Saturday, July 14, 2012

Work

Work has been taking it's toll on our training time but here are some updates and exciting things...

We have not done ANY levels work, the summer is an extremely busy time for us and it's all I can do to keep up with Reyna's exercise needs.

In good news though, while her levels behaviors are suffering, her reactivity continues to improve. We pass dogs on walks with just a flat collar and no treats without issues. Two weeks ago we rounded a corner and came nose to nose with a big collie. Her hair didn't even go up.

We went up and visited some good friends of ours last week and their wonderful dogs. Reyna really did marvelously. More and more Reyna's reactivity is becoming a thing of the past. We are still not all the way there yet, but I think I would call it very mild at this point. We continue to use classical conditioning whenever possible to keep those experiences positive.

She complained about being crated away, she would always settle down but that is definitely something to work on. When she realizes whining does no good she settles in just fine and doesn't destroy her soft crate, but I still need to work on her tolerance for being left out of the fun.

I was VERY proud of her on the fourth of july when fireworks were booming and flashing around my brothers house where we were visiting and instead of stressing and whining she just fell asleep...good girl!!!

In other exciting news I have picked up a new dog sport...Nose Work!

As fickle as I'm sure I sound I just could not keep up with he time and equipment commitment for agility right now. I needed something I could really do anywhere, anytime, and NoseWork seems to fit that bill.

Lisa, who we visited in NC has her dogs on odor already and it's very cool to watch them work. Reyna is still on food only, and we just enrolled in an intro class just down the street from us. I'll try and get a idea of her working soon but no promises.

So I really need to get back to work on the levels and I may do some Rally work as well when we are not searching the yard for a hide:)

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