We were referred to a behavior specialist for Lola – a JRT with behavior issues, No you say. She has been showing signs of aggression to other dogs at the Dog Spot Daycare. She is very possessive of the trainers there and would prefer that she was the only dog to get pets and attention.

We were referred to Laurie Buffington who, as Ben from the Dog Spot says, deals with problems much larger thank Lola’s. This morning we drove out to Laurie’s (a 45 minute trek) farm – on the way there, Lola was putting her head out the window, enjoying the fresh air and snuggling with her mom (a.k.a most gigantic pushover of the century). I was hoping Lola would show some of her behaviors to Laurie and not just act like the angel she is most of the time. Lola listened and was ready to make me proud.

We got out of the car and Lola was tugging like no tomorrow on the leash – she clearly knew there was something super fun inside the barn. Once inside Laurie came – I asked Lola to sit, she ignored me. Laurie told me to do it again, she ignored me again. After three tries she obeyed.

Laurie put us in some chairs and started asking lots of questions – each answer we gave she made a face and wrote something about us being the worst parents ever down. (During the questions, Laurie was evaluating to see how long until Lola would lay down) Lola was on the leash in front of us and she kept bouncing on me, sitting in front of me, she was even howling at me to please let her off the leash. Finally after about 15 minutes she laid down.

Laurie was kind enough to point out how Lola was only trying to manipulate me. Lola has a great build (we think) but one thing Laurie could tell by lola’s build is that she has a high level of testosterone (shown by her muscular legs) which means that she will often show male signs (like mounting me as a sign of aggression).

The next test was to bring in a bigger dog that has lola’s same temperament but is actually well behaved and listens to her trainer. Mabel was part pitbull and part border collie. Mabel love the ball and was hunting her ball down until Lola found it and decided to show Mabel how tough she was by holding the ball hostage. Its called resource guarding and lola’s got it bad.

For the rest of the meeting we hooked lola to a tether on the wall. Once she laid down, she would be able to get off. We continued talking about what we needed to work on while Lola howled and cried and jumped and chewed on the leash. 20 minutes passed and she laid down.

I asked if we should come to training as well now, and Laurie said not yet, you have some work to do first. So now we are home and going to start the “Learn to Earn” program where we set lots of boundaries.

Here’s to setting boundaries!