BUN ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა BOOF

At training I could fee like I could see the see the little improvements. He was able to lie down across from where the neutral dog was and had relaxed body language.

Yesterday he was able to sit under cafe tables with a dog across and focus his attention back to me and remain steady. He was able to be around 2 other dogs he has met multiple times, chose to stay in his own space or keep distance which is fine, he was overwhelmed when the other dogs were a lot more energetic compared to previous times I think. He was able to wait at the stoplight and focus back on me when a small dog was walking pas behind however once the small dog lunged towards him it broke his focus. He isn't really interested in food in these situations so I think the only thing I can do is praise.

However later in the evening, I realised that the whole day was already a lot for him and I couldn't get his focus back on the first try and he did pull towards a person who had a hard stare back at him and I couldn't get his focus on the first try and a dog that popped out of the car next to us that I didn't see. My alertness / reaction speed also slowed down so we will just go home next time and feels like a bit of a fail / bad owner that I was too slow to realize it was a long day. One of the longterm goals is for him to have his focus on me and ignore dogs that react, still far to go and right now only starting to see that with neutral dogs which is unrealistic for real life.

Notes for me:

Don't freeze/slow down/stop when I see a trigger

Try walk at a regular pace

Turn the opposite way / steer him the other way with my body if I see something that is making him build up / concerned about

Continue with confidence building excursuses / making him think for himself as trainer noted when he is in situations where he doesn't know what something is (i.e a new object) he kind of just gives up and looks at me for the answer

Short controlled tugs on leash, ahah sound for no, don't say his name with a pull on leash as it will associate his name with something negative

Me staying calm

Work on relaxed loose leash walking, falling back on this

It has been awhile since I wrote an update about his reactivity and training. Some weeks ago he was able to be around the neutral dog in the training room and have (part) of his focus to me. He was still definitely not feeling good and uncomfortable but he was still able to divert his attention to me and not react too much (such as lunging and barking). We have now completed our original 8 training sessions and now have a month gap until his next lesson. I decided to try and continue a bit more to see how he goes and how it can help me.

We were at the beach several times on the weekend and he did see other dogs from afar but was able to divert his attention back to me. However yesterday he was in the car and a dog was a toooo close and he did bark off at it!

The other week we were at the beach and I was so surprised he walked into the water by himself (I thought he didn't really like water). He just walked into it a little about knee high. The water was not very wavy at all and maybe this is one of the reasons why he decided to walk in.

Sarang laying down in the water a little bit.