Alumni Adventure

Last Thursday Petsmart had an Alumni Party for former students of Petsmart training classes. Paul, Joey and I invited former students for an evening of dog-skill games and prizes. I brought Lottie Moon.
She was a rock star.  I was pleasantly surprised, since recently she has been so anxious and tenacious and  . . . crazy.  I had vowed to get her involved in something to work her training skills.  Basically, we have done nothing since our Zombie work in October.  So when I had to choose which dog to bring to the Alumni party, I chose Lottie, and hoped she wouldn’t embarrass me.




Lottie with the boss's dog, Milo.  Milo wasn't impressed.

I used her Easy-Walk harness, since lately she has returned to charging crazily and unexpectedly forward on her leash and crushing her larynx to the point of raspy coughing and breathing.  She walked jauntily and pleasantly and politely on the leash into the store in her harness. She sweetly greeted other dogs and people, and hardly pulled at all, staying very aware of me on the other end of the leash.  We didn’t participate in the first two games of Tic Tac Dog, and The Longest Stay, but the final game was Doggy Hopscotch.  It was a timed game where dog and handler moved forward through a hopscotch-like floor chart, performing each command/trick before moving forward to the next.  Time was added for no execution, and the fastest time won.  Lottie managed to have the second fastest time.  Not too bad for a blind/deaf contestant. 

Lottie is so nice to work at events like this, because she has such a pleasant personality.  She never meets a stranger, and has no fear.  My border collies are all a bit warped socially, so they are either ignoring everyone (“Where’s the ball?”) or eyeing everyone with paranoid suspicion (“I don’t trust that dog, or that man.  Where’s the ball?”).


Keebler even came into Petsmart for a bit, and he found it facinating . . . .

Lottie even had an opportunity to help a paranoid, suspicious English bulldog.  The bulldog’s owner was complaining that her dog was aggressive with other dogs, and as we talked, she jerked roughly on his collar and yelled at him every time he growled at another dog.  I was explaining to her how that increases stress, and therefore, aggression, and was able to show her how to work on changing her dog’s emotional response to other dogs by offering treats whenever another dog approached.  We used Lottie to be the other dog, and within a couple of minutes, her dog surprised her by being calm and non-aggressive toward Lottie.  It was a powerful demonstration, I thought, for positive reinforcement, but although the woman seemed impressed, I couldn’t get her to sign up for one of my Intermediate classes.  But bless little Lottie, she did her best!
All in all, it was fun to have Lottie out again, and Lottie seemed happy, and tired, from the whole adventure