Weekly Training Update (Sept 4)

I took Lilly to her usual drop-in training classes with our Rock Star of a dog trainer Gigi Moss a couple times recently. Overall, they’ve gone well. Our separate work at retraining arrivals may be paying off at class in the form of a shortened warm-up time before Lilly seems relaxed. Still, we continue to practice going places, getting out of the car, and getting into Relaxation Protocol mode right away. Here is a bit more info on all accounts.

AT CLASS A COUPLE WEEKS AGO
We arrived at that week’s location, and immediately went into SIT-STAY-EAT … be calm mode.

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Lilly is most familiar with this location because it used to be the only one when we first started taking these classes. Back in the day, before things took a turn, Lilly used to howl with joy when we turned off a major road and began weaving our way back to this spot.

Since we were the first to arrive, we walked along a path next to these soccer fields. It’s nice for Lilly because we’re moving away from the dog park area, and she can walk at ease on her long training line without having to be on duty.

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Thankfully, I spotted the MOTHER of all triggers early: A boy riding a skateboard, being pulled by two dogs straining at their leashes.

We bailed off the path and went well into the grassy area, where Lilly could sit and eat as they passed. I’m happy to say that she only fired off ONE holy crap! bark and otherwise was fine thanks to the extra distance (100+ feet) I could give her.

AT CLASS THIS WEEK
This week, class was at another location that Lilly tends to enjoy thanks to squirrels. (See KB’s blog post from that day for a funny photo of Lilly being obsessive about squirrels. In the comments, I argue that Lilly may have followed the letter of the DOWN-STAY law, but not its spirit.) :o)

Lilly handled the walk from the car to the working area back by the unfenced dog park well. We used our walk two steps, sit, eat pattern, and she had no trouble making her way across the park. Lilly was doing GREAT until two young dogs broke off from the play group that was winding down so that class could start. Both of them flew at us at top speed, so we reversed course while others tried to Whoo Whoo them away from us.

Despite my best efforts to get distance FAST, Lilly lunged and growled and flopped around like a large, ocean game fish. Hate that, but what can you do when the chase is on? I just kept walking until she stopped growling and could sit and eat calmly.

Once the pups were leashed up, Lilly recovered quickly.  Still … I used the fence corners that mark the off-leash area as a barrier. (That’s KB and K on the far side of the fence. It was the boxer and the doodle who gave us chase. Lilly actually loves the greyhound who is closest to us, but Lilly was licking her lips a lot when she first saw the big dog, so we kept a moderate distance at first.)

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This is just minutes after the growling. Lilly is completely fine. (How many photos of a smiling Lilly, wearing her red warning bandanna, do you think I can take over the years?)

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In fact, later we used those same two pups as blockers when a couple other off-leash dogs showed interest in Lilly. One time, it worked great, and we slipped away while these two social dogs intercepted the interlopers for us. Another time, it didn’t work, so Lilly turned and snapped at the approaching dog who really gave her a vigorous butt inspection.

I’m happy to report that Lilly worked well through a Rally Obedience-like exercise where we went from paper plate to paper plate. Each one had instructions for something to do, including tricks. The shocking part was that a mature Italian Greyhound that Gigi knows was poking around off leash as we were doing this exercise, but as Gigi promised this dog had strong dog-dog skills and correctly read that Lilly was NOT interesting in saying hello … thank you very much.

YET, the fact that she would not only work (DOWNS, STAYS, etc), but that she would do tricks (ROLL OVER, SHAKE) while this tiny dog bopped around was a lovely little breakthrough.

Trust me, it would have been a totally different situation with a bigger dog or with one who had poor body language skills.

MORE TRANSITION WORK
After class, I had a couple of errands to run, so we practiced our arrivals at each location. Both of these spots were new to Lilly, and it shows on her face.

Post Office

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Grocery Store/Strip Mall Parking Lot
(with cart boy rumbling by with carts)

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You’ll notice too that I have her off leash in these public areas, which is a brave thing for me to do, but I felt like Lilly was in good shape emotionally, and I only had her hop out of the car and sit for a minute tops while I fed her treat after treat before asking her to hop back into her car crate.

Each week as weather/temps allow, I take Lilly with me as I run errands to practice this very thing (get out of the car, sit, eat, be calm). So far she has been to:

• Post office
• Pharmacy
• Grocery store
• Office supply store
• Home depot
• Petco (We park closer to the doors each time.)
• Library
• Various pull outs in the canyon
• Various class locations
• A couple of parks in town

It’s probably a bit artificial since I then put her back in the car and run my errand really quick, but several times now people who saw us in the parking lot commented in the store at how well trained Lilly seems to be. I should get a stack of Gigi’s business cards to hand out when this happens.

OR, I think I may start using a line from one of my pal Karen Quinn’s novels. There is a character who replies to any compliment: “Thank you. It’s true.”