Over the last week, I hit the "look at that" game pretty hard with Abbie. I also took a step back and just worked on relaxation (nothing else) on the mat (I call it blanket). All we did was lay down on the blanket together while I talked to her quietly and massaged all of her "calm" trigger points. Now whenever I bring the blanket out she wags her tail and lays right on it when I put it down. (wonderful!)
I don't know if I mentioned this in one of the other threads, but i tried Leslie's method of Look at that and Abbie was way too intimidated. I was really surprised because she was so nervous by me bringing something out from behind my back that she basically shut down. So, I took her outside and just waited until she looked at something then I c/t. This was pretty confusing for her at first because we have worked so hard on "watch me". Watch is her default behavior.
Anyway, once she figured out that I was c/t for looking at stuff, i walked her down the side walk a few houses. A dog was out back and came racing to the fence line barking and carrying on. I c/t like a mad woman and backed up down the side walk until abbie wasn't reacting anymore. Then we sat there and I c/t every time she looked at the house with the dog. The light bulb totally went off and she figured out the game! Eventually I was able to walk her past the house 3x without her reacting. I had to be super fast with the c/t but we did it.
So, fast foward to last night's class: the instructor re-organized the room so that Abbie didn't have any dogs immediately next to her. Abbie could still hear and she knew the dogs where there but it was a lot less threatening. She did fantastic in class! It was such a huge difference from last week it's not even funny. I was even able to take one of the sheets away so that we could practice look at that with a dog across the little walkway. She never once barked, lunged or growled.
The most difficult part was when we were doing box work. The belgian in the class was working on the off switch game, using a tug toy. Well, the box was right next to our little space and the dog was coming pretty close, growling and tugging on the toy, getting all riled up. Abbie came to full attention and was about to react so I threw myself on the floor next to her blanket (our relaxation technique) and fed her for staying on the blanket and not reacting. She did get juiced but didn't go over her threshold. yay.
So, we might just get there after all. The look at that game seems to be making the biggest difference out of everything. What a great tool.