We've had better days . . .

Dog training group today! I brought the dogs on what was supposed to be a jog this morning to burn a little extra energy before training. It was not really a jog, because there were millions of people out and we had to cross streets, turn around, stop, etc etc. Everyone did well except Gustav growled at a couple of guys who came out of their house unexpectedly. And Dottie barked at a kid running across the street, which was annoying since I was focusing on Gustav and didn't expect trouble from her.

So we went to meet Kelly and her pug Olive to do some training. Gustav did great, he was wagging his tail and looking at me with soft eyes and seemed pretty okay. He did look at the dogs in the dog park a lot and would get tense or stuck, but I could call him away with no problems. Me and Kelly walked towards one another until a certain point, then turned away. Gustav did great. People with dogs walked through the park, he did great. He lay down at one point but then Olive moved suddenly and he jumped up and started barking at her. I asked Kelly not to move away so Gustav wouldn't be rewarded, and sure enough thirty seconds later he stopped and looked at me (after hitting the end of his leash), then I praised and treated him and moved away.

Then I asked Kelly if she wouldn't mind putting Olive in the car and doing some people training. I decided to try out the concept of CAT, at least in a small pilot sense. So I had Kelly walk towards us until I sensed Gustav was uncomfortable, so we could mark off that spot. I watched Gustav, and he all of a sudden started barking and growling. So I said to put the cone there and Kelly walked away. Then I had her walk towards us not nearly as close as the cone. Unfortunately by now Gustav had gotten pretty freaked out by her and the concept that she might actually come all the way over and his threshold was much easier to reach. I was really torn. Kelly was standing at least 20 feet away or so. I didn't want Gustav to take home the message that barking and growling is a good way to make people go away, but I also didn't want him to have a bad experience. I decided, wrongly I think now, to have Kelly stand there until he calmed down on his own. He was barking really defensively, which is somewhat new. That is, instead of lunging and hitting the end of the leash, he was leaning his whole body against me and barking in a sad, slightly high-pitched sort of way. He was obviously frightened and it was sad to watch. After not very long (maybe ten seconds?) he decided to stop and turned away and sniffed other things and sat down, etc etc. I had Kelly move away then. The key issue is whether I think he stopped because he got less fearful since she wasn't moving forward anymore and his barking wasn't working (i.e. habituated), or if I think he stopped out of helplessness and despair, or feeling shut down (i.e. flooding). We did a few more where he didn't get to barking but as soon as he looked up at me or did some other affiliative behavior, like turning away or sniffing or sitting, then Kelly walked away.

Definitely I misjudged the threshold. I didn't want him to go over, I didn't want to make this a flooding exercise because I don't believe in that method. I hope that by the end, after we corrected distances and he could be more relaxed, that he took home the right message: relaxation makes good things happen, either treats or the person going away.

I got him in the car and he lay down and I was really conflicted. Most of the session went great, with lots of attention and relaxed behavior from him (tail wags! out in public! in the presence of people and dogs!). I hadn't been faced with his fears about strangers for a while since I'm so careful while out on walks, and it made me stressed and sad to see it again. Also his switch from lunging to pushing his body against mine while frightened was encouraging, but also made me feel like I let him down when he was appealing to me to get him out of there! I will be more careful about this in the future and I'll try to err on the side of decreasing the stimulus instead of being worried that he'll be reinforced for bad behavior.

While I was gone Justin brought Dottie out to play frisbee. It was fun, except that they got surprised by the hated JRT on the way back. Justin said she absolutely freaked out. They were about twenty feet from it and had no escape. Justin said she tried to get out of her harness and basically wanted to kill the dog. Ugh. Poor Dottie. I hope they never meet, that's the only dog I think Dottie would actually injure on purpose in a horrible blind rage.

Well, I need to not think about dogs for a while and get over it. Sigh.