Canine Good Citizen

Last night, Mumble and Chopper had their "final exam" in Obedience 2 class at the Zoom Room in Culver City. The class was all about learning the behaviors and skills necessary for the AKC's Canine Good Citizen program so that the dogs could pass the CGC test. You can read all about the AKC's CGC program, the test, and the purpose of CGC on their website, www.akc.org/events/cgc/, which provides a lot of useful training related information as well as details about how to be evaluated. I'm really grateful that the Zoom Room offers the class and test, and there are also some other programs in the LA area that have similar obedience classes.

Chopper's mom has written a good description of the test items from last night's exam on her blog, According to Chopper.

Going into the exam, I wasn't honestly sure that Mumble was ready to pass it. In fact, we had signed up for a second 6-week class of Obedience 2 at the Zoom Room, thinking that the advanced obedience training is good practice either way, and that 12 weeks would probably be better for mastering everything required for the test. Mumble is extremely smart and good at training, but he sometimes is very willful and has a mind of his own about how he wants to behave. That what you get with the combination of a Border Collie and a Bull Terrier - I always say "a smart & stubborn breed plus another smart & stubborn breed equals a crazy Mumble!" This is why its necessary to keep doing all of these training activities with Mumble - not because he hasn't already learned most of these things, but because he is a dog that requires lots of structure and practice on an ongoing basis or else he decides for himself how to act. So I was worried about a few of the items, as I thought it would all ultimately depend on how Mumble was that particular day.

One thing about the test, as opposed to training / practice, is that you cannot use treats during the test! You have to reward with praise, petting, etc. Dave said if he "saw" the treats, that was a problem, so I basically hid some in my pocket so that Mumble would smell them and I could occasionally make my fingers smell like treats in case I needed to distract Mumble. I don't know if this is technically allowed or not, but that's what we did. I'm not sure this was a good idea for Mumble. Basically, he knew I had the treats somewhere, and that he wasn't getting them, so he just stared at me and even barked / begged when he still didn't get a treat. When I would "shush" him or say "quiet," he's just do his really soft bark that he uses when he wants something. I think he thinks "quiet" means bark quieter instead of don't bark at all!

The first thing I was worried about was getting Mumble into the test area calmly. Generally, Mumble comes barging into the Zoom Room raring to go, because he is use to doing something exciting like agility when he's there. Last week, we kind of had a "practice test" for the next-to-last class. That day, I took Mumble to daycare at The Loved Dog, where he goes a couple of times a week to play with other dogs all day (herd them and boss them around, more like). He absolutely loves it there and usually comes home and goes to sleep right away. I figured he'd be pretty tired and mellow when we went to the Zoom Room that night, but I was WRONG. Instead, he seemed to be hyped up and energized. It was like he couldn't regulate himself from the freedom of playing and doing what he wanted at TLD during the day to the structure of the class and wanted to keep playing and being rambunctious instead. When we came into the Zoom Room, there were several "extra" people there - people who were observing the class to check out the Zoom Room, and people who were friends/family observing specific dogs (including Chopper's grandpa). In general, even on a good day, Mumble is suspicious of anyone new at the Zoom Room. I think he's been going there so long that sometimes his "I want to be in charge" mentality is hard for him to suppress when he's there. If we are in the middle of a class and someone comes in the door, he stops what he's doing and gives a warning bark. So when we walked in and he saw a bunch of strangers, and was already on alert and hyped up, he just immediately started barking. Dave said that would be an "automatic fail" if it were the real test.

Thus, last night I was trying my best to keep Mumble focused before we even went in the door to prevent a repeat of that situation. He did really well coming in, and during the middle of the test there actually was a real-life-situation of a disruption by someone who was not in the class. Someone who works for Dave came out of the back room - a person Mumble has barked at in the past - and actually stood about 3 feet from where Mumble was in his down-stay to talk to Dave briefly before leaving. I was working hard on "look at me" to keep Mumble focused, which worked because he did not get up or bark.

The other thing I was worried about was walking past other dogs / reaction to another dog. This was something we practiced a lot back when Mumble took his Therapy Dog class, but he was never really good at it. In real life, this is the thing we struggle with the most. Mumble's border collie instincts and behaviors are really strong / dominant. When he sees a dog or cat out on a walk that he wants to see, he goes immediately into a herding stance with intense eye gaze, kind of hunches down, and perseverates on the dog until he gets it to come to him. I can keep him going and get him refocused on me instead of the dog only if I catch the behavior in time. He knows he's not supposed to hunch down and try to herd the other dogs, so what he does instead is lay all the way down on the ground to stare at them. If he lays down, it's almost impossible to get him back up and walking unless I practically pick him up!

During the class, we walked past the other dogs while we were doing the "loose leash walking" item, walking in a circle. Dave would have us go around one way with the dogs on the outside of the circle, then the opposite way with the dogs on the inside so that they were basically passing by each other (it was a small circle). Back when we were doing the Therapy Dog class, we did this "item" in two ways - one was by approaching each other from a specified distance, stopping in the middle and shaking hands, during which time the dogs were not supposed to lung towards each other, try to play, jump on the other dog/person, etc. In the other situation, the other dogs in the class would be lined up on either side of the room and one dog and its owner would walk between them. Both the dog that was walking and the ones that were sitting on the side were supposed to show no more than a casual interest in the other dog.

Mumble has no concept of "casual" anything, certainly not of a "casual interest" in something. If he's interested, its a perseverative/obsessive kind of interest! So this was certainly not his strongest item. During the test last night, Dave had us do the second way we use to do this in Therapy Dog - all of the other dogs (there are 10 dogs in this class) formed two lines on the sides, so that there was a path down the middle, and each dog took a turn with its owner walking down the middle. The dog was to walk nicely and was not supposed to try to go to the other dogs. As soon as this item started, I felt my blood pressure go up because I feared that Mumble would think this was a great opportunity to go around and visit all the other dogs in the room.

To my pleasant surprise, Mumble actually did very well on this. He walked nicely with me the whole way, only sniffing the ground occasionally and never once trying to herd any of the other dogs towards him. There was one dog in the class he never has liked (the dog barks annoyingly almost constantly), and when we got close to that one he kind of glared at it for a second, but then kept going immediately when I said "come on." I guess that passed for "casual interest." I totally give credit to Dave for our success in this - one thing I definitely know that I have become better at with Dave's training and guidance is how to keep Mumble under control.

The item I was not worried about was "coming when called," although there was a time that Mumble would have not passed this. Here, I have to really give the credit to Tamar Geller (owner of The Loved Dog) from whom we took a obedience class (Basic Manners) when Mumble was still a puppy. The very first day in that class, Tamar started teaching us the "here" command. She took each dog in turn by the leash and walked with it to the other side of the room away from its owner. After a few minutes, (she had dropped the leash), you were supposed to call your dog and hopefully it would run back across the room to you. Every other dog at least partially did this task. Some of them started towards their owners and got distracted; some were slow at coming; but they all eventually got there. Except Mumble. He absolutely just stood there next to Tamar and could care less that I was shouting his name and clapping and doing whatever I could to try to get his attention. It wasn't until the sixth and final class that Mumble ran to me when I called his name. Every week we worked on it at home and in class. What I learned from Tamar (through tears that first day) was the importance of your relationship with your dog, and how that is just as important for training as your dog's intelligence and other factors. When I realized the meaning of this and worked on it from that angle, Mumble learned to come to his name because he wanted to come to me. Now, every time we do this at the Zoom Room, including last night during the test, Mumble watches me and waits patiently the whole time he is in his down stay, and as soon as I give him the command (which I can do in any of three ways - saying his name, saying "here," or two taps of my hands on my knees/legs) he runs really fast straight to me and immediately sits.

Mumble's grandma, of course, thought that I never should have doubted him! I guess I have to give him much more credit now that he's certified as a "good citizen!" On the other hand, Rascal (the cat) had his doubts even afterward. When we got home last night, Mumble and Rascal chased each other around, playing, and Mumble basically chewed on Rascal's whole head (which he does until Rascal kicks him in the face). Rascal gave him a look like "someone gave YOU a certificate for being good? really?"