No Easy-Peazy Stuff

Class tonight was so interesting.  I usually start with some look-at-that, especially when there are new dogs present.  Gimme just didn't want to look at them at all... instead she wanted to heel by them with her nose stuck up in the air (okay, she was looking up at me, so she wasn't really being hoity-toity). 

Then when we got to our cubicle I like to warm up by clicking some check-ins and Gimme didn't seem to know how to do that anymore.  She has been doing it since she was a puppy, so that seemed unlikely.  Instead she kept sniffing around and just being generally distracted - working very hard at tangling herself up in her leash over and over again. 

So I changed gears and thought - we'll start with "chill" work in her crate.  She was barely able to do that - getting up to repeatedly turn in circles and get tangled up in her leash several more times.  I finally stopped fixing the leash for her and she proved then that she is quite capable of untangling herself.  The little minx...

When I changed gears to more challenging stuff, suddenly she was totally into what we were doing and working with her usual great intensity and focus.  We worked on several different skills and she did nicely.  It seemed the harder it was, the better she did.  She also demonstrated more improvement in stimulus control... its coming along a little bit at a time.

We ended class with her being able to do a sit stay while Ursula touched and then stroked her back.  She was able to do the same for a stand stay and then for a breed stand.  That has just been the hardest thing for her because she is so very social - so I was pleased to see that leap in understanding tonight.

I don't know what was going on with her when class started.  I've seen that before, where sometimes she just doesn't want to do the usual warm-up behaviors.  It starts out looking like there is no one home cuz she can't/won't do simple stuff, but when you go to challenging stuff then she is all for it.  Other times, she really needs that warm-up and if I try to skip it or rush through it, I don't get her full focus for the other stuff. 

This one is a piece of work, that's for sure...