Jedi's head halter arrived today! I looked around at different brands and ended up going for the same brand that Jedi's brother has -- The Halti Optifit head halter. There are several reasons this brand and model won out. I knew 100% that I wanted to have control over Jedi's nose. The trainer who owns the business where I teach is a big fan of the Canny Collar head halter, but that model goes over the nose and is controlled from behind the head. I decided to try a head halter to keep Jedi's focus on me (more in a bit) and less for pulling, so I definitely feel that having the control point under the chin is more beneficial for what we're dealing with. The Optifit has a nice wide and slightly padded nose and shouldn't leave the indent that is so common with the Gentle Leader. I ordered a medium and ended up having to shorten it as far as it goes, but it works.
So, why a head halter? The idea started with that trip to the park when we went on our walk on Monday. Jedi completely blew me off as soon as he saw the water and I could not get his focus back on me for anything. He would stop and sit, but then plow forward as soon as he was released. Tuesday night I took Jedi to class with me. I was setting up some rally stuff for my Advanced students to play with and I wanted to run Jedi through the exercise before we began (note, I am not a rally person). For some reason everyone started to arrive 10-15 minutes early, so I had zero time alone to work with Jedi. From the very beginning he started doing his lunging behavior at the other dogs as I worked him. He's not aggressive towards other dogs -- he was actually running around loose when the first one came and he was fine, but when I started to work him he tried to go after the same dog. I believe it to be resource guarding behavior. It's the same naughtiness that he did in puppy classes when another puppy would come too close while he was working. At any rate, I'll stick him in the head halter next time so that I can control his head in those situations.
Jedi's snarkiness earned him a spot in a crate for the entire Advanced class. I was glad I'd brought him when the puppy class rolled around and only one puppy showed up this week, though. It was the female lab puppy that Jedi played a bit too rough with last time. I kept him on leash at first and pulled him off her when he got to be too much. Eventually he settled down and they were able to have some good play time together. Jedi did a good job showing her how to play crate games and then we took them out on a walk together. He always does so well when walking with the class groups. Really, I have had very few issues walking him on a flat collar or harness to date which is why I never really gave much thought to other training aids up to this point.
On Wednesday we went out on the trail for a quick hike before I had to get home to log on for my online classes. We were out for about 50 minutes and Jedi was a good boy. He continues to improve during his off-leash hiking time and has been very responsive to my recall cues when he starts to veer off in the wrong direction (towards the tracks). I think he's figuring that rule out, though, because he's not going off towards the tracks very often now. He's not very coordinated at ditch-jumping and face-planted a few times when he couldn't see the change of terrain through the tall grass. Thanks to all of the low spots and ditches filled with water, Jedi spent that entire hike wet from head to toe. He smelled a bit rank on the trip home, but seemed fine once he dried (thank goodness because the last thing I felt like doing at 9:00 was bathing a dog).
Last night we played in the yard. I brought out a tunnel and set up some hoops in a configuration that AgilityNerd posted on their blog yesterday. One of the patterns involved a serpentine. Jedi does not get serpentines. I think it's probably time that I back that one up to square one and do my usual method of gradually making the pattern more shallow/flat. After playing with that for a bit I straightened the tunnel and pointed it at the table. We played with running really fast to the table, jumping on, and then having a party in the down position. Jedi needs more work at driving onto the table. We also did some teeter slams before ending for the night.
Tonight I took Jedi out for a walk by himself to test out the new head halter. I ordered it from Chewy.com on Wednesday (along with a bag of food that we'll eventually need, so that I could get free 2-day shipping) and we had it already this morning! I took Jedi out alone because I never do anything with the trialing dogs the day before a trial, and I figured it would give me a chance to better assess the head halter. I put it on Jedi several times in the house while getting it fit properly and he seemed completely oblivious to the contraption. Once it was time to go and I had a leash attached to it, though, he had a complete meltdown in the garage. So much bucking, and flinging, and thrashing, and pawing.... I finally grabbed him by the head to see what the heck was going on and he somehow had gotten a piece in his mouth. I got that fixed and off we went.
We dealt with dramatics for the first half a block or so. At one point he somehow got the thing off his nose. At least he was a good boy and stood like a rock while I got it fixed. After that he seemed to accept it and we didn't have any issues. He did start rolling his face around in the grass when we were stopped for me to clean up his poop (thanks for going on the sidewalk, Jedi...) but for the most part ignored it completely. As I said earlier, Jedi is generally pretty good for walks -- at least the few leash walks I've actually taken him on -- but he was perfect in the head halter. We just walked about a 3.5 mile circuit through the neighborhood, so I didn't test it around water or anything difficult yet. I figured it would be good to get Jedi used to it before testing it like that. We did see another dog on our walk and while Jedi acknowledged it, he kept his attention with me.After one wearing I'm pretty much sold. We're at a trial this weekend and I don't know that we'll need it there, but I'll take it along just in case anything pops up. I plan to crate out of the van, though, so Jedi will just come inside for some socializing and play time. One of these days I'll put the halter to the test and take Jedi walking in the park again. I also figure I'll take him to class on Tuesday just to use it there, too. I really want to squash the reactive behavior before it escalates into anything more serious.
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