Reactive Class - May 1, 2010

First of all today is Gusto's Birthday! He is now a decade old. If I want to trial again in agility with this dog before he is too old I really have to push his progress.

Today was an exceptionally good reactive class. We were fortunate with the weather and Gus and I were also fortunate with the dogs. Because there were a couple of smaller dogs who were doing really well in class we were able to really push them by trying out some new exercises today which was great for everyone I think. We were fortunate enough to have 3 working sessions today which further pushed Gus.

I brought really great treats (leftover cheese burgers) and Gusto was VERY motivated to tune in to me.

In the first working session I worked opposite a Shih Tzu X Lhasa who has a bit of an off gait due to a crooked front. He also wears tags, which as I wrote last time is a particularly difficult trigger for Gus. We did some T-greetings with S.E.S. (Sudden Environmental Change) where we kind of popped out in front of the other dog without much notice. We also did some jogging pass-bys and face to face greetings. Gus took a couple of longer looks at the dog, but other than that he didn't show any OUTWARD signs of reactivity. He was quite sharky though with his teeth which of course indicates tension in the jaw.

In our second session I worked opposite a Jack Russell. We'd worked with him last time and so we were really looking to push these two dogs. We decided to use our 3 ring gates (like a long straight free standing baby gate) to make a divider between the dogs while we worked parallel recalls. The dogs were held or on a sit stay beside each other, but 15 feet apart with the gate making a barrier up the middle. Then we would call the dogs at the same time so that they were running parallel to one another. Both dogs were on flexible leashes. Gusto was great he took a few glances at the dog, but never charged the gate. In fact he took steps away from the gate showing avoidance behaviour. Yeah Gus! We decreased the lateral distance until the dogs were about 6 feet away, still with the gate between the dogs. Next we progressed to recalls from opposite ends so the dogs were running in a face to face situation. We increased the lateral distance to 15 feet again to start, but ended with them 5 feet apart. The dogs did so well at this that we progressed to the removal of the middle section of gate so that there was a 8 ft. window of open space between the dogs. To make it easier we backed up to the first exercise of the parallel recalls at a distance of about 10 feet. Again both dogs did exceptionally well. We decreased the lateral distance to 7 feet. We then did a couple of trials of the opposite ends recalls with the open section of gate at 10 feet of lateral distance. Again both dogs did really well. If anything, Gusto tried to create more lateral distance on his recall showing a definite effort to avoid the other dog. I thought he was fantastic.

In our third session we worked opposite the Shih Tzu X Lhasa we had worked opposite in session 1. We did the same progression I just described in session 2, but we progressed faster with this dog as neither dog was finding it difficult. Gusto really took it in stride. I'm not sure he really cared that we'd changed dogs. He did equally well with this dog as he did with the Jack Russell.

Gus did really well today. I hope that we can continue to challenge him so that he continues to progress. In future weeks I hope to work opposite larger dogs as he finds them more challenging.