Last night’s training session with Lacey was conducted at my home… and it was an eye-opener.  Lacey has made tremendous progress under Tanya’s leadership, and is doing well in many areas. But working her around my animals… Lacey did not do as well as I had expected she would. She persistently tried to push my dog out of the way during exercises to get the reward, she became very vocal about doing the exercises, she refused to listen to Tanya, and once, Lacey even tried to nip Tanya. When working Lacey outside, she pulled hard on the leash and refused to sit, heel, or lay down on command. She ignored virtually all of the commands Tanya gave her, and when she was corrected, she became very vocal and tried again to nip.

On the positive side, Lacey did extremely well with ignoring nearby food.  Tanya has been working Lacey on “place” and “ignore” when food is present, and Lacey has been doing very well.  Since she was in a different environment, however, it was important to see if her home behavior would continue.  Because she must be able to lay quietly under a table or chair while her people are eating, Lacey was permitted to lay on the floor very close to my husband. She did an awesome job of ignoring him; she did not lift her head to sniff at the table, nor did she attempt to beg.  She just laid down near his feet and looked away while he ate.

Lacey works very well on a one-on-one setting where there are no other dogs. However, when she is around my dog, who is working the same exercises at the same time, Lacey becomes pushy, impolite, disobedient and disrespectful, and very vocal when she doesn’t get her own way. And now, she is trying to bite when she is corrected.

Lacey only exhibits this rude behavior with my dog. She has been this way with my dog since we first took Lacey in for fostering.  Lacey is almost 6 months old, now, and her behavior towards my dog is not changing.  Sometimes, the only way a dog learns is through other dogs, so I’m making arrangements to work with a local trainer and her pack.  Since she is a trigger to Lacey, my dog will be included in the exercises.

Lacey has been making very good progress with her basic lessons. As you can see in this short video, she is still vocalizing during exercises, and she is not coming all the way in and sitting when she is called. But, progress is progress, and at 6 months of age, Lacey is doing quite well.

Last night’s training session also included claiming space at the door by teaching Lacey to go to “place” and stay there when the door is open (see previous post).  For this exercise, we put Lacey’s leash on as a control in case she broke position and tried to bolt outside. Although she did break position a few times, overall, Lacey did fairly well with the exercise.  Her owner will continue to work her on this until Lacey consistently accepts and abides by the rule and shows she is ready to work without the leash.

Lacey’s vocalization during exercises is ongoing.  When she doesn’t want to do an exercise, or when she doesn’t want to do it properly, she barks and grumbles in protest until she gets her own way.  Not only is this disrespectful, it is also a clear sign that she is still not accepting her humans as pack leaders.  To begin the process of trying to turn this behavior around, we used a hand gesture and the word “quiet”, and rewarded Lacey’s compliance accordingly.  When Lacey vocalized, I had Tanya stand calmly and quietly and give her direct eye contact, and use only hand gestures to reinforce the command.  Lacey vocalized for several seconds before finally surrendering to the command and doing the exercise properly. When she did that, she was rewarded with touch.

Tanya’s timing for reward-delivery needs some fine-tuning.  She is doing really well, but she is still a bit late on delivering the reward, and this can confuse Lacey.  So, we are working on improving this.  As she gets quicker, Lacey will start to understand exactly what Tanya is asking of her.  Once she is clear about that, her vocalization should start to diminish.

All in all, last night’s training session went very well. Lacey still has a long way to go, but considering her age, she’s actually doing very well.  Tanya has worked very hard with her, and it’s showing.