Rolyx is a chow/husky mix, and he is approx 1.5 years old, maybe a tad younger. He was a shelter baby, born and raised there. He didn't even have a collar on, let alone leash trained. But you are right, very smart regardless...but not without problems right off the bat, he had a nasty case of separation anxiety [which is TONS better now-about 95% improvement]. Most other things, he learned super fast, but yes motivation is so hard whenever there is stimulus. I use hotdogs which he loves until he hits into that mode. I don't think one person would believe I work with him...in reality without stimulus, he can sit, down, stay, heel and allow me to walk around him in a down/sit to his side. I can see why you said desensitizing him is important, but I am not sure how to do that quite yet, especially when the world seems to be it. I also noticed [esp after last night] he seems to have some sort of fear aggression towards larger dogs [around his size and up] which has me concerned. I take him to a friends large fenced in yard, and oddly enough...running is not his priority. He will run if his corgi buddy is game to play chase, but after a few minutes, he tends to fizzle out and want to stay in one spot or slowly patrol the yard. His priority seems to be to watch for things and investigate if he sees something...he doesn't miss a thing.
I went to the cgc class and I'm honestly drained...I feel like crying, as stupid as that sounds. Soon as he saw the other dogs...he went into his mode. They allowed me to stay in the back somewhat and he'd calm down, then catch sight of a dog and start yowling again. I didn't want to reinforce the yowling so I tried not to respond to it too much, but I didn't know if I should at least say NO. I honestly felt like taking him out of the building, which my instincts seemed to be close on the right thing there. One of the trainers helped me at end, told me to take him away when he gets like that and praise him when he settles, then try to come back. Rinse, repeat. She also gave some valid points, the time to work on this problem is now and I am definitely leaning to take the class. I just worry about disrupting the class too much, having to go out more than stay in and miss out on learning the training methods I am there for too...but those are my hangups, not Ros [he has NO problem with it lol].
Ro waiting for ok to take meat. Now if I could get him this intense in the field, we'd both be set.
Waiting for ok to eat...dinner time is serious business.