In search of a private fenced yard…
November 30, 2010 at 9:37 pm 3 comments
Here is a photo of Boogie and Franklin from Monday’s session with trainer Irith Bloom, taken in a peaceful Huntington Palisades neighborhood.
Franklin is a very sweet and calm English Shepherd so he was the perfect “big dog” for Boogie to hang out and do parallel walking with. The funny thing is that as soon as Boogie and Franklin saw each other from a fair distance, both dogs started whining. Boogie whimpered and looked at me and pulled towards Franklin. The dogs recognized each other from their BAT session five months ago! 🙂
Boogie walks beautifully on loose-leash in my neighborhood, but because this was a new and exciting location, he was pulling like crazy. The technique of “standing still like a tree” didn’t work because Boogie kept leaning and pulling forwards regardless. Irith gave me some tips on how to deal with this problem, eg – keep my leash hand at my bellybutton, do a 180 and boldy walk forward as if there is no dog behind me until Boogie catches up on loose-leash. I did this a few times on our walk and after a while Boogie became more mindful of my existence and kept the leash loose-ish between us.
Memo to self: In a new environment, go back to training the basics.
So… as I was saying to Irith, I find these “friendly doggie sessions” so good for Boogie. I notice that whenever we have a friendly and polite experience with another dog, the following day Boogie does not react to any dogs that he sees on the street. He looks at them, turns away and moves along like it’s no big deal. He is the same after every play date with Rosie. He is more relaxed around dogs in general…
It’s a shame that Huntington Palisades is so far away from me. And Rosie also lives really far away.
I would like to do more BAT set ups with unfamiliar dogs as decoys but we need to borrow a private fenced yard — with no other dogs present –preferably in the La Brea/Fairfax area of West Hollywood. The parks are too risky with loose dogs running around.
Fenced yard, anyone?
Entry filed under: BAT sessions, Outdoors, Social stuff, Training.
Boogie's blog 
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Grisha | December 1, 2010 at 10:57 pm
So cool that Boogie remembered the other dog that you worked with all that time ago. I think meeting more dogs is going to be really good for Boogie. Good luck with the fenced yard!
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lili | December 2, 2010 at 9:27 am
\When Boogie has properly met a dog and “knows” him/her, he is totally fine and friendly with that dog. I wasn’t sure if he would remember Franklin from so long ago and yes, it was very cool that he did! I hope too that meeting more big dogs will be good for him.
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Podcast with Irith Bloom on “Stressed Dogs” « Boogie’s blog | April 16, 2011 at 9:35 pm
[…] This photo was taken from last year when we did a session with Irith Bloom and her English Shepherd, Franklin. I think Franklin is the ONLY big dog that Boogie gets along with and doesn’t react to. Boogie and Franklin had a nice parallel walking session together a few months ago. […]