And So It Begins...
It appears that hormones are starting to kick in.
I took Indie in class this week because he was on the distracted side and Diane wasn't feeling too great. We did Puppy Greetings at the beginning of class, and Dundee, the border collie we were working with jumped on on me in greeting, and my dear sweet puppy growled, launched, and grabbed his neck. Well, okay... that was a surprise.
This is the second time he's shown jealousy or protectiveness like that. The other time was when I was petting another puppy in PetSmart. He'd been doing really well with the puppy, but he growled at it when I was giving it attention.
We worked through that one, although I think I could have done a better job dealing with the Dundee one. Instead of ignoring it and trying again, we disengaged and paused so that we could get feedback from the trainer. Oh well... lesson learned. Indie growled at Dundee any time we were near him the rest of the class. Yes, he's defending me from the big, mean border collie. ::sigh::
Since then he's been extremely determined to bark at neighborhood dogs. Yesterday he was barking at a pair of Goldens 50 feet away and nothing I could do could get his attention back, which is very unusual. Usually I can get him to disengage by calling him and running backward about 10 feet, but no such luck.
The good news is that his toy drive is coming into full maturation. My current toy of choice is a rope tug that is a circle. It's nice and light like the puppy-sized tugs, but unlike the puppy-sized tug, I can keep my grip on it. We'd moved up to a larger tug, but it's too bulky to carry around. The circle tug also throws nicely for fetch games. Anyway, I'm now getting serious intensity for the tug toy, and this
morning we were able to play tug while those big, scary Goldens walked by AND while the Beagle/JRT-mix from across the the street was near us. I feel good that this will probably be a short phase (one of many) if we can nip it but it certainly is an example of why I need those magical, glowing, happy class-times where everything clicks into place.
On the Ebby front, we had a few growl-and-lunges in class this week, but overall she was terrific. Her heeling was almost effortless, and that feels marvelous. As I explained to Diane, it probably *looked* the same this week as it did last week (which was a frustrating one), but the difference in the amount of energy and effort required from me was night and day. I was just glad one of the classes went well, because work has been extremely stressful, and by the end of the night, I need something to go easily!
I took Indie in class this week because he was on the distracted side and Diane wasn't feeling too great. We did Puppy Greetings at the beginning of class, and Dundee, the border collie we were working with jumped on on me in greeting, and my dear sweet puppy growled, launched, and grabbed his neck. Well, okay... that was a surprise.
This is the second time he's shown jealousy or protectiveness like that. The other time was when I was petting another puppy in PetSmart. He'd been doing really well with the puppy, but he growled at it when I was giving it attention.
We worked through that one, although I think I could have done a better job dealing with the Dundee one. Instead of ignoring it and trying again, we disengaged and paused so that we could get feedback from the trainer. Oh well... lesson learned. Indie growled at Dundee any time we were near him the rest of the class. Yes, he's defending me from the big, mean border collie. ::sigh::
Since then he's been extremely determined to bark at neighborhood dogs. Yesterday he was barking at a pair of Goldens 50 feet away and nothing I could do could get his attention back, which is very unusual. Usually I can get him to disengage by calling him and running backward about 10 feet, but no such luck.
The good news is that his toy drive is coming into full maturation. My current toy of choice is a rope tug that is a circle. It's nice and light like the puppy-sized tugs, but unlike the puppy-sized tug, I can keep my grip on it. We'd moved up to a larger tug, but it's too bulky to carry around. The circle tug also throws nicely for fetch games. Anyway, I'm now getting serious intensity for the tug toy, and this
morning we were able to play tug while those big, scary Goldens walked by AND while the Beagle/JRT-mix from across the the street was near us. I feel good that this will probably be a short phase (one of many) if we can nip it but it certainly is an example of why I need those magical, glowing, happy class-times where everything clicks into place.
On the Ebby front, we had a few growl-and-lunges in class this week, but overall she was terrific. Her heeling was almost effortless, and that feels marvelous. As I explained to Diane, it probably *looked* the same this week as it did last week (which was a frustrating one), but the difference in the amount of energy and effort required from me was night and day. I was just glad one of the classes went well, because work has been extremely stressful, and by the end of the night, I need something to go easily!
posted by Erica at
8:48 AM
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