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Post by Kadin on Oct 23, 2020 12:09:57 GMT -6
It was moving around so much! But Kadin wouldn’t let him over. Instead, he just sat and waited to for Cirrus to calm the fuck down.
Since he wasn’t calming down, Kadin picked him up and walked him further away from the moving objects. Then he put him down again to see what he’d do. Cirrus was still tugging a bit and obviously distracted by the toy, but he wasn’t barking and strained to get at it anymore, at least. Kadin sat and waited for Cirrus to calm down, even calling his name now and then to get his attention. When he had Cirrus’ attention for more than one fucking moment, Kadin praised him. Slowly, Cirrus started paying less attention to the moving toy and more to Kadin.
The human had to wait with the other pup for a while again so Skip went to go explore. There was WATER here that was MOVING. He had seen moving water before when the kennels needed to be cleaned, but not like there! There was a LOT of water moving here! And when he put his paws in it it was kinda cold. He snorted and backed away, not sure if he should do much more than that.
Accept Sudden Movements: 6
68
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Post by Kadin on Oct 23, 2020 12:11:57 GMT -6
When he could hold his attention for at least 30 seconds, Kadin gave him a treat for it. Eventually, Cirrus wasn’t paying any attention at all to the toy in favor of watching Kadin and hoping for more treats. Once Kadin was certain Cirrus didn’t care about the toy at this distance anymore, he figured that they might as well try getting closer again.
He moved himself and Cirrus about 5 feet closer. Like before, Cirrus was distracted at first, but eventually Kadin was able to get his attention away from the toy again. He waited until Cirrus wasn’t paying the toy any mind at all and seemed calm and ready to take more instruction.
He didn’t really know if he liked water or not. It was wet and felt kinda funny on his paws! He decided to bark at it just in case, but the water didn’t really do anything in response to being barked at. So he put two paws into it and dug at it a bit. Nothing really happened there, either! But water and mud and muddy water started flying in all sorts of interesting directions since he was trying to dig.
Accept Sudden Movements: 7
69
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Post by Kadin on Oct 23, 2020 12:13:22 GMT -6
That was when he moved them five feet closer and starting the whole process over again. It was a bit tiring, but Kadin kept at it. He waited again until Cirrus was calm and not paying attention to the toy, giving him praise when he was either acting calm or had his attention on Kadin instead. Eventually Cirrus wasn’t paying attention to the toy again and they could once again move closer. They repeated this process, over and over again, until Kadin could take Cirrus right next to the erratically moving toy and Cirrus would ignore it. Or, he would look at it and then dismiss it as no threat. Once they got up to that level, Kadin figured that this training was done and they could move on to the next thing.
That was fun! He liked digging! He'd been able to dig sometimes where he was before, but not often because he was mostly in the kennels. Digging was a lot of fun! Especially when he started to get further down in the hole, but he couldn't get too far because water started to get into the hole and he couldn't hold his breath under the water when that happened.
Accept Sudden Movements: 8
70 *level up
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Post by Nadia on Oct 24, 2020 10:31:53 GMT -6
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Post by Kadin on Oct 24, 2020 13:19:34 GMT -6
Now it was time for yet another challenge. Kadin wanted Cirrus to be unbothered by scary things, but first he needed to figure out how to go about that. He figured that the best thing to start off with was something that seemed to freak out all of his houluh.
A vacuum cleaner.
It was annoying as fuck to try and clean around the kennels when there was a gang of houluh after him trying to bark and bite at the damn thing. Cirrus was one of the ones who barked at it, but always from a distance, and he never tried to get too close to it. Well. Today, that was going to change. Kadin had brought a battery powered vacuum, just a small one.
He kept digging down into the sand, or at least trying to. But then he couldn’t anymore! It was too deep! And he was getting water up his nose. With a snort, Skip pulled himself out of the hole and shook himself off. He was covered in sand and water and all kinds of stuff from the river! He sneeze and shook himself off some more. Still, that had been fun! He really likely digging.
Accept Scary Sights: 1
71
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Post by Kadin on Oct 24, 2020 13:20:30 GMT -6
This was to try and get Cirrus used to something like this.
He stared with just the vacuum itself. Cirrus’ demeanor immediately changed when he saw it. He whined, backing away from Kadin and the vacuum cleaner. Kadin raised an eyebrow and sat down, the vacuum next to him and treats in his hand, waiting for Cirrus to get closer.
Cirrus did not.
With a sigh, Kadin scooted a couple feet away from the vacuum. And then he waited, calling Cirrus’ name and holding out some treats for him. Cirrus kept glancing at the vacuum, obviously upset by it, but the treats… they were calling to him! He slowly slunk over to Kadin accepting some treats out of his hand as if he were waiting to be bitten by something the entire time.
He started to sniff around the riverbank, poking at some of the things he’d dug up. One of the things he found was green and- oh! It moved! Skip barked at it, hopping and zooming around the thing on the sand that moved! He didn’t like that! He didn’t like it moving around! He whined and looked over at Kadin, but Kadin was still busy! He whined again and looked at the thing that moved.
Accept Scary Sights: 2
72
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Post by Kadin on Oct 24, 2020 13:21:10 GMT -6
It was pretty amusing, to be honest. Kadin didn’t make fun of the houluh, though, instead he just started talking to him calmly, letting him eat the treats and relax. He asked him to growl a few times, too, having him do tricks to keep his mind off of being nervous about the vacuum.
Once Cirrus didn’t seem bothered by it anymore, Kadin started scooting closer to it. Cirrus didn’t really notice at first. And, once he did, he froze for only a little while before Kadin was able to distract him by calling his name and asking him to growl again. He kept at it like that, getting Cirrus slowly closer to the vacuum until they were sitting right next to it.
The thing was gone! Or, wait. Not gone. But it was going. He sniffed at the sand, watching while the thing wiggled and wiggled to try and get its body under the sand. That was WEIRD. That thing was weird. He didn’t like it. He barked at it some more, just for good measure, before turning around in a huff and walking off to look for something else to do. He didn’t want to dig THERE anymore.
Accept Scary Sights: 3
73
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Post by Kadin on Oct 24, 2020 13:21:53 GMT -6
And Cirrus seemed fine, not upset at all. He was even wagging his tail now, happily eating treats right next to what had once been his mortal enemy.
Kadin turned the vacuum on. Cirrus startled a bit, but then he leaned over to sniff at the vacuum cautiously. He jumped back as if it was going to attack him! But nothing happened. Tilting his head, he walked back over to the vacuum and sniffed at it again. Kadin praised him for that, telling him that he was being very brave and giving him a treat for it. That helped boost Cirrus’ confidence a little bit.
The vacuum was making a ton of noise, but Cirrus knew not to be afraid of a lot of loud noise anymore.
Not if there were weird things that moved and burrowed under the sand! Skip ran up and down the bank, looking for something else to play with. There was just so much STUFF out here, he didn’t even know where to start! That was when he saw something else that was moving. It was ALSO green and he growled about that. But it didn’t look like it was moving on its own, it was moving because of the water.
Accept Scary Sights: 4
74
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Post by Kadin on Oct 24, 2020 13:22:25 GMT -6
So it didn’t really bother him. That was good.
Kadin reached out the move the vacuum around a bit and Cirrus jumped back again. He watched, cautious, as Kadin moved the vacuum around, actually vacuuming up some of the sand in the area. But Cirrus had also been taught not to be afraid of sudden movements, so that didn’t bother him much, either. He went back over to Kadin and the vacuum to sniff at it once again. And, once again, Cirrus didn’t seem bothered by it anymore. He gave the houluh some more treats and praise, pleased that he seemed to have gotten over his fear of his biggest enemy in the world.
He cautiously walked over, sniffing at the grass or algae or whatever this green stuff was that seemed to be washed up on the short. Whenever the water splashed up, it moved a little bit, but when he poked it with his nose it DIDN’T move. So it must be grass? It looked like grass, but it didn’t smell like grass. Grass was always wet, too, but this stuff looked too wet. He didn’t quite know what to make of it!
Accept Scary Sights: 5
75 *level up
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Post by Nadia on Oct 25, 2020 12:44:35 GMT -6
  It looks like this crab has made friends with a sea slug of sorts...? How fascinating! Its beady eyes are focused on you, claws clattering; be careful it doesn't snip your line before you can catch it... |
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Post by Kadin on Oct 25, 2020 12:56:43 GMT -6
It seemed as if he wouldn't be able to spend much more time knowing what to make of it because all of a sudden there was SOMETHING ELSE THERE! Skip yelped, howling out in distress, and ran back to Kadin like his tail was on fire. He completely interrupted whatever it was Kadin was trying to do by hiding behind his legs, whining and whimpering and making a bit of a nuisance of himself. Kadin frowned at that, not quite sure what to make of it all, until he looked back in the direction of what seemed to be freaking him out and saw that there was a crab attached to his fishing line.
Oh. Huh. Shit.
Kadin grabbed the treats he had and quickly made his way close, slowly down the moment he saw the crab starting to look twitchy. Cirrus and Skip stayed with him, both curious, but he gestured them to stay back. Carefully, he tossed some meaty treats towards the crab, hoping that he'd be able to get it to let go of his line before it broke it, because hoooboy he didn't want to deal with that! And crabs liked meat, right? He was pretty sure they did.
76
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Post by Nadia on Oct 25, 2020 13:10:22 GMT -6
The crab considers its options carefully. It can snip that line for the fun of it... or it can get some free food. Ooh. Its eyes seem to grow comically wider as it scuttles over to pick up some meat, practically dancing on the spot with delight.
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Post by Kadin on Oct 25, 2020 13:16:44 GMT -6
It was a tense several moments while Kadin watched the crab consider its options. It seemed like it WANTED to cut the line, but once it saw that food was readily in its grasp it ran over to it quickly. Kadin let out a sigh of relief, quickly reeling in the rest of the fishing line and setting the pole aside so that it would be out of harm's way. Now he just needed to figure out how to get this crab to, like. Want to be his friend or something.
He carefully got a bit closer to it, watching as it ate up the meat and danced around. Smiling slightly, Kadin waited until it had eating up the treat he'd thrown completely before tossing another one, this one closer to him than the last one had been. Maybe he could tempt the crab closer and befriend it that way?
Luckily, the houluh were staying pretty well back, probably intimidated by those giant claws the crab had. Kadin was pretty relieved about that, too, because the last thing he needed was to have to try and remove those claws from one of their noses. He just hoped the pups kept taking their cues from him like that for now.
77
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Post by Nadia on Oct 25, 2020 15:27:06 GMT -6
More food! More food! The crab scuttles with even greater enthusiasm, snapping up the offered treat. This is pretty good! Did you want to be friends? It can share with you, if you want - it holds out a morsel in case you want a taste.
[Congratulations, you have successfully tamed the creature!]
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Post by Kadin on Oct 25, 2020 15:36:25 GMT -6
The crab really seemed to be into food. Kadin was a bit delighted at this, to be honest. He brought the creature over to the rest of his supplies, setting it up with more food and things to entertain itself with. Then he figured that it was time to get back to training.
Kadin figured that meant it was time for them to do something else next. This time, he’d gotten a big stuffed animal shaped like an Estharne. For some reason? Pets really thought that large, animal-shaped stuffed animals were real. It freaked them the fuck out, too! So Kadin figured this’d be a good way to train this. He got the estharne and covered it with real blood he’d gotten for free at the butchers. He also buried some bones around where he put the estharne, to make it seem like it was hiding a kill and to really sell the facade.
The houluh wouldn’t know the difference. Cirrus certainly didn’t seem to be able to.
Now that all the excitement was over, Skip quickly grew bored! He wandered over to see if that green thing was doing anything interesting. After all, what he DID know was that it was very green.
Accept Scary Sights: 6
Guard: 1
78
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