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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 12:31:18 GMT -6
First and of foremost importance in the list of things he needed to teach the pups was to look at him when he needed them to. He couldn’t really function with vocal commands, so the pups had to be able to know when he needed them to give him their visual attention. Briar didn’t anticipate that this would be too difficult a concept to impart on them, though the fact that they were new to the whole training process might make it a bit harder. And, of course, there was always the possibility that Cipher would act up - though it was impossible to know how exactly this was going to go until they gave it a shot.
As the pups were playing around, Briar snapped his fingers. Two of them looked at him - Doc and Cipher. Nana was investigating something on her own, and didn’t pay any attention to him, since this wasn’t a cue that she had learned yet. But that was fine; he wouldn’t have expected a resounding success on the first attempt anyway.
Since they looked at him, he gave them a treat. Right now that was all he wanted from them. He would extend the duration of the attention he demanded from them at a later point, but right now he just wanted to convey the general concept, and get it into their heads.
Now that treats were in play though, Nana’s attention wandered to the food, and she looked to Briar - too late, unfortunately, for this attempt.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 12:32:08 GMT -6
But she was probably going to be able to get the next one, since she saw that there was something in it for her now. Of the three pups, she liked to eat the most, and food was a great motivator for her, even more than it was for the other two pups, and if there were treats on the table, then Nana would definitely work for them.
Briar waited for their attention to wander off once more before he snapped his fingers again. This time it was Doc who was distracted; and Nana, who had been hanging around Briar in the hopes of getting more treats, looked at him right away. Cipher turned in an almost disinterested way, but he did look, so… technically Briar supposed he would have to reward the pup. It certainly brought him no joy, but here they were, he supposed.
The two pups who had paid attention got their treats, and both seemed satisfied with the arrangement, tails wagging. Cipher, for all his games and penchant for pushing boundaries, still did like to be rewarded. Maybe it was just a sign that he wasn’t being challenged enough, that he was bored… Briar wasn’t sure. But for now he was being trained the same way as the other two, and most likely would be until the arrangement stopped working altogether.
When Briar snapped his fingers the third time, luck was on his side, and all three pups turned to look. He fed them a treat for their troubles, then repeated the process.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 12:32:30 GMT -6
At this stage, he tried to position himself so that all three pups were within easy earshot of him snapping his fingers, because they hadn’t yet gotten accustomed to the cue, and were probably not listening that hard for it. The volume of it, and the strangeness of the sudden noise, were what was capturing their attention at the moment. But as the first session drew to an end, he felt that they had repeated the command enough that the pups were starting to understand how it worked somewhat. It wasn’t, after all, a difficult trick: if they heard the cue sound, they should look at him; and if they looked at him, they got a reward.
On their next session at the mansion, he did as he had done previously at first, but then he started to let the pups wander further away from him before he snapped his fingers. And sure enough, now that they had established a pattern, the pups were listening for the cue, and they responded consistently so long as they could hear the sound at all.
The only thing left to do at this point was to make sure that they kept their attention on him as long as he needed it. To do that, he began delaying giving them the treat, just a little at first. He would wait one second, then two, then three - doing it gradually so that the pups didn’t feel exposed to a sudden change and get too confused.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 12:33:13 GMT -6
As the wait grew longer, some of them did show moments of impatience. Nana would sometimes trot up to him and paw at him, as if to ask where the treat was, since she had come to expect it by this point. Occasionally Doc also joined her, though Briar got the distinct sense that Doc was doing it because he saw her doing it, and just wanted to be a part of the fun… for a given value of ‘fun’, in this situation.
And Cipher would start turning away, and had to be heckled back into paying attention by Briar snapping again. Like with ‘no’, it became a little battle of wills after a while, and Briar had to wear him down into obedience with persistence, showing Cipher that he wasn’t going to stop bothering the pup until Cipher did what Briar wanted. It wasn’t a punishment, per-se, but it wasn’t what Briar considered a pleasant process either.
Eventually though, through persistence and lots and lots of repetition, he managed to get the idea through to him that he needed them to look at him for longer periods of time. By that point, Briar was content to consider the trick fully taught, since they were doing what he needed them to do.
It wasn't a complicated trick in and of itself, but it was going to lay the groundwork for everything else that was to come. Without use of speech, there was a limit to the range of sound cues Briar could produce.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 13:03:42 GMT -6
From here on out, he was going to have to rely more and more on hand signals to convey his commands, and for that he needed them to be looking at him. Otherwise, it wasn’t as if they could obey a command that they hadn’t seen him make, and it would all be for nothing - or, if not for nothing, then at least he would end up with pups who only listened to him some of the time, which wasn’t an ideal outcome.
So far they seemed to be doing okay, for the most part. They hadn’t done anything too tricky as of yet, and he also didn’t know the pups well enough to get more than a basic understanding of their personalities, but it didn’t feel quite as rowdy as it had when he had first started doing this with his first three pups. It wasn’t as if Lyra, Joker and Loki had been worse as a group; in fact he thought Cipher probably has a less pleasant temperament than Loki really had. But the thing was that none of these pups had come to him with any real issues either, or at least nothing that was trauma-based, the way Loki’s probably were. To this day, Briar didn’t know what exactly had happened to Loki to make him so wary and distrustful right off the bat.
Of course, after Loki had warmed up to Briar, he was a pretty good dog.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 13:04:13 GMT -6
He still had his moments, and sometimes that loyalty manifested as a certain protectiveness that could also cause problems, but he was much calmer now than he used to be. Briar had hope that Cipher might ease up on challenging him as time went on too, though since it wasn’t a behavior that came from a place of trauma, Briar also didn’t know if that was really going to be the case. Only time would tell how the two of them went on from there.
The other two, he had less distinct opinions on, maybe because they were rather overshadowed by Cipher’s shenanigans. Nana liked food, and not much seemed to really faze her, at least relative to the other two pups. She wasn’t exactly out of it, but she wasn’t quite as reactive - there was a certain stoicness to her, one could say. Which wasn’t to say that she didn’t sometimes get scared or excited, but it tended to be more muted, and she also barked the least out of the three of them. Because of that, it was easier to forget her sometimes… But on the other hand, if there was food to be had, she was there. It was impossible to ignore her presence at mealtimes, or in the face of treats, so Nana wasn’t at too much risk of being overlooked. When there was food involved, she was more assertive than Cipher, who was generally the bossiest of the bunch.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 13:04:30 GMT -6
And even the problem child of the current trio knew better than to mess with her at those times.
And then there was Doc… Doc was sort of just a pleasant pup, as far as Briar could tell. He seemed pretty happy most of the time, and was always game for a walk, or to play. He sometimes overstepped his boundaries in the way all pups did, since they were still learning their manners, but he didn’t seem malicious or even intentional about it the way that Cipher was. Most of the trouble he caused was accidental, or from inattention, even if there did seem to be a lot of it sometimes. If you corrected him, he generally at least tried to avoid making the same mistake next time, though he didn’t always succeed.
If he had a deal, Briar had yet to see it. But maybe that was a good thing, all things considered. There were already enough quirks in this lot, so they might as well not tempt fate to bring in any more.
Having learned another command, Briar decided to give the pups a break. Things like this were important for training, especially for training young creatures. Briar thought so, anyway. He knew Noa ran a tighter ship with his creatures, but Noa’s creatures were highly specialized beasts, and most of them, as far as Briar could tell, were being raised for fighting. He didn’t know why, but Noa’s motivations were generally pretty inscrutable.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 13:04:49 GMT -6
Still, a fighting beast did require a higher level of discipline, to keep them in line because of their potential to pose a danger to others if nothing else. Briar was simply raising a few dogs in his spare time. He didn’t know what exactly he intended to do with them; he wasn’t doing it as a business, to be sure. But even if it was trying, it was also nice to spend time with the pups, as well as with the adults. Maybe it didn’t need to be anything more than a hobby.
He had never had room to… have hobbies before, or at least not in a way that he could control as much as this. Gardening had been pleasant, when there was no one else around to bother him, but he hadn’t been able to choose the plants, or the way he raised them, or even the tools he used. At best, when the masters of the estate were feeling generous, they might be convinced to listen to his requests for something he needed for the care of their plants… But even that was a risky business, and if he read their mood wrong, he was more liable to receive a lecture on being ungrateful, or a punishment of some sort if he was particularly unlucky.
And as for doing things that weren’t his job… Well, there was a risk there too. If he got caught ‘wasting time’, then he was more likely to receive a punishment.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 13:06:46 GMT -6
And whatever means he had had to pursue the ‘waste of time’ would be confiscated, to prevent it from happening again, and to show him and the others that they had no power and no rights. That was how things worked in that house, and if they forgot it even for a moment, there was always a reminder lurking around the corner.
It had happened before, though he no longer really remembered what it was that he had been doing at the time anymore. Maybe he had shut it out because it hurt too much to think about.
For a long time, freedom had hurt to think about too. Even now, despite the fact that the fear was sharp within him, the memories themselves were often hazy. There were a lot of things - rules, mostly - that he knew, without really knowing how it was he knew them.
One of the pups wandered over to him then, and nosed at him a little, possibly out of concern. He looked up, and saw Doc, whose tail gave a slight wag when he saw that he had Briar’s attention. Briar smiled almost in spite of himself, and patted the pup. There weren't any humans who didn't have ulterior motives, and there were plenty of more intelligent creatures that Briar wouldn't necessarily have trusted either, but he couldn't really bring himself to imagine that these pups had any sort of real malicious intent. Their behaviors might be complicated sometimes, but their core motives were pretty simple.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 15:22:10 GMT -6
He wondered what it would have been like to live that kind of uncomplicated existence, thinking only about… What was it that the pups must have thought about? Food, interesting smells, playing with their companions. The things that existed beyond their understanding and control were simply that, and not worth fretting over.
… But then again… He thought of Loki. It wasn’t that they weren’t capable of anxiety, and enough bad experiences - or even one, he didn’t know - could start to form the basis of a fear that lasted their entire life. He wondered if being able to think like a human would make it easier or harder to overcome that aspect of yourself. You could understand better why something had happened, and rationalize it away - though that seemed like a tactic more at home in Noa’s repertoire than Briar’s. But then you had the greater capability to imagine terrible things in the first place too.
Whatever it was though, it wasn’t as if this was something Briar could change. Still, the fact that Doc had come up to him to keep him company, possibly because he had sensed that there was something amiss with Briar in that moment, was enough to make Briar feel a little better. He pet the pup along his head, and the wagging of Doc’s tail grew stronger. Nana came to join him, and Briar reached out to pet her too, so as not to leave her out or anything.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 15:22:33 GMT -6
She bore with it with less enthusiasm and more stoic grace, or at least as much of that as a half grown pup could manage, which was sort of a funny thing in and of itself.
Cipher… Well, Cipher was doing his own thing, chewing on a stick and ignoring all the rest of them. It felt as if he was saying that he didn’t have time for all this loser business of commiserating with one another. But at least he wasn’t making trouble, which lately was about as much as Briar could hope for from him. It was too soon, much too soon, for any kind of unbridled affection. Actually, he thought it would probably be weirder if Cipher all of a sudden became the sort of pup that fawned over their handler. If he woke up one day and that happened, he didn’t know what he would do with it, to be honest.
Well, things were just what they were.
He stayed there, petting the two pups who were there with him, and keeping a careful eye on the third to make sure he didn’t start some funny business. After a while, Nana went and laid down, resting her head in Briar’s lap. He scratched around her ears, and her tail thumped a slow and steady rhythm on the grass. Doc, on the other hand, began nosing and nudging all around Briar, as if he was investigating him, or maybe looking for more treats.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 15:22:44 GMT -6
It was a ticklish sensation, nothing he wasn’t used to, but a little strange nevertheless. At first, Briar thought maybe Doc was trying to get him to get up, but the pup wasn’t really pushing or shoving at him or anything. And then Doc took to snuffling around in Briar’s hair, and Briar gave up trying to guess what exactly Doc was doing. As long as it wasn’t actively causing problems or hurting him, Briar decided that Doc could just do as he liked for the moment.
After all, he did mean to give the pups a break from all the training they were doing. And if this was how Doc was choosing to relax, then so be it.
They only got to enjoy this moment of quiet for so long, however, before Cipher got bored with his stick and stood, trotting around to see what he could find. The motion at the edge of his vision alerted Briar to the fact that Cipher was up and on the move, and Briar focused his attention on following Cipher and his trajectory. There was no guarantee that Cipher was going to make trouble, but better safe than sorry, and Cipher was the only one at the moment who wasn’t within easy reach for Briar to stop him if need be. So all Briar really had was the ‘no’ command, and sometimes it came down to just a few seconds before disaster struck and it was too late to stop whatever the pup was about to put into action.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 15:22:56 GMT -6
… Maybe it was his negative expectations playing a role, Briar didn’t know. But sure enough, next thing he knew, Cipher was tearing off after one of those rabbit-like pocketpets. Briar stood, displacing poor Nana in the process. He gave her a final absent minded scratch behind the ears as an apology, then tore off after Cipher, with Doc hot on his heels. Doc began barking at once, and from what Briar could tell, he didn’t really seem to understand what was going on, and just wanted to be a part of the excitement. Good grief, Briar thought, but there wasn’t time to address that right now either. He had to stop Cipher, especially if Cipher managed somehow to catch the thing. A dead pocketpet wasn’t something he wanted to deal with or dispose of.
Besides… he didn’t know if this was really the case, but if the house had a mind of its own, then maybe the murder of a pocketpet would be sufficient grounds for the entity of it to become upset. People could take things home with them without issue, as far as he knew, but he had never heard of anyone using the little critters that made their homes here as target practice while still on the grounds themselves. And while it might really be a lot of nothing, it wasn’t something he wanted to test out either. He would leave all the potentially life threatening experimentation to crazy people like the damned wizard. He just wanted a nice walk with his dogs.
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Post by Briar on Apr 10, 2021 15:23:20 GMT -6
He hissed, and Cipher stopped, though he didn’t seem very happy that Briar had happened to intervene. Briar supposed he wouldn’t be, but he was just glad that he had managed to do so before anything worse happened. Seeing that Cipher did as he wanted, Briar fed him a treat, but it felt like the sort of grudging peace offering that marked a grudging relationship… Which wasn’t far off the mark, if you thought about what things were like between them.
As the two of them had stopped, it didn’t take Doc long to catch up to them, and even Nana joined them after a moment, when they didn’t immediately return. If she had been napping, then Briar’s departure had pretty soundly woken her up, and given all the barking and excitement, she couldn’t so easily have gone back to sleep. She trotted up to see what the fuss was about, but the fuss was already mostly over. It was only the presence of food that piqued her interest after that, but when she nudged Briar’s hand, he didn’t give her any, so she satisfied herself with licking any last remaining treat residue off his hands.
Sighing, Briar let her. It wasn’t as if she was nipping at him or anything, and he did feel bad for waking her. He didn't know if she would understand his actions as an apology, but he definitely meant them as one, right now.
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Post by Jack on Apr 10, 2021 15:37:01 GMT -6
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