Class #1---
We were given the opprotunity by the trainer we've been doing private lessons with to do a "Reactive Angels" dog class. There are three other dogs in the class-a doxie mix that is reactive with both dogs and people--she has actually bitten both a person and a dog and drawn blood both times (I imagine it sucks to walk her as she's extremely cute and I'm sure people want to pet her all the time), a border collie mix that seems to be more reactive towards people than dogs, and a bull dog that is *very* loudly dog reactive.
We started the class by leaving the dogs in the car and having a human only meeting about class rules, protocol, etc. The training area is large, and they set each dog up with well spaced out "forts"--basically ex-pen panels with sheets up on them so that the dogs don't have to actually see the other dogs if they are not ready. There were also three helpers in addition to the trainer since the trainer obviously can't be in 4 places at once-lol.
As it turns out, Sally had had the most one on one time with the trainer from our private lessons, and two of the helps were also familiar with her (their dogs were used as "neutral" dogs during the lessons). Therefore, when we brought the dogs in individually, she was first. I was very proud of her. i thought the number of people in the training center might give her pause but she was very excited and happy to be there and didn't seem to care. Eventually she was settled enough in her "fort" for them to bring the bull dog in next. He was definitely a challenge. He is by far the loudest reactor so far--even when he is not barking he is loudly breathing/snorting, so Sally was all "WTF?" when he first came in.
She is so weird--she was comfortable enough with the situation to lay down and stay down of her own accord when the bull dog came in, but she was whining up a storm the whole time she was lying. As he got more excited she did get up, but was good. honestly, the worst thing she did was whine--no thrashing, leaping, lounging, etc. Once the bull dog even barked and her back was to him when he did (Sally is most uncomfortable with her back to other dogs), and although she did look, it was calm and she didn't do a thing other than look (she got a handful of hot dog bits for that!). They eventually took the bull dog out as it was obvious he was not able to calm himself (not sure what they are going to do with him next week, he gets really worked up), and we had to walk by his car when we took Sally out. He started this horrible (like really impressively awful) bark/scream/holler sound and she just calmly looked at him and we went on our way--GOOD GIRL!
I am SO grateful for the opportunity to be part of this class, and I thought I'd update everyone on our weekly progress!