an adjacent plot, tying the lead against a tree that sat in the middle. ((Quiet-Start))
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:16:05 GMT -6
The mad barking of the houluh was slightly grating, the noise higher pitched than most vulticus and old rakai she had seen in the past. Thankfully, it's high pitch did not seem to be so bad at a distance, for the malii and its trainer made no move to leave. That meant she had plenty of time to fix the barking issue. She did not want the houluh to scare off anything they hunted just because Tin felt the need to bark.
She let the slave hound bark as she quickly dug through the sack for a handful of treats, then returned to where Tin was making a game attempt of pulling the tree to the malii, tail wagging furiously she she hopped to different spots allowed to her by the leash. Haix made the hiss-cough sound that would serve as the command for her to be silent, a quick “Tshk” as she clapped her hands together near the houluh’s head. The sudden noise startled Tin out of barking, and she gave the houluh a treat with some praise.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:16:17 GMT -6
The houluh’s attention was locked onto her after that, the slave hound paying no attention to the malii. Rather than force the houluh to bark however, she walked around the tree, the scrawny thing looking as though it would bend under even her slight weight. With that to occupy her, she almost missed the tell-tale growl of the houluh as Tin spotted the malii once more. Haix reached the houluh as the creature began to bark wildly, and gave the same hiss-cough then clap as before. The clap startled the houluh once more, and Haix gave the creature a treat for her silence.
The next time took longer for the houluh to start barking, Haix having spent the time fiddling the the ribs from the last trick. She skipped back the few steps that separated her from the noisy creature, and once more hiss-coughed and clapped. The houluh ate the treat slowly.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:16:28 GMT -6
This would be repeated for as long as the malii owner remained at the plot next to them, the cycle of command, clap, and treat repeated until the houluh was no longer barking but instead shifting between growls and whimpers as she watched the malii. These too received the same treatment as the backs had, until the houluh was completely silent for longer than haix had anticipated. She looked up from her carving to find that the houluh was still there, watching the malii, but made no sounds as she did so.
So Haix slid over to her, and told her the same command that had been used to signify an end of guarding, the houluh staring at her blankly. Then Tin turned back to the malii and began barking away like before as Haix sat there, waiting a good half a minute as the houluh barked her head off. The malii never even turned to look at them.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:16:42 GMT -6
The quiet command was given, though Haix had to say it louder than she would have liked to in order to be heard over the mad barking of the houluh. There was no clap to follow the end of the word, yet Tin halted and flinched to the side as if she had done so. While no clap came in to reinforce the command, Haix was quick to give the houluh pats and a treat, praising Tin for being silent. Then she told the creature the command to be at ease, and the barking continued.
They practiced until the malii and soft-skin finished whatever it was they were doing and wandered away, the next time Haix freed the houluh from silence with the command seeing the houluh do nothing more than yawn. It was likely safe to move onto the next command, though Haix did not have much of a choice unless they could find another creature that the houluh would bark at. ((Quiet-End? Tin-32.0))
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:16:54 GMT -6
She untied the houluh from the tree and would have brought her back to the fenced in plot, but a soft-skin had moved onto the lot in their absence. She considered waiting a few minutes to see if they would leave once they found the ground full of holes, but did not want to waste any time. Instead they moved to a plot that had one end terminate in the fence that surrounded the entire park and, with no other trainers or creatures in sight, she untied the houluh to let it move freely.
The next command was for something she had seen the houluh doing constantly since the first day she had taken Tin out to the park, the first command that would be a direct order to attack. It would be even easier than getting the creature to run, for it required no stamina beyond what would be required when she hunted. ((Nip-Start))
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:17:09 GMT -6
A bone was taken from the bag. It was unmarked besides the little bit of dirt that still clung to one end, a reminder of the guard lesson. As the houluh had not attacked the bone to chew on it during the guard lessons, she would have to do the usual way of provoking creatures to bite it. To prepare for that, she dropped the bag against the wall, the unused bones inside clicking together like teeth, and looked for where the houluh was currently located on the plot.
Without a malii, or any beast really, to distract Tin, she was giving the plot of land a good sniffing. This particular lot contained many new smells that she had never picked up before, and she was enjoying following what was left of their trails across the ground. She nevertheless ran over to Haix when she was called, though she did not react to the piece of bone thrust in her face as Haix had hoped.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:17:29 GMT -6
What normally happened was the beast would snap or bat at the thing that was so rudely jabbed at them. Tin merely flinched back, staring at the rib as if she had not crunched many smaller ones during her hunts. Another jab produced the same result, the houluh now starting at Haix with wide, sad eyes as Tin continued not to nip.
So Haix changed tack. Rather than jab the bone at Tin again, she dragged it across the ground as she had done with the treats during the hunting training. The houluh watched this display without moving, so Haix vocalized gibberish whose point was to produce excited tones , and that got the houluh interested in the rib. She pounced after it twice as Haix gave the command to nip it, but the houluh failed to so much as drool on the bone.
So it was on the third time that Haix watched the houluh wiggle her tail and gave the command that the houluh bit into the bone.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Mar 9, 2020 0:17:42 GMT -6
It was not a particularly impressive bite, landing without causing a crunching sound that would have signaled a fracture if not a break, but the houluh was praised and rewarded for it regardless. Once that was over, the houluh having let go of the bone to munch on the treat, Haix began to drag it across the ground again, calling out the command in exaggerated excitement. The houluh, already happy about this new game, was even happier to comply, nipping the bone and releasing it an instant later for her rewards.
It was repeated several more times before Haix decided to change it up, now lifting the bone up and returning to the jabbing motion of before. The houluh still flinched a little at the sight of the rib moving towards her eyes, but still gave the bone a good nip. Haix swapped between the ground dragging and air waving, making sure the houluh would nip it no matter where it was located.
|
|