CAMP R.E.W.A.R.D. - October 15-19, 2003
(Realizing Excellence With Attention Redirection and Desensitization)
5 Day Camp

Wowie Zowie, the third Camp R.E.W.A.R.D. has come to a close. It was INCREDIBLY wonderful!

We had a mix of dogs – breeds and issues:

• Victoria Woods (Who drove all the way from California!) and her dog Cody, the Australian Shepherd (reactive to humans).
• Virginia Wind and her dog Needy, the Mastiff (afraid of everything).
• Cindy Combs and her dog Bear, the Husky/Border Collie Mix (reactive to dogs trying to usurp his food and certain resources).
• Gerry Cassidy and her dog Biscuit, the Husky/Shepherd mix (reactive to dogs – used to be humans and now she loves people).
• Jennifer Peterson and her dog Murray, the Boxer (reactive to humans and dogs).
• Renee Ryan and her dog Austin, the Boxer (reactive to dogs).

Everyone who came had different levels of training and expertise. Renee had only rescued Austin 3 weeks before camp, he had no prior training whatsoever and Renee had no idea of how to handle him. Victoria and Cindy had done extensive research on their own and just needed some "fine tuning." Gerry, Jen and Virginia are my regular students and wanted the opportunity to work with their dogs in similar contexts, for 5 whole days, with new people.

Day one:
In the morning we discussed the principles of positive training and how to enrich our relationships with our dogs. We then worked with the dogs in the afternoon, to ascertain where each dog’s thresholds were. Since Austin didn't know a sit from a hole in the wall, we worked him in 2 short sessions, teaching him his name and "come," that eye contact pays off, sit and down. The boy is brilliant! Gerry was so confident about her training with Biscuit that when she brought her into the building, Gerry took her off leash – even with new people around! Jen and Virginia brought Murray and Needy in the building and they were super dooper! Trainer of the day went to Gerry Cassidy!

Gerry with Biscuit doing touch desensitization while we walked around	Gerry keeping Biscuits attention while we all walked around

Day two:
We worked the dogs in 2 sessions in the morning at Swayze Mill park and Gerry let Biscuits leash drag while she worked on recalls toward the group and away from the group! Way to Go Gerry! Bear did not react to my Cody at all and was very attentive to Cindy. Victoria’s Cody did not aggress at us – even when we called his name and looked at him!

Meg Irizarry taught us how to do some freestyle moves and we were actually able to work 2 dogs at the same time - teaching the dogs to back up and spin and twist. Then we brought each of the dogs into the building (separately) and picked music for each of the dogs. Everyone had SO much fun doing this that they all remembered to breathe! And because everyone was breathing and laughing so much, not one dog aggressed or even thought about aggressing! The incredibly great thing about this was that for a few minutes, everyone got to practice treating their dogs like "normal" dogs and guess what? The dogs ACTED like normal dogs! Renee in particular was fascinated by Meg’s dog costumes and really wanted an Elvis costume for Austin. We all took a walk at the same time around the big field – all dogs were great! No reactions! Trainer of the day went to Renee Ryan!

Jen with Murray the Boxer working on moving attention while we all stood or sat	Victoria with Cody doing attention exercises
Virginia tossing food to Cody after saying his name Cody has a hard time with strangers looking at him	Needy the Mastiff being brave and eating food off the ground near a group
Virginia working Biscuit!!!!	Gerry doing recalls with Biscuit WITH THE LEASH DRAGGING!
Meg with her Golden Retriever, Carly, dressed up like Elvis	Gerry and Biscuit Gerry is teaching Biscuit to back up
Victoria teaching Cody to back up	Cindy getting Bear used to the baby gates in prep for backing up

Day three:
I was in the mood for shopping, so we all went to Cherrybrook to shop and work the dogs. Unbeknownst to me, Cherrybrook was having their tent sale, which was great in terms of great prices on good stuff, but a tad scary because of all the people and cars there. However, my applause for the group - everyone handled it well and Murray only snorted a time or two and was then very attentive. Gerry and Biscuit rode in Virginia’s van along with Needy (Needy was in a crate and Biscuit was loose in the van). Gerry was a nervous wreck but Biscuit was so relaxed that she took a nap!

Austin continued to learn new stuff – like pay attention to Renee – even when outside, the start of loose leash walking, sit even when a bit excited and responding pretty quickly to his name. He was also learning to come when called – even with me trying to distract him with food!!!!! Holy Smokes! Needy was coming out of the van almost instantly (it used to take her 45 minutes to be brave enough to come out) and was coming into the building without hesitation (she used to be terrified of buildings). Bear was learning that Cindy existed – even on grass(!) and Victoria was learning to make her cues simple and clear and voila! Cody was now giving her almost rapt attention! Trainer of the day went to Victoria Woods!

Cherrybrook – what you can’t see from the pictures are all of the cars and people there during the tent sale!
Needy going to Gerry for her breakfast!	Victoria and Cody working on attention at Cherrybrook
Jen and Murray doing great attention heeling	Jen and Murray in foreground, Gerry and Biscuit in background
Victoria and Cody in foreground, Jen and Murray in background, both working on attention

Day four:
The dogs were doing so well learning new behaviors and so attentive to their owners that I felt we could start doing some other contexts. We worked the dogs using protected contact – people/dogs on one side of a chain link fence and the reactive dog on the other side. This exercise was a huge eye opener for many of the campers and the dogs were fantastic. If there was a reaction, it was minimal - since we were all protected, none of us felt we had to react in any way whatsoever – and so, the dogs stopped humpfing at us!

In the afternoon, Dr. Karen Dashfield, DVM came and taught us how to teach our dogs to track. Murray, Needy and Cody excelled at this and got the concept very quickly. Way cool! Trainer of the day went to Cindy Combs!

Jen was gracious and invited us all to her incredibly lovely house for dinner for her famous ziti and great conversation.

Pam and my Cody in foreground, Cindy and Bear on the other side of the fence. Bear is NOT aggressing at Cody while food is around!	Renee with Austin on the other side of the fence, with Pam and my Cody on the outside of the fence. Austin is not aggressing at Cody!
Renee, Austin, Pam and Cody Cont'd
Jen and Murray Murray is doing the tunnel and not aggressing at us!	Pam working Biscuit with Needy just roaming around. Biscuit ignored Needy!
Partial group shot – left to right: Renee, Jen, Victoria, Cindy	Dr. Karen Dashfield, DVM talking to us about tracking (I didn’t take any pictures of the actual tracking – I was so caught up by watching that I forgot…)

Day five:
“OK, gang, now it is time for YOU to make your own contexts and decisions, because I am not coming home with you.” Wow! Great stuff!

• Gerry wanted to review behaviors that Biscuit knew and add some new things. Biscuit has an “issue” with her toenails, so instead of trying to put her under for nail clipping, which only freaks her out, we started to teach her to file her own nails. Gerry got a board and glued some rough sandpaper to it. In just a few minutes, Biscuit was “doing her nails!”

• Victoria wanted to teach Cody to do an instant drop on recall. To teach Victoria how to do this, I “borrowed” Bear. Bear didn’t know how to do this at all, but I wanted to use him for 2 reasons – he isn’t human aggressive <g> and he specifically didn’t know how to do this. Within literally 4 minutes we had him stopping in his tracks on signal and another few minutes got him dropping on signal. Then we brought Cody into the building. We let the leash drag and pretty soon, once Victoria got down the mechanics of it, he was dropping instantly. He did have a tiny reaction to us (we were behind baby gates) but he did not charge us and quickly decided that playing with Victoria was more fun and rewarding than aggressing at us!

• Virginia wanted Needy to eat her breakfast from Jen’s hand, without Jen having to lure and cajole her to come. For the first session, we gave Needy 5 seconds to respond to Jen’s come signal. She did not respond within that time frame, so we put Needy back in the van for 1 minute. The next two sessions, Needy raced up to Jen and sat for food!

• Cindy wanted to do protected contact again with my neutral dogs on the outside of the fence. Bear’s issue is being guardy around food and mom. Bear was easily able to allow Cindy to feed my Cody without aggressing. Then I brought Beau out and Bear was able to handle Beau racing up to the fence (while chasing the toy I threw) with no reaction whatsoever!

• Renee wanted to do protected contact also, so we used Beau and my Cody playing Frisbee outside of the fence with Austin inside the fence. It was a little too much for the poor boy to handle. He wasn’t aggressing, but he was aroused and couldn’t pay attention to Renee. We couldn’t tell if he was aroused in an aggressive manner or in a friendly manner. “Good” arousal can quickly turn to “bad” arousal, so it was decided that calmness around other dogs was best for Austin.

• Jen did protected contact with Murray. He was a slow starter but wow! Once he got focused on Jen, there was no stopping him! We started out by standing still and once he was completely focused on Jen, we started walking back and forth. He never lost his attention to Jen!!!

We did a body wrap on each of the dogs as well as some Ttouch. The dogs all had a positive reaction to it. Then to finish out the long, exhausting but completely exhilarating week, we took another walk around the big field. Trainer of the day went to Virginia Wind!

Gerry with Biscuit – we taught Biscuit to “grind” her own nails by pawing the board that has sand paper glued to it	Jen and Murray inside batting cage with us all just standing still
Jen and Murray in cage with us walking back and forth	Partial group shot – left to right: Victoria, Cindy, Gerry, Renee (Renee was cold, she did not have to go pee-pee)
Renee doing moving backups with Austin	Austin completely ignoring Renee and just racing around. But isn’t he beautiful!
Pam showing the 2 toy game with Beau	Pam doing the figure 8 exercise with Shadow
Shadow doing the stand for exam exercise while Renee (a complete stranger) is examining him	Cindy and Bear in the batting cage with Cody and Pam outside. Not once did Bear have any reaction to Cody – even when Cindy fed Cody!
Cindy putting a body wrap on Bear (the ace bandage was WAY too long…) and doing Ttouch	Renee with Austin, body wrap and Ttouch
Renee with Austin, body wrap and Ttouch	Jen and Murray
Victoria and Cody	Renee and Austin
Gerry and Biscuit	Front row – L to R: Virginia, Biscuit Back row: L to R: Cindy, Victoria, Jen and Pam Biscuit is a recovering human aggressive dog!!!!!!

Throughout the week we also worked on pet tricks – riding the skateboard, “wipe your feet,” and started to build on Ted Turners Foundation Behaviors.

This was such a great group, we were all sad to see camp end. But we are starting to plan a camp reunion in a few months to make sure everyone is on the right track with their program.