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”.

The main reason I didn’t get the degree of calm attention was a state of mind thing. As ever, we seem to be doing synchronised physiology. We have hayfever. Of course, in dogs this means itchy skin, but just like us they get fuzzy headed. As I’ve mentioned before, I think the antihistamines make her a bit dopey too (but at least she isn’t itchy).

Class part 1

I had trouble getting out the door (what did I say about fuzzy headed?) so we weren’t early. At least those extra two trips back into the house meant we had water and the big blanked to go over the crate in the car. I got her out with the usual choral whining, but she sat and stayed sitting while I clipped her up. She even turned back to me in a reasonable time once out (had to sniff grass first). Pretty good for a fuzz brain.

I’ve found that the best thing to do when we arrive is to take her on a sniffing expidition. She’s so excited just to be there and the sniffing helps her settle into that environment. I don’t let her tow me, and she was really good at moving with me tonight on the way out there. I didn’t need to do the ‘stop and wait for dog to notice owner’ routine. So she IS aware of me at some level. She also turns back to me when I call a fair amount of the time (this is a work in progress).

Having sniffed our way away from the area the other dogs were going to use, and seeing that some of the jitters were gone, I started asking for stuff. Earlier in the day, I showed Amika a new game in the back yard. We’d heel a short distance, then I’d say “turn!” in the same high voice I use for “run!” and use my body language to show her which way I was going to go. She thought that was a pretty good game. I tried it out (now on lead) and she ‘got it’ and came with me. So that one will work nicely for moving away from triggers once there is some more groundwork. I left it at that for tonight, as I had lots of other things to think of and work on.

While working up the back, I tried some BAT work (behavioural adjustment training) just a couple of times. Yes, I can see how this would work now. Basically, I walked Amika towards the dogs in the class, stopping before she would react. After seeing a lip lick or -something- calm, we turned and moved away as per the “turn!” but I didn’t use the cue or make it too exciting. Then we were back to doing other stuff for a bit at that slightly bigger distance.

Now, just sitting here writing this I’ve had a ‘duh!’ moment. The biggest excitement this evening was when our trainer came over to talk to us. “Oh boy, it’s my friend!!!!” says the dog. Ya know, using BAT with approaching the trainer as reward may be a really good thing. In this first instance, I -sort of- rewarded calmer behaviour, but there was a big distance and a conversation that needed having. So I allowed some pulling between asking for reinstatement of brain (stop, ask for eye contact, get it grudgingly after some seconds, go forward). To do BAT with this, I think I’d need to use a barrier so there isn’t so much ground to cover.

Amika the Star

It turns out my ISP had eaten an e-mail, and that class was learning about using mats CU style tonight. Could Amika demo? Oh, wow, my reactive dog class is using CU!! So the other dogs went back in cars for a bit while I managed Amika back down the oval to the car, collected mat (I’d been wondering how we were going to get past the other dogs to collect it) and moved towards the people. Oh, she was thrilled. A bunch of people looking at HER! Fortunately, they weren’t all clustered together, so she wasn’t sure who to apply her charms to first. That seemed to difuse the tension a bit.

I had her mat, which she did manage to notice after I squeaked and waggled it and bounced around a bit. “Oh, yeah, mat, calming down right now might be good.” And there in front of several people, she got on the mat, I clicked and she laid down to eat treats. She stayed there to eat treats. She stayed there while waiting for more treats. I released her to sniff and picked up the mat. Then when she noticed me again, I put the mat down and on she got for more treats. Then she stayed there while I backed up a few steps and then geve her another treat etc. I was really amazed at how good she was at being on the mat in such an aroused state with an audience.

Part 2

The demo over, the other people headed for cars to retrieve their mat and dog, and I headed up the oval again. We’ve got a second instructor / helper (they’re all volunteers btw) who came to help with Amika and greetings. After the first one, where Amika has trouble keeping her feet on the ground, she becomes a lot less aroused and more polite. She can also shift her focus off the person to other things.

The second half of class for Amika was being on the mat, interspersed with tugging (off switch),  sniffing and going over to say ‘hi’. She was really good with that. She was even able to stay on the mat while our person walked away and then came back! We also did a fair amount of LAT for the other dogs. We weren’t able to get true relaxation on the mat with all of the prior arousal and continuing activity. She did “tummy scratch” which is to roll on her side, but could only ‘not look’ briefly. I’m thinking now that it would be really good for me to choose to move another 20m out and specifically work on passive attention / relaxation for several minutes as a ‘break’.

Long skinny oval.

When I thought it was time to quit, I realised we had a dog we’d have to squeeze past. First, I made sure we didn’t do a direct approach, but came in on a tangent. Second, we got onto the dirt road at the edge of the oval, other side of trees. This made it fairly clear where we were going. Amika was pulling, and I accepted that mostly, just keeping a very short lead. Periodically, I stopped to get eye contact. I also body blocked by walking into her, pushing her shoulder with my thigh (she was on my left as we passed the dog on our right). I didn’t bother with food, and despite getting some barks from the dog (whose owner was moving him further away) Amika did not have a big reaction. I think a big part of it is that she knew that we were not going TO the other dog, but heading back to the car.

Putting Amika in the pressured situation wasn’t my first choice, but I was extremely pleased how well she did. She didn’t go berserk, and took treats as soon as we were past and calmed down rapidly. I let her have a drink, put her in the crate with treats and praise and covered her up.

As I was going to say goodbye to the others, I did some crate training. Amika has been barking a lot when I leave her in the car. She’s always had a tendency to have a tantrum about being left. At the moment, she waits a bit, then barks for a while and eventually (I guess) gives up. This doesn’t do her any good, so I’d like to get her out of the habit.

I left her in the covered crate, closing the car door, and walked off a few paces. I then returned, opened the door and gave more treats. Repeated that several times, increasing duration between visits. There was no barking. Then I went and said goodbye, but remembered I had some books to return. Went back to car. She was barking, but I think hearing one of the other dogs barking may have started that. I went and got the books (no treats) and left again, briefly. Since she was quiet I repeated the exercise (treat and leave) several times, again with more duration.

After returning stuff to the library and more chatting, I went back to a quiet car and gave Amika more treats before heading home. Nice finish to the night. I am just so happy with how she is doing and how well the class went (they commented on the dogs being less reactive while learning to be on mats). If the two new students practice mats at home, hopefull they’ll be able to get into some relaxation and games too.

The biggie for tonight- no lungeing (pulling, yes) and one or two wuffs, but no agitated barking. Yay.

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..!

Class tonight had a rocky start. Amika wanted to bark and lunge almost as soon as she got onto the oval. She’d already had some practice barking from the car on the way in (another dog was being walked 100m down the road) which may have been a factor. I had a little success calming her down and then another dog approached and she was just going straight to bonkers again. I put her back in the car at this stage, number one so she could regroup and number two so that I could chat to our instructor to change the setup a bit.

Either the break or the change in tactics did the trick. When I got her out again, I still had some barking / lungeing but she was still ‘operant’ for most of it. This is how I worked:

• Amika moves away and barks = I walk away from the dog she is trying to approach until she re-engages with me.
• Amika stays focussed = I move towards other dog in curves / zigzag while giving treats.

The aim was to bring her in close enough to be on the oval and do parallel walking. We did get bits of it here and there, but it was all pretty intense. It was interesting to note that while I walked with her on my left between me and the other dog, she was better than the other direction. I think this might be due to her turning her head in my direction (looking for treats) and seeing the dog more when I”m between them. This would cause her to cut across my path staring at the other dog and then reacting. This happened a few times and the last one I was able to keep her or get her back in position walking on my left without her going on to react.

Class finished up with the dogs down, well spaced apart. Amika and I were further out than others, but still kind of in the class. The other dogs were doing “roll over” and stuff, and Amika responded beautifully to her “tummy scratch” cue many times. She’d wiggle around in the grass and get patted for seconds at a time before needing to right herself to check out the action.

While the instructor walked her calm dog around the class we played lots of LAT. Lots and lots of LAT. Because he walks slowly, she was able to tolerate him moving around from this position (in a down with her back to class). Sometimes her look was cursory (yay!) others she looked a little longer, but still snapped back for the treat each time. Occasionally she stood and turned but went back into the down when asked. Her treat taking was a little hard at times, but not as rough as when she is really excited. So she was relatively comfortable. It was nice to end on this “good note”.

Here are two observations that I’ve made about dog proximity stuff. One is that she seems to calm herself in a down, as long as there is enough distance and not too much movement. The other is that she does better with increasing proximity if she is moving towards, rather than having the other dog moving. I was remembering this at the beginning of class when I was trying to get her brain back but the other dog kept coming closer. It was really obvious when I worked with the accredited trainer and her little dog back in January. Trying to keep Amika on her mat was tricky, but the trainer was able to get her a lot closer to the dog by circling her in on lead while the dog sat still.

In all of these training scenarios though, I find the people are pushing the dogs. Each trainer I have worked with has worked Amika outside her comfort zone and then asked for more. It is hard for me not to push as well, but also distressing to see Amika stressed. Of all these situations, the reactive dog class is the least stressful, but I still know she’s on the edge of reacting the entire time. If I can steal some time from  somewhere, I’d like to work outside the dog park as well. In any case, I think she did well tonight at class, and that she is learning a little bit, despite the stress. So I’m still very much looking forward to next week.

Class was getting underway when we arrived, and Amika was hyped just getting out of the car. Our trainer came to say ‘hi’ and got the full tilt Amika “eee!” greeting. We’ve been sending e-mail back and forth since last week and I like her approach to training dogs. One of the big stresses for me around experienced ‘dog people’ has been having to turn down advice or instructions and getting those disapproving looks and comments. I am a grade A wuss when it comes to even slight conflict with people. We’re now part of a class run by someone who works with the dogs as individuals / is flexible and is and open to new stuff. Phew, relief!!

I kind of expected Amika to be worse this week rather than better, but it is still frustrating to see. I gave her a break in the car after just a few minutes, as she was barking at the other dogs from the car park. After a couple minutes down time and a drink, she was a bit better.

The class wanted to practice walking on the road (like, taking the dog for a walk) so Amika and I had the oval mostly all to ourselves for a bit. Just walking with her, she had trouble doing basic stuff. I let her do lots of sniffing, and when she did start getting her brain back we did lots of “look at that” and “give me a break” (LAT and GMAB from Control Unleashed). I judged it was about time for another break so headed back to the car – as the class was headed in from their street walk. So she reacted a bit before I got her into the car. Of course, she protested once there, but not in an over-the-top manner.

Once the class was settled back on the oval (and the dogs were doing really well), I got Amika out again. This time, I brought out her dinner in an icecream container with the spoon. I stopped at the fence by the car park, and she barked at the class a few times, but was mostly attentive. When they moved further out, I moved to the edge of the oval and sat down. Amika was really good playing LAT for a while, but when the other dogs started moving around more, she did jump to her feet and bark. Each time, she calmed herself enough to come back, lie or sit, and get more dinner. So I was pushing it a bit. Some of the time she did great, other times she reacted. What is really good is that she isn’t throwing herself at the end of the leash. Her barking is excited, but not of the intensity that I remember in past circumstances.

Despite wanting to join in the class, I called it quits while we were ahead. She’d done well in difficult circumstances (extra adrenaline, lower threshold, whatever). On the way back to the car, I got some extremely attentive heeling. It seems that she had gotten more comfortable with the class behind us, since sausage was that good again. Back in the car, I had to put the blanket over her crate so she couldn’t see other dogs loading up, but this time she made a token complaint and settled. Tired dog, full belly, good night.

As a nice bonus, I’ve borrowed a dog book for the week, and got an idea on how to get calming signals from Amika: try pretending to cry. I’m laughing just thinking about it, but will certainly try turning on the water works and see what Amika does. Thanks Shelah, you’re a star! (I’ve been hanging out for more dog reading too!) I’ll return “Fight!” and loan my copy of “Control Unleashed” next week. Which I’m looking forward to, again.

Class was good in a number of ways. When Amika came out of the car, she reoriented on me – er, the sausages in my treat pouch might have had an influence – but still, it was good! She mostly sniffed at first, despite it being obvious we were in the company of dogs. It was only when we started approaching that she reacted, and only really once we had covered some distance. I read the sniffing as a sign not only of interesting smells but of stress. There was another new dog tonight, which made it hairier than when I visited last time, as that dog reacting was more likely to get others going.

One of the first things the trainer told me to do is to “take her space”. At first I didn’t have a clue what she was on about. Then she demonstrated and mentioned body-blocking. It was a bit much to go into why that wasn’t going to work so well for this team, but the trainer did acknowledge what I was saying about there being history, and would read the information form I had brought along (I didn’t get there early enough for it to happen before class).

There were actual moments of loose lead walking right at the start, but I found that we were too close, and I wasn’t able to allow Amika as much as a leash length. I had to keep a tight lead because we were close enough that reactions occurred many times. Despite this, she was able to respond to cues throughout. We did two exercises. The previously mentioned “prisoner’s walk” where people walk very slowly, slouched and parallel to other dogs and handlers. Then, in the same line-up, we were supposed to get our dogs sitting by our side while one dog / handler walked behind us at a distance, then move up the line to take our turn walking behind. This really was too much for Amika.

We did one turn and a half before I called the trainer over and said it was time to give Amika a water break. While we got water (I forgot water- I was pretty stressed getting out the door) I let her know that Amika had had enough class for the night and to her great credit, she said it was fine to quit early. She suggested a walk around the grounds further from the class, which we did a bit on the way back to the car. There was a bit more reacting going past the class and an outlying dog, but pretty good after.

I gave Amika a break in the car for a few minutes. She did protest not being able to see the action (blanket over crate) but settled a bit. I then got her out again, sat on the pine pole fence at the edge of the oval in front of the car, and spoon fed Amika her dinner from an ice cream container. In this setting, she did not react once. She sat at my feet, back to the class and did anything I asked. I also cued her to go sniff, but dinner was more interesting (this despite having consumed 4 sausages). I cued quite a few reps of LAT dog class. She was completely disinterested at that distance, and looking at them just to get her dinner- YAY!!!

Going to the reactive dog class and playing it by their rules to start out told me a lot about where we are at:

• Amika isn’t as ‘bad’ as I thought, but the bit of training outside the class after we quit really brought it home to me: correct distance is key.

• Another thing I picked up while trying to keep her ‘in line’ in the class was that any man-handling or pulling on collar made her worse- the front attachment on the harness was good. I had control, and with attachment to my belt was never worried about dropping a lead.

• The body blocking thing, as I know from experience, only frustrates Amika and makes her more excited. I do not want to put myself in her way. If she can’t choose to turn away, she is just way too close and I need to be responsible for keeping that distance.

I’ll be calling the trainer in the next couple of days to see if I can do some stuff on the fringes, and not participate in the whole class. I’d like to set up a ‘station’ with Amika’s mat and a chair on the sidelines, and start there to watch arrivals.  We’ll join in the prisoner’s walk, but any other exercises that are too close, we’re going to sit out at our station. I’ll need to check with the trainer on what is appropriate. Like: can we jog away or is that too provocative for the others? When I want to rejoin the class, do I need to give her a heads up? Basically I need to figure out the trainer’s boundaries and see how much CU she’s willing to tollerate.

We’re home now, and both of us are coming down from the stress. I guess I handled it pretty well – most of my stress was getting there. Amika is wiped out, but not in a desperate / fearful emotional space like she was after that ‘other trainer person’. I think the wrap-up (getting her out of the car again for dinner) was a good, good thing to end on. Also, my homework of getting Amika more comfortable going out and having walks has paid off. She re-orients when I say her name – even tonight after the class while walking and sniffing. That is huge. I’m looking forward to next week!

Today, as over the past couple of weeks, my partner came along. He makes me feel more confident because he is able to spot people and dogs off in the distance before they arrive. I’m usually so wrapped up in watching Amika that I don’t pay that much attention, plus I have sub-average eyesight.

I’ve improved in confidence in general (though have been having one of those sooky weeks) but have realised that I need to shake off a bad habit. This is, I actively avoid looking at distance, because it is an effort for me to pick things out. It’s a behaviour that has been punished out of me due to social pressures I guess. You look pretty stupid to other people when you are squinting into the distance and unable to percieve what they can easily see. To avoid looking less than perfect, I have avoided looking. “What’s that? Oh, I didn’t see that thing go by because I was looking at my feet.” Stupid, really, but that’s where it originates.

Today we did what we’ve been doing at the local spot. The difference was we had a longer walk from the picnic area to an unoccupied field on the lead. Amika did amazingly well on the harness, pulling very little except when she came across a scent she wanted to track. I had high value raw sausage treats to reward nice walking with.

The run was uneventful and fun. We practiced recalls in running games and Amika got lots of sniffing and some rolling in grass time. As with the local park, walking on lead after a run is somewhat easier most of the time. We stopped at a picnic table after Amika had a drink and practiced doing nothing, which is hard for this dog in a new-ish place, even when tired. I gave her a toy to mouth, used some of those calming signals ala Turid Rugaas and played a brief bit of Look At That game (from CU) with some people returning to a car. I think I need to go back and retrain LAT with a neutral object again, as it is seeming to hype her up. Overall, though, I think Amika was more settled in the environment than she was when we were going there last year.

On the way home, we had to stop to pick something up and ended up parked next to a paddock with a dog in it. Amika, despite being tired, proceeded to have a full blown episode in the car before we got the owner to bring her provocative (to Amika at least) dog inside. He got out again before we left, too, so I now have one tired and fried puppy. No outings for her tomorrow, so her stress levels can recover! I need to get another blanket into the car so that I can cover that crate next time and avoid that. It will be interesting to watch her stress levels and see how she recovers over the next couple of days.

I let her do lots of sniffing around. As my car has been un-drivable all week, she has been bored. I did nothing with her on Friday due to spending most of it in car hunt mode. REALLY bored.

In between sniffing, I just asked for simple stuff and we played LAT with neighbours and passers by. But mostly sniff time, while I read the local paper while standing in the sun.  When I was done, I clipped her onto the regular lead (attached under her belly and to my belt). I walked her in the drive for a bit, then the neighbour’s dog got let out on the other corner of our property.

Just as I had done on Thursday when she had been on the line, the chunk of raw sausage got popped into the gob. By the second or third bit, she was reorienting to me for a split second. That is to say, her attention was divided between the other dog and sausage. This is a very good sign.

Fortunately the neighbour dog is a wuss. When it sees Amika in full flight, it avoids the sidewalk in front of our house. In this case it went back into its front yard where it couldn’t be seen. Amika calmed down well. She did react with more excitement when someone went past on a bike because she was hyped (if loose, it would have been the silly greeting thing). She calmed down further as I started using handfulls of kibble to jackpot reorienting. And then Dion came home, zipping into the drive on his scooter for an extremely well behaved greeting. She bounced up a couple of times, but considering she had just calmed from a barking session, it was impressive.

Today there were not so many exciting passers by. People on bikes don’t seem to rate as particularly exciting. She did need to do quite a bit of LAT neighbour. I then did as yesterday and put her on lead and walked her around the drive. We popped out onto the sidewalk and saw more neighbours coming home, so back into the yard. She found that a bit much, as they could have had their dog with them. She got a sausage for reorient.

Then we did more walking in the drive focusing on attention to me. Another random sausage. Then we walked out onto the verge. She got to sniff the trees in front of our house and the other neighbour’s. We did the verge walking a couple of times and she did really well with it. She got random sausages because there wasn’t another dog around to reward her for, but it worked out good for getting her to focus on me.

The evening was rounded off later on with some silliness. I decided to shape her to sit on a chair. She had her thinking cap on and came up with a couple of really cute poses along the way.

So for a boring week, we have had some good training. I should be able to pick up the new car tomorrow, so we’ll be mobile again soon.

What I noticed today is that I am able to keep my cool when she reacts. Totally, completely not stressed about the dog going bonkers. I had no reactive episodes whatsoever. That’s, like, a first for me. There’s an element of detachment there (can’t be sharing her feelings and remain calm). But there is something else that is different about us, and me in particular. I can’t put my finger on the cause, but I’m very happy about it.

I got in some training while waiting for a track to age (before returning the track layer to the end of it). I got Amika out on lead next to the car to stretch her legs near ‘base camp’ where everyone hangs out between track activities. To my surprise, she wasn’t trying to haul me off to the nearest track. She barely had any of that head up, desperate to get there thing going. She did lots of sniffing around and I got her frizbee out so she could muck around with it (shaking it, dropping it, pawing it etc.) She was eve good about not jumping on our tracklayer (who was hanging out at my car because her hubby had hers). I think Amika was too distracted by the smells of the earth and her toy to spend enough time with her to get that far.

There were, however, other people at base camp with dogs. So once Amika spotted them I started cramming food into her. What was good was that they were at a distance where she didn’t completely loose it to start off. I was actually able to get her to reorient after a bit and throw treats in the air for her to catch. She was looking and doing some wooffing at the end of the lead wihthout getting that scary look or actually lungeing. Then someone walked a border collie past on the road, and it was too close. Fortunately, I had her lead attached to my belt, as she pulled so hard I lost my grip and she momentarily put me off ballance. I hauled her in again and stuck her neck between my legs. My theory here is that I want her body to be at an angle to the other dog, rather than straight on. Trying to cover her eyes in pointless and counterproductive – she knows it is there and she needs to see it.

She calmed down somewhat from that fairly quickly, then we had someone else head their dog straight towards us, so I called it quits (should have done that before the BC!) and put her back into the car. She continued to bark once the crate was covered, but I wasn’t fussed about her protests and she settled down quickly. She was pretty worn out.

My thought on working with other dogs around (at distance) at this stage is that somewhere along the line she is going to notice that I’m not stressed by the situation any more. As our bonds deepen, she may be able to take her calmness from me. That is, lean on my emotionally, look to me for what to do, trust me to sort it out etc. That’s a long ways off at this stage, but I’m going to keep visualising it, and keep working it at tracking.

After getting some clothing on, I went out and found only one of the dogs- the other must have gone over a fence. I was able to make friends with the frightened little dude and bring him in to the bathroom. He was rottie coloured black and tan with a white chest. Too small for a rott, maybe a staffy cross. Of about 15 cavies, none could be seen, and chook was a bit shaken for a few minutes. Later on, Dion found one dead young cavy, and the others have started to reapear. But they are spooked.

I left the dog in the bathroom, took Amika out for the first pee of the morning on lead and then crated her. She was fairly hyped because she could smell somebody. Given that I would have to wait for business hours to call the ranger, I decided to set up some training.

I put Amika’s mat in the kitchen, just inside the doorway from her crate in the hall. The other end of the kitchen opens into the laundry and bathroom. The bathroom door is in view from the kitchen. I loaded my treat pouch and donned a clicker. The poor dog in the bathroom alternated between gloomy silence, sniffing under the door, leaping at the walls, howling pitifully and yipping / barking to be let free. But wasn’t nearly as loud as Amika’s barking.

The first exercise I did was coming out of the crate. We’ve been working on this, so she did pretty good. I had to wait out whining a few times, but mostly she was able to calm herself by lying down. So the first step to coming out was a down, then a stay while I opened the crate door. When called “here” she comes to front. From there I started the “look at that” game (“LAT” the cue being “who’s'at?”).

Once Amika had LAT going, I lured her to her mat and she went into a down as she usually does. I was able to get her doing LAT rapid fire. At some point the dog in the bathroom made a noise or moved and Amika jumped up and started barking, which caused me to put her back in her crate and end the session. This happened I think three times, each time she’d have a barking session in the crate and I’d come back when she was quiet and ready to work again.

I gradually moved the mat to half way along the kitchen, then tried getting Amika to face the bathroom and it didn’t work so good. A break and I moved the mat to a diagonal position, started her facing away and then turned her gradually. She was doing brilliant LAT’s and also looking to me when I said her name.

I gave her another break, then did some more rounds with a new game. The game was a little bit on/off switch, mostly mat targeting. I moved the mat further away again. I called her off her mat to front, then cued “place” (go to mat) and treated. I started by rewarding a sit, down, sit routine then go back to mat. Then I got the front without rewarding and sent back to mat.  After the ‘being away from mat’ thing, she was ‘higher’ and I would spend some time rewarding stuff on the mat: LAT, head down, relax, looking to me.

Another thing I brought in from the relaxation protocol (RP) we have been doing was to drop the lead, step away and then return and reward. I used this to go grab more treats, which she went through at a great rate. She knows the RP stuff and I think that actually helped focus her.

The next step in the calling off game was to take her towards the bathroom door. At first I got a sit and then took her back to mat for treats and ‘down time’. Each time I’d say “ready?” which isn’t a cue I have ever used, but she got it by the end. Then we’d walk towards the door. I gave her some breaks in this game, a couple times for reacting / non response and a couple of times just for a rest. The reactions were not particularly intense.

At the end, I was able to walk her up to the door and cue her to “sniff” and she was able to sniff the other dog through the gap under the door for a couple of seconds before I called her and headed back for the mat. She got the pattern of it and the final rep there was no leash tension at all.

That was a couple of hours worth of training- fairly intense. But she did very well, and the other dog was none the worse for wear. The ranger / kennel guy came and took the poor sweet boy away while Amika was in the office. She hardly barked at all. Amika is now full of treats and flaked out here in the office, having thoroughly examined the house and yard.