We went out for another outing today. It's the same outing we did a few days ago but today is a busier day at the pet supply store. It's a weekend day so there will be more people and more dog distractions. She's doing a nice job sitting for things she wants (leash on, door open, getting in the car, etc.).
Thunder travels in a crate in my car. It's a safer way to travel with her and it sometimes helps with dogs who get motion sickness. She does really well in the crate. We're using the crate in the house too. We tried the x-pen but she just walked across the floor dragging the x-pen with her to see the other dogs. But she's doing well with the crate in the house. She does a little vocalization when she wants out but that is getting less and less as she figures out it doesn't work for her.
Let's get focused before we go in. We've been practicing but that doesn't mean it's going to be a cake walk when we go inside. We'll both have to work hard to keep her attention. I'll need to be scanning the environment and start getting her attention before she's already distracted. It's always a challenge when you don't have control over the direction people are walking with their dogs or people approaching trying to pet a cute little (or not so little) puppy.
Even though we've been working hard on "leave it," we probably won't use it a lot in the store...at least not today.
Because her socialization is still so important, I'd rather she explore her environment a bit and get use to the new surroundings. Leave it to Thunder to find the food right away.
She did excellent with her greetings as long as we could stop people before they approached her and ask them to wait until she's sitting. It's ok if she pays attention to you during the greeting more than the other person. I'd rather reward her periodically for sitting during the greeting than have her get up or jump up on the person.
We did end up working as hard as I thought we would. I used a lot of movement (moving backwards, walking fast, wiggling my fingers, etc.) and sounds to keep her attention on me. This would be a good environment to use the head halter. We're almost to the point where she'll be ready to use it so we may get to try that out before she heads home.
It was good to be back with friends. It was hard trying to ignore all those dogs we didn't know.
She was glad we had gotten spiffed up to go out too...it made the dirt show up even more. I think she likes this look best.
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