Thank you for all your comments on the last Asbo Dog post, it is causing me quite a lot of stress and reading your views is helping me laugh at the situation and see that maybe the authorities will be reasonable about my side of things.
Today we had the community policeman at our door. I told him I've had them on the leads for the last week and explained that the kid is irrationally frightened just by the dogs being here. He was OK about it all and just asked me to keep them on leads. After he'd gone I thought of lots of questions, typical! I called the police communications centre and confirmed that its OK to let them off their leads at training classes and away from this child. I said I didn't want to get into trouble if I have them off the leads at the beach or elsewhere and this family happen to see me. That would be unlikely but you never know.
Anyway I was going to tell you about the training classes:
Week one of the intensive asbo dog rehabilitation is over. The 5am starts have been challenging. You may have noticed a reduction in my blogger activity, that's because even though I'm going to bed earlier I am a bit tired.
The good news is that the furry demons have been trying really hard at dog school. They don't really like Marco the Mexican trainer very much at the moment because he is mean.
I used to take the girls to puppy classes but was only allowed to take them one at a time. The class was always really crowded with 40 plus dogs in a Scout Hall. Individual attention was obviously limited and with a small cute dog I suspect I was low priority compared to showing someone how to control their giant beast. I could always get both dogs to do everything in puppy class but away from there it wasn't so easy.
With the new classes I get four one to one sessions outside with both dogs. As Marco says dealing with two dogs together is my reality so there is no point training them individually and then not knowing how to deal with them together. There are also group classes but with work I can only make one a week.
Because we are outside there is unlimited space for walking to heel instead of being stuck in a line between other dogs. We mastered two dogs walking to heel in the first session, a major victory for me. Session two we mastered stay and walk away, Sasha could do this but Star wasn't keen so it took a bit of effort. Now I can leave her for minutes and she hardly moves. I can sit them both separately or together and leave them and most of the time they don't move until I say so.
Day three we instantly mastered down with Sasha because she could do it already. Star is really resistant to this but I think we will get there soon. They both got the idea of them staying while I keep moving really quickly. Sasha them moved on to a new game. I tell her to sit and stay them leave her. When I get to where I want to be I call her but once she starts moving I stop her with a Stay/Sit command, clever little Sasha got it on the second go. Marco said he has had dogs that took months to get this.
Day four, lots of down, Star still doesn't like it! She is like a pop-up dog, you put her in the down position as soon as you leave go she pops up to sitting. She did catch up with Sasha by mastering the Here - Stay/Sit idea.
Bear in mind that it was only last Sunday that these dogs were totally out of control !!!!!
If anyone has seen the Dog Whisperer TV show they will know that it's all about establishing yourself as leader of the pack. Macro seems to follow similar ideas to the dog whisperer. It's really surprising how quickly I can see a difference.
Next weeks classes are at 6.30 instead of 6 so I might be awake enough to blog a bit more.
3 comments:
Hm. You've given me an idea, Mrs Midnite: it might just be in Maddie's best interest to take classes like this.
And I'm glad the police didn't arrest your lovely poochies on the grounds that half the police force died from laughter at the thought that Sasha and Star would harm a soul. :-)
-French Bean
I've got an idea for you love, why don't you invite one or more of the officers to come by and sit for a cup of tea for awhile so they can see what the kids reaction is and what your dogs are doing or NOT doing according to the reports. Ask them to come over in a private car not a cop car so the kid doesn't know who is there.
Then maybe ask the officers what can be done about false reports.
Dan problem is that it isn't false reports as such. The dogs scare the kid just because they are here, he is frightened and he does run away. He broke the door, he could fall and hurt himself and in fact his reaction is so extreme that he could run out in front of a car. My dogs always want to play and can get excited so I can see why to a kid with a phobia they would be frightening. The parents have reported that my dogs frighten their child, it's true. It's just that they also haven't done anything except live here. The solution is to help him control his phobia but his parent just want my dogs to disappear. Not a solution, the next dog he is in contact with might actually be agressive and when he runs he could get chased and hurt. It's just a bad situation.
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