Since it's getting colder the masses seemed to have slowed down at the fairgrounds, thank goodness! It seems to be back to the crowd where everybody keeps their distance from everybody else and, most importantly, their dogs listen! Boy, what a concept!
So Izzy and I are going to be there a lot more as that is the best place for me to let her run and to work on her reactivity training. I went out and bought a really thin 50ft clothesline and attached it to her harness, so that's what she's on when we're there. It works really well, but if I try and stop her, rope burn! Thankfully she very rarely decides to keep going when I call her, and if she does it's always because I've pushed her past her threshold.
I took her down yesterday morning (Black Friday) and it was completely empty, woot! I still made her wear the line didn't even bother to keep her close. It's a good thing too because since my bike was stolen she has been driving. me. crazy. because I can't give her the exercise she needs through walking alone. We were down there for probably about an hour and a half and I don't think she stopped once, she just ran and ran and ran and ran and ran. We did recall work and she was spot on, every single time. My favorite is to call her when she's in a full out sprint away from me because she turns on a dime and it's adorable! All of her recalls though are sprints back to me, there's none of this trotting or moseying back, she has to race!
I take her dinner along as treats because if the treats are really good she refuses to exercise and sniff, she just follows me around. *sigh*
We went today as well, though I wasn't at all suprised that there was some people there as it is Saturday. There was a young guy there who had a shepherd mix who I was super jealous of because his dog was all about the ball! I don't think Izzy even saw them though. It took her quite a while to realize there was other dogs there, not surprising as the area is huge and there's small hills and the wind was blowing. We practiced recalls a bit before she figured out that there was other dogs around and I held the end of the line just to be safe.
The first dog she saw, a cocker with an elderly couple, she didn't make a huge deal about. The only issue we had was that she went to the end of the leash and when I recalled her she took 2 steps towards me then turned around. I reeled her in and made her sit. She was definitely tense and aware of the dog, but she was able to listen to commands and after about 30 seconds we were able to keep going. She was still tuned into the other dog as we walked, but she recalled fine and was able to control herself.
As we were walking we ended up parallel to an old man and his black and white springer spanial. The dog was gorgeous and bouncing all over the place. Izzy somehow didn't see it for quite some time, despite my even pointing it out! Then when she did eventually see it, she wasn't too happy. She barkgrowled a bit while I walked over to her as she would not come when I called. I put her regular leash on and asked her for a sit and then eye contact, neither of which she was willing to do. So I backed her up a few feet and this time she was able to sit and after a few minutes was able to make eye contact with me. I praised and treated and she was able to also do a down stay while the dog got closer. Her attention stayed on me for most of the time and she was able to do as asked while we watched the old man and dog go past.
I'm not going to lie, I was disappointed that she reacted, but it wasn't really bad so I should be thankful for that.
We walked around some more and eventually we were there alone and I let her run as far as she wanted and after a bit of that we headed home.
New State, New Blog
15 years ago
