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Post by Briar on Sept 12, 2020 20:23:02 GMT -6
There were no more incidents that day, maybe because Aubrey had just ‘reprimanded’ them for playing too hard with him, so to speak, and the incident was fresh in their minds. But on a subsequent trip to the Mansion, it happened again. This time Aubrey was playing with them directly - at the time he had been tickling Lyra, and maybe he had gotten a little too carried away. He didn’t know if she meant to do it as a way of telling him to stop, or if she had simply lost control of herself, but Lyra nipped him on the hand.
It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood this time, fortunately. But this still wasn’t something he wanted her doing, so he feigned being hurt once more, making a great show of it, and speaking in a high pitch that sounded as close as he could bring himself to imitating a dog’s yelps or whines.
Lyra understood it right away, as she had the last time, and began at once to make the same apologetic gestures. Aubrey accepted her apology as the other two pups looked on, and they resumed their play.
Normally Aubrey didn’t like to set his pups up for failure, but on this occasion he made a conscious effort to get more hands on with the pups so that he could have the opportunity to teach them proper bite manners - which was, unfortunately, that bites were not acceptable under any circumstances with him.
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Post by Briar on Sept 12, 2020 20:23:12 GMT -6
Aubrey himself didn’t think they were a big deal if they didn’t break skin, but when they were bigger it was going to be a different story, and anyway he didn’t want them to get in trouble with other people later because they didn’t know better.
And so, inevitably, the pups would make mistakes and nip them like they might one another. The pups, through playing with each other, already knew where their playmates drew the line. But they had fur to help them, and their skin was a little tougher than Aubrey’s, and nipping without real menace was a natural part of how they enforced their boundaries in the first place. Aubrey was different, and they had to learn that.
Every time one of them did nip, he would react the same way, making it known that they had hurt him. The pups always apologized. At this point Aubrey liked to think they were all reasonably fond of him, and didn’t want to hurt him, and nothing he had seen thus far contradicted that. And once he was sure he had established that he didn’t like the fact that they nipped him, he accepted their apology and they resumed carrying on like they had been. After all, he didn’t want to make a bigger deal out of this than he had to, since he didn’t want them to be traumatized about it either. Just so long as they remembered not to do it, it was fine.
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Post by Briar on Sept 12, 2020 20:23:23 GMT -6
And it took some time for the message to fully sink in, but he did find that they nipped him less and less as time went on, until eventually it happened not at all. He actually thought that they probably understood the idea pretty quickly, but it was just getting into the habit of not doing something they were used to doing with one another as a means of communicating their boundaries that was tricky. That was something that could only be achieved with repeated exposure, if not exactly practice, so that was why Aubrey tried to be more hands on during this time. And eventually they got there, so all was well.
Aubrey certainly felt more at ease after having taught them this. It was a little similar to how he had felt after having taught the pups ‘no’, except back then his relief had mostly been for himself, and the control that this helped afford him over the pups’ behavior. Now it was more for the fact that he wouldn’t have to worry about them menacing other people in a way that would be hard to excuse or come back from. If they approached a person who didn’t like dogs, that wasn’t necessarily the end of the world, but if he lost control of them and they bit someone…
… He didn’t really want to think about something like that. Without realizing it or really meaning to, he had gotten attached to them after all.
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Post by Silver on Sept 13, 2020 1:05:58 GMT -6
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:04:26 GMT -6
Briar had no idea why he was doing this again. Three pups at once the first time had been an ordeal, enough so that it felt like a fool’s errand to be doing it a second time. And yet, here he was, running around after three whole pups again.
Like last time, one was an adopted pup from the agency, a pale looking strange little thing that had been dubbed Cipher. Noa was the one who had come up with it, but it had fit well enough that it had stuck.
The other two were the curious breeds that got brought in by the Hunter’s Lodge for exorbitant prices. The silver one, a female, had been dubbed Nana, while the gold-colored male was named Doc after he had gotten into a stash of medical supplies. Despite their Celestial monicker, Doc’s breed didn’t have any actual healing properties, which disappointed Noa of all people to learn. Briar figured he must have expected something similar to his own familiar, but that Faeron was in a class of its own in terms of modification… just like most of Noa’s other creatures, now that he thought about it. Houluh in general were nothing like Noa’s monstrosities, and Briar was very thankful for that.
He knew, of course, that all the creatures here, with a few exceptions, were creations from a laboratory, but there was still a difference between something like Yeo-reum, and that beast that Noa called a Wiurn that served at his beck and call.
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:04:57 GMT -6
It was just as well that Noa wasn’t here. He was… a good trainer, Briar was sure; his creatures were certainly high performance, terrifyingly so. But the man’s approach had a distinctly combat focus, to the point where Briar wondered what enemy he expected to face, that the Wiurn’s training still wasn’t deemed quite enough, and Noa expected to raise a freakish Pliathor to be its partner in combat.
… But that was neither here nor there, and Briar was quickly finding that thinking about Noa at all gave him a headache. He had three pups to contend with, and he imagined that was already going to be headache inducing enough for him today.
He had brought them to the Mansion, because that was where he had brought the other trio when they had still been pups, and it had worked out more or less okay on that occasion. There was sufficient space for them to roam in the courtyard, and there were also lots of things for them to chase and investigate, like pocketpets and the strange items that cropped up here and there. The only trouble was that it meant Briar himself had to keep a good eye on them, to make sure they didn’t get into any mischief he didn’t want them to get into… He wasn’t looking forward to that, but it was a necessary evil. And it wasn’t as if he would have to do less of that if he went to the park.
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:05:15 GMT -6
The key difference then was that the distraction would be other people’s creatures, and also the people themselves. And the less he had to deal with other people, the better. Besides, his own unease would likely affect the pups if they went to a place with lots of people, so Briar wasn’t exactly keen on doing that. He was going to have a hard enough time controlling them anyway.
The three pups all had collars and leashes, though they weren’t exactly walking politely on them the way one might have hoped. They were untrained pups, so that was to be expected, and the leashes did afford Briar a certain level of control that he otherwise wouldn’t have had, so he was glad for that much, at least. Without them, he probably couldn’t even have wrangled them past the gate to the mansion grounds. He breathed a sigh of relief when they were through, though he was aware he wouldn’t have room to breathe for too long.
The pups certainly seemed happy to be there. There was a lot they hadn’t seen before, and the air smelled fresh and interesting. Briar was glad to see that they weren’t, for the most part, frightened of the situation. Loki had been… not nervous, but definitely more on edge, and that had made him difficult to work with. The wariness had been difficult for him to work through as well, though these days he was a lot more relaxed than he had been when he was younger.
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:05:25 GMT -6
He was sure he would learn the quirks of these pups in good time, however. He was going to be spending a lot of time with the three of them over the next few months. After all, the adoption agency had a training requirement, and if he was going to train one pup, then he felt as if he might as well train all three, since he was going to be putting in the work anyway. And there were things about training the lot of them as a group that made it a little easier than doing training for each on their own.
Or maybe that was just because it was the method he was used to. Maybe there wasn’t really enough merit to it for it to be worthwhile, but at least it was possible, since he had done it once before. And his dogs had done just as well at those shows as the dogs of anyone else, for their level of training, so his training must not have been that faulty, right?
They ought to start with their training sooner rather than later, especially considering that they were already half grown. Briar never did manage to get them as young as some people seemed to get theirs, but then he didn’t do a lot of breeding. The only pup he had ever seen that small so far was Jericho, one of Joker’s… But at that age they seemed a bit too small to work with.
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:05:37 GMT -6
Either way though, the three he had with him were more than old enough to start learning some manners, and also learning to do a few things that he would want from them.
There were things that Briar wanted to do with them, and a list of priorities that he had for them, but what he was first afforded the opportunity to do was to teach them ‘no’. More than paying attention to him or doing anything else, the pups seemed inclined to get into mischief, namely the kind that wasn’t going to be good for them or for Briar.
The first one to act up was Cipher, who was nipping persistently at Nana’s heels. Briar made a sharp hiss, which was one of the few sounds he could make without giving away the reason for his muteness. All three pups stopped what they were doing and looked up at him.
Briar had only really meant to stop what Cipher was doing, but it wasn’t as if he could single them out by name like this… And technically ‘no’ was just ‘stop what you were doing, and maybe don’t start it again’. So he decided to give all three of them treats for their trouble, and… after a while he was sure they would figure it out. No pup learned exactly what he wanted on the first try, and they all seemed to figure it out after enough exposure, from what he could remember of doing this with his last trio of puppies.
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:05:57 GMT -6
He was sure the opportunity would present itself again soon enough.
On that front, he was right. It didn’t even take that long for it to happen. Cipher was at it again within minutes, and this time Nana looked as if she was about to retaliate, growling at him in a way that wouldn’t have been cute at all if she wasn’t still small. As it was, Briar knew it wasn’t a good sign, so he hissed again.
This time the reactions were different. Doc stopped and looked at Briar; Nana simply startled and paused; and Cipher… jerked slightly, then kept going.
It wasn’t encouraging that Cipher was ignoring him, but at least the different behaviors gave Briar a chance to reward those who had gotten it correct, and then they would be able to learn by comparing who got treats and who didn’t. It was the one thing that was helpful about training them as a group: it allowed for learning by observation, both what to and what not to do, which helped expedite the process sometimes.
In this case, he rewarded both Doc and Nana, and hissed at Cipher again. The other two pups were busy eating their treats, and Cipher turned to Briar with a whine, as if he had been grievously wronged somehow. Briar hissed one more time, and this time Cipher backed off, sensing perhaps that Briar wasn’t happy with him, or maybe misconstruing the hiss as some sort of threat.
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:06:21 GMT -6
At this age, Briar still had the advantage of being significantly bigger than they were, so while he didn’t like it, he could fall back on intimidation tactics if the pups were getting a little too fresh with him.
Whatever it was, at least Cipher had stopped this time. Briar sighed, and fed him a treat. He could tell that this pup was going to be a pain. The other two hadn’t shown too many signs of a strong personality, but here Cipher was, already picking fights and opting to ignore Briar if he thought he could get away with it. None of these were good signs.
Fortunately, it was nothing a little training couldn’t fix, or so Briar thought, anyway. After all, even Cipher had responded eventually, and he was still young, so it wasn’t a lost cause. But the brazen way that the pup had come up to him at the adoption agency was starting to look a bit less like Lyra’s confidence and a lot more like a general disrespect for authority, or even for others in a general sense.
The next occasion that came up with something for Briar to correct was Doc chasing after a pocketpet. He was sort of glad it was Doc next, since Doc was the one who hadn’t actually done anything objectionable just yet. Briar didn’t expect to have trouble with him, since he had been responding consistently even when it wasn’t him that needed stopping.
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:07:01 GMT -6
But when Briar hissed this time around, Doc just kept going. Briar had to hiss again, more loudly - and then Doc startled, stopping in his tracks. Briar gave him a treat for it, though he noted with some dismay that Doc looked more confused about the reward than he had hoped. The pup was still happy to have a treat though, and Briar reminded himself that it was still early in the training process.
No sooner did he finish addressing Doc than did he turn around to see Nana nosing at what looked to be some rotten fruit on the ground. No way did he want to deal with that. He ran toward her, making the same hiss. She stopped, startled, and he fed her a treat… And had to hiss again when she turned back to it after eating. This time he redirected her away from the fruit with the treat before letting her have it.
And then he turned around to see that Cipher had a pocketpet in his jaws... Yeah, this was going to be a long day. Briar ran toward him, making the same hissing noise.
Suffice to say, Briar was kept running around by the pups pretty much the whole time. When one wasn’t getting into trouble, inevitably one of the other two were. At first they were mostly startled by the noise that he made, and that was enough impetus for them to stop what they were doing… which earned them a treat.
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:07:23 GMT -6
As the shock factor wore off, Nana at least seemed to remember that she was getting fed, and got the hang of things the fastest. If she stopped when she heard the noise, she got a treat. And compared to the other two, she was relatively calm, though Briar was finding that he wished she would be a little less calm in the face of certain things, like dead pocketpets and waste left behind by other people’s pets. Still, she picked up the concept the fastest and was the most consistent with it after the first day, so he couldn’t complain about her that much.
Doc was a little slower on the uptake, maybe because he didn’t seem to always be listening for it. Especially near the start, Briar found that he often had to repeat the noise a few times before Doc got the memo. But he was starting to come around by the end of their first day, and he did usually stop eventually. It would just be a matter of practice for him, Briar imagined.
Cipher was, as to be expected, the real problem of the bunch. Briar could tell that this pup was deliberately pushing the boundaries. Sometimes he would stop, sure… And if he was being honest, Briar felt that Cipher probably had at least as good a grasp on the concept as Nana did. But he would stop, then try whatever he was doing again as soon as he had gotten the treat…
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:08:13 GMT -6
Or sometimes he would ignore Briar entirely, even though Briar could see him twitch at the noise, so it wasn’t a matter of not having heard him the first time.
When that happened, it became a contest of wills. Briar would repeat the noise, try luring Cipher away with treats, and even bodily interfere to get Cipher to stop what he was doing. Eventually the persistence would pay off, and Cipher would decide that acting out was more trouble than it was worth, but by the gods was it a tiring process to go through every time Briar had to do it.
Did he even really want this pup? Right now he was beginning to have second thoughts about having adopted Cipher, and it wasn’t necessarily too late to give him back… But no, it was too early to give in. And that willfulness might yet turn into something useful, though right now Briar was hard pressed to think of exactly what use it could be put to, in practical terms.
They went home for the day after a while, then came back the next day for more air and exercise… And more practice. In fact, over the course of a few days, they did this; and as the sessions went on, Doc shaped up, and even Cipher’s problem behavior slowly tapered off. There were times when Briar wasn't sure that was ever going to happen, but fortunately he was proven wrong on that front, to his relief.
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Post by Briar on Apr 9, 2021 16:10:58 GMT -6
It took a lot of effort and energy, but eventually Briar managed to wear him down to the extent that Cipher realized he wasn’t going to win, and one day the boundary pushing just… stopped, abruptly, as if Cipher had given up.
The three of them had learned their first command, though it had been more of a process than Briar had hoped it would be.
He hoped that it was merely because this was the start, and that things would become easier later. As they got used to both him and the training process, they would most likely shape up over time... right? And since they were young and undisciplined right now, there was bound to be more confusion, and more testing of the waters - especially from Cipher, key word here being 'testing'. But even Cipher hadn't proved impossible to discourage from doing whatever he wanted in the end, so Briar had hope. That was what he was telling himself, anyway.
He gave the pups a brief break to roam around before starting on what he actually wanted to teach them. Now that he was more confident that he could stop them, he didn't feel the need to be as strict about keeping them right next to him. The pups seemed to enjoy the moment of relative freedom, and went scampering away in three different directions... Right, teaching them to come when called was probably going to be a good idea soon, if it was going to be like this.
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