Swept Away

Time to venture to yet another part of the labs that Kadin hadn’t been before. You see, one day, Kadin got the urge to go for a swim. Somewhere. He liked swimming. And he heard about the docks, but then he also head about a river near the docks where you could also bring your pets and maybe even come home with some fish, if you were lucky. So he packed up a couple of pups and made his way over. One good thing about fishing was that you didn’t really have to watch your gear the whole time once you set it up. So Kadin set up his fishing pole, secured it so that no fish would be able to just pull it away, and turned to Cookie and Cirrus.

“Alright. I’ve had both of you for a while, but you still need to learn your names. So while we wait for the fish to show up, let’s work on this. Right, Cookie? Cirrus?” Kadin called out, holding up a treat to see if the houluh would take any interest in it. Or him. Of course, they were both in a new space with plenty of new things to see and smells to smell, so they completely ignored him.

Name: 1

1

"Cookie!" Kadin coaxed. Her attention was on the treat, but at this voice her eyes darted over to him just for a moment. That was enough! "Good girl!" Kadin quickly praised, giving her the treat. "Good Cookie!" He needed her to make the association between looking at him and getting treats. "Cookie!" He called again, holding out the treat near his face and waiting. She stared at the treat, whining and moving from paw to paw as if she wanted to jump up and get it! But Kadin still waited until her eyes darted to him, begging, before giving it to her. "Good girl! Good Cookie!"

Now it was time for Cirrus.

He turned to the other houluh, doing much the same thing. "Hey, Cirrus!" He said, holding the treat up near his face. He needed the pup's attention on him, not just on the treat, and he'd wait until he got that before giving it to him. Eventually, Cirrus whined and huffed, looking over at Kadin as if accusing him of withholding the treat on purpose. Which, you know, he was. "Good boy! Good Cirrus!" Kadin praised, finally giving him the treat, too. They were making progress, at least! This was good.

Name: 3

3

Once they'd basically gotten their own names down, Kadin wanted to give them one more test. This time, he'd let them wander off and get distracted before calling them. This was partly to test that they knew their names AND that they knew not to respond to the other houluh's name. One of the dangers of training puppies together, after all, was them getting horribly confusing and starting to respond to each other instead of their individual commands.

So, Kadin walked back over to his fishing pole just to check on it. While doing so, he'd occasionally call out to one of the pups, just to see if they were still paying attention.

"Cookie!" She kept sniffing at the mud pile that was apparently fascinating. Kadin frowned and tried again. "Cookie!" This time she looked up with a yip, startled, as if he'd surprised her. He shook his head, "Good Cookie!" and tossed her a treat.

"Cirrus!" The zephyr was zooming back and forth on the mud flats. At the call of his name, he zoomed towards Kadin. With a laugh, he gave him a treat, too.

He kept repeated that now and then, just calling their names to make sure they were paying attention, until he was satisfied.

Name: 5

5 *level up

That out of the way, Kadin figured it was time to move on to something else. Kadin had a couple of things that he wanted to teach Cookie, but didn't feel like it was time to teach Cirrus just yet. So he decided to just focus on Cookie for now. He set out a blanket on the grass near the bank with a toy under it attacked to a stick, making a lump under the blanket. He wiggled the stick back and forth, watching Cookie to see if she had any reaction. Cirrus eventually got bored and wandered off, but Cookie was quickly enraptured in staring at the lump under the tarp.


While Kadin was working with Cookie, Cirrus was left to his own devices. And that meant he could do whatever he wanted! What he wanted, of course, was to get treats. But Kadin wasn't looking at him anymore so he couldn't get treats, which was disappointing. After a lot of standing around and whining because no one was giving him treats, he finally decided to go off and do something else. Maybe he could find his OWN treats! He sniffed at the air then at the muddy ground, looking to see if he could smell anything good.

Pounce: 1

6

"Pounce! Good girl, Cookie, good pounce!" Kadin said again, giving her another treat for it. Cookie's tail went wild, pleased to be playing a game AND getting treats! This was great! Kadin started wiggling the toy again, quickly getting Cookie's attention. She bounced over to the toy, jumping on it paws first with a playful growl.

"Pounce! Good girl, Cookie!" Kadin said, pleased, and gave her another treat. She seemed like she was starting to get it now. Jump onto the toy was pretty much what he was trying to get her to do. He kept up the same method for a while more, wiggling the toy and waiting for her to jump on it before giving her the command word, praised, and a treat.


With a delighted yip, he burst over the bank and looked down into a shallow part of the water. It was so shallow that he could see some fish that had been trying to looking for food were struggling to get back in the water! What luck! He quickly scampered down the bank, barking and yipping his delight, and tried to get the fish. Even if the water was shallow, the fish were still FAST. He was having a hard time chasing them down...

Pounce: 3

8

Now, time to try the next bit. Kadin called out to Cookie, "Pounce!" And watched, pleased, when she didn't even wait for him to move the toy. She jumped right at it, yipping with delight as she bounced onto the toy under the blanket. "Good girl! Good Cookie." Kadin praised, giving her another treat. Seemed like he'd worked her up to it slowly enough that she was getting it right away.

"Pounce!" He called again, watching with pleasure as Cookie jumped on the treat again with a playful growl. "Good girl!" He praised, giving her another treat for it. They practiced this several more times, too, until he was sure she'd react every time.


But then he saw movement out of the corner of his eyes. Another fish! Quickly he dropped the one he had and went racing after this other one! He'd be able to catch this other fish, too, no problem! He slid around on the mud, spraying it everywhere and making a huge mess, until he was able to corner the other fight and snatch it up, too. Now he had TWO fish. But, wait, where had the other one gone? He looked around and whined, unsure about how far away he'd ended up from the human and Cookie.

Pounce: 5

10 *level up

Oh, but he could hear them! He picked up his fish as best he could and started trotting over in their direction, head and tail held high and proudly at what a great hunter he turned out to be! He had all of these fish and they both had none because they were too busy doing stupid other stuff so there! He wandered over, watching them play games?


Once Kadin was reasonably sure that she had pounce down, he figured that it was time to move on to something else with Cookie. This one should also be easy since it was something houluh did pretty naturally. He held out a rope toy next, holding it in front of her, dangling it in front of her face. Predictably, it didn’t take long before Cookie jumped up and bit the rope toy, growling playfully.

“Bite! Good bite, Cookie!” Kadin said, pleased. He would have offered a treat for her for that one, but she was having so much fun tugging on the rope toy that that seemed like enough of a reward for her. He tugged back on it, playing with her for a bit as her reward, before he pulled out another, different rope toy!

Bite: 1

11