Training Challenge Week 7: A Reactive Maizey Victory

This is an exciting training challenge for me to post.

We have loved being a part of Ricky’s Training Challenge, it pushes me to be creative and I am learning so much from following the others challenge posts. (For a real treat check out Ricky’s challenge this week, his mom must be a super hero for hauling his chute around to so many places!)

As for the exciting part?

Maizey and I walked three miles past numerous dogs and how many barks did we have? 2, 406?

Wrong! Two!

Two you say? Yes literally two barks!

How can that be possible of the Princess-Of-The-Shrill-Bark?

Honestly I don’t know what brought the change. Let me tell you how it went.

Because I new this walk was for our challenge I chose a route that I knew had more dogs on it, but would not be TOO much of a challenge. On our street alone we must pass Mr.’s Red Pit Bull and White boxer, who feed each others fence fighting into a frenzy, the fluffy Aussie mixes whose main joy in life is frenzied fence chasing, my friend Baxter, whom Maizey believes is evil incarnate (she really hates all Labs) and Baxter’s friend Thelma who doesn’t believe any dog in the world is her friend. And that was just who was out on the night of our walk!

Because of the level of difficulty on our street I always take the precaution of having Maizey wear her Halti until we pass that major test. Usually we will have barking and lunging but with careful reinforcement it is getting less.

Until the night of the famous walk. That night we still had some lunging, but I added her leave it cue, and maybe that made a difference, because for the first block past six barking dogs-not one bark!

Well at this point I was flying high with pride at me little girl. I switched to her buckle collar to do some loose leash work. So when we walked past the black lab in a rod iron fence who always sends her over the top and still barely a lunge and not a peep out of her, I pretty much figured someone had replaced my girl with a voiceless impostor!

Still though it got better! Through three miles, past two dogs loose in their front yards, and others in their fences, the only time she barked was at the Big Black Scary Boy on the corner. Since it was dark by then and he wasn’t there the first time we passed, he even scared me! So she got out her two barks, but with a leave it she trotted along with me.

A big part of helping reactivity is always being aware of the environment, looking out for triggers and being prepared to deal with them. This can be very tiring, but by choosing a route where I could anticipate where many of the “big mean scary dogs” would be I could be prepared. So I started rewarding for attention early, putting the most distance possible between us by moving to the far side of the road, and then when I saw her start to orient to the dog I cued a leave it marking correct response with a calm, yet emphatic “Yes” and reinforcing fast and furious until we were past the dog.

Did adding her leave it cue make the difference? I have avoided using it with reactivity for fear of poisoning one of her strongest cues. Perhaps that could still happen, I will certainly have to keep an eye on it. Maybe she is maturing, and that is helping her be more confident.

Regardless, I was happy with her progress and happier still when we had a repeat performance with slightly more reacting on another walk later last week.

I just get giddy thinking of it again tonight. There is a 4legged lesson there, one I visit over and over: our pups joy is our joy, their success our success.