#confidence training

Training method: One person (usually me) walking in front with treats & Addy, the other person (Jack) walking behind with Spring. Then Spring gets a treat for relaxation, shows of curiosity (sniffing, looking at things, etc), and for walking out away from legs. He gets extra treats and encouragement when we go by scary things like people, cars, noisy machines, etc. All of this to encourage him to relax, enjoy walks, and not be checking in and clinging to his walker's legs constantly due to anxiety.

Today, he was out in front, sniffed, tail up for the ENTIRE walk. We passed several people, a dog in fenced yard, a noisy car, all slightly to moderately concerning things for Spring and his tail went down for most of those, but he was encouraged with treats and he rebounded almost immediately after reassurance and moving past the thing. We actually went one more street because he was doing so good.

And then he actually pulled towards the car when we got back, so Jack and I went okay sure!! And we took a ride to Sonic and they got an ice cream cone. Which came with inadvertent patience training bc it took like 10 minutes and they got hyped up and impatient for a bit, but had mostly calmed down by the time our order came, so the ice cream was good reinforcement for that!!

Now we're all snuggled on the couch with happy snoozey dogs!

Jack has been encouraging him and reinforcing staying on the right side so he doesn't constantly switch and tangle the leash or trip us, but I can't do this for single person walks - Addy is in the way and he wants to be away from her to avoid getting trampled. So I mostly reinforced staying up ahead of me, as well as all relaxation signs.

He marked and pooped all before we hit the corner of our street! Good things, extra treats for pottying.

He got discouraged for a minute with my initially trying to reinforce right side when he started to hang around legs and behind me. But once I stopped and just reinforced staying ahead, he rebounded.

Started getting anxious as usual around midpoint of the walk, tail down and focused on walking straight as fast as he can. But I tossed treats for him to chase & he got treats when we paused for Addy to sniff. The end of his tail would curl up a little each time he got a treat. 😂 So after slowly relaxing again, he was back to midway up & was stopping to sniff again after a couple streets! And he marked again at the street before ours!

He finished the walk with tail most of the way up, even with passing a kid on some weird scooter on our street. Really good, I think, for our first solo person walk! It's harder to encourage and reinforce him being up ahead when there's only me and I'm rewarding him from behind. But being able to take them alone means more walks for them, so I'm glad it went this well! 💙

Two cars passing us at once when almost to our corner, one from behind scared him and he bolted a couple feet, tail fully tucked. Got a sec to look around and some treats, chased a couple more, recovered to tail half up by corner. Wasn't sure he was gonna!

Then semi cab on our street was running, big rumbly sound. That concerned him some, so he walked on my other side and watched it. But walked right past, and chased a couple treats and tail back up after passing.

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