I'm sooo excited about having a trainer that is teaching a control unleashed class. I've read the book and all, but it is more valuable to practice with folks that have actually applied it.
Last night was our first class and we went over things like relaxation protocol, passive attention, reorienting points and default behaviors. I was really impressed with the way Abbie behaved. With 5 reactive dogs in the class, most of who I know, I figured the first class would be a barking, growling, lunging fiasco. Abbie (and others) did have some moments of barking, grumbling and high anxiety whining but for the most part she (and all the dogs) did fantastic - learning to trust that the environment was not that scary. Abbie picked up on the relaxation pretty quickly, taking deep breaths, lying all the way down (including her head) and so forth.
One thing that was really great is that we figured out certain triggers, arousal and calming, for each dog. A friend of mine was there with her BM and it became clear that he could only tolerate a few mins of calm before his brain needed something to focus on. So, she would do some calming mat work, then get up and do some tricks with him, rinse, repeat. By the end of the class, he went from tugging on her pant legs and shoes to being calm and content.
Abbie was like that to a lesser extent. She could handle longer sessions of calm mat work, but I still had to take breaks and give her mind something to do.
2 of the dogs (a pit and the BM) had been trained in ScH and both had gone far. It was interesting to listen to the handlers talk about things like force training and the release being very explosive. CU is totally the opposite of that. It'll be cool to watch how these dogs develop with this training method. The pit typically could not work with food rewards because it got too excited. In class, working with passive attention, she was able to keep it calm with food rewards. Very cool.
Has anyone else taken a class like this? I wish these types of classes were more of a norm. Instead all the classes that are usually taught are focused around the basic obedience, not doggy emotions and behaviors. There are so many dogs and handlers out there that would benefit from something like this.