Good dog.......

We've taught Kali 1.0 along the way the proper way to pet the dog. Initially, she'd grab his fur and pull on it, which didn't exactly please Nova. Instead, we taught her to 'pat' the dog by moving her hand up and down instead of a stroking motion. Every time we'd show her how to pat the dog, we'd say 'good dog, good dog'. She's figured it out now and so we just reinforce the behavior by saying 'good dog' every time she does it.

A side effect of teaching her this behavior is that she now applies that behavior elsewhere. She's decided that 'patting' something is a reward for whoever/whatever she's patting. As a result, she'll sometimes pat Mrs. Lime or I. She's usually smiling when she does it and it's meant as a good thing, but at some point, we're going to have to reverse that thinking. I don't want her walking around her kindergarten class all day patting her classmates. We'll obviously have to work other methods of approval into her repertoire.