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| This happened when I got out the chicken training treats. |
Wow, I can hardly believe the progress we've made with Mia. Our dog trainer, Amelia, is a life saver! She has gotten Mia farther than I ever thought we'd get to in just four sessions. During the last session, which was two weeks ago, we started to apply our training to dog encounters. It was very stressful, and we needed a lot of practice.
When Mia encounters a dog on a walk she reacts like a complete psycho. We've been using positive reinforcement and a Pet Corrector to snap her out of it so she realizes she doesn't need to react. At first it was very stressful, because instead of avoiding dogs we were pursuing them. Mia reacted viciously on our first dog encounter near our apartment. That's when Amelia introduced the Pet Corrector, which is a canister of compressed air that emits a loud hissing sound when pressed. When we first used it, we sprayed Mia right in the face. It scared the hell out of her. She quickly learned that reacting at a dog might bring about this scary effect.
I felt like the worst mom in the world at first. Mia hated the Pet Corrector so much. She was terrified of it. I was also feeling guilty and sad because the leash pulling was rubbing a raw spot under her arm from her harness. I didn't want to take her back outside until buying a new harness, but the dang thing didn't fit. We even bought the next size up and that was too big. There is no in between size of a no pull leash apparently! I am still shopping for a good harness, but meanwhile I wrapped her current harness in moleskin to lessen the painful rubbing. It took a few dog encounters before I got more comfortable with tugging on her leash and using the Pet Corrector.
Now I'm amazed at the result of this effort. Mia realized that she doesn't need to react viciously at dogs. The dog won't attack her, it will walk away, and then she can relax. Where once I thought I had traumatized my poor puppy, I now see how I've alleviated stress for her. Our homework was to encounter 100 dogs in two weeks. We didn't get to 100, but we did see 30 or so. Each dog encounter got easier, until Mia felt she could sit and relax when a dog was 20 feet away. I didn't have to use the pet corrector anymore from this distance. Mia even let a dog walk past us on the other side of the street without barking once.
This was put to the ultimate test today when we went to the dog park. I'd been dreading this, and was extremely skeptical we could pull it off. Mia was overanxious when we stopped and got out of the car, but Amelia took her and walked her back and forth, parallel to the fence of the dog park, until Mia was able to calm down. One step at a time, we got closer and closer to the dogs. After she got over the initial stress of the new place and new dogs, Mia started to look at those dogs playing like a child looks at a Chuck E. Cheese for the first time. It was the most exciting thing ever, and she was frustrated that she couldn't go play!
Except we all know what happens when dogs get too close to her. That playfulness turns into fear, which turns into reaction: snapping, barking, lunging. So we tried getting closer and closer to the fence, giving her treats when she did not react and when she visibly relaxed. The other dogs were so interested in her, as were the owners. The dogs came over to see her, and Mia got a treat for not reacting. The owners came up to talk and ask questions, and I swear, people at the dog park are the nicest, most understanding dog owners I've ever seen! They were so kind; some owners even volunteered to let Mia get close to their dogs. I don't think we are ready for that yet, but maybe soon!
Mia was able to get all the way up to the fence and stick her nose in to sniff or get kisses from the biggest of the big dogs! She did lunge and bark a couple times, but ceased immediately when the Pet Corrector was sprayed. She just relaxed, dog watching, and having a good time. Mia's biggest training reward will be to get in that dog park and play with the other puppies, when she's ready, which might be sooner that I could have imagined.
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| All tired out from training. |
