I am working on agility and obedience with Anya and Ravon. Mushing season is pretty much over in Texas so we will be focusing on that. Each day I do short training sessions with each dog.

With Ravon, I am focusing on the weeve poles in agility. I have them set up staggered left and right and he basically runs throw the middle dodging left and right. He is learning to not skip poles, little cheater.

I am also teaching both of them how to properly play tug, Anya was good at it but after neglecting the exercise as a whole in lue of food rewards, she needs some refreshing, mainly on bringing it back. She still has a perfect out though.

Ravon needs more confidence building before I can even dream of introducing the out. He is super sensitive to any kind of pressure, I mean even the gentlest tug on the lead to come towards me can cause him to drop the toy. I seemed to have made a breakthrough with him today and he will now bring it to me without dropping it.

Other than that I NEED to work on Anya's leash reactivness. About a year ago she was brutally attacked at the park by a Pit Bull. Now she is very reactive to other dogs. Our neighborhood is like a 3rd world country with all the loose dogs running about and a third or more of them are Pit Bulls so I don't feel safe even trying to work on that around here. I guess I need to get a nice revolver, pulling the slide back while holding the leash of a reactive dog probably won't work so well. Sorry, but damn. Most of the places we walk are secluded without other dogs so we haven't had much opportunity to work on this problem behavior. Quite frankly I am so sick of people's out of control loose dogs that I would rather avoid them all together. Every dog I have ever had has been attacked by other dogs, I'm sick of having to protect my dogs and then defend myself from the stupid narcissistic owner.

With the retrieve you can't beat back chaining the behaviors.
On the neighborhood dogs do you have leash laws or any restrictions about dogs running loose? I would carry a stout walking stick if not. Even some pepper spray with some of the dogs.
In playing tug the dog cant get the tug every time. Make them miss.
Have fun training. They can easily see it when your faking and don't over work the dog to boredom. End on a happy note even if you have to take a step back to what you know will get a good response.

Bob, thats great advice in most cases. I am just venting here, sorry should have clarified. There are leash laws but just on one 30min walk around the neighborhood you will encounter 3-10 loose dogs and I am not exaggerating at all. West Texas is horrible for this, distemper is rampant and the shelters overflow always. It's just not worth risking walking either of them here and being attacked by Pit Bulls. We have to drive out in the country to a remote place or use certain parks when there are no people there. It's really that awful. We are moving away from here ASAP. Until then we can just do the best with what we can do for them. I've never seen anything like this, in Virginia the animal control were like police officers and if there was a loose dog and you call the owner gets a ticket and fine in 5 minutes! Even there my dogs were attacked by loose dogs, one even tried to attack ME and Logan had to protect me from a dog larger than him (and as usual, a pit type). These two are not strong enough to even defend themselves and I have just had it with protecting my dogs from attacks, literally every dog I have had has been attacked except for Ravon. A loose Pit Bull almost killed Anya about a year ago. It hit her so hard when it attacked it gave her a concussion and she still has issues from that. It took 2 men to pull it off of her. I didn't even see it coming and if they hadn't been there I'd have risked my life stabbing it to death. There is no safefty first grabbing a Pit by the back legs when it has your dogs throat.

An udpate: Last night was Hunter's second Household Obedience class. With Covid restrictions, it is limited to eight dogs, plus the instructor brings one of hers. It's a fairly large room.

The first session last week went well, all considered. I don't think he has ever been in this kind of a formal situation with a number of other dogs, and he was excited but stressed. He relaxed a bit as the class went on. We were just working on simple things like name recognition, eye contact, sit, down, and stand, but the distractions were just too much for him, so I did not get the kind of attention from him that I would like. We have had very little opportunity for socialization with other people or other dogs in the couple months I've had him, so I know it's going to take time. He did seem comfortable with the building and the outside potty area, as I had taken him up there a few times before to get him used to the location. (I couldn't go inside the building, but we spent a good amount of time walking around the outside areas.)

Last night was our second class. It was going fine until one of the dogs got loose and was running all over the room, running up to the other dogs, barking its full head off, which got most of the other dogs barking their full heads off, which Hunter resisted for a minute or so but then had to bark his full head off, too. Ugh! This was a setback for a dog that is already a bit fearful and stressed by new, noisy, over-stimulating environments.

I would have exited the room if I had been able, but that wasn't possible at the time. I sat in my chair with him sitting between my legs and me just holding him firmly with both hands around him, trying to talk to him, which I know he wasn't hearing.

Even though the loose dog was dragging a leash, it took several minutes for someone to catch him and return him to his owner, and another several minutes for all the dogs to settle back down. We made it through the rest of the class, but I was awake most of the night, worrying about how bad of a setback this was and what I could have done to prevent it (well, nothing, I know), but what could I have done to at least make it better for Hunter.

I'm going to do a lot of remedial work between now and the next class, making sure to fit in multiple training sessions each and every day, working outside among mild distractions, maybe going to a park not for a walk but just to work on obedience commands in a different (quiet) location and maybe see a few other dogs from a distance. I can't think of anything else to do other than consider this a setback, which means to take a step back in training to what he's comfortable with before proceeding again.

I've had three classes with Quincy now. He's had the basics down pretty good so I'm concentrating on distraction work. He loves every human and dog he sees so that is what is going on now. Only 2-3 in this class and he's starting to ignore the other two dogs. sometimes I wish it could be a larger class but that will come in time.

I may have found a niche for Anya. She points and she is not gun shy. I am thinking about using her to hunt rabbits, birds and other small game. She is missing a lot of premolars and has a soft mouth. Training her to be reliable off leash will be the biggest challenge if I do this. We will start with retriever training (Michael Ellis method). I basically know nothing about hunting with a dog besides the very basics.

It's been a while since I posted an update. Last Thursday was my last class with Hunter for this term. So we had seven classes all together, and I am happy to say from week one to week seven, I saw quite a bit of improvement, not only in his response to commands, which of course we practice frequently at home, but also in his level of stress and excitement just being in the group of eight or so other dogs.

I had wanted to move on to the next class level, but they are not offering it for the summer term, so it will be fall, probably, before I can get him into another group class. So I have to come up with a plan for continuing his training and socialization on my own. After trying a few times, I have discovered he is very scared of going into any buildings with me (other than the dog training building, which he loves). I've tried Tractor Supply and the pet supply store. Nope, he's terrified. He was also terrified the two times I've had him to our vet. These are things I will have to work on.

We also have a number of nice parks in the area, and I will be taking him to places like that to get out and see people walking, bikes going by, and maybe the occasional dog walking by at a distance. I will decrease the distances gradually until I feel he can handle walking down a trail with me and passing a dog coming the other way. It may take all summer!

So far, I'm not seeing any indication of aggression toward other dogs, there's no barking or growling or raised hackles, it's just a strong desire to pull toward the dog and being so fixated that he's tuned me totally out. As I've said before, I don't think, in his previous four years of life, he was taken on many leash walks away from home.

We have a lot of work ahead of us.

Sounds like good summer plans, Cheri.

I've always found desensitizing work rewarding.

It's been a month since I last posted in this thread. Several times a week, weather permitting, I have been taking him to a local park, and I can see a lot of improvement. (We've had excessive heat many days, and a lot of rain this past month.) He's still excited to be there, but his overall stress level seems much less. It takes five or ten minutes for him to settle down and not be frequently testing me by pulling, but then we can have a nice walk. He's totally unfazed by bikes passing us. With people on foot passing, sometimes he will ignore them, other times, he's interested and trying to pull toward them. Maybe some people remind him of somebody he once knew? He's still more interested in other dogs than I would like, but that's getting better, too. Actually, at the times I've been going, we haven't encountered too many dog walkers, so we definitely need more practice on that.

I mentioned earlier that he's scared to go in buildings. It's not possible to take him to the vet for "practice visits." Before the pandemic, I could have just taken him there often to get him used to it. I did get him into a pet store, but he was pretty stressed.

I also found out he's scared of drive-through windows. I'm not sure how I can desensitize him to this, since I very rarely get fast food. I had pulled up to the menu board where you place your order, pulled to the first window to pay, turned around to look at him in the back, and saw that he was shaking like a leaf.

He actually seems to be stressed any time we are in the car in a congested area. He's not bad at all if we are driving along, but pulling into any parking lots where there are lots of cars and people milling about will get him shaking.

I welcome any suggestions I haven't thought of besides continuing to try to desensitize him on all of these issues.

Also, I'd love to hear what everyone else is doing with their dogs this summer, formal training, informal training, or just for fun.

It sounds like your on the right track with your training. Don't get discouraged if it's not going as fast as you would like. That happens to all of us no matter the dog or how long some of us have trained.
For me its a new adventure with my Standard Poodle Quincy. He's now 8 1/2 months old and he is quite different then any GSD, terrier, or mutt I've ever trained.
All I've read is that the Poodles are #2 behind the Border Collie and in front of the GSD on brains. I don't question that at all. Ive never been one to use human type descriptions and relate them to a dog. Quincy is taking that away from me now. He does things that makes me believe he really is thinking through things much to my down fall cause hes smarter then me by a long shot. The herding breeds such as the GSDs, Mals, etc are all about "What can I do for you today boss?". Quincy learns quickly but there are times he just looks at me with a "Whats in it for me person?"
Quite possibly its the fact that my GSDs would pick up what I wanted from them way to easy and to far back from when i was first training them. Quincy knows all the basics but I'm always trying to see what can I reward him with today. He's also has an energy level compared to any of the 5 different terrier breeds I've owned over the years. Of course, at my age matching that energy level is new also. Still having a blast though!