Last week, Justice & I completed our reactive dog class… and last night, we started Rally O. For the “what the fuck are you talking about” crowd, Rally O is short for Rally Obedience. It’s sort of a more “casual” obedience than traditional obedience, where a judge barks commands at you, and you’re barely allowed to communicate with your dog… Rally has a set course with signs that tell you what to do — sort of a cross between agility and obedience.
We decided to try it on the recommendation of my trainer who is extremely amused by Justice’s awesome heel — she BOUNCES into place, to the point of being totally unwilling to sit in front of me anymore (which is actually another necessary command, so we’ll have to work on that.) And because it’s a great “next step” to help Justice be more comfortable around other dogs.
She did pretty well last night. Not superb, superb would be if she was totally non-reactive, but I don’t have crazy high expectations there — but she was totally manageable, giving clear signs when she was on the verge of freaking out, always “came down” quickly, and while she won’t be trialling any time soon, I think it’s going to help a lot.
The way the class works is that there are 6 dogs (5 people, one man has two dogs) and we all have our little section of the room to work in (this works well for Justice, she & I can hang out in the back and not have another dog staring us down from 3 feet away… which makes her wiggy.) We might move Mel & Maia, the other team from our reactive dog class, to be in the back with us as Justice is pretty used to Maia (who’s a totally sweet little pit bull.) Shelagh demonstrates the move with Bailey, HER reactive pit bull (this is why I love Shelagh — she has a reactive dog! SHE KNOWS WHAT THIS IS LIKE!) gives us a few generic tips about how to teach it to your dog, if they don’t know how to do this already (there are a lot of commands that are pretty basic — like, sit-down-sit), lets us know common mistakes about it, etc, then lets us try it on our own while she gives each of us some individual attention to figure out how to teach it to our specific dog.
The only command we actually have to teach that’s new is a “Stand”. Which is odd, because I thought Justice actually had a stand already, but apparently it’s totally situational and she doesn’t know it from a sit in heel position. On the other hand, I absolutely love watching Justice trying to figure out what I’m asking with an (apparently) new command. Wow, you have no idea, do you? Stop jumping on me, you goof! Ok, start over.
At the end of the class, Shelagh puts together a basic course and we run the dogs through, one by one.
Because the facility is also used as a doggy daycare, there are several kennels in the back of the room. We tried popping Justice in there for a minute so I could walk the course without her… yeah, Justice isn’t really a “leave alone where she can’t see me in a strange place” kind of dog. Figuring she could probably just hop the kennel (she’s bouncy!), Shelagh waited with her. We hung out in there to attempt to destress her while other people ran THEIR course, and … yeah, maybe not a good idea. When she came out, she was totally discombobulated — I think that’s the herding dog in her, she wants to know where EVERYBODY IS AT ALL TIMES. Especially me, but ALSO THAT DOG AND THAT DOG AND THAT DOG AND HEY WHERE’S THAT GUY GOING?
And, because of this, she totally bombed while we were trying to run the course. Blowing me off completely, refusing to look anywhere near me, and because the judge (or in this case, Shelagh) follows behind you about 10 feet, Justice was in a constant state of MOM WHAT’S THAT LADY DOING? MOM SHE’S BEHIND US. MOM LOOK. LOOK. THERE’S A LADY BEHIND US. MOM. FIX. IT. MOOOOOM. OH HEY LOOK DOGS. MOM. LOOK. DOGS. aaah, pay attention to ME, jackass. To quote my favorite dog blog, more beatings, less love.
Soooo okay, we’ll have to work on that.
Still, she did pretty well, all things considered. She even decided that she’ll do a “lazy down” with just the verbal command, and occasionally without being asked. This is something we’ve been working on for a few weeks — it’s a down, with her hips flipped over on the side, instead of the super-alert down that she can pop up from in a heartbeat. It’s just a more relaxed position. Previously to tonight, I’ve always had to give her a poke in the hip. And she’d do it right away, with said poke, but it’s nice to not need the poke.
Now… to learn stand, from a sit in the heel position!
That’s great! Go Justice! I found with Maia that the more classes we had with the same dogs and people, the less she cared about them. Which doesn’t help with the trialling aspect but certainly does with training. :)
Yeah, she definitely gets used to certain dogs — by the end of our reactive class, she had no problem with Mel & Maia (who knew that was a common name for dogs?) so it was good that Shelagh brought in some dogs from previous classes… :)