Prep School

Yesterday was our first Prep School class with Lisa Lucas. We were the first to arrive which gave Meg a chance to settle in and to meet Dharma, Lisa's dog. Dharma is very calm and polite. Meg got to meet her off leash and did great. Meg was very unsure of the second dog to arrive, a bouncing, hyper lab.

We learned quite a bit in the first class. We started clicker training 'focus'. We also worked on 'Causing'...getting the dog to understand that their behavior is what causes the click then reward. We first asked them to lay down with a cue/hand signal, clicking and rewarding when the elbows hit the floor. Then we removed the hand signal and just waited for the dog to figure out what we wanted on her own, clicking and rewarding when they did it. It was great watching their minds work. Meg was the demo dog for this one and caught on very quickly.

At the end of class, Meg got to meet a German Shepherd puppy (off leash) and she did great. She also sniffed the lab, but when the lab started to get hyped up again Meg started to get nervous.

Lisa brought up a few interesting points about Meg and her reaction towards and interaction with other dogs:

1. She's a bit insecure. She gets very tense when the other dog tries to meet face to face. She's much more comfortable with sniffing the rear (the end without teeth).

2. She's a bit of a control freak. When other dogs are a bit wild and all over the place (like the lab mix in class), Meg feels the need to control the situation (typical of Border Collies I'm told).

3. She feels trapped by the leash. When she freaks out at other dogs on our walk, she is most likely trying to tell them to go away because she feels insecure and can't run away.

We'll continue to work on getting Meg comfortable on leash and trusting that I can handle the situation; she doesn't need to.

Looking forward to next weeks class! (And agility on Wednesday!)