Busy dog day

Today we had a busy day with Ryley, and it seemed to take a toll on him. In the morning we went to check out the "lure course" at a dog park we haven't been to before. (To see what a lure course is search on Youtube.) Of course Ryley is too young to do it, but we wanted to see it, and we figured there would be a lot of dogs there to socialize.

And, wow, were there ever. The park was huge, but the dogs...and their owners...were congregating around the course. It was actually funny to see the dogs run up and down outside the course; they run with reckless abandon, not paying attention to anything, or anybody in their paths. At one point David almost got bowled over, and just about took me with him.

We stayed for almost two hours, and Ryley got sniffed by a lot of dogs. There were many, many dogs there and I didn't see any fights or even poorly behaved dogs. Everyone was very respectful of Ryley's "puppiness", and made sure that he wasn't mauled.

After we left we had just enough time to grab a quick lunch and head to Petco for Ryley's weekly puppy class. All was going well, when suddenly Ryley snapped at his class-mate, Leia. Leia is a tiny "chi-poo", or chihuahua/poodle mix. After that, there was no reining him in. Ryley was in a bad mood, and we could all tell. For the remainder of the class, we had to keep the two dogs separated.

I worry about Ryley, because he exhibits resource guarding behavior. I've never had a dog where I couldn't just open its mouth and take out whatever I needed to remove. Ryley is protective of his stuff, and will snap if he feels threatened. The trainer, Michele, is convinced we can break him of it, but I'm concerned.

I also worry because Ryley doesn't seem to want to please us. He is SO smart, but will only do things if there is a treat at the end of it. He doesn't seem to want to be with us; exhuberant praise doesn't work on him. David says we ARE his people and he does care about us, but I don't know. Maybe he'll come around.