Fighting Fire with Fire

Cala running with her Riot Stick.

Cala is a National 60-weave Champion and was on NBC in 2006. Cala is the smartest dog I've ever owned. Cala is the most driven dog I've ever known. Cala has an unofficial fan club. At every show I attend at least one person comes up and asks me about her, or points her out as "she's really cool, you need to watch her run," or "That dog is the 60 weave champion."

Cala is the most difficult dog I've ever had to train, and at almost 6, only has one Open Jumpers leg and not a single Excellent Standard leg. I had to stop doing Rally with her after she got her Advanced title. Cala flips very easily from drive and focused to drive and complete meltdown. She stresses UP not down. Instead of slowing down and shutting down, she flips into an overaroused state. Focus is always tenuous at best. She screams. And I'm not saying that as any sort of exaggeration as any who read this knows if they have ever been in the building when I'm trying to train her. She has a shrill, squealing, bark-yodel. It's piercing. It's maddening. It fires up every single dog that hears it. It causes instructors to cover their ears. It drives me bat s**t crazy. Not only does she scream, but when she loses control she is incapable of listening to me. She literally cannot hear me. She goes into hind brain (or as Brenda Aloff says, lizard brain) and begins taking as many jumps as quickly as possible as her way of trying to blow off some of her excess of hectic drive. Since she can't listen, this means that often she just gets out on the agility course and goes nuts, taking everything in sight.

The reason I had to quit doing Rally after Cala got her Advanced title is because Rally Excellent has two jumps. Even though they aren't in sequence, two jumps equals agility. Agility equals screaming. Screaming equals not just an NQ, but also causing the Honor dog to NQ. Not acceptable.

For the past year, things have pretty much gone from bad to worse. Every attempt I've made to try to get some sort of calm control have failed. Trying to do one-jump training escalated her frustration even faster. I tried heeling around the ring, asking for attention. Worked, but didn't translate. I tried calling her back to me between each jump. More screaming frustration. It's not that she doesn't want to please me. It's that she can't figure out how, and she can't find a way to control her overarousal. So she knows that I'm not happy, and that in turn triggers more and more extreme reactions. We are in a Catch 22 situation. And frankly, it's become a dreaded chore to train her. So I train her less and less because it's so difficult for both of us.

Earlier this week I had what might be sort of an "ah-hah" moment. Obviously trying to calm her down was not working. So instead, I decided to rev her up. Cala's favorite toy in the world is her Riot Stick, a length of stuffed rubberized hose with a handle. She goes absolutely crazy for it. It's always been the toy I used when I really wanted her to get excited. It's the toy I used when she was a puppy to introduce weaves and shape contacts. And part of the Riot Stick game has always been to down in order to get the toy.

So I went back to basics. I got two Riot Sticks out, and let her know I had them. And we started training. It was the most eerie thing, because the toy that is the one that gets her the most excited actually calmed her down. It was as if she was saying to me, "I KNOW THIS GAME! In this game I offer you some control and I get my toy!"

I've had two of the most productive practice sessions I've had in the last year this week. Suddenly Cala has her contacts back. She's watching me like a hawk instead of making her own course, because I have the toy. And though she's still noisy, she's not frenzied.

Could this be the answer? Fight fire with fire? Use her highest value toy to actually calm her down? The jury is still out but for the first time in a long time I can't wait to get her into the ring and try.