Gustavo doing some learning in dog school.

Here's some videos from Gustavo's class with Nancy. Thanks Jen for videoing!


So here's one with a mini meltdown. There was a jump that was set too high, I stop him in front of it and am sort of freaked out I guess because, yikes. Little guy could damage himself trying to jump 26". I freak out, he freaks out, you get the picture. Too much pressure and off he goes.

This is in class, where he's pretty comfortable. So it's not hard to see that in a way more stressful environment, pretty much the drop of a pin is enough to send him into meltdown mode.


So then the rest of the night, his runs look like this. Reward, reward, reward. A lot, pretty much for anything. It's hard to see, but we're using his brand new trick of him catching the wooly ring on his head. It's a weird trick, but he really likes it.


Nancy had the good idea, go ahead and run him in the dog show this weekend, but try to just run a few obstacles then run him out and reward, reward, reward. Keep him away from the ring, just get him in and go, no leadout, no nothing, just get him in and out fast and reward, reward, reward.

He only has so much capacity for stress. His so much is not much at all. So I'm going to try to make the show ring just stressful enough that he doesn't get overloaded. Back to the drawing board, and trying to train the dog I have, step by step, little by little, inch by inch.