|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 21:43:28 GMT -6
Cirrus wasn’t quite getting it, so Kadin tried something different.
He had it so Cirrus was in front of the both of them and told him to guard. He did the same thing as last time, sometimes getting a bit closer and sometimes moving away, and telling Cirrus to guard them. Just like before, Cirrus would get between them quickly and without hesitation. Kadin made sure that he was in front of him AND Skip this time. Then he started weaning Cirrus to being in front of just Skip. He’d have Skip be slightly more in front of him, Cirrus guarding him with Kadin behind them. Then he’d separate from Skip and have Cirrus guard only him. And back and forth.
Skip took this extremely seriously. He didn’t even mind that the human put a leash on him and was leading him around on it.
Elk barked at the sand and growled at it some more, reaching out with his front paws to dig down into it. He growled and barked some more, but the sand didn't really have much of an opinion about what some silly puppy did about it. So he snorted and looked over to where Kadin, Cirrus, and Skip were doing... something. On the sand. He wasn't sure what to do about that, either.
I mean, he didn’t LIKE the leash, but it was fine! He understood if he needed to have a leash! Plus a leash kept him closer to the human and he liked being close to the human.
Guard: 8
89
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 21:43:56 GMT -6
When the human was around he could remember that he wasn’t still in the kennels and he wouldn’t be going back.
Then he’d have Cirrus guard the both of them again. Then he’d try to get him to just guard Skip.
As with all new things that were hard to learn, it took a while, but eventually something seemed to click. Cirrus would guard Skip only (even if he was a bit huffy about it) if Kadin asked him to. Then he’d guard just Kadin on command. Or he’d guard both of them, standing in front and barking at the estharne as if he was much larger than he actually was. Kadin kept up this training, remembering to praise him whenever he did what he actually wanted him to, giving him a lot of treats for guarding the right thing that he pointed out. He kept practicing until he was sure Cirrus had it down.
As long as he could stay with the human everything would be alright! And it was fine if HE walked away from the human, but it WASN’T fine if the human walked away from him. That was how these things worked. So as long as Skip was with the human he’d be safe, even from weird hard balls. The human hadn’t seemed super interested in that, by the way, probably because it was boring.
Elk, meanwhile, was still trying to figure out if he wanted to actually walk on the sand and be with everyone else or if he was going to just keep staring and barking at it like a crazy houluh.
Guard: 9
90 *level up
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 21:45:56 GMT -6
Now that Cirrus was all trained up, Kadin figured that it'd be a good idea to get started on training Elk and Skip. What he wanted to train these two next was something that he was hoping would end up working. See, they both needed quite a lot of training still. Some more than others. And he figured that he could easily work on that training with both of them together. But what to teach them? Well. They WERE at the river, after all. Why not teach them how to fish?
So Kadin called both houluh over to the edge of the water. There were plenty of fish her, likely looking to get food from the sands, whether plant materiel or something else. Kadin stood there with the houluh, all of them looking down into the water. The houluh seemed quite puzzled about everything that was happening, but Kadin wanted to make sure that they could see the fish down in the water. He hoped that once they could do that, instinct would start to take over and it would make teaching them how to fish easier.
Skip and Elk both didn't seem to know what to make of all this.
Fish: 1
91
Note: Cirrus left here
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 21:46:08 GMT -6
They watched Kadin staring at the water and, curious, one by one they started staring at the water, too. Skip was first, looking down where Kadin was looking, tail slowly wagging as if he was working super hard on a fun game and he wanted to make sure he was doing his very best on it! He wanted to be with Kadin always and always do what he was doing! Staring into the water like this was a piece of cake! Elk, on the other hand, still wasn't sure of the SAND, much less the water. He whined about it, shifting from paw to paw like he was uncomfortable, not really liking this whole deal of being sandy and wet! Did I mention that he wasn't a fan of the sand? He really wasn't a fan of the sand.
Kadin kept looking down into the water then back at the houluh, encouraging them to look, too. They both seemed distracted for different reasons. Skip because he was too wrapped up in just mimicking whatever Kadin was doing instead of actually DOING what Kadin was doing. He was too busy just staring at the water as if that was all he was supposed to do.
Fish: 2
92
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 21:46:18 GMT -6
Not looking at anything in the water like he might have before when he was on his own and less stimulated like this. Elk, on the other hand, kept whining about something or another. Maybe it had been a mistake to bring him here after all? But he was here now so Kadin figured that he might as well make the most of it. He kept getting the houluh to stare into the water, then once he noticed some small fish swimming nearby, he pointed at them and said, "Fish!"
Skip was the one who reacted first. Tail wagging madly, he stared down at the water, excited about whatever it was Kadin was looking at! But, with a flash of silver catching the light, he suddenly noticed what Kadin had been looking at all along. FISH! Skip barked and barked, digging at the water with his front legs, wanting to get the fish! Sadly, such an enthusiastic response sure wasn't about to attract the fish to him. Just the opposite, really, as it scared them away.
Between Kadin's pointing them out and Skip's excitement, this was the first time that Elk was finally distracted by how much he wasn't a fan of the sand and, to a lesser extent, the water.
Fish: 3
93
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 21:46:29 GMT -6
Before Skip started barking at them, Elk noticed the fish and froze. He stared at them with wide eyes, one foot lifted up just slightly and his nose pointed right down at the fish. They were MOVING there under the WATER and he still wasn't a fan of the water, but he was SURE that he could catch them if only- oh. Skip chased them away. Elk huffed in disappointment.
Kadin was also a bit disappointed. There obviously weren’t any more fish in this part of the river, so he walked over to another part, looking behind himself to make sure that the houluh were following along, which they were, of course. Skip seemed as if he wanted to be hot glued to Kadin’s side and Elk, well. Elk was still being Elk. Kadin brought them to a new patch of water and looked out over it, pointing and saying, “Fish!” When he noticed some. This time, however, he put an arm around Skip’s chest to hold him back. That way he couldn’t lunge around and make a scene. Kadin wanted to make sure that Skip was calmer when he interacted with the fish this time. He didn’t want a repeat of last time.
Fish: 4
94
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 21:46:45 GMT -6
It seemed to work alright. Skip noticed the fish when Kadin pointed to them and he whined about it, but Kadin held him more tightly to his side. “Wait, calm down, buddy. Fish.” He assured him, trying to project calm that clearly did not come naturally to the houluh. Skip, luckily, basically lived to try and please Kadin, so it seemed to work well enough. Instead of barking and making a huge ruckus, he let out a soft whine and started down at the fish, tail wagging slowly behind him.
Elk, on the other hand, showed surprising focus. He stared down at the fish with an intensity that Kadin, frankly, had not expected. He stared down at the fish intensely, adopting that same focus he’d shown last time when confronted with a bunch of fish right there, right in front of him. He walked towards them, slowly, carefully, seeming to know instinctively that moving too quickly would cause them to flee. Or, you know, he might have picked that up at Skip’s utter fail with the fish before. Regardless, Elk walked towards them slowly, staring down at them. Kadin waited with something like anticipation to see what he would do.
Fish: 5
95 *level up
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 21:53:06 GMT -6
Then, all of the sudden, Elk ducked his face into the water, trying to catch one of the fish! Of course, since it was his first time, he came up empty and sputter.
“Good fish, Elk!” Kadin praised anyway, right away, giving the houluh a treat once he stopped snorting water out his nose. He whined about the lack of fish he was able to catch, but the treat helped with that. Kadin let both the houluh relax for a bit after that, figuring that this was a pretty intense thing they were learning and it seemed like it was stressing them out. Then, once they seemed up to it, he had them moving to try again. He brought them over to another part of the river where the fish had come back, pointed them out again, and called to them, “Fish!” Once again, he held Skip back a bit to make sure that he would stay calm, but watching Elk earlier seemed to make him come to his senses this time because he wasn’t as bad as he had been last time.
Skip was REALLY excited to going back to looking at fish! He had been really impressed by how Elk had almost caught one earlier.
Fish: 6
96
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 21:56:36 GMT -6
He wanted to do his best, too, so he looked down into the water with a LOT of focus this time and didn’t even whine that much! Kadin still kept a hand on him just in case, but he seemed like he was actually trying this time rather than just blundering into it.
Elk was also very determined to do well. He stared down at the fish, watching them move around under the water. He’d missed last time, but he was sure that if he kept trying he’d be able to catch some! He stayed very, very still and, once a fish was close enough to his paws that he thought he might have it, he PLUNGED his face into the water to try and catch it! At the same time, Skip also went for some fish, sticking his face down and biting wildly! And, of course, they both came up empty. Again.
They seemed a bit disappointed about it all, but Kadin gave them both treats to encourage them to keep trying. “Good fish!” He praised, giving them both pets, too. Once their spirits were lifted a bit more, he took them to another part of the river where the fish were gathering once again.
Fish: 7
97
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 2, 2020 22:00:08 GMT -6
Kadin figured that the best way to get them better at this was to keep practicing. He kept bringing them both to different parts of the river after every failed fishing attempt. He kept encouraging them, kept praising them, and kept giving them treats for at least trying. Slowly but surely, Elk and Skip seemed to improve their luck in fishing. They started getting closer and closer to grabbing some fish, which, you know? Was more difficult than you'd think! After all, you gotta take into account how the light reflects off the surface and refracts the water when you're plunging your head down in there. The only way for them to improve on that was to keep practicing, so that was what they did. They walked up and down the river many times until both Elk and even Skip were starting to actually catch fish on their own! It must be true what they say about houluh naturally being gifted fishers. Kadin was pretty impressed by how well they were doing after practicing for a while. Still, he kept them at it until their numbers were pretty reliable. He felt confident at this point that he could send them out to get some fish and they'd be able to return with some.
Fish: 8
98
|
|
|
Post by Silver on Nov 6, 2020 23:25:34 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 11, 2020 23:58:44 GMT -6
Now that he knew that they knew how to fish, Kadin figured that it was about time to teach the two houluh something else practical. He'd brought a lot of stuff with him for just those purposed, too, so he quickly went about digging around his supplies until he found what he needed. He grabbed a red wagon that he'd brought along, as well as some harnesses and other tack. He could probably get the houluh both to learn how to pull the cart individually, but he figured that since they were working together already it wouldn't hurt to try and get them to work together on this, too.
Wrangling them would just be easier said then done.
The first step before learning how to pull anything would just be getting them to accept the tack. So Kadin went over to the houluh to do just that. He let them sniff at it first to get use to the idea of it. Skip, of course, acted as if he was interested in literally anything Kadin was interested in, so that wasn't too difficult. Elk seemed plenty curious, too, considering that that was also in his nature. Kadin was feeling pretty optimistic about this.
Pull Buggy: 1
99
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 12, 2020 0:03:14 GMT -6
The first one he worked on getting in the harness was Skip. He was wiggly, for a houluh, but mostly just because he wanted to see what Kadin was doing at all times. He didn't have any problem with that and patiently worked on getting the harness on the houluh, around the wiggles. Since he'd been working with sarane AND houluh so much lately, it wasn't actually that difficult. Of course, once Skip had all the stuff on him, he didn't seem to know what to do about it. He'd had to deal with leashes and collars before, but something around his body that could even partially restrict his movement was entirely different. Kadin let him go, watching him stumble and spin around, getting used to it, and shook his head while he turned to give Elk the same treatment. Perhaps not surprisingly, Elk took to it better than Skip did. Maybe it was just his naturally easy going personality, but once Kadin was able to get the harness on him past all the wiggles, he only looked a bit confused before easily being distracted by a treat. Kadin called both the houluh over to distract them with more treats, relieved that even Skip go used to it quickly.
Pull Buggy: 2
100 *level up
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 12, 2020 0:07:18 GMT -6
Especially when there were treats added into the mix. Once both houluh seemed fine with the harness they were put in, next up he brought them over to the wagon. He figured that it might be intimidating to have something following them around once they got started, so he lead them around it and let them get used to the idea of it before trying anything. Elk sniffed around the wheels curiously while Skip jumped straight into the wagon, wagging his tail and looking at Kadin for praise. He was pleased with himself when the human smiled at him, obviously approving, and gave both of the houluh a lot of praise and pets for being so comfortable with the wagon. Once he seemed confident that they were scared of it, he lead them around to the front and, pulling it himself, walked with them with the wagon for a while. Skip and Elk were both even more curious at this. Skip yapped and ran behind the wagon then back up front, jumping back into the bed while it was moving like it was a great game. Elk trotted happily along Kadin's side, not a care in the world in his fluffy head.
Pull Buggy: 3
101
|
|
|
Post by Kadin on Nov 12, 2020 0:10:41 GMT -6
Eventually Skip jumped back out and walked with them, too. Kadin would stop every now and then to praise them for walking with him in front of the wagon, offering them treats for being so good. He didn't restrain them or tie them to it just yet, wanting them to get used to it first, but he gave them praise for staying in front of the wagon rather than just following behind or, like Skip kept doing, riding in it. After a while of walking around, Kadin felt fairly confident that the houluh weren't going to run in fright if the wagon was following them. So he stopped again and finally attached their harnesses to the wagon. Then he grabbed the handle he'd been using and just did the same thing he'd been doing before, pulling the wagon forward himself and encouraging the houluh to walk along with him. He stopped more frequently now to give them praise, especially for walking next to him with the wagon. Elk seemed particularly unfazed by it, just happy to go on a walk with his human and friend. Skip was having a bit harder of a time. He kept veering off, as if he wanted to run around again.
Pull Buggy: 4
102
|
|