November 4, 2013

I enrolled A.J. in a Reactive Dog class. Yesterday was our first class. There were seven people with their crazy dogs. Mary said by the last class all the dogs would be on their mats while one handler weaved her dog through the mats. We all laughed.

A.J. cried through most of the class. Because all the dogs are crazy they have to stay in crates most of the time. We’ve been working hard on crate training, but A.J. does not like to be in the crate, especially when things are going on around him. I made sure he could always see me. The one time he couldn’t he really threw a fit. But even when I sat on top of the crate, my legs in front of the door, he still cried. And he set off some of the other dogs, too.

But he did everything else well. We practiced focus we his “Look at Me” command and he did great. We did “Smack” (touch my hand with his nose) and he did really great. He even smacked my hand when he had to go up off his front feet to reach; that was fun. I learned that Mary, our trainer, tells her dog to Smack other people and that it’s a great trick, people love it. I’ll definitely have to teach A.J. how to do that.

The only other thing we did with the dogs was massage, but A.J. wasn’t the least bit interested.

We got a paper with our homework on it; I haven’t looked at it yet. Tomorrow.