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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 14:24:10 GMT -6
With a little flourish of his hand, he dried out his own clothes, then addressed the pups once more.
He went through some of their basic training with them, testing their recall to see how well Briar had taught them. They did well enough, which was good to see; it meant that at least he wouldn’t have to do any remedial work. Somehow it gladdened him to see signs that Briar knew what he was about. It didn’t really matter one way or another, since what Briar trained and how well he managed with it were hardly Noa’s business, but even so.
In a more practical sense though, this would definitely make it easier on him in terms of managing them, so he was glad that there wouldn't be extra work involved. He had, in theory, come out here to relax, though how much actual relaxation would happen was very much up in the air at the moment. The pups seemed to be having a good time, which was probably more the treats talking than their enjoyment of being put through their paces... But then again, they were bred to be working creatures, so maybe this really was their idea of fun.
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Post by Nadia on Apr 25, 2021 15:32:09 GMT -6
There's a little fish flapping in the streams...
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:37:38 GMT -6
Noa couldn't really imagine it, but then he wasn't a dog himself, and there were a lot of things he couldn't relate to. As far as things went, he wasn't sure that he wanted to be able to relate to the sense of duty that a dog felt either. On the whole he imagined he was fine simply as he was, enjoying the finer things in life as a person. Sure, there were more concerns, but there was also more control, more freedom.
Or at least there ought to be, anyway. There certainly was more freedom for him now, though he did recall that it hadn't always been that way.
In the name of making the most of that freedom, he decided he may as well indulge his curiosity regarding these Houluh and play with them, the way that... what, that normal people did? He considered that for a moment. What did normal people do with their dogs anyway? He had read about dogs, of course, but he had never had one himself. His interests didn't really run toward the mundane, and what he did when he spent time with, say, Avander or Azalea or Rhys was pretty different from what people did with their dogs, probably.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:37:48 GMT -6
Wait, what about 'fetch'? People played fetch with their dogs, right? Noa cast about for a stick. There weren't a lot of trees in this general stretch of river, but eventually he did find one along the bank of the river itself, probably washed downstream from elsewhere where trees were in greater abundance. He showed it to the pups, who to their credit were at least following him around the way good dutiful dogs were supposed to do, even if he wasn't the one who had been working with them so far. But then, it wasn't as if there was really anyone else around for them to follow in this area either.
"See this?" he said, showing them the stick. Doc sniffed at it, though Noa got the distinct impression that the pup was simply doing so to be polite. Nana didn't show much interest in it at all. It followed, then, that when Noa threw it, they didn't chase after it. They watched it sail through the air to land somewhere else, but they didn't go to it, and they certainly didn't look excited or as if they were having fun.
Alright then, it looked as if 'fetch' was a bust. So much for that idea.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:38:08 GMT -6
What else did people do with their dogs? Noa really didn't know. He knew that cats sometimes liked to chase little things that people dangled in the air for them. Was there a big difference between those and Houluh? Obviously they were different species, but they were all hunting creatures, one way or another, and he knew they both liked to chase, at least in theory. 'Fetch' hadn't worked - Briar hadn't taught them, Noa assumed, but perhaps he could coax some natural chasing instinct out of them, somehow.
It was with that thought in mind that Noa conjured a small illusory mote, and had it dance around the pups. They seemed more confused about it than anything, though Nana did try to nip at it, which... was a reaction, at least. He had it dance around them some more, to see if he could entice more of a reaction out of them, and this time he did have better luck. Seeing that it wasn't going to hurt them, the motion of it coaxed the pups into a chase after all. They tore off after it, and Noa, pleased with their enthusiasm, made it tear across the grassy riverbank, the pups hot on its heels.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:38:21 GMT -6
He could move it as quickly as he liked, but he made sure never to make it so fast that the pups had no hope of catching up to it. The thrill of the chase was something he understood, and if it became unattainable, then the pups would become disheartened and lose interest in it. And he couldn't have that.
They played this game for a little while, but the pups were still young and growing creatures. Their energy came in bursts. They recovered quickly, but they needed rest between those bursts, and after such vigorous chasing, Doc at least was down for the count. He padded back up to Noa, then found a nice shady spot next to some tall rocks. There, he circled twice, then curled up and laid himself down for a nap.
"Are you going to sleep too?" Noa said to Nana, dismissing his little illusion and turning to the silvery pup. But she didn't seem like she was going to join her companion in dozing off. She stared at him steadily, as if waiting to see what he would do. It was kind of an odd sensation, to find himself so scrutinized by a creature he didn't know very well.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:39:01 GMT -6
She was obviously expecting something. "Oh, you aren't bored, are you? I have things we could do if you're bored." It was, of course, a rhetorical question. The gears were already turning in his head regarding what they could do to pass the time while her playmate was taking a nap.
Dealing with one lucid pup was definitely easier than two, and Noa had an inkling that Briar intended something different for the two of them in terms of their eventual purpose. Briar had floated the idea of Nana serving as some sort of guard dog, while Doc was entirely too friendly to be put toward that sort of purpose. And if Nana was meant to be a guard dog, then it would be good if she could threaten people on command, right?
Struck by the idea, he snapped to get Nana's attention, then showed her a new hand signal... Then growled at her.
Frankly, he didn't know if it would work. But it was the same method that he used to teach his Sarane to roar - play a challenging roar at them, and get them to roar back. A growl was sort of a challenge too, wasn't it? He hoped so, at least.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:42:58 GMT -6
It took a couple of tries, and Noa was actually about to give up and try something else when Nana finally growled back. "Oh, you do know what I'm getting at!" Noa said, pleased with the outcome. He fed her a treat, after which her attention sharpened up immediately. Wanting to capitalize on this, he immediately showed her the hand signal again, and growled at her. She growled back more readily this time, and got another treat for her troubles.
Noa glanced over behind him to see whether the noise had woken Doc up, but he was still deep asleep, apparently unbothered by the ruckus. Noa hadn't been making an effort to be quiet, but it seemed that Doc wasn't a light sleeper, so that was one less thing for him to worry about. But Briar had been right; Doc really wasn't cut out for guard work, even when it came to his sleep habits.
Turning his attention back to Nana, he repeated the process with her again, showing the hand signal and then growling, and waiting for her to growl back before he gave her a reward. It felt a little ridiculous to be doing it, but there was no one to see.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:46:19 GMT -6
Besides which, what he did on his own time was his own business anyway, and no one he met out here could possibly be terribly important - not that he did often meet anyone when he came out this way.
They repeated the process a few more times. Now that Nana knew there were treats in it for her, she caught on quickly and performed consistently. After a few attempts, Noa thought that she might have the sequence down well enough for them to move on. Experimentally, he showed her the hand signal, but didn't bother growling himself this time, to see what she would do. Luckily for him, she was caught up in their little routine, and started growling herself before realizing he hadn't done it. But by then he was already rewarding her, so it was alright, in the end.
While Doc dozed on, Noa worked with Nana on her growling, reinforcing the trick with more repetitions. She had already done what he had wanted the once, so now it was just a matter of getting her to do it more, so she was used to it and performing it consistently. The repetitions were as much about committing it to her memory as anything else.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:49:49 GMT -6
Still, such a simple trick didn't take too much effort to reinforce. Noa went over it a few more times with her, then ran her through some other commands, before asking her to growl again. He spaced out further recalls between other things, to see if she would remember it after some time had passed. In that manner, they got a little more practice in, and by the time Doc woke up, Noa felt pretty confident that Nana had the new command down.
Doc woke up fresh and full of energy, and it didn't take long for him to trot up to the two of them to see what they were doing. By this point it was Nana, who had been training this whole time and hadn't had a nap, who laid down and put her head on her paws, visibly tired out by everything she had done thus far. Noa figured she had earned a break, so he took the time to play with Doc instead, letting her have a nap of her own. Nana was a lighter sleeper than Doc was, so by necessity they had to romp around a little further off from where she was sleeping.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:52:50 GMT -6
By the time Nana woke up, it was already time to go home... But Noa planned to be back the next day. He had other things he meant to work with the pups on, and although this trip wasn't exactly what he had expected, it had turned out to be relaxing in its own way. Getting out and doing something simple like this wasn't so bad if it was once in a while.
The next day, they were back, and this time Noa took the time to set up some fishing equipment before he started working with the pups in earnest. He had forgotten to do that on their last trip, and as a result he had gone home empty-handed. It wasn't that he expected to catch anything significant, but if he was going to come all the way out here, it was kind of a waste to not even try to fish up something, even if the attempt was halfhearted.
But once the fishing pole was set up, he put the pups through their paces once again, to get them warmed up and also to work off some of the energy that they had from having rested until now.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:53:05 GMT -6
One of the things that Briar hadn't gotten around to teaching the pups yet was desensitizing them to handling. Oh, sure, they liked pets well enough - Doc much more so than Nana, if his experiments were any indication - but handling their paws and the like was still something they shied away from when they could. Noa figured, since he had them with him now, he might as well work on that with them.
This was going to be more interesting because they didn't know him that well, nor did they particularly trust him, if he had to guess. But he had treats, and it wasn't as if he was cruel to them; and he wasn't even, in the strictest sense, a novel phenomenon. They must have smelled his scent around the property, considering they all lived there, even if Noa didn't often visit the kennels himself.
He decided to start with Nana. Doc was the friendlier of the two, but Nana was food motivated, which meant that she would be easier to keep under control. And as far as he could tell, she was also the calmer one, and more likely to take things in stride as long as they didn't become too overwhelming.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:53:31 GMT -6
So he coaxed her to come to him with the bribe of a treat or two, then began patting her in the areas where she was comfortable being patted. He waited until he saw her relax, then slowly moved his hand down to one of her front legs.
She let him do it, but he could tell that she was a little wary now.
Doc was, of course, jealous of the attention, and currently lying at Noa's side, whining about it. But Noa didn't pay him much mind for now, since he was currently working with Nana. Gently, he picked up her paw. She took it back, and set it on the ground again. Undeterred, he picked it up again, only this time he had a treat in his other hand that he used to distract her. With the food bribe, she didn't pay as much attention to what he was doing, and he could pick her paw up without issue. After he gave her the treat, she took her paw back again, which got a laugh out of Noa. But she had let him do it, so long as she was sufficiently distracted, and that was good enough for him.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:53:43 GMT -6
Normally he would continue on, but he was training the both of them together, and anyway Doc was probably going to start sulking if Noa didn't pay any attention to him soon. "And here you were acting as if I was a stranger you wanted nothing to do with," Noa chided, giving Doc a few pats of his own. "But as soon as you saw Nana getting attention, suddenly you want some too. Is that it?" Doc's tongue lolled out of his mouth, his tail thumping a happy rhythm on the ground. "You have the moral integrity of a sponge," Noa informed him.
Doc didn't like his paws being handled either, but Noa found that he didn't necessarily need food to distract Doc. As long as Noa's other hand was scratching someplace nice, like behind the pup's ears, Doc let Noa handle his front paws without issue. Oh, the food worked too, if there was some to be had, but Noa was finding that Doc was the kind of pup who loved to lick, and after a little experimentation, he decided that it was better to appease Doc with scritches, for the sake of not getting his hand slathered in drool.
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Post by Noa on Apr 25, 2021 15:54:00 GMT -6
He wasn't squeamish, but the sensation wasn't one he enjoyed either. Nana, who ate more neatly and didn't take anything besides food as bribe, continued to get her treats when he worked with her, but Doc didn't seem to mind the arrangement nearly as much now that he saw that he would also get his turn to be the center of attention.
Noa alternated between the two of them, and on the first day he only concentrated on handling their front legs. He got them to let him pick up the paw, move it around, press the pads, all kinds of things. It was a little touch and go at the start, but once they got used to it, they let him be pretty liberal with it.
He didn't want to push them too far on the first day, so after they had gotten to that point, Noa decided to let them relax while he got some actual fishing done. Not that he got much of that, in the end, because Doc waded into the water not long after and started romping around, which pretty well scared off any fish that might have been hanging around in the waters. Oh well, it wasn't as if Noa had had big hopes for his haul.
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