So Justice & I are taking a reactive dog class with Shelagh of Dizine Canine, and loving it. I was a little nervous at first — really, you want to put multiple reactive dogs in a room and have them LEARN something? She invited me to watch a class last month, and yes! This is what J-bean needs. So, so much.
So tonight was week 4, and every week I am so amazingly impressed with her (and, of course, the class.) Justice’s focus is so much better, her recovery time is great, and Shelagh is fantastic. It’s so nice to have someone who simply gets it. Shelagh works with pit bull rescue — and I thought having a friendly-looking reactive dog made people think that I was the devil… try having a reactive pit bull. Suddenly Justice doesn’t seem so bad, y’know? (Although, people are much less likely to walk up to your pitbull and try to pet them. I still boggle at how many people think it’s perfectly fine to rush up to the adorable strange dog who’s owner is running in the opposite direction from you.)
Anyway, so the premise of the class is the “watch” command, and the “leave it” command. Justice already had a decent leave it, and a decent watch, but as soon as she got stressed, all bets were off and there was no way I was getting her attention back, especially not with something as boring as food.
Now? I can generally get her attention back pretty easily. It’s bloody amazing. She’s more proactive — half the time, if she sees something that makes her wiggy, she sits down and looks at me. SHE SITS DOWN ON HER OWN AND LOOKS AT ME. Do you have ANY idea how amazing that is?
I honestly don’t believe that any reactive dog is “cured” — reactive is reactive is reactive, and Justice will always have a much lower trigger than any other dog. The goal is not to fix the dog, the goal is to manage the dog, teach her coping skills, help her gain confidence, and convincing her to take her cues from me, rather than going apeshit at the first sign of trouble. I’m not expecting a dog who thinks other dogs are omg awesome. I just want to be able to walk her in dog-infested areas without her scaring the hell out of people.
Tonight, they brought in a new dog from the foster that my trainer works with. He was right wiggy, and wasn’t a part of the class — he sat in the back of the class with his foster mum and they worked on getting his attention at all, which meant it was a GREAT distraction for us. Justice was definitely concerned about that dog back there, with the barking and the whining and the noises and the squeaky toys and holy crap WHAT IS HAPPENING BACK THERE?
And she was fantastic. She had a few moments of “no, I can’t handle this, I need to know what’s going on” but wow, she came back super fast, merely barked or growled a little, as opposed to degrading into the vicious snarling that sounds like she’d like to eat your face, and recovered so fast it was amazing.
One of the exercises we did involved having Justice in a “lazy down” (ie, half on her side, as opposed to a normal down that she could spring up from at any moment) while the other (reactive) dog did figure eights around us. She was AWESOME. At one point, the other dog even lunged at her, and she stayed put and just accepted more treats from me — and that right there is an excellent way of judging her stress levels… when Justice is REALLY stressed, she won’t accept food.
Anyway, this class is a godsend. I’m kind of thinking I should take it again, just to get more practice with more dogs. Our last class involves going to Trout Lake. This should be fun.
Oh, and my instructor is super impressed with Justice’s “heel” command — she’s got a hilarious “bounce into position” where she’s so close to my leg she’s practically attached, and unlike many dogs, has a very good idea of where her rear end is. Her heel position is SO good, I’m having a hard time teaching her a “front” (ie, sit in front of me facing me.) She slides around to my side instead. Anyway, so we’re considering doing Rally-O, which I think would be super awesome, especially since she’s getting so much better at handling other dogs on leash. (And novice rally-o is all done on leash.)
Anyway, totally excited. Totally happy. And totally proud of my little girl.
I also can’t believe how stupid some people are when approaching strange dogs. When I lived in Montreal, my roommates and I had a Rottweiler/lab cross. She was a very sweet dog, but one time a strange woman asked to pet her, and then leaned down and kissed the dog on the nose. The dog then snapped at her. It was kind of embarrassing at the time, but on the other hand, it was just pain stupid on her part. I can’t believe she stuck her nose in some strange dog’s face. I sometimes tell non dog owners not to do that. If you don’t know the dog really, really well, don’t invade his/her personal space, especially around the face.
SHE SITS DOWN ON HER OWN AND LOOKS AT ME. Do you have ANY idea how amazing that is?
Yes, yes I do. It’s bloody fucking fantastic. Yay Justice!
I wonder if I should take the class with Maia. She’s not reactive to other dogs but maybe just cementing the coping skills will help with her people reactivity. Hmm.
Honestly, that wouldn’t be a bad idea. It’s not quite designed to work on the human distraction, but every dog wandering by in class has a human attached to them, so that would certainly help. But more importantly, the “focus on me even when there’s weird shit going on” is invaluable… for just about any type of training, really.
I think I’m going to take a rally-o class next. I definitely want to do more agility, but the intensity of dogs running might be a bit too much for her right now — rally-o is nice and calm and slow-paced and Justice’s “get into heel position” is hilarious to watch. :)
Oh, and I ran into Dana at the end of my class — we chatted a bit about the woman who spoke to me at the agility course. The dog she “cured” bit Dana the other day. *snort* Dana also suggested a pinch collar cover to keep people from thinking I’m the devil for *gasp* using corrections. This is brilliant, and I’m totally going to pick one up.
That’s awesome that you’re having such great success with Justice in this program!! YAY!
And yes, the general public can be so stupid and reckless with strange dogs. Their intentions are good, but when you’ve got a freaked out animal on the other end of the leash, it’s all about what’s good for the animal, not what’s going to make the person feel all warm and fuzzy. When I’m dog walking for the shelter, we wear fluorescent vests with “Animal Shelter Dog Walker” on them and give strict instructions to anyone we come across to give us a wide berth and to not engage the dog in any manner.
I’m not sure how your agility classes were structured but I can tell you that there is very little running in mine so far! Each dog goes up, one by one, to do the activity. There was a little running doing the tunnel but you can move to the very end of the facility if you want when it’s not your turn. Not that I don’t think Rally-O is an awesome idea for you and Justice, and it’s something I want to do with Maia as well, but doing agility in Dana’s class may not be out of Justice’s capabilities.
Yeah, the class we did, all of the dogs worked at the same time, so occasionally there would be dogs moving toward Justice — which kinda freaks her out. :)
Definitely a thought, though! Heck, maybe we’ll just do it all. :)