Having laid a track for someone else, I went straight back to the car to get Amika ready to go. I’d already laid out the gear. There was a quick discussion about a missing article flag on the track I’d just lait (T4 requires 3 articles on the track, I’d only picked up flags and laid for 2). It was decided I’d toss something in from the hide when I went back. And that was all the break that I had!

Amika was remarkably good coming out of the car. Probably the hay fever had taken a little of the fire out of her, so she didn’t go all out trying to greet the judge and steward. And the start was a few metres from the car and the road. She had the usual burning desire to do the start at a flat out run, but she has learnt to try to restrain herself in a sit while I transfer the lead from collar to harness. She also put her nose on the start article, which certainly doesn’t always happen. She’s generally already figured out that the human scent she’s just come across is the thing we’re after.

I was wearing my gloves the wrong way around for this track. This is because the friction had worn big holes through the fronts of the fingers over the past couple of weeks. This trick saved me some of the damage. But the sun had come out, and though not hot, it was slowing Amika down, along with her hay fever. I’m kind of glad of that, because it was still all I could do to keep up some of the time. She worded more methodically than usual. She didn’t have the trouble she’d had keeping on the track as she had at the last trial. She nailed a couple of corners.

What really blew me away, though, was her article indications. We accidentally had 3 articles on our track when there were supposed to be 2, but she found 2 of them. Not only that, but in both cases she stopped and picked them up before I even saw them. Not only that, but she turned around with them in her mouth! I chucked a party on the first one and gave her a drink, since she was really wanting one. I didn’t do the drink straight away on the second one, and she seemed to think she’d got the end article. She had trouble picking up a turn after this, so I got out the water in some shade. This is the first time I have seen her lay down with the water bowl between her feet while still on the track. She really was getting hot working that nose. Fortunately, when I suggested we get back “on track” she went right to it, found the corner with the newly moistened nose, and was shortly wagging at the track layer. I was stoked, and not just because people say that particular judge is a tough judge. We rocked- my lead handling has improved heaps and Amika just did everything right. Unfortunately we didn’t have a camera person, but here’s a video from the last track of an article and a drink:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzZoQ8CWS_I

I finished the morning by going back to that hide, shoving a rock in a glove and pitching it back down the last leg. Unfortunately that dog didn’t get a pass, but not for lack of articles! Then there was the lovely club lunch. It was nice seeing one of the members who has been away ill and whose dog passed a test with another handler that day. Great to hear the other presentations. But best of all was to come home with a happily tired dog, give her an antihistamine with some treats before nap time, and reflect on her change of name:
Grandwest Isura Joy TD

This year, we missed a big chunk of April / May due to her broken nail and my extremely persistent flu. I think that’s why I’ve been so determined and put in extra practice during the week: I’m fed up with these interruptions! Plus tracking is now way more fun. I have my management strategies worked out and Amika is just easier to work with than she was.

Trackwest Trial details:

Date: 10^th July 2010 (OK, so I’m a little behind on posting!)

Weather: patchy rain, light wind, temp between 5 and 15C.

Location: Gnangara Pine Plantation ( 31°47’41.49″S; 115°55’13.72″E)

Tracking test: #2

As a test 2 track is only ½ to 1h old, we had our run early. An interesting thing was that we had to walk in to the start. During training, usually I drive in close to avoid the chance of meeting another dog. I must change that- no wonder she is obsessed with finding a track as soon as she is out of the car. So there was a fair bit of pulling on the way and she was happy to have a drink (just a nose dunk) before we started!

I think we had 4 legs, but couldn’t swear to it! I got some bits of video thanks to our steward, but can’t tell which bit was which. This is what I remember:

There was no problem on the start: sniff article and straight on. Because of the walk in she didn’t take off like a rocket and I was able to pocket the start article. She did OK and we found the first turn without much drama, though she did overshoot more than usual. The second leg was along a sand track. She wasn’t as certain as she has been in practice, but she stayed pretty much on. Unfortunately, she went right over article #1. Our judge thought she indicated, but I didn’t see it (though I did see the article and it had me worried).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m-ji8FrHsA

Turn 2 was pretty good, though I think she overshot the corner and then ended up at the end of leg #3 off to the right. Oh, and I didn’t even notice the kangaroos, and Amika didn’t spare them much attention either. She did, however, nail her article! She picked it up and turned towards me. At this point I offered her a drink, which she was happy to have. She was tired enough that I didn’t have to hold her back, but she didn’t hesitate when I asked her to track again. This time I think she diverged from the track quite a bit, and she overshot the corner a bit, but way to the right of the track.

A meaner judge may have failed us, but Amika certainly was working the entire time. Some scent had gotten caught in some grass trees the other side of the track that formed leg #4, and I had to go in and un-tangle the lead before backing up. Once she hit the sand track again, she was able to pick up stronger scent and made that left turn. We walked past the judge at the T intersection and continued down the last leg to our known tracklayer.

This track seemed harder for Amika than usual. We’ve trained the length, we’ve been in similar locations in the pines. I think the factor that changed was the weather. Ideal conditions for holding scent: high humidity, little wind, lowish temperature. This hasn’t been the case for most of the season (we’ve had an extremely dry winter). The ground has been damp and even wet, but the air has been dry. We really haven’t been out in the rain and humidity like this since last year. Also, I have tended to lay closer to 30min old tracks recently. A book I read suggested that there is a phase in which the track’s changing properties make it confusing as well. The author seemed to think this was (depending on conditions) about 45min. Possibly this was at work as well.

I think what happened was that there was a lot of scent around, but it was patchy, which confused her. She tends to track to the fringes and back, and without the drier conditions much more scent had pooled here and there in odd patterns. Hopefully we can do some more humid weather tracking before I enter for Test 3 to get our TD title.

It was great to hear our judge say “you passed!” at the end. I was really pleased with how Amika and I worked the track. To round it all off, the club laid on a Christmas in July lunch in the pines. So satisfaction, good food and company to round out the day. And the smile says it all, really.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j8aVgXwz5M

This year, as mentioned before, Amika seems to have settled down a bit and is easier to work with. It began to happen at the end of last year, but it is dramatically different coming back after the summer break. She can focus on me, she can restrain herself enough to wait for things to be done. But there are still limits. I put her harness on in the car, and ignore the old school (“it must be done this way”) trackers. It is just about impossible to get a harness on a 30kg dog that is spinning in circles and lunging at the start flag!

On about our third tracking practice outing I passed a man out for a walk with his dogs as I walked back from the end of the track. The three dogs were pitbull types, but they were well behaved and sticking pretty close to their guy. The track was a big arc that looped back to the car, and the man was heading the way I’d come, so I knew there might be some dog conflict. I went and spoke to him, letting him know that I was going to be following the stakes with bits of tape on with my dog and that if any of his dogs picked up a sock, to just put it back where they’d got it. So my articles might end up contaminated and not quite where I’d put them, though he assured me that his dogs wouldn’t mess with them.

I let the track age to 30 minutes, hoping the guy would clear off. If I hadn’t needed to meet a quarantine officer at the airport and pick up a falcon, I’d have aged it longer! Amika was ready, harnessed up and wearing her “This dog is busy, do not disturb” vest. I was ready with my gloves on and tracking lead gathered. As usual, she had the sniff and pee ritual next to the car and we headed for the start. And who should be crossing the oval at right angles to my first leg? Yep, the guy and his dogs. Fortunately they were more than 100 metres out, and the guy couldn’t help but notice the loony shepherd barking and pulling in his direction. She gets excited on the start anyway, but having dogs out there as well, she couldn’t contain herself. It was a little trickier than usual getting the lead from collar to harness.

Once they were at least 50m clear of the track I let Amika start. She put her nose down between looking at them, but she is so focussed on a track. When her head came up for the dogs, I held her back, when her head went down to the track I allowed her to move forward. Once we’d covered the first 20m (and the well behaved pitties grew steadily more distant) she was sucked into the track. She DID check out their cross tracks throughout the track, but stayed committed to my scent. She even picked up a couple of articles without too much verbal prodding from me. And the other dogs had left them alone. I was thrilled to see how well she performed in the face of such a huge distraction.

Amika at 6 weeks old

Those who have followed the blog may recall that I started with an over-excitable puppy, graduated to an out of control teen-wolf and had a horrific conditioned emotional response (CER) stitched on by an incompetent dog trainer. And all before Amika was 1 1/2 years old. Falling in a hole for a year included, it has taken me until the beginning of this year at just over 3 years old to get back to “excitable” again.

I’ve had a tremendous amount of help and encouragement from the online reactive dog communities. I’ve also learnt a ton from some great books on the subject. And I have practised. The things that helped the most in the past year are a) joining the class so I have a regular ‘controlled dog’ practice session each week b) Chinese herbs and c) restored personal confidence and persistence.

In Feb. I went on holiday and had to leave Amika in kennels. Very not-good, but I could find no other workable option (cancelling holiday not an option!) I went to a local holistic vet who put Amika on “Xiao Yao San” and some other herbal formulas to help in general and with kennelling. We also switched foods for more ‘cooling’ ones. I remember the vet saying “Xiao Yao San” had “sedating” properties. Yeah, it sure did initially! It almost seemed to depress her. So I’m not sure if it helped or hindered the trauma of the kennels.

The day I got back and picked up my (now emaciated and reluctant-to-eat) girl, I decided to “just do it”. The next day we started short suburban walks again after a hiatus of over a year. Lots of management and distraction got us through. As she came out of the stupor of whatever the kennels had done (gradual over two weeks) the walk routine was already in place. I figured if she was already as flooded as she could be, I may as well push past it. She was still on her Chinese ‘drugs’ through this time, and I noticed that before we went away there was a diminished intensity to her reactions to things and general excitability.

Amika having a snooze

I stopped putting herbs in Amika’s food at the beginning of April. They seemed not to be doing much and she was doing lots better. It seems like the herbs showed her how to be relaxed, and once she got that they weren’t needed. Classes were going well, and tracking was starting. With these and walks and runs at the park, she seemed more at ease with the world. I kept noticing and keep noticing the lack of desperation and anxiety in her reactive outbursts. We even went to a sheep herding trial, and she did good!

My next target is to get her more comfortable working with other dogs around. She’s showing good signs of this already (more in next post). What I dearly wanted from her last year was proximity to other dogs, and it just wasn’t working. Now that I have been trained, and her focus has improved, I can start bringing that in as part of our work. It will start as brief trips into class followed by ‘switching off’ further out. Duration, it must be remembered, is an additional criterion!

Note the audience. Apparently shredding things is way less fun if nobody is watching.

On the training front, we’ve taken a few steps back. I was sick for about a month (between a flu virus that kept coming back and an attack of strep throat). This kept us away from both reactive dog class and tracking. We’ve been back at it for a couple weeks now.

Tracking is going along really well and we’re entered for a trial (TD2) on 10/7/01. Last week back at class I just had to get her on the mat and shovel food until there wasn’t any left. This week was way better. Kept treat value super high and started with very high rate of reinforcement and was able to slow it down during the class. Interesting to note is that she has lost the ‘angst’ from her reactive outbursts. More on that later.

Last weekend, Amika chased a cat in the back yard. The little sod was stalking my hawk (who was inside her aviary, thank goodness) in broad daylight and saw the people and the dog and ignored them! Amika shot in after it as soon as she saw it, and went around the back of the aviaries where she’s not usually allowed. She tumbled the cat but it made good its escape. Amika however, ended up with a hole in a knee and a broken claw.

The knee was superficial enough for a band-aid type dressing and has healed well. The claw (the outer keratin sheath) came off at the first change of bandage a couple of days later. Given that the pulp or quick of the nail is attached to the toe bone, I ended up spending $200 for the vet to rebandage and send me home with antibiotics. I was furious with the way they treated her. I put the first bandage on her un-restrained. They took her out the back for 15 minuted, tied her mouth shut and who knows what else. She came back into the consult room overheated / dehydrated with a mark across her muzzle. I really hate the way vets abuse trust.

The upshot is that we have a very bored dog. No walks and two weeks off class, and now we’ve missed tracking. It’ll be time for a bandage change later today (I am SO not taking her back to the vet to pay for another round of abuse). I am hoping that dog nails regrow faster than bird ones, but my guess is that she’ll be back to doing walks, classes and tracking wearing a bandage and a plastic sock for quite a while. I’m going to try to appreciate progress as it is happening. She certainly hasn’t learnt much by sitting around the house this week.

For a start, I was away overnight and arrived home to an enthusiastic greeting from Amika. She doesn’t like it when one of her people is out of reach, let alone out of sight or away from home. She doesn’t have serious separation anxiety, but she does miss us. I’m sure that she doesn’t sleep as well when we aren’t properly settled under her observation.

Today she didn’t get any exercise at all before it was time to go to class, and she was the most excited I’ve seen her since before the kennels. To top that, we were both in the car, and that really gets her thinking she’s in for a good time. Usually she settled and dozes on the long roads, but not this time: she was up circling and whining for half the trip.

So we had a bit of extra adrenaline, some no-exercise-yaya’s and someone else to keep track of. She did self calm pretty well after the initial singing session about being there. I got eye contact pretty much straight out of the car and didn’t put her back in the crate again until it was time to go home.

We dealt with the yaya’s (excess energy due to lack of exercise) by taking her into the greyhound run. She’d run out ahead, run back when I called, chase a Hurley, bring it back as we ran away… It was a short bit of off lead exercise, and well worth it. Exercise in this setting does drive up her arousal level, so we went back to the car for a drink, stopping on the mat on the way.

The virtual separation anxiety is something I’ve mentioned before. I think it is sheepdog gene related. Amika wants to make sure that all of her people are rounded up in one spot so she can keep and eye on them. If the flock splits, it makes her uncomfortable. This was pretty easy to manage simply by parking the man next to the mat. She knew where she’d left him, and he stayed there and was still there when she returned. Though having him out of reach did concern her.

The extra hype/ arousal stuff turned out not to be a huge issue. My dog has developed coping skills!!! She was more on edge than last week, which wasn’t great, but she showed excellent eye contact as a default and most of the time responded to cues first time. My partner observed that the trigger for her to begin reacting (mildly in all cases) was another dog walking towards us. Distance wasn’t a big factor at the distance at which we are working. That is a big change over last year, when distance was a big issue, as was ANY movement from the other dogs.

I worked on a couple of things tonight. We got in two people greetings, and I managed to do good at both. I got her to sit and acknowledge my existence for a split second before I gave her a release and let her close the gap. She still does the singing, lunge-ing idiot routine as people approach with eye contact, but it isn’t quite as intense. A few times on neighborhood walks, she’s actually almost ignored passers-by in favor of smells. This is a good thing.

I wanted to work BAT with the criteria of her doing a calming signal before running back to the mat (and the man- a big extra reward!) This got complicated because I’ve taught her eye contact really well, so she looks for a bit and then turns back and looks into my eyes. That on its own is incredibly amazing considering what I was up against last year. So I just went with eye contact some of the time.

Amika doesn’t offer clear calming signals very often. Tonight I missed marking and rewarding two beauties: a look-away and a lip-lick. I’m not beating myself up about it because I know I’ll get there eventually. I ended up just going with relative calm body posture (so subjective) and that fantastic eye contact. I did some reps of BAT: she sees the dogs, looks and is relatively relaxed and I mark and run with her to her mat. I also did CU-ish stuff with her offering look-at-that (LAT) and then eye contact for a treat.

Something different about the last few sessions is that she is definitely no longer hauling me towards the other dogs. Yes, she heads their way sniffing when I cue her to have a sniff (which is a combo calming signal, stress reducer and just plain fun for her). But the frenzy to close the distance seems to have gone. Tonight her focus was also with the other human whom she’d left by her mat, so her motivation to go away from the dogs was a little more pronounced. Even so, I’ve noticed she goes for mat breaks during rounds of people greetings, so she does seem to be using it as a self calming space and choosing to go there.

Towards the end of class, while the class participants were circling each other fairly closely, I approached with Amika. We got closer than we have been (about 30m ?), and even with a dog looping towards us Amika was able to cope without a reaction. We did some un-cued LAT reps and called it a very successful night.

I do need to lift my game as far as responding to her signals. Part of the problem is that I haven’t decided what I want to do. This is because I don’t know what Amika wants. She whines and kind of wants to bark at them, and I tell her not to. That’s not great, because I’m asking her to suppress behaviours, which is a lot of effort and isn’t going to support her in changing her emotional state.

I’m thinking that I will try clicking those signals and move away from the dogs. I think we’re at the stage where I might be able to really discern “I want more space” from “I wanna run wild with them”. We started with the latter when she was a pup, but now I think it really is the former. Probably both “space” and “play” are forms of stress relief from social interaction anyway. I’m also going to try to capture some calming signals and put them on cue. Easier said than done, but I have made a start on “stretch”.

I hadn’t intended to give her the summer off, but that’s sort of what happened. Between my lack of enthusiasm some days, very hot weather and general “other stuff” she hasn’t been back for two months or so. We finally had a break from the horrible hot weather today, and I was determined to get back again.

In the meantime, we have been working on stuff:

Through January I was taking her out for a run almost daily, plus doing clicker training stuff at home. The run at our secluded park always begins with some heeling work.  I was using food, but then found toys were more motivating for her. I also started walking her to different areas adjoining the park and practicing loose leash walking.

The beginning of February was the annual holiday for 11 days. I got her onto some Chinese herbs and homeopathic stuff before leaving her at the kennels. I also fattened her up some since they had trouble feeding her last year. She came home skin and bones with almost no interest in food. Now, 3 weeks on, she is approaching normal food motivation. It took 3 full days for her ‘happy’ to come back too. The herbs are powerful things, and I think part of her lack of appetite may be a ‘don’t care’ thing related to them. But she also just flat did not cope. I’m not sure what I’ll do next year, but don’t think I’ll go back to that kennel.

Back at home, I decided to push the envelope. Amika had a nice restful night at home before I took her out on the street. I haven’t taken her on a neighborhood walk in about a year, I think. She gets hyped so quickly and I have not had the emotional stability to ‘deal’ with her having an outburst. For some reason that’s changed, and almost every day we go for a walk or two around the suburban streets.

We started short and have graduated to going around a whole block and a bit. The weather hasn’t helped this endeavor, but I’ve just done it anyway. She still gets more anxious about night walks, so have to make sure we don’t overdo them. And since she had no interest in food that first week, I take a pocketful of treats and the rest of the time have focused on building toy drive, and used “go sniff” as a reward. Yes, there have been a few dogs. I just keep on going and reward alternative behaviours (the non-reactive ones).

Back at class, I didn’t know what to expect. One thing I learnt a long time ago abut animal training (and life!) is that the less expectations you have, the more miraculous the outcome. As soon as you form ‘expectations’ of your learner’s performance, you will be disappointed. I still do this… but not tonight.

I did the standard thing you do after a break: went “back to kindergarten”. All the criteria were low, the rate and quality of reinforcement was high. I had one set of behaviours in mind based on what I learned on the Caterpillar Dogs group. However it wasn’t’ formal or scientific- I was very relaxed about it.

On arrival, she reacted to a distant dog while still in the crate. I was at the back of the car getting gear, so I was able to open the other door of the crate, hold her harness and help her into a down. I have been trying Dr. Dunbar’s idea of being a broken record in certain situations where she can’t think, so it was “down, down, down..” and gradually she did, and I gave her some dinner-on-a-spoon as a reward. This dinner had mackerel mixed in, and that got her attention. She was able to self-calm pretty well after that.

I put her back in her crate once. That was just after getting her out the first time, since she wanted to react at distant dogs. After that it was all mat work. Our mat work is pretty shoddy at the moment, since I haven’t revisited it in months, but she still knows the drill. We moved out onto the oval, and other than some over-the-top greetings of people, she was pretty focused. I think this has improved as a direct result of the stuff I have been doing the past couple of months.

We headed out onto the edge of the oval with the mat and the container of dinner-with-a-spoon. I also had some new toys: Hurleys made by West Paw Designs. These are near indestructable floating, throwing and chewing on things.  She loves them. The pattern was this:

• Start on mat in relatively relaxed position, reward eye contact and relaxation.
• Walk on loose lead while having a sniff then sit by me and look at other dogs calmly- click.
• The reward is to run back to the mat and get food.

I also played with the hurleys a couple of times. To start out, she wasn’t that interested. As a reward for tugging with me a bit, I sent her to sniff. At the end of the session, I used the extension on her lead and did the whole sequence of tug, throw, retrieve, tug, throw… Also, when on the mat, I asked for “tummy scratch” a couple of times and got happy, relatively relaxed responses. She wasn’t snapping back to attention after, but I kept it brief. That seemed to calm her, and she just generally offered ‘relaxing’ on the mat in order to earn not only treats but another round of “go sniff” and heading towards the other dogs.

Amika did bark a few times. Mostly it was pure happy-excitement. On a couple of occasions other dogs got a bit too close but the reactions were pretty small and short lived. She’s getting much better at calming herself down. Part of that is the herbs, but she is also learning. We didn’t get particularly close, but I was thrilled with her level of comfort. She still breathed harder than normal- this IS hard work for her- but she left the oval more relaxed than she arrived!

On the way home, I thought about stuff. One thing I have known about for a while, but not really taken in as a belief, is that you need to let their emotions lead you in order to gain trust and build confidence. I haven’t thought of it in quite that way before, and mostly it has been just an ‘out there’ fact. I’m happy to feel that I’ve internalised that some more. I’ll be trying to use that more with my birds as well.

I’ve posted before about wanting to push to the boundaries which makes her fail. That mindset comes from just looking at coarse / big behaviours. Is she reacting? No- push closer. Still not? Even closer… until she fails and practices the same old unwanted behaviour. The stuff I’ve read says this isn’t a good way to do things. If, however, you focus on the fine detail stuff that just relates to emotional state, you get a whole new “edge” that is further out than the big barking display. Happy ears? Yes. Move closer. Still happy ears? NO! There’s the new edge- we’ve failed in keeping her 100% comfortable, but we’re still several steps away from practicing the bark / lunge mess. We haven’t lost ground by driving her adrenaline up a lot, and she hasn’t added practice to the old pattern.

I’m going to concentrate on Amika’s new edge, honoring where she says it is, and try, so very hard, not to push her beyond it. The next thing I need to believe in / internalise is that the distance she needs will shrink without me pushing it.

Most people’s default behaviours are things like yelling at their dog, jerking the lead or tightening it. These things will make your dog feel worse and react more. Many, many of us find it difficult to behave differently, even when we know our habits are making the situation worse.

>> The best thing I can suggest is to PLAN exactly what
> you will do when the dog reacts. Rehearse that plan in your head, then go
> through the motions when your dog isn’t reacting, then take it on the road
> (class).
>
> Treat it as if you are an animal learning a new behaviour: expect that it will
> be a really rough approximation to start, give yourself praise (Jump up and
> down, eat chocolate, whatever floats your boat!) for anything close to what you
> are trying to do. Do small steps and ignore your “stuff-ups”.

And yes, clicker (positive reinforcement) training does work on people. Check out TAG Teach and do a search for it on YouTube.

Working with Amika

We got there, I set up crate and mat. She was excited well before we got there this time. To start out, I took her over to the greyhound run for some exercise. This is a laneway that runs the length of the property, filled with nice sand. It goes for over 100m. Rather than getting someone else in to call her back and forth, I just gave the “run!” cue repeatedly, between calling her back my way with a “c’mon!” So I mostly jogged in one direction, and turned to pretend to run the other way as she came past.  I probably covered about 30m and then doubled back to the gate we entered by, but Amika covered a lot more ground by running back and forth past me.

So this wore her out pleasantly, but hyped her up a bit. We headed back to the car through the car park. It was good to see that while focused on getting back to the car for a drink, she wasn’t too fussed about the dogs on the oval. Once recovered from fatigue, though, they became much more of a focus.

I did lots of in and out of car crate to mat, LAT dogs, GMAB / go sniff and reinforced lying in her crate with opening away from other dogs. I wasn’t very happy with her emotional state overall: she was edgy, wanted to go interact and not ‘happy’ to work. More like she was working with me under duress. Part of this would have been my mood- I wasn’t able to be particularly fun and upbeat.

She did offer lots of good eye contact, and only had one partial reactive episode when someone popped out from between cars way too close, and walking towards us. I dragged her back to the car for a break when that happened (no point trying to -make- her stay in soft crate, that’s counter to what I’m trying to do!) I brought a frozen kong for her to work on during breaks (gave her several) but she seemed to feel pressured to eat it NOW, and get it done so she could get on with stuff. The fact that it was a slow process just seemed to cause frustration, which I saw a lot of during the evening. Patience isn’t her strong point, and she seemed to have less than usual.

Though we were able to work in a fair bit closer to the action in short bursts, I am feeling frustrated that we seem to be stuck at this ‘level’. We aren’t able to be close enough to interact with the class, and it doesn’t feel like we are making progress as far as decreasing distance. Distance seems to be dependent on her frame of mind, rather than anything we are doing, but that could be in my head.

Moods

I was thinking about the ‘frame of mind’ thing last night after class. I find that many animals are complicated people, and Amika seems to be one of the more complex ones I know. She is a pushy bitch, wanting her own way NOW. She is easily aroused, and seems to want to get into an aroused state (adrenaline junkie). She is sensitive to my frame of mind over a longer time frame, and is currently suffering from stress due to my moodiness (I’ve taken on too much work= depression / anxiety). I also think I’m seeing a pattern of her stress leading to allergy flare-up, with resulting dullness of mind. To top this, I have been doing less stuff with her and her brain hasn’t had enough consistent exercise and there isn’t much of a routine in our days.

I’m floundering a bit, but am aware that my state of mind has a big influence over my dog (and of course, me!) I’ll be on the mend over the next few weeks. It will be interesting to note how Amika responds to changes in my state of mind, and see if the allergies disappear again.

Class progress

The actual class had several people and dogs in it last night (good to see!) and they are all starting mat work, with some able to so so in fairly close proximity in the pens. I’m really happy to see CU working well for them. I’m still hanging out for more “Night Three” stuff. But since I do feel that we are stuck and not making progress to getting closer, we wouldn’t be ready to join in anyway!

Behaviour Adjustment Training

I may try to tee up some BAT sessions. Assuming that I can make moving away rewarding for Amika, this may be a way of explaining to her what behaviours “work” in proximity to dogs. Right now, her pattern is to want to close the distance, get frustrated and fly right out of her mind. Apparently this gets rewarded by the “rush” of adrenaline.

One hitch that I have with Amika is that I have trouble getting her to move with me at the best of times. I keep working on it, but it is always an uphill battle to get Amika to stay interested in / connected with me. This brings me to: how am I going to be able to read (and reward) good body language if she is pulling ahead to check out that other dog? I can try to heel towards to other dog, and then turn and play before she looses focus on me, but then I’m not rewarding a new instance of behaviour. BAT (from what I understand) works best if your animal moves with you, you stop, they give a calming signal, you reward with distance / play. Maybe I just need to set up BAT with a big mirror?! Then I reward when I see the other dog do something good.