Yesterday was a big night at the McLaughlin household because it was the first night of Growl Class. This is a dog class for pooches with anger management issues. Strangely enough, Artie was the star of the night which we haven’t quite figured out.<\/p>\n
We adopted Artie about a year ago from the Oregon Humane Society. One morning, they opened their doors to find a man standing outside with Artie. He was hitting him and telling him to shut up. The reason for giving him away? Chewing and digging. Hello, he’s a dog! Of course he’s going to chew and dig. We gave him an unlimited rawhide supply and a stretch of dirt and he’s a happy boy. But when he was first processed, the workers figured out he came from an abusive owner pretty quickly. He totally ignores yelling – just goes deaf and pretends not to hear anything and when he gets scared, he shuts down. Literally. Reminds of a bad Lifetime made for TV movie were the abused woman curls up and rocks back and forth muttering to herself. He’ll lie down, tuck his tail and paws underneath him, and won’t budge or look at you for anything. You pretty much have to leave him alone until he unwinds and is ready to interact with the world again. Because of this unusual background, he had the dubious privilege of being one of the longest guests at the Humane Society. He was there over 3 months before we came and rescued him. Thankfully, our shelter is a no-kill shelter so they’ll hold dogs indefinitely if needed.<\/p>\n
We’ve worked really hard with Artie at home and he’s overcome a lot of fear. He trusts us and feels very comfortable in our neighborhood. As he has gotten comfortable, he’s regained quite a bit of spunk. He now barks at strangers and tackles other dogs willy-nilly. So we decided our next step was to begin socializing him with other dogs. We don’t like the park because you get a pack of 10 dogs running rampant into the street and terrorizing small children. Next, we tried to enroll Artie in doggie daycare but he failed the entrance exam by barking at the dogs. The owner of the daycare, however, suggested her Growl Class which is a way to learn to control your dog around strangers in a controlled environment. It sounded good to us!<\/p>\n
So Kev & I left work early yesterday to get the pooch ready for his first day of class. First, each dog must wear a t-shirt. Supposedly, it helps calm them down having a shirt hugging them that smells like home. Next, each dog must wear a GentleLeader which is a special head collar that works just like a horse harness. It loops around their snout and allows you control of their head. As we have learned, most dog fights start with staring. If one dog doesn’t look away, it’s a sign of aggression. The GentleLeader allows you to control your dog’s head so you can break eye contact and avoid most scuffles. After the GentleLeader, each dog has to wear a muzzle. Artie doesn’t like this but so far he’s been a sport and let us get away with it. Then, you have to have two leashes – one attached to the GentleLeader and the other to his collar. Finally, a third leash is attached to the collar only this rope is also bolted into the wall at the school. Each bolt is spaced so that the dogs can’t reach each other. Finally, you don’t feed your dog dinner before class and you bring lots of “high value” treats. Artie got chicken breast sauteed in a light olive oil with rosemary. Yummy.<\/p>\n
It was so interesting to watch! They walked each dog in one at a time and bolted them to the wall. Once the dog settled, they brought in the next one. Every time a dog entered the room, every dog in there went crazy, barking and lunging. If they weren’t bolted to the wall, there would have been one wild dog fight last night. Every time one dog moved, it set off every other dog in the room.<\/p>\n
Every dog but Artie.<\/p>\n
That’s right, our pooch decided he wanted none of this craziness. He curled up under our chair and never made a sound. Not a single bark or lunge. We were stars. After a couple of minutes, we started putting him through the paces. Sit, lie down, shake, roll over. He was simply awesome. While the other dogs were straining their leashes trying to eat each other, Artie was calmly watching us, waiting for the next piece of chicken to fall. By the end of the night, I was sort of hoping he’d act up. I mean, the whole reason we were there was to learn how to curb him correctly. It was as if he sensed this and decided to go against the grain. Instead of being his usual trouble maker self, he was docile and obedient. I have a feeling that after a few more classes, he’ll feel comfortable enough to start acting out.<\/p>\n
But I have to admit, it felt good to realize that even though he is a spaz, he isn’t that bad. And, of course, it was pretty cool to have everyone commenting on what a good boy he was. Our dog? A good boy?? Yup. That’s my dog!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday was a big night at the McLaughlin household because it was the first night of Growl Class. This is a dog class for pooches with anger management issues. Strangely enough, Artie was the star of the night which we haven’t quite figured out. We adopted Artie about a year ago from the Oregon Humane […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Kqhb-5w","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1228,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions\/1228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}