I decided yesterday that I wanted to give myself a new approach to ramping up things with Oz in his commands. Usually, I run my way through a conversation, but it would be difficult to bring up anything that wouldn't start a discussion that would lead away from my normal MO, not bring it towards. Whatever that voodoo that I use to work in that way is gone. Not a bad thing and not a good thing- it just is what it is.
I decided that I was going to ask Oz a minimal number of questions before giving him a command, to get into that groove as quickly as I could. And, overall, I'm quite pleased with the results. I made him tie his left shoe laces a little looser than the right to create an imbalance in between them. I knew this would drive him nuts. He's the same as me in needing to wear the same matching socks, everything must be identical. I'm just a little sad that I didn't get to see that frustrated furrowing of his brow.
It has been awhile since I've really done anything with him in this, especially hitting him hard, quick and repeatedly. I immediately gave him another command to make me three, five point origami bell flowers- a large one out of purple, a red one half that size and a white one half the size of the red. I told him- at three in the afternoon, mind you- that he had until midnight to complete.
Immediately he began to buck the command texting back that he wasn't sure he would be able to complete the task due to the diagram for this particular origami was crap and didn't make sense. I knew which fold he was having issue with and told him, let me get to that point and I can show you. While I was working on this, he starts tearing apart the origami itself saying how it is more a lily than an actual bell flower and in my frustration of trying to take a picture of what he needed to see and his persistence of complaining about the diagram, I told him
"Change the diagram to the Kawasaki rose.""No."
"Then make them."
I failed, again, in executing a command. It was the whole issue with the command on the writing assignment all over again. I hadn't realized he was trying to negotiate his way out of another command, just as with the writing assignment, I thought he was bringing up legitimate concerns about why he wouldn't be capable of completing them. He said that he was concerned about his ability to finish them in the time given and wanted to prepare me for the fact that he might fail.
I explained to him how the immediate, "I can't..." means "I don't want to..." in my book. The way that I see the drive to complete commands is the desire to please me is what propels the execution of the command, not the probability to complete the command. He kept quoting Yoda to me (admittedly, I chuckled), and the problem is that he has the commitment to "Do or do not, there is no try!" in the wrong end.... Yes, yes....from what I hear, he likes sticking things in the wrong end....
He needs to have the adjustment to either he does attempt or he does not attempt, not either he completes the task or he does not complete the task. As I have told him, the finished products of all of his tasks themselves are not inherently important- its the fact that he put the effort into those finished products that I'm realizing now has been a missing element. Not that he hasn't been putting in effort, but that his understanding that effort is where the importance is placed.
It's quite possible that he came to that conclusion last night after our initial discussion- focused mostly about how I need to stop putting so much weight in his complaints and such- because 12 minutes before his shift ended, I received a picture with my three bell flowers...a slight modification to the diagram, but they looked even more like the obedience flower. He even put his collar on the table that he displayed them for the picture....maybe I'll have to post it sometime.
I told him that should he complete the flowers before the end of his shift, he would be able to draw a card from the "reward box". Contained in there are 15 cards each with different little things that he would like to be turned in to me at any time as long as they do not interrupt or impede a current command or execution of a punishment.
....I really hope he doesn't pick the "Have hockey gear cleaned." one.
Onto my busy day and formulating what he gets to do today.... I already have a few things in mind...
-afina
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