With all of her intelligence came a major struggle. Focus. Stella knew all of the commands and would do them but eventually she would do them all at the same time instead of actually slowing down and doing what we wanted her to do and if there were any distractions what so ever, you would be talking to the walls around you because she would care less about anything you were saying. She began to get frustrated that we would repeat the commands and expect her to do them because in her mind she had just done it for you. That is when I decided a puppy class was in order. Not because we needed help in training her or to teach her the commands but to try to help her focus on us in a controlled, chaotic environment. And that is where we landed, right into a controlled chaotic environment.
Our first night of class started off “Ruff”. She was the only dog there being loud and not a good loud, her very high pitched anxious barks that damage a person’s hearing… Now here I am standing there attempting to keep her quiet and it is obviously not working and it will continue to not work until she can meet everyone and their puppies in class. Unfortunately, that is not how the rules are so I started attempting to get her attention with treats. It worked for a while anyways. Then we had to walk and heal. Things went from bad, to worse. Much worse. That is when the trainer and I decided to try a different training collar since I knew the choke chain was non affective for her in correcting her. Instantly she was her normal, TRAINED self. She needed two corrections all class while healing. One for thinking someone called her name but there is another dog named Bella in class and the other when she tried to paw at the little Corgi puppy in front of us.
We started off the class as that one dog in class, you know, the worst one, and ended it as the well behaved dog she is for us at home.