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A family outing at the markets. Not sure on the type of dog. A Shih Tzu perhaps? It was so cute and very well behaved. On reflection, it was perhaps too hot a day for the day to be so exposed to the sun.
If you're wondering, Kate is not the slowest growing puppy ever to grace the earth. I'm just verrrrrry slow at getting through old photos.
Today we met Juanita the dog trainer, from an organisation recommended by the rescue centre we got Harbie from. They go down the route of positive training, as although it might take longer than stricter old school training, it has better, longer lasting effects. Similar to the ideas Sapphire gave us a few months ago, plenty of tiny good quality treats are needed, regularly use of the word "yes" immediately before giving him a reward. She will email my 'homework' to me, but it will involve a lot of "look at me!"s, which we try to do now. Good management and patience is required and I'll see her for a follow up walk in a couple of weeks time. She has a reactive dog herself, so understands what it's like.
This is another point Juanita made (for any of you who also have reactive dogs and explains a lot):
It can take upto 72 hours for our dogs levels of stress hormones to drop back down to normal levels after a stressful event, so even if something stressful happened yesterday that’s still going to be filling the stress bucket, making it more likely to overflow again with something that might normally seem insignificant. For example, your dog may be worried about strange dogs approaching them - while a lot of the time they can pass a dog on a walk fairly comfortably, there may be times when they’re much more reactive. This is often because your dog already has a build up of stress and this additional event is the one that’s causing their stress bucket to overflow. We’ve all had those days where one thing after another has gone wrong, and often it’s something really insignificant that causes us to completely over-react - the same is true for our dogs.
If your dog is displaying signs of anxiety like the behaviours listed above, the best way to help them in that moment is to take them out of the situation. Once they’ve reached that level of stress, they’re not in a state to learn effectively so at this point managing the situation is more important than attempting any training.
A shot of our dog freckles. I don't think he was in a good mood when I took this as he barked at everything and he doesn't look that happy!