Hi all! This is the latest on Katie.
I'm sure she is being aggressive. She shows teeth and force that I have only seen angry adult dogs do. But my Dad says she's being aggressive to him when she is play biting, no matter how many times I have explained to him.
The things she has of high value can be things she has picked up off the street such as a bit of plastic that we do not want her to swallow. So it is impossible to hide all the things see she's as high value.
Have tried the game mode. It works 25% of the time.
At first, I guess I was doing the treat thing wrong. I was hold out the treat to her, she came for the treat, ate it, I took the whatever and then she went for me.
The last few days, I have been very upset, and I have not been trying to make it fun to hand it over. Instead, I have been very laid back, said nothing to her, show her a toy, let her see it, took hold of the whatever and given the toy instead. She has not wanted to give the item over but she hasn't been menancing or has not once tried to bite me even though she had great opportunity to. I don't know if I am doing right but I was so upset with her that admit I didn't try to make it fun. But I am happy that she did not try to make it scary.
Katie had her first training class yesterday. She was nervous at first as she has never seen so many dogs/puppies of lots of different breeds all at once. She was whimpering and was jumping up at me trying to get my attention. But she went up to the other puppies and was wagging her tail like it would come off from then on. Even one of the trainers noted 'Katie, your tail has not stopped wagging!' She LOVES meeting people and other dogs. We asked one of the trainers about her aggressive posessiveness and this was the advice he gave us: show her who the boss is. It's all in the body language. Wow! What great advice. That's like saying to a dance student to move your arms and legs about. More info please!
Anyway, all the first timers had their own class - there were 3 of us. I wanted to cry because the other 2 puppies were doing everything right and Katie was not doing it at all. I think I would've burst into tears if it wasn't for her doing the next exercise perfectly. She was the best of the 3 at the watch and the heel work
I felt like a proud mother. And she already knew sit and doesn't need a treat anymore to do it. The trainer tried to do the exercise that she wouldn't do which was down. He did manage to get Katie to lie down but that was after some trying with her. He tried to get her to sit, his way, with the treat but Katie was after a fluff, hair and dirt ball that had gathered on the floor and was more interested in eating that than the treat that the trainer had right on her nose. The trainer never picked Katie once to use in his demo on how the training should be done
She was very excited that she was getting herself tangled up in her lead. The trainer said he thinks he is going to have trouble training her because she has fire in her
The trainer also recommended walkies 3 times a day for 10 minutes. I have been giving her more than that and she still has lots of energy. Should I do what the trainer says or keep to my routine? Morning work is usually 30mins, before dinner walk usually about 10 mins, afternoon walk about 10-20mins (depending what's on that day) and evening walk about 30 mins.
Next week, we're in the class with all the puppies. She is going to be even more excited. We have been given homework which we have to show we can do, next lesson. I'm very worried because I hate doing things in front of a group of people especially if Katie and I can't do it. We're going to work hard on the down and practice a bit more on the advanced heelwork. And I'm going to practice more on the the recall. Katie is doing her part perfectly on that and I keep messing my bit up - lol!
