We have a confession to make. We were the ones that had to stay on lead (last week) while the other dogs roamed around the classroom off lead. Even though Logan has met every other dog in class with perfect grace and peaceful energy, one excited young male dog just pushes his buttons!
Having fun together is important
This is an opportunity to discuss something important: you CAN work through your issues, and it usually doesn’t take all that much effort to make progress.
When we got to this 6th class, the young male was the only one in the room, and Logan immediately yelped and put his ears out, indicating frustration and uncertainty about what to do. The tired part of me thought “ugh, not again”. But the strong part of me said “interesting – he is not sure what to do – this is an opportunity for me to redirect him…”
So I marched right back out of the room, worked with Logan on a few random things like “give me your paw”, “spin”, “watch”, “heel” and the next thing you know, we were not only back in the room but on the other side of the young male, and totally in our own zone. That was the last worry we had about this issue.
We worked on a couple of really fun exercises including:
- Stay close to me game – One dog at a time, off lead: you walk and the dog should follow closely. You talk and have fun when dog is following you closely. Otherwise, you totally ignore the dog. If they are not following you, turn, walk faster, even hide until they look for you.
- Jumps – WHAT FUN! We started jumps by practicing our recalls (one at a time) over a wall of jumps. We then advanced to a series of jumps. Logan kept jumping the first one and then jumping over a wall to get back to me. We were both smiling and laughing. We could have accomplished ANYTHING with this connection.
What a difference between the initial hesitant energy we both felt at the beginning of class, and then this joyous energy we felt during our jump practice. What a great note to end class on.
p.s. I am now searching for the next available CGC test in the area. It is not easy! The CGC website only keeps tracks of some scheduled tests. The ones they have are an hour or more away, and a couple months out. I am looking for something closer and sooner…
