Manu had his first day of class over the weekend. he's definitely one of
the calmer dogs there. this class has a much different composition than
Lola's last group, we have less retrievers and way more bullies! there was
an adolescent male boxer who was boinging all over the place, completely
unmanageable, starting things with all the other dogs, and not allowed in
playtime (someone remind me of this next time i talk about cute boxer
puppies!). there were a couple of "Heinz 57" dogs who i thought looked
pretty bully-ish. there was one aussie, one corgie, and a couple of cute
labs. and there was a couple with a pair of adorable 5 month old APBTs.
they were very interested in learning about the breed and training them
well, but i think their breeder may not have been the best. basically they
knew little about the breed except that they liked the looks of them. the
breeder sold them a pair of females, littermates, unspayed. i almost asked
for the breeders name so i could go give him a good talking to! lucky for
them, they were sitting next to me, so we talked a lot about same sex
aggression, rough play, and keeping them separate when they're not
supervised (something the couple was doing already). they also told me
they're getting spayed next month (yay!). anyway, they seemed very
interested in learning more and doing lots of training, so i think they're
definitely on the right track.

Manu was great, i do think he is smarter than we thought at first, he just
shows it differently than Lola. he did his sits and downs well, and is
starting to get the hang of "wait". loose leash walking will take a while,
but i knew that. his former foster home just let him pull as hard as he
wanted against a prong, so he doesn't seem to notice "self corrections" with
it. there's research that shows that if you put a mouse in a box with a hot
wire between them and some food, if you start with low voltage and slowly
increase it, the mouse will keep touching the wire in order to get the food.
it gets used to the shock and the small increases don't bother it. if you
start with a high voltage, it gets shocked once, and doesn't keep trying. i
think the same is true for a dog that pulls. if you let them keep pulling
and slowly increase the correction, it's not going to stop him from pulling.
anyway, we're working on that one with lots of treats for "look at me".
surprisingly, he even did well in playtime (we left his leash attached for
easier access if he did anything bad). he casually sniffed some butts and
mostly just romped around on his own, saying hi to the people and ignoring
the dogs. the only issue was with a newcomer who came in the door, onleash,
during playtime. Manu ran up and barked and growled and tried to dominate
the newcomer. the trainer stepped on his leash and made him sit for a
minute, and after the other dogs accepted the newcomer, Manu was fine. i'm
sure he was just trying to make sure the new guy didn't do anything bad,
packwise.

all in all, he did well, and it's such a relief to have a dog that just lies
down and waits for the exercises, rather than whining and pulling and
barking until it's time to play (like Lola does).