Last night was the real test--all the dogs in the same room at the same time. Scary! I won't lie, I was nervous. I think I was more worried about the reactions of the other dogs though and not so much Lita. I know by now that on the scale of reactivity, Lita is on the lower half. Granted, we've done a LOT of work with her, but really she was never *that bad* to begin with. She never attacked, or barked viciously, or pulled us down. More often than not what we were getting was a pull in the opposite direction of the scary dog.
Anyway, we knew that last night would be interesting. One of our group did not make it to the class, but that still meant there were 3 other dogs in attendance. There were screens set up in the room so that the dogs could not see each other the entire time, but they were definitely aware of each other's presence. We each brought our dogs in and guided them to a position behind a screen--only one dog moved into or out of the room at a time. We then we told to basically just click and treat for *anything*--sitting still, sitting at all, downs, touches, looking at other dogs, ear flicks at barks, interest in the surroundings, no interest in surroundings, *anything*!!!! It was all about calming them down. Then they all went back to their cars for a break. After a few minutes they all came back in again (still one at a time) to a new position in the room--oh my, change! We calmed them down and took turns bringing one dog at a time out from behind their screen. This was a challenge to each individual dog (coming out from behind their protection) and to every other dog in the room (where'd HE come from, what's he gonna do?!). At one point, we brought Lita out from behind her screen and did a small circle in the room before heading back, there was another dog right in front of her about 10 feet away, instead of being concerned about the dog, Lita was more interested in the piece of hot dog that had been left behind about 2 feet in front of her. How awesome is that?!
We had no major outbursts from her. No lunging, no barking. Her mouth was rather "hard"--as in when I was giving her treats there were lots of nips because she was so nervous and wound up. I had to start just dropping the food on the ground, which I don't like doing. She was able to do a lot of interactions, we played tug, she sat and even performed downs, was able to do touch sometimes and was still very curious about the environment. And her exit was a dramatic one--playing with her beloved squeaky chicken and then carrying it all the way out to the car. Honestly, the hardest time that we had with her was just getting her in and out of the building--she's so excited that she's pulling and just trying to see everything. And being that she's a big girl (nearly 90 lbs!), she can be a bit hard to control, even with 2 leashes. We have to just keep shoving food in her face and trying to keep her attention, but it's hard. Real hard. And The Husband just informed me that he may be out of town for class in 2 weeks. I have no idea how I will handle this on my own. Guess we better start working on some more loose-leash walking ASAP!
All in all, thing went MUCH better than we could've expected. I think all of the other owners were pleased as well. I didn't really get to focus too much on the other dogs, but didn't see anything that concerned me greatly. In fact, in at least one case, I wondered why the dog was in the class in the first place.
Our homework this week includes playing the Look at That! game and... loose-leash walking! Hurrah! I am so excited about this class.
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