Successes and Updates

So, it has been a long time.  Sagan and I have had a lot of successes in the past months.

In early May, our behaviorist offered to take Sagan for a few days for a board and train to help us move past this training plateau in terms of his reactivity.  After 2 years, we were still looking at 20-30 feet threshold with most dogs (calm or not).  Frustrating.

After using the "Look at that" protocol and others, she felt that with his strong, border collie prey drive, that he was being obedient to "look at that" and doing it, but was not calming as a result of it.  Yep, my own observations confirm that as well. She (and others) have confirmed that my timing and emotional cues were spot-on, so..... So she tried an old school "look at that and stare at me" protocol (ALA the old "watch" command).  She said it worked great and rarely required any kind of extrinsic reward (food, toys, etc.).  That's my driven boy.

I lost my sweet cattle dog mix, Winnie, 13 years old, right before Sagan's board and train.  She was a sweet love, also a reactive dog.  She was, in many ways, what people refer to as a "heart dog"...maybe because she was the first dog I owned in adulthood, maybe because she and I are both BEYOND stubborn and don't give a rip about it. She will be raising hell in heaven, if you believe in that construct.  I miss her like crazy and think about her every day.  She was true to reality in a way humans can't be.   EFF you, she says, "I'm the badass bitch,  here."  By God, she is and was. Her theme song was the one for CSI Las Vegas"  Who is she, Gr, bar, de wooof...."  I miss her so much.

While some people need time to grieve, I needed to fill a hole.  I am still mourning my girl, but needed a new girlie.  Welcome Roux, a 1-year old BC/whippet mix:

Roux has been an amazing addition to our pack.  She is non-plussed by other dogs, and doesn't react to Sagan reacting to other dogs.  I've begun to take both of them running together on my waist leash. Sagan started out reacting to dogs and stopped once he saw Roux not at all bothered by agro dogs behind fences and the like.  Wonderfully, Sagan has helped Roux with her fear of cars.  Roux was a beautiful addition to our pack.

In May, we ran our first agility trial in CPE. Our wonderful friends, Teddi and Cathy, helped protect Sagan on the way into the ring (our biggest worry) and got TWO qualifying runs and TWO 1st place runs!  Holy cow!  This confirms that once Sagan is involved in work, reactivity is a non-issue:

5/11 Regular Run:  Qualify and 1st place:

5/12 Regular Run: Qualify and 1st place:

So we entered another NADAC agility competition with equally impressive outcomes:

6/23:  Novice regular run (Q and 3rd place):

6/23: Novice tunneler's run (A messy Q and 2nd place!):



If I can continue to get him in the ring, he will do amazing things.  Getting him in the ring is no small feat and requires my husband as a placeholder and an army of friends who are advocates.

It is NOT easy getting him in the ring, but he is like Kevin Costner in For Love of the Game.  It all melts away when he is there, and he is the epitome of focus.  I am a high stress person, and I think the nature of Sagan's stress helps me.  He is stressed getting in, so once we're in the ring, the rest seems like absolute CAKE to me.

Still working on the reactivity, but we've jumped a few hurdles, pun intended and not. :-)

Becoming a Running Buddy

So we are in the midst of Control Unleashed 2 for the 4th time.  This class is soooo good for Sagan's reactivity issues.  It is in this class I feel that I can actually truly make progress with him.  I met up with Janey last month for some "car crash" from that class:






 Minus crappy leash manners in this video, he is doing good work in class, and is constantly being challenged in an appropriate way. I am taking a break after this session for awhile. I'm nervous that starting my Ph.D. might mean that I won't get to take this class for awhile, but I hope to make it work. :-)

 Agility is going well....I need to get some video of him doing work. We did this crazy front cross/post turn drill in class a couple of weeks ago. Several jumps and he did it all. I'm figuring it out, and so is he. He LURVES agility, so I am still really trying to advocate for him around the new folks in class. A few folks in our agility class are encouraging me to enter him in a trial in May...we will see, though I want to stay true to what I said in my last post. Want to get him more solid mentally before I attempt that.

 The latest is that Sagan and I are going to run a half marathon on 4/28. He is currently running up to 7 miles with me. I am investing in 2 different sports harnesses, since the Easy Walk is chaffing on those long runs. Trying the Comfortflex from Clean Run and the cool IDC harness with the name patches. Sagan is such a polite running buddy. I put him on a double-length bungee hands-free leash. He runs so nicely. This last weekend, we did the 7-mile run, and managed to navigate a busy street, several on-leash dogs, and a couple of off-leash ones. THIS, however, is the cutest part of our run...the start of it: This is actually a walk, but he does the same on our runs. And it is such a Pavlov moment...the beep of our Garmin watch goes off, and Sagan pulls like an Alaskan sled dog. LOL Fortunate Ross and I can enjoy Sagan in this way. :-)

Coming to a Place of Comfort

So I have a strategy that is "working" with Sagan, and that is reframing dogs with the presence of a ball, which is heroin.

While i am totally encouraged by this, this year is characterized by a reigning in of my goals.  Sagan is not my competition dog.  At least not in the near future.  After 2 years, we are still looking at 20-50 feet threshold radius for unknown dogs, even with our "secret bullet" of the ball.  I have no goals to compete him this year.  Even with behaviorists, control unleashed x 3, and practice, he still isn't calm enough to be within working distance of dogs.  Even tonight in agility, he couldn't handle dogs he has known for months.

I am OK with us never competing, but it has taken me two years to get to that point.

I'm motivated to write because there is a new student in our agility class who has no clue about reactive dogs.  They walk their dog within feet of Sagan's kennel, even after reminders from Ross and me about how reactive Sagan is.  They leave their dog out and require reminders to put him up when we run. They look at us with scorn when we ask for that.

I feel like the successes we derive out of class are in jeopardy.   I resent that there is no place we can really safely have our dog, and I am fiercely protective of this venue. Our instructor does not require crating, and this may be the reason we end up leaving class, and leaving agility as a whole.  I hope this is not the case, but I do understand that this is the result of the dog problems I deal with.  It may be that we are relegated to nosework, which seems to be one of the only venues that is truly friendly to reactive dogs.

I came to understand tonight that what is upsetting me is the pressure to compete and have Sagan be workable in this environment.  It is a humble pill to swallow that this is not reality...and it really isn't.  While he may love agility, he may have to deal with loving agility in class, and that being the end.  He is a smart dog that needs brainwork, but that brainwork has to be tempered and protected by what he finds overwhelming.

At the least, I feel I've learned agility handling skills that will benefit us in class, and possibly a solid temperament dog in the future.  Coming back to the numerical distance we have to have for Sagan not to react.  After 2 years, we are still at 20-50 feet for calm dogs.  In my estimate, that is progress neutral.

Agility Updates

Well, it has been a quiet couple of weeks.  Agility, rally, and control unleashed have gone well.  Sagan "graduated" from Control Unleashed 2 this past weekend.  We've been specifically working some pattern games, but largely, I'm trying to shift "look at that" into a new game, where I click on the look back at me.  It is actually working quite a bit better than our old "look at that" game.

Anyway, I'll keep this one short and sweet.  We did awesome in a 16-obstacle course in agility this past Wednesday.  A high point after a few weeks of garbage!

Starting Over....Again

I suppose owning a reactive dog involves a series of starting over.    I haven't posted for awhile, partially because there is nothing new to say.  While that may seem like a great thing, I think it is more about a lack of any change.  I can count on Sagan to be over the edge reliably every few weeks.  The last 2 episodes involve class-based things.  In Control Unleashed, a Bernese cross came up within about 5 feet of Sagan's kennel while the Bernese was doing off leash work and distracted.  Sagan has wanted to eat him the last three classes, to the point that both of our dogs have to have their kennels covered while the other is working.

In rally yesterday, a dog was there for make-up, and in 50 minutes, I went through 3 cups of treats, and experienced about 5 growling lunges for the other dog.  Sagan practically chewed my thumb off taking treats.  I finally decided just to leave 40 minutes early because it was clear he was not going to calm down.  Oh, don't get me wrong, he was "obedient" and doing his exercises, but was not in a good frame of mind.

I'm part of a FB group called "Canine Behavior Training," and I've been chatting with the owner privately the past couple of days.  I have a few suggestions from her that I plan to try.  I'm planning to spend a few weeks working focus and pattern games (Leslie McDevitt).  She suggests observational skill training for me.  I'm going to put my all into this, but the cynical part of me that has tried all of this stuff with three different dogs is prepared to be back at square one in a few weeks.

My friends try to remind me "how far I've come," and "how lucky Sagan is," and to "hang in there," and that "he will mature."  I feel a lot like I'm stuck in a failing marriage that I keep thinking I should get out of before I invest more of my emotion, time, or money.  I hate to think of Sagan that way, but I do.  I can't help but think someone else would have had more luck with him than me.  I don't need or want anyone to blow sunshine up my ass, but I have lots of regrets about decisions I made early on with him.  I love him to pieces, but I really don't feel like 70% of the time, I enjoy our partnership very much.

I have never felt like more of a failure in any aspect of my life than in owning a dog.  And that's the honest truth.

With how smart I am, and how committed I am, and how many things I have going in my favor with this dog, it just hasn't worked out the way I planned.

I'm dumping my socialization log off of this website, because it is honestly too depressing for me to keep up.  I will replace it with a log of our training sessions, because at least that will make me feel like I'm doing something positive.

I'm writing all of this down, because, again, I think it is beneficial for folks with reactive dogs to have a true picture of what it is like.  At 2 years, I still seriously consider throwing in the towel.

Adjusted Behavioral Plan

So Sagan had a pretty crappy time at the race we went to tonight.  What is normally an OK distance away from people and dogs wasn't.  While I had run the course before and thought it would be pretty conducive to a good experience for him, I really didn't think about the bigger picture that this run was through a suburban area with onlookers at the edges of yards (people who like staring at the 2 or 3 runners with dogs).

I've thought a lot about the strategies I've tried (look at that, look at me, behavior adjustment training, counter conditioning, etc.).  I also did a little bit of searching tonight, and I think I've arrived at a cohesive plan for where to go from here.  To this point, I've tried to broaden the number of tools I've had to deal with his reactivity, but I'm now beginning to realize some of these things work better than others for him.  I need to dump some of these things and redouble my efforts on others.  As I'm reading online, it really does seem like I should be further than this right now.  With almost a year and a half of very concerted, positive-style training and behavioral work, .......  we should really be at a more consistent place.

1)  Continue control unleashed.  This is one of the best opportunities for Sagan to practice self control in a VERY stimulating, but safe way.  I need to do this until I have some pretty predictable self control on his part in a variety of situations.
2) Dump Look at That.  He is "trained" perfectly to do this.  I don't think, however, it lowers anxiety.  The only benefit is the fact that he is conditioned to look at me after the click.  The rationale for this is that the dog  is anxious and needs to get information about his environment.  I really don't think he needs information about other dogs so much as he is worried, and the conditioned "click look at me" response is the only part of that that serves to lower anxiety and break the stare.  Border collies stare by nature.  I don't need him doing this. I'll continue to do this in CU as it is asked of us, but that is all.
3) Begin training and rewarding an auto "look at me." Rationale:  he needs to feel calm that I will handle it, so he needs to look for me for direction.  Looking at me results in food and increased distance to the dog.  I suppose this is really a modified, specific version of BAT.  The only difference is that the "calming signal" I expect is for him to look at me.
4) Consider dropping rally obedience or agility.  Rationale:  I need to focus on his behavioral issues, and find sometimes that in class, I'm more concerned with getting him to perform the required task than working on an overall "zen" in him.  Rally is a "calmer" class, and that is a plus.  It is also something we're also doing with Doppler, which is awesome, too.  However, since we've started removing the treat bag from me, I find his motivation is still low after a couple of months and it might be a good time to take a break and do some home work.  Conversely, agility Sagan LOVES, and the other people in class manage their dogs so well, that I feel like it is a safe environment for him.  He gets more exercise here too, and the brainwork associated with thinking and moving is great.  However, leaving class is always stressful since there are often off leash dogs in the parking lot. So we always leave a little early to avoid that, but it is this constant game of Pacman to get to the car anyway.
5) Goals:
a) I still want to be able to run with Sagan on my normal trails.  I like running with him in races, and I need to think about the complete picture if a race is conducive to his current state or not.  I've been doing this, but really only thinking about my knowledge of the course, and not thinking about all the variables.
b) I've mentioned before to not worry about competing in agility, but in the back of my mind, I'm still kinda working toward that.  While I really want him to be excellent in agility, I am not sure what forcing him to go to stressful environments with lots of dogs and people (agility trials) is doing for him or for me.  When I have to focus so much on his behavior, I will never be at ease in an agility trial environment.  And ultimately, I don't care about titles and letters after his name.  If I ever did do a trial, it would really be only to test our ability to focus in a new environment.
c) At some point do a rally trial.  I think this is a calm/slow enough environment that I can do this and appeal to my competitive nature.
6) At age 2 years, re-evaluate his behavior and determine if I want his thyroid levels tested. I'm not particularly convinced this is his issue, but I am really puzzled why we aren't at a more consistent place at this point.  I can rationalize (for now), that some of the strategies I've been using are not optimal for him, specifically, but once I've tried this new plan, I really should be seeing some consistency.

Ultimately, I think Sagan is dog reactive on leash, not out of a desire to get at the dog, nor a true FEAR of the dog, but a conflicted state....he wants to but is anxious about what could happen.  I think this because he figures out most dogs off leash, but even then, the introduction usually involves hackles.

I'm still not sure about the people reactivity, and I'm in a place where I'd like to manage this as much as possible (read: "avoid people that set him off").  Though I understand getting him to a similar place of self-control with this is critically important, I feel I can control this situation a lot better, so want to focus on the dog thing for now.

Summer Updates on Sagan

Yeah, so summer arrived, and I got a little lazy about posting.  So here's your summary. :-)

Sagan is still taking rally obedience (Seattle Agility Center) and agility classes  (Vortex).  Here's a look at him in agility this past Wednesday:






He is doing well in there, and we did a few privates earlier in the summer with Andrea Dexter as well.

Sagan's doggie pool stopped allowing doggies, so we are looking at continuing his swimming at Happy Tails in Enumclaw, but we just haven't done it yet. :-)

Sagan is also doing Control Unleashed classes at Ahimsa, which is perfect for his needs right now.  He occasionally has some people issues, and predictability has dog reactivity in close proximity.  However, foro the first time in a year and a half, I feel like it is getting better.  With the myriad of behavior games I'm trying, I feel like he is able to THINK given the right amount of distance.  And finally, that distance is getting PREDICTABLE.  Before, it was a complete crap shoot as to how far away I had to be from his triggers.

I'm also now carrying with me, on our runs, citronella dog fight spray.  Don't ask me why this has helped my confidence, but it has.   My number one fear is off leash dog bombings.    Sagan has become a nice little running buddy.  We ran with someone and her two dogs earlier this week (a cattle dog/shepherd/basenji mix and a boston terrier/chi mix), and within about 5 minutes, they were running side by side.  Sagan didn't know what to make of the little dog.  I can run 5-6 miles with him now, no problem.   One of my New Year's Resolutions was to take him with me to 3 races.  We've done one, and I have one in mind next week, also.  Should be fun!

We are also still taking him to doggie daycare every other week.  Seems to be doing fine with all kinds of dogs there.

So there you have it!