Azza continues to accomplish amazing things in class. This week, she walked down the center of the room on three different exercises with me, one involving cones, on loose lead, coming to front, coming around to the heel position, taking inside and outside turns, and returning her attention to me from some alternately scary and interesting distractions. The sides of the room were lined with the two instructors and the other five dogs and handlers so this was a pretty damned big deal for her.
Not too surprisingly, Azza is usually willing to approach small dogs if they are calm. Today, she was even making googly eyes at this small toy mix named Bernie, cute as a button, who she has been watching since the first week. He's a well behaved little dog who calmly allows Azza to approach him for a brief sniff. I don't let her get too close because she is still stressed and I'm not sure how she will act out on that if something scary were to happen (loud noise, etc). Bernie was a good distraction as was the other small dog in the class, a sandy colored terrier mix who had a squeaky toy today. Azza couldn't resist taking a good look at that!
Azza most definitely doesn't like a freaky female BC and a male husky who stares quite rudely at Azza and at other dogs. However, the husky owner is doing a better job of keeping her dog's attention. They served as nice negative distractions.
I was able to get her up onto a wooden bench today too. That is quite a feat for Azza since she is so suspicious of new surfaces.
Azza still growls if the larger dogs come too close, either out of interest in her or because they are drifting on the leash and the owner isn't paying attention. I make sure we always have plenty of space to move away.
But by far the biggest training hurdle of the night was what I call the gauntlet. The entrance to this facility opens to a longish, narrow hallway. There is a second, short hallway and another room off of one side and the front desk and a gate at the opposite end. When we come for class, they have us line up in this hallway and wait until everyone shows up before we can file in to the training room.
Well, as you can imagine, this hallway could not be more scary for Azza. No place to run. Crowded. Excited dogs on all sides.
I can of course finesse this experience. I can arrive such that we are first in line or last in line. All of the other handlers know that she needs space (because I told them to keep their distance) so they aren't crawling up her ass. Still, it's a tense situation for her. I was keeping her out of the way in the side room but the first two weeks were not that pretty. I decided to push the envelope a little today. I arranged it such that we were third in line, Bernie on one side and the small terrier mix on the other. I had Azza sitting with her back to the wall and stood to one side of her, Bernie and his owner about three feet to her other side. She was displaying typical but mild signs of stress though she was nowhere near a meltdown. She was taking treats and became quite interested when I offered Bernie a treat then gave her one, then Bernie, then Azza. She liked that game (we play it at home with the terriers) and that's when she started the googly eyes with him. I rewarded that too! In fact, I was able to actually talk to a couple of the other handlers (briefly). I usually can't talk to other people when Azza is with me because she's freaking out about their proximity (growling, hackled, showing teeth, sometimes barking, possibly even lunging at them to drive them away). Today, she was more, well, certainly not relaxed, but more able to handle the stress. She didn't do any of those things (well, she did growl a bit), she kept taking treats and looking at either me or Bernie.
Another successful training experience for my crazy desert hound.
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