Tuesday Training Part II

This is the second part of Tuesday Training part I here.

It was horrible.  It made me literally sick, I was shaking all the way home and sick to my stomach.  I let Tibby chew the next lesson plan into little bits.  WE WILL NEVER EVER GO BACK THERE AGAIN.

Why did I go? All week long I waffled back and forth, should we go to the first class?  I finally decided to go, because I wanted to see it.  When I first thought about taking Tibby to this training school I asked everyone I met in town if they had ever gone to her classes and what they though about her.  People said, "She makes owners cry."  "She is very strict."  "She is a drill sargent."  I don't have a problem with strict.  If you show me a better way of doing something and hold me to reaching a goal I'll try to do it. 
In other words, I decided to go to the class, so that when people ask me, "What is she like?" I can honestly give them my opinion based on facts and tell them about my experience.

What was the class like? Imagine Hell.  Populate it with frustrated reactive dogs.  Then add their owners yelling at the dogs, jerking their leashes and hitting (yes, actually hitting!  It was encouraged by the 'instructor') their dogs.  To top it all off you have an angry woman yelling at people to control their dogs and 'What's wrong with you?!?  That's not heel-sit position!'  IT. WAS. INSANE.  Did I mention that the class space was only 50'x20'?  And that there were 17 dogs!!!

 Tibby was the 4th smallest dog.  There was a tiny 10lb mini Australian Shepard.  2 Boston terriers.  A 4 mo collie. 2 4 mo Bernese Mountain Dogs.  A pit bull.  A few labs.  A few mixed breed dogs including mixes of greyhound/golden retriever/spaniel/St. Bernard/German Shepard.  Those were the breeds I could pick out.  AND there was a Toller.  That was just for Laura. 

Did I mention that the space was tiny?  And that there were 17 dogs?  What do you think happened?  Well, it was chaos.  There were 4 actually dog fights that the 'instructor' had to break up.  There was a screaming Boston Terrier.  There was a lab/St. Bernard cross that left early, because it wouldn't stop "breathing loudly".  The 'instructor' yelled at the owner to make it stop and it wouldn't, so the guy left early.  She told him to wrap the leash around the dog's snout, to get it to quiet down.  When the guy left, she ripped him down about that too, "You can't just leave!  How do you expect him to ever learn if you give up on him?!?  And just leave!?!  Well, I'll talk to you about this later.  I'm not done with you!"  Honestly, the dog was not breathing that loud and she made a big deal about it! 
The mini Aussie growled through the whole class.  The Bernese tried to make themselves disappear into the floor - kind of hard for 75lb dogs. 

I got yelled at for circling my dog.  When Tibby wasn't sitting in heel-sit position (!!!) I would circle her around me, so she would be in the right spot.  I didn't want to jerk her around like everyone else was doing!  Whatever.  She only yelled at me, because other people saw what I was doing and started to do it too. 

Tibby did an awesome job through the whole class.  Considering it was a fiasco, she was amazing.  I did bring some treats and would give one to her every once in a while.  I had the only dog with good eye contact.  Tibby was really, really trying and she was amazingly (considering the distractions) paying attention to me. 
Most of the time...........oh, by the way according to this 'instructor' if your dog makes a mistake and you laugh at it, you have rewarded your dog.  Really?  Wow.

Mostly, I felt really, really sorry for the other dogs.  There was one woman with a greyhound/something cross that had a fit when her dog was too excited to sit.  She was yelling at it and smacking its butt.  I have never seen anything like it.  And the 'instructor' didn't stop her - she encouraged it. 

The choke collars were quite the experience too.  I've never actually seen anyone use one before.  In our other class the instructor had us use Gentle Leaders.  The choke collars don't work.  The dogs don't have any idea what they are supposed to be doing.  Forward or back and the dog is getting choked all the time - even when the 'instructor' was demonstrating how to use the collar.  Didn't work.

So, in conclusion to this huge post:  1 Glad I went 'cause now I know what NOT to do.  2 Tibby did a great job, even though it was a horrible experience.   3 Our ed/rec class was better.  And that's not saying much.  4 There are going to be some very unhappy dogs owned by some very mean people if they stay in this class.  5 It made me feel sick.  Like going to a shelter and seeing all the dogs you can't save.