My initial thought that Lola was frustrated rather than "feisty" was confirmed when treats just weren't working for one of the dogs in class. A braided rope tug toy was a much better reward for the little Scottie & the sight of him playing w/o her was too much for Lola. Self control, little girl. We'll keep working on it!
After all..."I'm a lover, not a fighter!"
Observations over the last 6 weeks:
Lola has great name recognition. I've never worked much on an attention word, but have always reinforced "checking in" (eye contact w/o prompting) and response to her name.
She also has a pretty darn good Leave It. I'll continue to use this on walks when she hears a dog bark 10 blocks away.
Walk Away is great!! I love this & so does Lola. Note to self to keep bringing treats on walks & practice, practice, practice.
We had a chance to work on a little bit of everything leaving class tonight. A volunteer was trying to get a beautiful, bold brindle Pitbull back into the building while all of us Feisty Fidos were leaving. We walked out the front door, the Pit rounded the corner and I said "Lola, Walk Away" and we made a quick left into the grass. One Woof! and she turned her attention to me. I talked to her the whole way to the car & she kept looking back & forth...him then me, him then me...but she managed to control herself and didn't bark again. Lots of dogs were in the parking lot and I did a big Find It (threw a handful of treats into the backseat) and we drove away w/o incident. Even after the treats were gone & we passes a yippee JRT...I said Leave It and she looked at me for a treat (which I surprisingly had!) and she didn't bark. I LOVE progress!!!
