[andria]

my dog siris whines incessantly through our entire doggie school class. i attribute most of it to the fact that my boyfriend brings her to the class and does the handling, while i help out at the school with some of the other problem dogs. she suffers from mild separation anxiety, and this is the first time she sees me that day other than our walk in the morning. i am her main handler, but even when i was taking her to the classes and doing the handling, she would still whine to get to the other dogs, or in those times where the class is sitting listening to the teacher explain an excercise, when other dogs were taking their turns doing the excercises individually, etc. now however, she'll whine for the ENTIRE class - one hour.

the teacher initially recommended 2 things to deal with this - one, ignoring it as it is attention seeking behaviour and hoping it diminishes when she realizes noone is paying any attention to her antics, or two, a quick "ah, ah," or "enough" in a low growly tone the second she starts up. neither of these are working at this point. the "enough" or "ah ah" gets an initlal response which lasts about a minute before it starts up again, and then the cycle repeats itself. the ignoring it just doesn't work at all.

the teacher is now recommending a spray bottle approach - a quick squirt of water to the face when siris starts whining. we may try this next week but does anyone out there have any other suggestions before we go this route?