This week’s class took place along a busy, outlying trail. Lots of pedestrians, bikes, other dogs. But, there’s good shade in many spots and a creek/ditch for swimming. Despite set-backs recently, I went with an open mind. I was ready to click anything that resembled something I want. That meant weathering a couple odd moments.
When we arrived, Lilly pretty much refused to get out of her crate. She wormed, wiggled, and cowered. So, I clicked any time she picked up her head. I clicked her for venturing a foot outside the crate to grab a treat I laid on the tailgate. But, that’s about all I got.
So, we played a little game of GO FIND GIGI. Lilly loves to play hide-and-seek at home, so I capitalized on that. She hopped out, ran to Gigi’s car, then promptly flew back to our car and into her crate. She did this 3 times before I managed to beat her back to the car and shut the tailgate.
She seemed fine with that, so we hung out in the shade as classmates arrived. One dog that Lilly LOVED back in the days when she could play at class came. He’s a young corgi. Pretty small. Very playful. We hadn’t seen him in at least a year.
They seemed to recognize one another, and Lilly seemed happy to see him. But, with the NO VISITING rule in place, they didn’t get to interact.
We took up our usual spot in the back of the pack as the group set out on our training walk. Everything was going fine until we had to cross a street. Since the trail is near an airport, there are many planes flying low overhead. Maybe that’s what did it, but Lilly shutdown, freaked out, and laid flat RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.
Thankfully, there were no cars coming, but I didn’t want to risk waiting that out, so I picked her up and carried her to the other side. Not my best choice, but I had to do something before she went into total flee-panic.
Once on her feet, she recovered quickly and even POKED (hand targeted) a sympathetic woman walking by. She poked a boy (maybe 10 years old) who went by and showed interest in her as well.
So, despite a rough start, Lilly rebounded well. She did hang back once in a while. She did a fair amount of displacement sniffing. She did take some coaxing here and there, but she walked. She worked. She climbed a downed tree, even offering 2 on, 2 off without me asking. She splashed around in the creek when our classmates were nice enough to let her go first and alone. An off-leash pug snuck in a butt-sniff on his way by, and Lilly didn’t even bat an eye. She just looked at me and kept walking.
Dare I say, she smiled quite a bit and even wagged a little, once in a while.
During one of the play breaks for the other dogs, Lilly and I played on the downed tree. Like a little white bullet, one of the dogs we know pretty well broke off from the play-pack and flew straight at us. Shock of all shocks, Lilly did not react badly. She wasn’t happy about it, but she deferred to me and walked away with me. Thankfully, the group got the other dog to run back to them. So the encounter was brief.
All in all, it was a successful day. We did, however, go through a TON of training food. I was clicking everything I could think of *** which got me thinking *** someone should invent a clicker that also has a counter on it. I’d love to know how many clicks Lilly accumulates in an hour-long class.
I was a clicking fool, and Lilly seemed the happier for it. It’s exhausting, though, trying to capture any little thing.
We stopped for a short walk and swim in town before coming up the canyon. We couldn’t go too far because I didn’t have much food left, and it was hot. So, we brought our lunch home to share with Tom and Ginko, then the pups and I took a much-needed nap.
Still … Gigi and talked about recent developments, and she agreed that a full medical workup or a major revisiting of Lilly’s anxiety meds are in order. Either the meds have completely stopped working, or there’s something else going on that’s causing her to regress so much. Maybe she’s in pain. Maybe it’s an undiagnosed thyroid thing. Maybe? Maybe? Maybe?
Here’s hoping our veterinary appointment next Tuesday is fruitful on the information front.
I’m a fellow freelance writer and dog lover, I just discovered your blog. I’m sorry to read about Lilly’s experience. I have experience with anxiety myself, so I can feel for poor Lilly! You sound like a wonderful caring owner who is doing all she can to help your dog. My spaniel-mix is aggressive toward other dogs, and I’ve been trying to work on that but it’s not easy to find willing canine volunteers for her to practice on! I look forward to reading more of your blog.
I know the greeters at Costco use something like that to count people through the door, but I’ve never heard a noise. It’d be cool, if it did though. Maybe I’m just being silly, but it would be interesting to know how many clicks we go through. It’s become so innate for some behaviors that I think I click unconsciously some of the time.
Follow me on this … I met a friend’s neighbor’s dog last week. He’s a very shy lab, and without even thinking I heard myself saying YES to him when he showed confidence. I didn’t have a clicker or food with me, but I wanted him to know he was doing a good job.
I had him doing a perfect HEEL and WATCH ME (off-leash) in just a few seconds, and this dog didn’t know me from Adam. Sadly, I forget that all dogs are NOT Lilly, so when I asked him to turn with me, to change directions, it kind of freaked him out. I forget that most dogs (aka non-agility dogs) don’t automatically have that skill.
We even got him hand targeting pretty easily, with praise alone. No food.
I was just playing around (and offering unsolicited advice … bad!), but it’s fun to see how fast nearly any dog catches on with just a little encouragement.