Therapy Dog Class

This morning we had our first of a couple "therapy dog" classes. I know we aren't anywhere near ready for this, but scheduled it anyway to take advantage of two classes a week. The schedule of available classes is limited this week and next. I was fully prepared to sit in the furthest corner and give her treats the whole time, if need be.

Actually Gimme did pretty good. There were four dogs in class, in a small room with no visual barriers. Our first task was to sit in chairs somewhat near each other and get our dog's to lie beside the chair and just wait calmly. As you can imagine - Gimme didn't quite succeed in the calmly department, though she wasn't too awful. The interesting challenge for her was to lie parallel to the direction I was facing, as she kept wanting to turn 90 degrees. This is something we can work on at home. The nearest dog was Tor, about 6 feet away... so that was pretty close quarters.

Then we got up one by one and move against the walls. The other dogs found that challenging to remain still when other dogs were moving around. Gimme did well at this.

After that, to give the dogs something to do that permitted them to get up and move, Ursula set up intermittent visual barriers down the center of the room and we all practiced loose leash walking around the oval. The size of the room and barriers made it so there was always a dog either behind us or that we were following - within about 10 feet, the closest ever. That was hard for Gimme and she made it clear when she needed a break -- so we'd go to her crate and give her a minute or two to recover.

Lastly we had our dogs in down stays and a person they didn't know rolled up to us in a wheelchair, without interacting with the dog and just talking to the handler. Gimme is so people social that this was really hard for her to not go to the person and she needed a couple reminders that she was on a down stay. I saw her looking at the wheelchair, but she clearly wasn't concerned by it. That happened twice and she was much better the second time around.

Then last, Ursula came around to each of us on crutches and again the dogs were to remain in a down stay. Gimme understood the drill by this time and so she did better. She sooooo wanted to get up and wiggle-butt over to her friend Ursula, but managed to refrain from doing so.

It was a hard class for her and yet Gimme did better than I expected she would. I was very proud of her that she was able to make all good choices in a challenging setting and that she is very clear about letting me know when she needs a break. I really like that she is taking some responsibility for herself. She is getting better all the time. I also like that even when a task is beyond her skill level, she still tries to do what I want. She has an amazing work ethic and desire to do what I want of her. I would say "desire to please me", except I know its really all about the treats.

I had planned to go down to Capitol Lake today for a walk around, but have decided after that challenging class that it would just be asking too much of her. So in a little bit we are going to have a simple training session here at home.