progress?

I woke up this morning to hear Mia growling at – get this – not Bandit, but Tucker! And Tucker actually started cowering a bit, avoided her gaze, and came up to snuggle up against me on the bed. Awesome, clearly their training thing is going extremely well, since we’ve apparently succeeded in making our formerly aggressive dog into an insecure and submissive coward and our cocky youngster even more confident. Perfect, I’m so happy knowing that our $600 worth of training (which paid for about 3 sessions by the way) went to such good use. The one thing we had never had to worry about was Mia going after Tucker because she’s been scared of him since she was a little pup, and with good reason. A few training classes sure do go a long way.

To be fair, though, we actually have seen some real improvement since we started Tucker and Mia in training classes. A while back, after all the dog drama, I started researching local dog trainers and found one around Santa Cruz that came pretty highly recommended. So G and I took the guys in for a little evaluation, and I have to say that I was a bit impressed. First of all, the guy didn’t say anything about our dogs that I didn’t already know. Mia was picking on Bandit because she knew she could get away with it. Bandit just deserved to live the rest of her days in peace. And Tucker was going to be much harder to train because he was old and downright stubborn (and pretty nervous). But he said all this after just being around them for a half hour total, while we obviously have had some time to figure all this out. Second, he brought out one of his dogs to demonstrate what a well-trained dog is supposed to be like, and I gotta admit, it wasn’t half bad. The dog was hanging out in his assistant’s van. They called it over, she came out, and went straight to the owner’s side. They told the dog to bark and she did. They sent her back to the van and she went right back. They called her out, had her stop mid-way, and she did. Pretty much, what they said, this dog did, no ifs ands or buts about it. This trainer used to work with police dogs, so he’s pretty into the hard core, “my dog will obey me or else” type training method, rather than the Pet Smart “give them as many treats as it takes” method. When I’m not going psycho on my dogs, I’m actually mostly a softie, so it was a bit hard for me to get behind. But watching their dog do its thing made me realize that that’s the kind of control we need in our household.

So we signed up for some private lessons. We got the dogs prong collars that pretty much stay on them now anytime we’re home. They misbehave, we yank and correct. The prong collars pinches around their necks when we pull on them, and I guess it’s supposed to mimic the way a mother dog corrects her babies. I don’t know, I’m just glad it’s not a shock or choke collar. Right off the bat, the trainer told us that he didn’t think Mia was particularly aggressive and would actually be easy to train. The problem was us – she was so used to doing whatever she wanted without any discipline whatsoever that she ran with it. She picked on Bandit because she knew she could get away with it. Tucker he was less certain about, thought he’d be harder to train because he was stubborn and nervous.

So far, he’s proven to be right. Mia’s taken to this training thing like a champ. We haven’t quite figured out how to apply to ALL aspects of our life (that is, she’s great in class, but you call her to you when she’s chilling in the back yard and she just gives you a stare like, oh puh-lease, I’m busy eating grass right now and it doesn’t look like you have a treat in your hand anyway). Rather than doing anything aggression specific, we’ve been working on basic obedience. Our walks have already gotten better because we’ve finally taught them to heal. They sit at cross walks (because we yank on them when they don’t), they stay and watch me put their food out rather than rushing me and each other before I even have a chance to put their bowls down. They have a long way to go, but there’s definitely been improvement.

And actually, if nothing else, the class has taught me that I have a long way to go to. Already, it's clear that the dogs listen to G much more than they do me because he's not scared to yank and he's consistent. As I said, I'm a bit of a softie.

Last week was our last class, and the instructor was amazed when Tucker actually stayed and then came running when we called him. During our first class, G tried to call Tucker to him, and it was a bit of a disaster. Tucker did everything but – roamed through the grass, checked out the fence in the other direction, took a few leaks and even a dump. G might as well not have existed as far as he was concerned. It was a private lesson but it was during a group session and pretty much the whole class got to check him out in action.

Tucker still has issues. I don’t know if he’s just dumb or too nervous, but even after weeks of being forced to sit across the street from our house until we call him inside, 5 out of 10 times, he still gets excited and comes running over before we call him, often in the way of oncoming cars. And when we yank on him, he cries like we’re mauling him, even if it’s pretty light. So by this point, I’m pretty sure our neighbors think we’re abusing him. And I don’t know if this extra sensitivity is what was going on this morning when Mia started growling at him for no reason or what, but I don’t know how to make it better. And obviously, all the obedience training still isn’t enough to shut Mia up, so we gotta figure out how to deal with that too. When she starts growling, we’re supposed to yank on her chain and say “fuey” (the guy’s all about German commands too, because I guess he was used to training police dogs to listen only to their cop and no one else). If she doesn’t stop right away, we’re supposed to walk her around in a circle, yanking and correcting the whole way, then bring her back to lay her down. So far, all that’s shown is that Mia has an extremely high pain tolerance and could be practically choking but can still manage to get a good growl out. But I feel like we’re at least off to a start.