Oliver's Basic 2 Class

On Tuesday night, Oliver and I went to our basic obedience class.  I have a lot of negative feelings towards this class because of how it is run.  The class is supposed to be a basic class for relatively green dogs but the level the dogs are asked to perform at is very high.  The dogs in the class almost always fail at the exercises.  Oliver normally does very well despite this and fails very little.  But every now and then the level is above what he is capable of doing.  This week, the whole class time was used to practice duration stays.  I have multiple problems with this as the dogs never really get a break from the exercise.  Oliver and I have not worked duration stays as much as we have been other things.  We do work stays every day but normally it is about distraction rather than duration.  Knowing that Oliver was not at this level, I increased my rate of reinforcement a lot.  But Oliver and I are still learning about each other and our abilities.  I wasn't sure if he would tolerate stay after stay after stay.  So, we gave it a shot. 

The first two or three stays, Oliver did quite well.  There were a lot of distractions going on but I gave him a small treat every 5 seconds or so.  After that, Oliver just wasn't having it and rightfully so.  He was probably bored as we were not doing anything active.  Also, he was getting quite frustrated by doing stays over and over.  I decided to give him a break to sniff the floor.  This proved to be a mistake as he howled at me as if to say "I still am not doing anything!".  It just increased his frustration.  I decided to take a cuddle break so he could relax but have lots of attention while in my lap.  This definitely helped him reset his frustration level but he still didn't want to do stays.  I started having him stay for a short period and rewarded with heeling.  This also helped him.  But in the end, we just went outside for a longer break. 

I learned a lot from Oliver in this class.  Even though I disagree with the way the class is run, I probably will keep going.  It's helping me in changing my training plan in the moment to best benefit Oliver.  Normally, when Oliver and I train, I only increase difficulty of the exercise when I feel that he is ready.  I have gotten used to doing this because it works well for Oliver.  99% of the time, he is always right when I train this way.  But in this class, the difficulty is raised above what we are capable of so I have to adjust my training.  I have increased reinforcement, changed duration, etc.  I've also had to take more breaks with him.  It's helping me in figuring out what his needs are too and what is going on with him when he acts certain ways.  We are a new team and benefit from this type of learning.  I still don't like the class but I am learning things from Oliver by going.  He's such a good boy and seems to want to keep going too!