Today I took Zane to Tucson. I have a trainer friend there who does temperament evaluations. She works for a service dog organization that does these evaluations, and she's an expert at reading canine body language. She and I traded services: she did a temp eval on Zane, and I gave her a rally lesson.
She used the temp eval from Sarah Kalnajs. Here are some of the things I remember. She'll give me a full written eval once she watches the video she took of the testing.
The first test was how he would react to her. She took the leash, and I left. He did look for me and try to get to me, then she started petting him. She was watching to see if he would ask for more petting, interact with her, ignore her, focus on the environment, etc. He did look for me a lot but did circle back to her for some pets too. He wasn't really into her but didn't react negatively either. Overall, I thought it was ok for an Aussie who is supposed to be reserved with strangers. He did work wonderfully with her later in the test, so I think it was natural reserve.
Some of the tests were reactions to novel items: sight and sound. She opened an umbrella in his direction. He immediately ran to the end of the line he was on, hid behind the holder, and was barking madly. He would not approach it, even for food. He even reacted when it was put farther away, then when a breeze made it move a little.
Then she pulled out "robo-rat" - a remote controlled rat. He's seen many, many remote-controlled toys here, and I even have a similar rat (although he hasn't seen it in a couple of months because the batteries are dead). He reacted like he did to the umbrella. He would not go near it and did not recover, even after several minutes, not even after she played the look-at-that game with it. She had to cover it with a coat to get it out of his sight.
Then she dropped a metal food bowl on the concrete. Again, instant reaction - hiding, running to the end of the line, barking. She did get him to approach it when she put food in it, but he was very conflicted - reaching forward but leaning back.
One test was her giving him a hard stare. Some dogs will immediately go on defense, muzzle punch, and react badly. At first he looked intently into her eyes, "Oh, eye contact, I know this!" Then the pressure of her stare hit him and he immediately dropped to the ground and curled away from her. She gave him positive attention to get him up and interacting, then gave another hard stare. He immediately looked away. Then, she started to turn toward him, he thought she was going to hard stare again, and before she even had eye contact, he was looking away.
Testing for resource guarding. Bowl full of kibble and canned food. She had an assess-a-hand (a fake hand on a fake arm so the real hand/arm don't get bit) and started off by petting his back with it while he ate. He just continued to eat. She put the hand in the bowl. No problem. She pulled the bowl away. No problem. She commented that he didn't even give whale eye (common, mild stress reaction). She did the test again, and he did give some whale eye the second time, but no guarding or aggression. She ended up just reaching down with her hand to get the bowl because it was obvious he wasn't going to react.
Then he was given his choice of a bully stick or a rolled cow cheek. He chose the cheek. We gave him time to get involved in it and enjoying it. Then she went over with the assess-a-hand. Stroke the back - no problem. Hand on the chewie - he looked up at her. She wiggled the chewie - he put his paw on it! No mouthing, no grabbing it, no punching or biting the hand. He continued to look up at her, just put his paw on it. She repeated test a couple of times and the same reaction every time - he just plops his paw on it. He would let her take it away, but he was using his paw to say "Mine." Interestingly, the evaluation doesn't talk about the paws on this part of the test - only the mouth. The paw was a definite reaction, but he wasn't seriously trying to keep her from it.
The last test was reaction to another dog. She took Zane and had her husband bring one of her dogs. At first it was Zane just standing while the other dog walked around. He did show some interest and moved toward her, then went back to Crystal. Then she started walking him around while the other dog stood still. She noted that he immediately went into training mode. He didn't offer his natural behaviors - he offered what he's been trained for around other dogs. He kept his focus on Crystal, only occasionally looking at the other dog, then right back at her. It was great to see him working with her so nicely. Then they took the dogs on a parallel walk then gradually moved Zane closer to the other dog. Crystal saw a little tightness in his mouth, but no negative reaction at all. They never got closer than 5 feet away, but Zane stayed focused on her - kind of the "If I don't see that other dog, it's not really there." But she was very impressed with how well he is responding to the training I've done to get him able to be around other dogs.
I can't wait for the full written eval. It was neat to watch, and even I was surprised at how intense his reaction was to novel objects. I know he doesn't like new things or things that are different, but he's seen umbrellas and moving toys here. And I know we drop stuff. But he definitely reacted and it wasn't mild and there was not quick recovery.
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