Dandy at school...

Dandy has been doing great at dog class (we just finished the 4th of 6 classes) and while he's learning new skills, it's the human socialization and positive experiences that we were after. Dandy is one of three dogs and there are 2 trainers and intern so it's calm and lots of time with different people. Dandy knows the school well and when we drive up he's so excited which gets me excited for him! When we head into class he's still a little uneasy but within 5 minutes he's relaxed and fully engaged to have a good time. He's becoming a bit of treat hog which is super as it moves him out of his comfort zone to greet and engage with the trainers and other people in the class. Dandy is also feeling brave enough to be handled by the trainers, trusting them while working with them. Here's a video of Dandy with one of the trainer's - the goal here is to have fun, engage with someone other than me and work on the finger point. In Dandy's life outside of our home, a finger point was not a good thing and would lead to fear, avoidant behavior & quickly shutting down. With Dandy we are counter conditioning the pointing as well as some other fear's he struggles with. The more we can diffuse Dandy's fears the better off he will be in his eventual new home! So while it may not look like that much is going on in this video this was a great job by Dandy!