Petey's going back to school

Good news! All About Dogs is having a daytime Monday agility class. Since I am busy teaching classes every weekday night, going to other dog training school classes is nearly impossible. Not anymore!

Petey is going back to school next Monday. About a year ago I withdrew him from classes because he was a reactive monster. It will be nice to go back and start fresh again.

Since last year, I have worked considerably on reducing Petey's reactivity towards dogs. In general these are the approaches I have taken:

- Letting Petey meet 100s of dogs so that dogs become "boring".
- Reinforcing appropriate dog-dog behavior (butt sniff, crotch sniff) and calming signals (ground sniff, yawn, look away, leave)
- Reinforcing "watch me" behavior
- Reinforcing passing dogs on the street and maintaining a loose leash by either a) Cueing him to "say hello", or b) Food
- Training him at the dog park especially when it's busy
- Taking him to his own special "Petey Needs Training" classes at When Hounds Fly (a perk of owning your own dog training school I guess)
- Taking him to Pawsway to train.

Recently, I took Petey to a volunteer/rescue event where he even did a little heelwork routine in front of an audience of people and dogs and he did great!

I'm looking forward to finally having fun at All About Dogs.

Dr. Karen Overall's Protocol for Relaxation

As mentioned in previous entries, I'm currently working through Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt. In it, very early on, she references Dr. Karen Overall's Protocol for Relaxation as a foundation exercise for the work.

Years ago, I stumbled upon it, and at the time (back when I didn't really have a good understanding of classical conditioning), I dismissed it as a series of down-stay exercises of increasing duration and distraction. Now, knowing better, I realize that its an invaluable way to condition a relaxed state in a hyperactive, vigilant, or anxious dog!

So, I started the work tonight with Petey. Petey is an awesome dog to work with, but when we first fostered him, he had NO impulse control. It wouldn't take much stimulation to get him into a frenzy (i.e. if a dog was playing fetch, he'd chase after the other dog and bite them). He's much better now, but with his reactivity at agility class recently, I've decided that Petey's next challenge (and my next training challenge) is to do the work McDevitt prescribes in Control Unleashed and make him my own "Snap" (Leslie's hyper vigilant reactive rescue that became the genesis for her program).

The book itself doesn't actually tell you how to implement the protocol, so I've googled high and low and found the following resources:

A video showing a dog working on the Day 1 exercise. No event marker/clicker. Just feeding in place.

The Complete Protocol courtesy of Dog Scouts of America

This is the complete document with instructions and the training plan. The problem with the training plan is there are a ton of exercises to be done consecutively and if you don't have the luxury of a friend reading them to you as you do the work, its awkward trying to read a piece of paper.

MP3 Recordings of the Relaxation Protocol

Courtesy of www.championofmyheart.com - Roxanne Hawn has made audio files of the protocol! Now, you can just put the tracks on your iPod and do the work ANYWHERE!

With these resources, anyone can do the work now on their own. I can't wait to share my findings as we proceed. If any readers have done the work themselves, please comment and let us know what your personal experience has been.