In a previous blog called, Learning Painful Lessons, I wrote about being injured while walking a big, strong and reactive dog. I talked about some changes I made walking him, to make it better for both of us and teach him how to walk on a loose leash.
That incident took place two weeks ago. Saturday night I had another overnight with them, so I had the chance to work with the dogs again. Here’s what happened:
I got down the leashes and harnesses and, because the dogs were going crazy, I dropped them on the ground and walked away. Since we've practiced this before, after a few minutes, they remembered I wouldn’t leash them until they’re sitting calmly, well pretty calmly J I’m also teaching them to sit and wait for me to open the door and ask them out. I put the easy walk harness I brought on my large friend, Buddy (his owner walks him on a prong collar, which I refuse to use). I also put Peanut’s harness on her. I left Buddy in the yard and took Peanut for a walk first.
At this point, I will only walk one dog at a time for several reasons, but most of all because I want to be able to concentrate on each dogs needs and abilities separately. If I walk them together, no learning will take place because they’ll revert to their old habits of pulling, fence fighting, and being totally reactive to every sight or sound. I’ll revert back to being dragged down the street from one tree, plant, fence fight, etc., to the next. I’m over that, since it looks like I’m going to be spending a lot of time with these dogs, I want to be able to have pleasant walks with them. Besides, it’s just easier to control one reactive dog at a time! My goal is to be able to walk them together, but there’s a lot of work to be done first!
Peanut and I practiced loose leash walking, and she did very well... she was very focused on me, and the task at hand: Being reinforced with Ziwi Peak, lots of praise, and being able to sniff around, for walking close to me. Peanut and I walked, on a loose leash (for the most part) from one end of the street to their other end several times. She was totally into the training. She didn't even start to react when we went by “the barking fence,” she just glanced over and then looked back to me!!! We started out walking across the street from it and by the time we were done, we were about ten feet away!
I’ll bet you’re wondering, “What the ___ is the barking fence?” Their street is a double cul-de-sac, with a road feeding it, like a T. At their corner, there’s what I call, “the barking fence.” It’s a six-foot wooden fence, behind it there are always two or three large, barking, fence fighting dogs. Buddy and Peanut have a strong history of fence fighting there; therefore they get very aroused when they get close to “the barking fence.”
When Peanut got tired and wanted to go home, I took her inside to relax and think about what we had just done. Then I took Buddy out, after a little practice in the backyard. Buddy loses his mind and hearing when he goes through the front door. He needs way more work in non-distracting areas, which we’re also working on. I’d like to spend all our walking time just getting it together in the backyard first. However, the owner really wants him to have a “walk,” so I’m sort of doing a crash course with him.
We started out walking up and down in front of the house. When he was walking next to me, I reinforced it by letting him have a lick of Turkey baby food from the jar (that is a very highly prized reward for most dogs). When he got to the end of the leash, I stopped moving forward and gave him a few seconds to come back to me. Then we moved forward again, and when we passed the point where he had started pulling, I gave him a lick from the jar. If he didn't come back to me within a couple seconds, I turned and went the opposite way. Pretty soon he was walking, on a loose leash with me. Then I upped the anti and walked him (in the middle of the street) a few feet by the barking dog fence. I was able to keep him with me, even though the dogs were behind the fence having a barking fit. If he wanted to go sniff and pee on something, I would take him there, but only if he wasn't pulling. After about 20 minutes of walking up and down the street (but never completely past the barking dog fence and at least 15 feet away from it), Buddy was tired and decided to go home on his own.
All in all, they both had a nice, exercising walk (mentally and physically), and were very relaxed when they got home.
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