Hi all, Once he graduated from the Puppy Foundation classes we started taking Harvey to the KCGC Bronze classes. The issue we have is, I think, to do with proofing. The vast majority of the requirements Harvey will happily perform at home. Put him in a class full of people and other dogs and he is, to say the least, somewhat distracted - When I was a kid I used to watch a lot of cartoons on TV and sometimes they would have a character on that got so excited he started shaking and then, being a cartoon, exploded! That's what Harvey is like : How do I best go about getting the commands that work at home to work in class? Is it simply a matter of keep going to as many classes as possible so that eventually Harvey sees this as 'normal'? (The weird thing is that his recall, regardless of distractions, is perfect!)
Re: KC Good Citizen - Bronze Hi, Conker was the same, there was a collie bitch about same age as conker started same week, if we put them together all they did was play, no matter how hard we tried to get them to do what we wanted. We had to seperate them in the end, but this was still hard as the second i let him go to do recall if he saw her or was still too close, he made a beeline for her. She passed her bronze first time, conker had to re-take his, which meant that we were then in completely different classes, which was better. We passed the silver first time, to my amazement it was the sitting and staying for 2 minutes that we found the hardest. The funny thing was that in class when off the lead doing recall the whole length of the hall, he came back every time, get him outside never, always had problems, it's only now that we seem to be making some progress. Conker just thinks every-one is a play mate all the time.. We have had to go to the park knowing that other dogs and distractions are about and try to get him to do what he does at classes outside, we started on a long training lead, so he thought he was off but we still had control, then be brave once he's doing what we wanted him to do. hope this helps, just think lab's are friendly playful dogs. mel
Re: KC Good Citizen - Bronze Hiya, Sorry I am going to be no help at all as i had the same problem with murphy and so gave up taking him to classes as I was getting too stressed frustrated and upset. I am sure it is a proofing issue though and can be sorted. Someone will come along in a minute with something more useful!
Re: KC Good Citizen - Bronze [quote author=UncleBob link=topic=4853.msg60363#msg60363 date=1394630459] Put him in a class full of people and other dogs and he is, to say the least, somewhat distracted - When I was a kid I used to watch a lot of cartoons on TV and sometimes they would have a character on that got so excited he started shaking and then, being a cartoon, exploded! That's what Harvey is like : [/quote] I think it's far too big a step - from zero dogs and people in a garden, to a class full of other dogs. I guess it's a step lots of people do, but I certainly struggled. I suppose if you keep trying, eventually you'll get there. I managed fine with one other dog at my 121 lesson (the trainer's dog) and not too bad on the walks we've been on with 2 or 3 other dogs. so I'm thinking to try build it up (ie you've still got to do what you are told, even when other dogs are with us) before I hope to be able to cope with a big group in a class.
Re: KC Good Citizen - Bronze Julie has hit the nail on the head. Many people do make the leap from home to class with nothing between, and a good trainer will help you to work on calming him and getting his attention in the new situation. But dogs do benefit from a 'half-way house' which involves setting up situations yourself, to introduce distractions more gradually. There are some ideas in this article that might help you.
Re: KC Good Citizen - Bronze My suggestion would be to make sure you have super interesting high value rewards that keep him focused on you and if he gets into a mad cartoon phase take him outside or to a quite corner and get his focus back on you and give him time to calm down. What we found with puzzle is that if we take her for a 10-20 min walk before we go to classes she is a lot calmer especially after an off lead romp around as it gets her super excited energy out of her so she is only excited when we go to training. We did not have too much trouble with her when first starting classes, she was constantly focused on me and what i was doing, it is only now that she has been going there a while that she gets excited and wants to play with some of the other dogs. Good luck anyway, Barley passed his bronze and silver first time each, we were going for gold but now due to his health troubles it seems unlikely but we might, we will just have to see how he goes. Puzzle is doing her bronze and silver this year and maybe her gold depending on when they run the test's
