Continuing to learn
It has been a busy week. I have been debating about what to post next. I was thinking of introducing you to foster dog number three. I have changed my mind, however, after the interesting seminar I went to Saturday.
Rover Rescue is now working with Rock Kennel in Shabbona. Lauren, the trainer there, offered a class on dog to dog interactions. Rover Rescue encouraged all of its foster parents to attend. I signed up and was super excited to go. Unfortunately the weather Saturday decided not to cooperate, the class I had gotten signed up for was postponed until next week. I was bummed because I have to work next Saturday and would not be able to attend the rain (snow) date. I sent Lauren an email to see if there was anyway I could do one of the classes earlier in the day that had not been postponed. She wrote back that she had a cancelation in her 9 am class. Sweet!
I am so happy I got to go. I learned so much. I did not realize there are different play styles in dogs and that because of this certain dogs may not play well together. I learned, contrary to what I had always been taught, that it is usually not good to introduce dogs on leash. It is a lot harder to access behavior, plus you also have dogs that could be leash reactive or exhibit resource guarding of their person. They could be labeled as dog aggressive, and that really is not the case. I learned you have to let dogs work out things on their own sometimes. There may be strongly worded conversations between dogs, these are not necessarily fights and you need to see how things play out. We got to watch videos of different behaviors and then discuss afterwards. Lauren was so enthusiastic she made you want to learn. I will definitely watch for more classes.
Now what was really beneficial is I am able to take some of what I learned and apply it to Rocky. He has always been a conundrum to me. He gets along with my girls so well, and we have had very few instances of him getting upset with them (and usually when he does get upset it has to do with his resource guarding). I was also told by the adoptive family that returned him that he went to doggie daycare and got along well with other dogs. I had 2 different instances where he randomly went after another dog with no provocation (he had snapped at other dogs prior to these, but those all had to do with resource guarding). There was nothing around (food,toys,etc) in these 2 cases to cause a fight over resource guarding. But I found out at the classes that I could be the resource Rocky is guarding. This makes sense because he has been to a couple events without me and the person handling did not have any issues. That was always someone he did not know well, and he is so aloof he probably did not feel a need to guard them. Things are starting to make more sense and I am not as confused about his random dog aggression.
So now I have somewhere I can go with my boy. I am planing on contacting Lauren and maybe setting up some training for Rocky. Maybe if I can work with him some I can make him more adoptable. I will let you know how that pans out.
Have a good day all!
Rover Rescue is now working with Rock Kennel in Shabbona. Lauren, the trainer there, offered a class on dog to dog interactions. Rover Rescue encouraged all of its foster parents to attend. I signed up and was super excited to go. Unfortunately the weather Saturday decided not to cooperate, the class I had gotten signed up for was postponed until next week. I was bummed because I have to work next Saturday and would not be able to attend the rain (snow) date. I sent Lauren an email to see if there was anyway I could do one of the classes earlier in the day that had not been postponed. She wrote back that she had a cancelation in her 9 am class. Sweet!
I am so happy I got to go. I learned so much. I did not realize there are different play styles in dogs and that because of this certain dogs may not play well together. I learned, contrary to what I had always been taught, that it is usually not good to introduce dogs on leash. It is a lot harder to access behavior, plus you also have dogs that could be leash reactive or exhibit resource guarding of their person. They could be labeled as dog aggressive, and that really is not the case. I learned you have to let dogs work out things on their own sometimes. There may be strongly worded conversations between dogs, these are not necessarily fights and you need to see how things play out. We got to watch videos of different behaviors and then discuss afterwards. Lauren was so enthusiastic she made you want to learn. I will definitely watch for more classes.
Now what was really beneficial is I am able to take some of what I learned and apply it to Rocky. He has always been a conundrum to me. He gets along with my girls so well, and we have had very few instances of him getting upset with them (and usually when he does get upset it has to do with his resource guarding). I was also told by the adoptive family that returned him that he went to doggie daycare and got along well with other dogs. I had 2 different instances where he randomly went after another dog with no provocation (he had snapped at other dogs prior to these, but those all had to do with resource guarding). There was nothing around (food,toys,etc) in these 2 cases to cause a fight over resource guarding. But I found out at the classes that I could be the resource Rocky is guarding. This makes sense because he has been to a couple events without me and the person handling did not have any issues. That was always someone he did not know well, and he is so aloof he probably did not feel a need to guard them. Things are starting to make more sense and I am not as confused about his random dog aggression.
So now I have somewhere I can go with my boy. I am planing on contacting Lauren and maybe setting up some training for Rocky. Maybe if I can work with him some I can make him more adoptable. I will let you know how that pans out.
Have a good day all!
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