Mississippi impatiently waiting to go to doggy day care.
Mississippi went to the Lucky Labrador on Monday! It’s a great brew pub in SE with lots of dog friendly tables outside. I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to stay for more than 5 minutes but she actually did fantastic. She was calm for Tom’s one and one third beers before she started her restless barking. Before that, as long as I kept her occupied and gave her my undivided attention, she stayed laying down for a good part of the time. She also got a million treats, which of course helped a lot. I’m so proud of her and I’m so excited to make this a regular exercise. For the next few tries, we’ll just stay for one until she gets used to it.
Mississippi is still occasionally picking on other dogs at daycare. I like to refer to her as “the terrorist” now because she can’t keep from terrorizing the other dogs. I don’t know what to do except keep the number of her daycare days no more than 2-3 a week and to try and walk her before I take her in. I think when she goes in there all raring to go, it sets her up for being extra annoying. After she’s had a good walk, she tends to be more calm. What she typically does is she finds a dog that doesn’t want to be messed with. The dog tells her to leave them alone and Mississippi takes it all wrong. She’s not good with rejection. She then tries to rough house with the dog until she gets angrier and angrier warnings from the other dog. It’s not pretty and it scares me that somebody is going to get hurt. She’s hard to call off when she’s like this. I’m practicing recall with her in every single situation. She’s been pretty great at it, even when she gets all crazy barky in the backyard. She’s even come running into the house while still all growley and huffy. I figure if we keep up recall training, she’ll automatically come to us when she gets herself in tough situations.
We had week two of doggy training class “Out on the Town” Through Happy Go Lucky. Class was fun and we were very good at passing other dogs while keeping all her attention focused on me. She has a lot of trouble paying attention rather than sniffing and I find she’s either in class mode, where all eyes are on me, or she’s in park mode where all she can do is follow her nose. It’s hard for her to switch back and forth quickly. Something to work on. We practiced “leave it” by passing tempting objects and treating her when she looks at me instead of at the object. The class is much better than the last one and we’re having a good time. I keep forgetting to ask the teacher if I can use clicker training with Mississippi. I think I’d get a better response.