Our last 'Chapter' posting was about Good Shepherd Dog Obedience School and how wonderful Linda and her dog Reina are at teaching dog obedience. Well, my hu-mom thought it would be a good idea to go back for a refresher course, so she completed the application and signed up -- we went and Linda asked my hu-mom about something she had written on the application. Specifically, her response to the question, "Does the dog present any special training challenges, i.e., aggressiveness, passiveness, fears, health issues, etc.?" -- to which my hu-mom replied, "Zoe sometimes gets a little aggressive during walks." She then explained that I had been attacked by another dog during a walk, and ever since then, I "sometimes" would growl and get aggressive.
As class began, only gentle-natured dogs were present, so Linda didnt think she would get the opportunity to see my response to an "aggressive" dog. Fortunately, two showed up and I stared at them and showed them who was the boss. Boy, was that the wrong thing to do! Linda pointed out to my hu-mom that I wasn't necessarily ALL sugar and spice and that I had actually invited the aggressiveness by staring.
I guess it was good that we went back for the refresher, because my hu-mom was able to see and identify that she needed to work so that I am not the aggressor. So how do you break that? Well, for the past several weeks we have been working on retraining and going over basic commands...and obedience! One of the "tools" that my hu-mom was reminded of was the "look" or "watch" command. For those of you unfamiliar with the "look/watch" command, it is introduced to your dog by letting the dog know that the human has a treat in ther hand -- the human then brings the treat to their forehead and says "watch" or "look" -- the dogs eyes follow the treat up and when the dog makes eye contact with the human, the human says, "Good dog" and gives the dog the treat. You keep working to get a "watch" command immediately, which in essence helps your little angel remain a little angel and not stare down other dogs when walking.
Now that we've worked on it for a few weeks, all my hu-mom has to say is, "Zoe, watch" and I stop what I'm doing, sit in front of her and gaze into her eyes. ~Zoe
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