Reactive dog classes 5 – 7 and life…

This is a catch-up post. Life is always complicated and hectic in October- a busy time in terms of work, volunteer time and orphaned falcons et al.

Reactive dog class 5: 22/9/09

After having a good rant about how we should be our dog’s advocates and stand up for ourselves, I got ‘done’. I’m relieved to read tonight in “Bones Would Rain from the Sky” by Suzanne Clothier that following authority despite misgivings is a thoroughly human trait. If a ‘teacher’ is asked to give a ‘student’ (really an actor!) electric shocks by a scientific researcher 60-85% will zap the heck out of the student as per instruction. This is from some studies that are cited in the book.

So there I was, doing my own thing as I had planned. I had brought Amika’s mat along and was determined to do stuff with her outside of class if needed. So we were moving closer and further and stopping on the mat for treats. But when our instructor said “alright, in you come” I obligingly went right into the pen with Amika- barking and lunging as I knew she would at that proximity. There are three ‘runs’ made of wire fencing. They are side-by-side with a walk space between each. I unclipped her and watched her run the fence barking at the dog two runs over. A mere7 or 8 paces away.

Here is what I saw: over-excitement that did not abate, quickly rising body temperature as a result which quickly tired her out so that barking and speed reduced. A ball was tossed in her direction a few times, as were treats. People moved outside and chatted to her. She responde to movement and briefly redirected her arousal onto the ball (pick it up and shake). It took several minutes after the dog left the other run and walked away for her to calm enough to notice the dropped food. She consumed it in an intense, must sniff the grass sort of way.

I was upset. I knew what would happen, and I let it happen anyway. Once I was there, I considered saying “nope, we’re out of here” but then thought- no, I’ll give this idea a proper go. I had difficulty not crying then and there. Once Amika had somewhat regained cognitive ability, I took her back to the car for much needed drink and break. And tried to calm down myself.

The trainer came back from working with another dog. She said she had seen good stuff- progress. I hate it when I cry, but I did. But I was able to say that I wasn’t happy with how it had gone and why. Is seems that my perception of “stress” is different to the trainer’s. What she saw was a dog that calmed down, was able to play a bit and was not unduly stressed. We agreed to disagree. And I give full, top points to our trainer here- to have someone blubbing at you and saying “I think you are wrong about this” and say “that’s OK” shows a lot more maturity than you get from the average person. I am so very grateful for that!

I went home feeling rather foolish (after the big words on a forum about how I should act, and then doing just what I said I shouldn’t do!) and guilty for putting my dog in a situation where she was set up for failure. But I did get over it relatively quickly. Amika was a little high but was apparently recovered from the stress hormones within a day. She was nowhere near that extreme she had when she was flooded.

The Show 28-30/9/09

( Happy 3rd Birthday Amika – 28/9/09 )

She saw the inside of the pavillion (shed) when I set up a few days prior, and even went nose to nose with a hand reared lamb. Lots of barking and wanting to run up to everything and everyone. She was either in the crate in the van, in the pen where I was setting up stuff or on lead in between. A couple of the helper kids wanted to meet her, and one even took her outside on lead for a pee. Given she was on the front attach harness and the kid had handled calves, it was all good. And Amkika was very well behaved, if a bit excited.

The lamb was funny- from the crate she barked as if it were a dog. So I picked it up and let her sniff its butt through the wire. “Huh? Smells interesting.” Then the manager (Dad to the lamb) said, turn its face to her, so I did. Sniff- bark, bark, bark! So I took pitty on the lamb’s eardrums, took it away and let it totter after Dad to see if he was handing out bottles of milk. It didn’t seem too upset.

Another encounter, which probably gives insight into my evil side, was as we were leaving. Past the pen of lambs, whom she sniffed at and barked at, towards the door and the van. But before the door is a stall. In the stall is Norton. At this time, he was laying down quietly chewing his cud, as 3 ton Brahman bulls often do. Amika hadn’t noticed him, so I veered in that direction and pointed hime out “who’s that?” Initially, she followed the nose to the sweetish, fermenting grass scent, and then her eyes caught up. First a pull forwards, then a startled stop, and then backing up a few steps while barking. Yep, I’m just mean, I laughed. I didn’t stick around, as I didn’t want to upset the big boy’s digestion, and I didn’t want Amkia to keep barking. I figure the best thing to do in such stressful, mind blowing situations is for me to just act as if “yeah, whatever, no big deal” and keep moving steadily and calmly.

Given that we’d be out for 9 hours each of the three days we were displaying birds, I arranged to keep Amika in a little cubby run at the back of the pavillion, out of sight of the public. I took along a frozen stuffed kong and a meaty bone on each of the first two days. The third day, I asked my Mom to drive to our place and let her out for a while. (I do not trust my fencing or my neighbours with Amika’s safety, and I don’t trust Amika with the safety of Chook or the free range ginnea pigs.) This was a compromise- it was too much to ask Mom to drive out each day, too much to ask if she could stay at their house and I just wasn’t going to board her. It was hard on her to be left locked up with all sorts of stuff going on (she could hear and smell it all around). But she was safe, and her bladder wasn’t going to explode. It was a bit stressful, and she barked a fair bit, but all in all handled it very well.

Thinking about arousal

The Show did give me pause for reflection. In one context, I am greatly upset by my dog’s agitation. In another situation, I am OK with it- to the point of setting her up for a surprise! This is a distinction that I make on that “gut instinct” level. So in reflecting, I am using my intelect to pose questions to my ‘gut’ to find out how and why these situations differ.

All that I can verbalise at this point is that it is in the quality of her response. Are we jumping out of the plane for fun, knowing that we have a parachute strapped on, or are we being thrown – for all we know – to our death? The physiological response is very, very similar. The emotional experience is far, far different.

From what I can tell, with the big, wide world and people, Amika is just under-socialised. New stuff is just exciting, and she’s an excitable dog. With dogs, she was given a very bad Conditioned Emotional Response (CER). While I am counter-conditioning to restore a happy CER, I don’t want her to jump out of that plane with another dog. This seems to be why my instincts are screaming at me to keep her beyond that point at which she shows signs of arousal. It IS working – the quality of her response is not as frantic now, but cc/ds requires that she experience her ‘triggers’ at a distance that doesn’t call up aroused responses and old habits. We want to practice new ways of being around those old dogs.

Class 6: 6/10/09

We missed a week due to the Show. None of us needed or wanted more activity in our day! The following week, I still hadn’t quite recovered, but was determined to get my dog out of the house and do some good work with her.

We did more with the mat, playing GMAB and then open bar just for being on the mat. Played a bit of LAT. At one point, another dog was coming towards us, and she barked, but I just moved on and it was OK. I found that Amika was able to focus a little better on walking -with- me on lead which was nice.

I was happy with what we did, and I finished on a good note. I also quit a bit early rather than pressing on.

Class 7: 13/10/09

Interesting night. Happy excitement on arrival. Hard to get out of the crate (I don’t open the door until she is sitting and relatively quiet). Not much was happening when we arrived, so I just got out the mat, walked out across the oval and did CU stuff with the mat.

She hadn’t had a lot of exercise, so I made sure we moved fairly briskly, I asked for and got attention, which was rewarded with treats and a suggestion to go back to sniffing (Premak principle). I lowered my crieria and clicked (hey, I actually got the clicker out) for her just getting on the mat. As soon as I did, though, she would lay down (because that’s what dogs do on mats, as far as she knows).

There was a dog working on obedience stuff at the end of the long, narrow oval. Amika was OK with that until it headed in our direction and was moving around in an animated way on a long line. I just moved away. I also didn’t realise, at one point, that I was moving towards a dog walking along the track on the edge of the property (there are trees and it is darker under there as the sun goes down). Barking and lungeing were brief and not particularly intense. Amika’s walking -with- me was really good at times, and she offered heeling some of the time too.

Class started late and we had arrived a little early. As I arrived back at the car we had a visit from our trainer, who unfortunately got jumped all over. I have got to figure out a better way of managing Amika for this. We had a new student / dog and a regular with her dog who was going to work with her. I wanted to work on my own again. I put Amika in the car as class got under way, as they started at our end of the oval and were going to do paralell walking. Very soon, they moved off and I got Amika out again.

At this point, I thought I’d go back on the oval for a bit. But first, another drink for the dog, a bit more mat work and then… But then I realised that there were two gleaming brown eyes looking at me. Attentive but relaxed. Happy. “What do I do for the next treat?”. The anxious component was missing. Gone. It was an amazing 10 or so minutes in which we played mat, go sniff, look at that dog over there and even tug on the rope like mad and then drop it on command. An actual off switch game where you rev the dog up with play and then have a break, then play again.

For this blissful span of time, I had a dog who was happy to work with me. She was minimally concerned with the dogs on the oval, and we were just doing our thing (including looking at the dogs). This was quality time. I showered her with praise and played and gave her lots of treats. And I quit on a high note. I didn’t push it and make us go closer. She happily jumped into her crate and hoovered kibble.

Unfortunately, she did end up barking from the car for a while. I just had to chat with the people, and the blanket that blocked her view slid off the crate some time after I left. Not sure how that happened, but I was disappointed hearing her on the way back to the car. I need to get a bigger blanket so it won’t slip so easily. Oh well. -sigh-

Long drive: 15/10/09

Given the impending rent inspection and that I wanted to do something with the dog, I dragged her out to Bunbury. I had a meeting to go to, and figured we’d get some walks in. Which we did. We also need to practice that bit where the dog gets to stay in the car, no matter how she complains. It was a non-stop 2 hour trip each way.

There was a short pee break and drink with a quick sniff around when we arrived. Then I was gone for an hour or more. We then did a longer exploration of the little waterside park. There were very few people around, which was nice. We went for the longest walk after meeting part 2, just before hitting the road again.

Amika is getting fairly good about giving eye contact, though she still pulls with the excitement of all those smells. The front attach harness is pretty good. She got in a few small barks and bounces about a person some distance away, but figured out pretty quickly that they weren’t on offer and went back to sniffing all the fascinating smells.

The usual stuff: 15/10/09

Finally up to today. I realise that I need to get Amika back out into the world again. For more than a year, I kept her away from triggers. This was to reduce stress – hers and mine. In that time, I extricated myself from the burnout (depression and anxiety) that hit shortly before I came home with an 8 week old pup. She was my tipping point, my straw, and I am very grateful for that, because it was she who made me realize that I needed to deal. And I did. Now I just have to make it up to her.

So this morning Amika came along for errands. She’s done this many times before, just not as much lately. We do like the new van- it fits the big crate so a dog can stretch out if she needs to, and it stays cooler than the station wagon did. She had a bit to say about some of the people and things she saw, but no mad barking.

She was concerned a little by the guys installing shade sails on the frames at the shopping centre car park, but figured out they were OK. We took a short turn about the little park next to the library, which she found quite exciting. She saw some more people who didn’t pay her much attention. At the pet shop, she was so excited I left her in the car twice before she was quiet enough to be let out for a short walk around the edge of the car park (which we’ve done a couple of times, explaining the excitement).

This afternoon, we all (including my partner) went to our usual off leash spot. As usual, I get her to reorient when coming out of the car, and then practice some heeling. The difference today is that I did it without the lead, and she did really nicely. So I made it a really short session and then repeated it a bit later.

It was a warm day, so there was less flat out running. It was really nice for a while as the people sat in the shade and the dog came to join us with a stick to chew on. My partner commented on it – how calm and content she was. This lasted until she jumed up and went to the edge of the creek a metre away, looking intent and tense. There were people over there. They were walking together, and they could potentially greet a dog.

I was very pleased with Amika’s recalls today, and this instance was the best of them: despite seeing potential greet-ees, she came to me and got rewarded with lots of treats and praise. Unfortunately, she remained hypervigilant after that. I tried getting her to lie down and settle, and to some degree she calmed, but the anxiety component was still there. Interesting. She also did some very nice walking on lead on the way back to the car.

My, what a long post I’ve written..!