We went to the TDI class and it was group form this time. There were 8 dogs including mine,Zuki.
Problem is she hasn't been around a lot of other dogs since I got her at a month and a half old. Once she smells them she is not so bad but she is crazy about meeting.
What can I do to help her be less interested in other dogs/more focused on me? She did a down/come 3 feet away from all the other dogs (ran passed them 30 feet to get to me) but this was 30 min after she stepped out of the car.
When we first got out she pulled with all she had/wouldn't listen/wined... And the chihuahua that wouldn't consent to being smelled was a total distraction the whole time.
On a better note she did WAY better than all of the other dogs there, I was very proud of her.
While the idea of walking four miles to the nearest house that has barking dogs might sound very daunting if that's the kind of situation you live in, DO IT. By the time you get to the house she'll be very relaxed from the exercise and will be more likely to train better than she would if she just took a car trip.
Reg: 12-06-2010
Posts: 721
Loc: British Columbia, Canada
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If it is any comfort, I pulled Jethro out of his last obedience class because he could not handle the distraction of an intact staffy who made a really weird sounding grunt. I realized Jethro wasn't going to learn anything in those conditions and we left after the first class. We still have a credit to re-take, but I'm not in any rush. We continue to work on distraction training everyday and he is making slow, but steady improvements. He's still not ready for close quarters and a class full of strangers. Oddly, we did attend a series of distraction classes for 5 weeks and he did amazingly well. These classes were held outside on a field and there was plenty of space to increase distance if he was getting into difficulty.
Today we had another class. She has improved every time. This time 10-11 dogs were there and the one "trained" therapy dog that had passed the test was HORRIBLE. He barked and whined the whole time and growled at any dog that came near. I really don't see how dogs like this pass...
Because we move all the time finding the perfect set up is hard. Right now we are in the country and every house is half a mile away. I would have already gone even if it was 4 miles away and there was a fence between the other dogs and me. The two houses I do know about have dogs that are loose.
There is a dog park 10 miles from us but often there are no dogs there(I am told, I just found out that there is one) I am going to try to find a few times this week to go and hope there are a few dogs.
How do you know what level of distraction is good? Zuki did rather well today at the class but that was with a prong. I wasn't correcting her ever 2 sec and at the end of the class I let her loose and she paid no attention to any of the dogs (this sounds good but at this time I was also holding a tug).
BTW the class is outdoors.
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